Gabrie

The price of the Steam Deck is ridiculous right now, especially considering how modest the hardware is. The world has really gone mad.

It is PlayAnywhere?

Maybe a little sneak peek, but I don't think so.

I don't think we'll see any new consoles on the market until November 2027, so officially unveiling them would be too premature.

I also think these will be the last ones, I don't think there will be another Xbox after Helix or a PS7, at least not as traditional consoles, so from now on, a lot of things we used to take for granted could change.

Honestly, we can't deny that there's been a huge and disappointing gap between the UE5 demos they initially showed us and the games that followed.

So right off the bat, I’m not going to get too excited about whatever they show us for UE6.

On the other hand, I think at this point it’s very difficult to see those impressive generational leaps of the past. For me, the last system that really impressed me compared to everything I’d seen before was the Xbox 360, since then, the improvements have been small steps in lighting, performance, resolution... But without any leap that makes me go “wow!”

It makes more sense to me, it's much easier to compare.

What surprises me is that anyone would have thought it was better that way in the first place.

I think this is simply inevitable, not because Microsoft wants to get rid of the drive, but simply because optical discs are a technology that has practically fallen out of use.

@themightyant Oh, sorry, I misunderstood the news. To be honest, I don't think anyone would be using that port at this point xD

To be honest, I don't think anyone would be using that port at this point xD

The WiFi feature is really interesting, but if there aren't any other new features, I'll stick with my Gamesir G7 Pro, which I think is an amazing controller for the price.

Honestly, for me, this game is either Game Pass or nothing.

This was pretty predictable to me, I hardly ever used the disc drive on the Xbox One X, and I’ve never used it at all on the Series X.

I started transferring my collection of physical Xbox 360 games to my digital library, buying them back little by little when they went on sale. I think it’s great if you can import the discs into your digital library, but for me, it’s too late now xD

I think all of this studio's games are terrible, they're more like movies with clunky QTEs, bad scripts starring brainless teenagers, and laughable acting.

But I think that's part of the charm, they're so bad that you end up laughing at the jump scares, the absurd deaths, and the nonsensical plot twists.

Honestly, I don't think anyone is using Copilot on console... While it's not a bad idea in itself, it's not that far-fetched for a player to need help while gaming, the reality is that Copilot is an erratic and frustrating chatbot that isn't all that helpful.

This is made worse by the fact that the platform suffers from a serious lack of other features and updates compared to the competition. The fact that they’ve spent resources on adding Copilot to Xbox is a sign of how poorly the brand has been managed in recent years.

That seems a bit of an exaggeration to me. I played it months ago and earned 1,000G, and I don't recall any major bugs.

It’s going to take a lot of work to change the direction Sarah Bond left behind, just as much, if not more, than what Phil Spencer needs to do to change the direction Don Mattrik left behind.

I wish Sharma the best of luck, she’s had a promising start, and although I still have serious doubts about what she’ll be able to do, I’ll stick with my Xbox until the end.

Anyway, the story of Xbox… Or maybe I should say, the story of Microsoft.

I usually like everything Valve does, but honestly, this controller looks pretty mediocre.

It’s probably more about the fond memories than the logo itself, but I’ll stick with the Xbox 360 one.

This is the second time in history that Xbox has had to go the extra mile to lift the team's spirits after hitting rock bottom. I hope this is the last time they have to do this.

I love everything Double Fine creates, but for some reason this game just doesn't appeal to me at all.

@Tasuki Phil Spencer was really good for Xbox most of the time, he did amazing things like Play Anywhere, GamePass, or backward compatibility. It was only in the last two years that his promises fell apart.

And while it’s hard to know for sure, I suspect he couldn’t do much about it in those final years, the extremely costly acquisition of Activision and Nadella’s blind push for AI investment created a perfect storm that led to the dismantling of his Xbox project.

So far, Sharma's decisions are reminiscent of Phil's heyday, and in my opinion, that's a really good thing.

A dazzling display of logic.

In my opinion, this is an extremely logical move.

I think it's a very logical decision. GamePass is by far the best subscription service in the entire industry, and it was already that way before COD.

For me the main problem is that, no matter how good it is, many people can't afford it at the current price. That, and understanding that most subscribers come from the console, GamePass won't grow if you abandon the Xbox console the way you have in recent years.

This has already been figured out on the console, it takes a bit of work, but it’s entirely feasible to get the old API of an Xbox 360 game to run on the Xbox Series.

The problem with Windows is that, unlike the console, it’s a general-purpose OS with hundreds of services, layers, APIs, and processes all running together. Trying to change anything involves both a huge effort and a thousand different potential issues.

I think the best thing for the platform would be to bring back all the exclusives, obviously. Except perhaps those games designed to build large communities (Minecraft, COD...).

But honestly, I don’t think that’s enough. The damage done to the platform in recent years has been enormous, and pretending nothing happened isn’t going to fix this. We need a strategy to restore trust in the brand, and I have no idea what that might be.

The only thing I can think of is to invent a time machine and erase the last two years from the timeline. Or, while we’re at it, go even further back and prevent Don Mattrick from ever being hired xD

Honestly, it seems a lot less ergonomic than the official controller. Still, I think it’s great that there are options to suit everyone’s tastes.

If anyone wants to try a controller from this brand, the G7 Pro is fantastic.

@GamingGod Yeah, in the end, everyone has to find their own way to pay for this hobby, what you’re saying makes a lot of sense.

Anyway, that wouldn’t work for me. From what I saw on TrueAchievement, I played 265 games last year (it was a little scary to see that number xD), obviously, the vast majority of them were games I played through Game Pass.

In my case, Game Pass is saving me a huge amount of money, this “rental” model is much more worthwhile for me than buying games.

I think there are two paths here: either go the exclusive route, or find a way to get competing games onto the Xbox Store.

Otherwise, it’s going to be very difficult for Xbox, as a platform, to be competitive.

And even so, so many mistakes have been made in recent years that gamers’ trust in Xbox has been severely damaged. You can have a product with great exclusives and awesome features, like the Xbox 360 did, and it still might not be enough.

@GamingGod Yeah, I see what you mean, but in the end it’s worth it to “rent” them, at least for me.

Over the past few months, I’ve played Metaphor, Expedition 33, Keeper, Project of Lana 2, Avowed, Vision of Mana, Oblivion Remaster, Indiana Jones, Resident Evil Village, Assassin's Creed Mirage, Diablo IV, Ninja Gaiden 4… If I’d had to buy all those games, I would’ve spent a fortune.

I’m still with Game Pass Ultimate, for me, it’s the best subscription out there, light-years ahead of what the rest of the industry has to offer.

But since the price went up, it’s no longer “for everyone”, having access to that entire catalog from day one has become a luxury reserved for die-hard fans.

I’d just remove Fortnite and COD and lower the price a bit. That would be perfect for me, but I also understand it’s subjective, and it’s possible that releases like COD have attracted many users to the service.

Well, unfortunately, this has become quite common, version 1.0 of a game is essentially an alpha release that comes with a promise of future improvements.

It's a very basic update, but since they haven't paid any attention to achievements for so many years, any improvement is welcome.

GameCube
Xbox 360
PS4
Xbox One X
PS Vita
Xbox Series X
Switch 2
Xbox Ally X

The only one I regret is the PS Vita.

@FraserG Great news (at least for me xD).

Hopefully the rest of Ubisoft's games will get updated with Xbox integration, and EA's games too, while we're at it.

If it isn't integrated with Xbox and doesn't have Xbox achievements, it's as if they hadn't done anything.

I wonder when EA and Ubisoft will add achievements to their games. If this is an Xbox, there shouldn't be any games without Xbox achievements.

It doesn't matter to me, the PS4 was my last PlayStation, and I don't think I'll ever feel the need to get another one.

It's been years since any devices have had disc drives, so I don't think they'll offer any kind of support for them anymore :/

The success of the upcoming Xbox Helix depends largely on the Xbox Series; abandoning it midway through the generation has created a significant setback that Xbox will have to contend with in the coming years.

I'm glad to see that Sharma's team seems to be getting the hang of this.

@themightyant From what I've seen on my Ally, it looks like it actually shuts down completely when you disable it. In general, when you disable any section of the Xbox bar, it takes a while to restart if you re-enable it. It seems like they don't just run in the background.

The first thing I did as soon as I saw it on Xbox Ally was remove it from the bar. I think it’s totally useless, but hey, maybe it’s useful to someone.

Interestingly, the very thing for which he was so heavily criticized, the need to be constantly online, ended up becoming a widely accepted reality shortly thereafter.

I think this game is a bit like Cyberpunk, I think it'll be worth the wait to play it on Xbox Helix and the new consoles.

Well, I have the console in preview mode, and there are frequent dashboard updates, although I usually don't even know what they're updating since I don't really notice any obvious changes xD

After all, this is just an AI model, and not a particularly impressive one at that. Perhaps the biggest challenge is implementing it with very low input lag.

If the next Xbox has enough GPU/NPU power, it could implement it, not this specific model, since Nvidia isn’t going to license it, but a similar one that could be trained by Microsoft or AMD.

If we count the Xbox One X and Xbox Series S as two separate consoles, this would be the seventh Xbox.

So I’d call it the Xbox 7.

Even though it's pretty tough for me to afford GPU, it's day-one releases like these that keep me going for another month.

That’s the big problem with Xbox PC right now: games aren’t coming out, or they’re taking too long, and some don’t even have achievements. It’s pretty disheartening if you’re coming from the console. I don’t know what the solution to this might be, Epic has been trying for years by giving away games without much success.

I just hope the console doesn’t catch this bug, it would be really sad if the Xbox platform ended up being reduced to an Epic Store on its own hardware.

@Nakatomi_Uk Well, with Xbox mode, most of that junk doesn't start up, not even the desktop in the background.

This mode works relatively well and brings Windows 11 closer to the way a console works. The problem for me is the lack of catalog, many games skip Xbox PC these days, and games like those from EA or Ubisoft don't even have achievements.

@Gemini53 I think it's only a matter of time before there's another Forza Motorsport. It's a legendary series that has been very important for Xbox. However, the success of Forza Horizon is so overwhelming that Motorsport probably isn't a high priority, so it could be many years before we see the next one.