If they're simply going to raise the price based on the new improvements, which are basically a new screen and the joysticks, it shouldn't cost more than €1,000–€1,100.

But I’m afraid they’ll take this opportunity to raise the price to cover other costs, such as memory. In fact, I think this is becoming a common strategy for many tech products: releasing a new, more expensive version justified by a few improvements and discontinuing the previous model. Which amounts to a clumsily disguised price hike.

Unfortunately, this is becoming all too common, studios that disappear right after releasing a game.

And I’d say that the game may not have actually done badly in terms of reception and player numbers, but recouping the development costs of any project, even small ones, has become an incredibly difficult task in an industry overwhelmed by releases and competing with massive forms of entertainment (TikTok, YouTube, Netflix...) that didn’t exist just a few years ago.

I think that as Xbox users, we spend too much time thinking about the business side of things and not enough about the games.

It makes sense that plans to restructure Xbox began before the Showcase and that they took these kinds of things into account. But I’d say this is normal for any company, Sony has shut down a ton of studios, and before doing so, they must have had discussions and considered different solutions, etc., but these are treated more like routine news items.

I think this is something we Xbox users need to relearn. We’ve been through some very intense years, with acquisitions of huge studios, cutbacks, business adjustments… all of which have kept us on edge. And while these are very interesting topics that we always need to keep in mind, I think that over time we need to go back to being more gamers than businesspeople. I, for one, have confidence in Sharma, she seems like someone who will do what’s right to restore the Xbox platform’s luster in the coming years.

I think, fundamentally, they need to sell more hardware.

With more consoles out there, they’ll be able to sell more Game Pass subscriptions and more games without having to go through third-party stores and pay their commissions.

It may sound heartless, but I'm more concerned about the marketing cuts than the layoffs. Marketing is one of Xbox's biggest problems, I think what it needs is exactly the opposite, to invest more and be smarter about prioritizing its platform.

I think they seized the opportunity to buy a company that was unsellable, if it weren't for the fact that Activision and Bobby Kotick were on the verge of some kind of internal power struggle, Activision would never have been sold.

And well, in the long run it’ll probably be beneficial, they now have some very powerful IPs, not just Call of Duty, but also Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Guitar Hero, Diablo, StarCraft, World of Warcraft, Candy Crush, Tony Hawk’s, Overwatch… it’s an amazing collection of IPs.

However, in the short term it’s been a disaster, the financial pressure it’s put on Xbox nearly destroyed the brand. Although I think this is a widespread problem at Microsoft, a lack of understanding of the consumer market is one of Nadella’s biggest weaknesses.

Still, they can count themselves lucky, Sony’s acquisition of Bungie has been much worse. That was a truly failed purchase, and it’s unlikely anything will ever come of it that justifies the deal.

In my opinion:

1. Xbox Showcase. The one with the best balance of quantity and quality in its announcements.

2. Nintendo Direct. Mainly because of Zelda: OOT, which, in my opinion, is the best game of all time.

3. State of Play. Overall, I think it was better than Nintendo’s, if it weren’t for OOT, it would probably be in second place.

I haven’t seen the rest.

I wouldn't forget about Xbox PC, right now, it's practically irrelevant. All the games come to Steam and ignore the Xbox Store, and there are also games from EA or Ubisoft that don't even have Xbox achievements. There's a lot of work to be done there.

Another issue to address is the achievements system, it’s had a few minor updates, but it still needs a more thorough overhaul.

And to wrap up the usual topic: exclusives, right now Xbox has two interesting exclusives. It’s better than nothing, but it’s laughable compared to the competition. Xbox remains very uncompetitive in this area. And the fact that Halo is multiplatform, given how important it is (was) to Xbox’s identity, strikes me as a historic mistake.

Just what I expected, lots of interesting content, but seeing games like Halo or Fable released on multiple platforms really undermines my confidence in the platform

I don't know how this will play out, but things can't go on like this. Xbox is releasing practically everything on multiple platforms, while at the same time, many titles are skipping Xbox altogether. It's a massive disaster, no one is ever going to choose Xbox as their platform for gaming and building a digital library, because right now it's simply not a viable option.

Either they commit once and for all to providing compelling reasons for Xbox to make sense as a platform, or they shut it down and become a publisher, thereby giving players a way to export their years of achievements and progress to another platform. But they can’t keep going like this, this ambiguity isn’t fair to their users and the fans who have supported them for years.

Xbox Series could have been a huge success if it hadn't been for Microsoft's stupidity.

What Xbox should offer are Xbox games, that is, games with Xbox achievements and features from the Xbox ecosystem. If Steam is going to be the solution to the lack of games in the Xbox Store, then Xbox will be dead, and what they’ll be selling you is a PC with an Xbox sticker on it.

The truth is that right now, the situation for Xbox is very complicated. It’s not that there aren’t any great games on Xbox, but there’s starting to be a huge imbalance with Steam and PlayStation that’s reaching very serious levels.

I don’t know what Sharma thinks about this, but I believe she should start taking urgent action, Xbox is missing out on more and more releases and runs the risk of ending up like another Epic Store.

The truth is, right now, I don't think there's anything in particular that excites me.

The only two things that could turn this situation around are the widespread arrival of competing games on Xbox, or the return of exclusives. But I think both of those are highly unlikely.

Honestly, the problem isn't the logo; it's the fact that games are being released on other platforms.

I wish we lived in a world where every game was available on every platform, but if other companies aren't bringing their games to Xbox, then Xbox releasing its games on other platforms is a disaster.

She has inherited an Xbox in a very difficult situation, losing its exclusives and receiving almost none from the competition in return has left Xbox irrelevant to most gamers.

It’s been a massive mistake, and honestly, I don’t know how it can be fixed. Bringing back the exclusives seems like the logical choice, but the Xbox platform has bled too much, doing that right now would strangle the audience reached by Xbox Studios games.

Perhaps exclusives combined with an aggressive marketing campaign could revive the platform with a large enough audience to make it sustainable, but given the disproportionately high price of the hardware and players’ lack of interest in alternatives like cloud gaming, I don’t think Xbox will be able to grow its player base enough in the short term to make exclusives financially viable.

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.