GeeEssEff

I will get it as a Halloween treat

@Weebleman I think it’s going to sell pretty well simply because the Xbox name is attached and a lot of console gamers don’t know what they are buying, thinking it’s a true Xbox handheld. I remember it making news headlines on announcement because everyone was treating it like the latest Xbox hardware rather than a rebranded existing product. Even my wife (who has very little interest in all this) heard about it and asked me if I’m getting “the new Xbox”. Half the Xbox subreddit is completely confused and doesn’t understand play anywhere to the point they are arguing with people trying to explain it to them. I have literally seen comments like “Why would Microsoft lie about it being an Xbox?!” I even have a colleague who already owns a Rog Ally but is planning on getting this because he thinks it is something different.

It will sell entirely by virtue of Xbox’s misleading announcement and confusing marketing. Whether every buyer will be happy with their purchase is something else entirely.

I don’t think this would bother me as I usually play wired and my controller just turns off with my PC. My main gripe with the guide button on windows is that you can’t set it to only open gamebar when you are using the Xbox app, it’s all or nothing. Considering 90% of my PC game time is on Steam I turned the gamebar shortcut off completely and just allow the guide button to run big picture mode instead.

That’s a great month! I’m up for all of these

@WildConcept6 @BacklogBrad I dunno it looks more like Animal Crossing with Pokémon to me.

@BacklogBrad What is the Minecraft clone game?

@FraserG The Tetris music will forever be burned into my brain and I will always associate it with super long car trips….to be young again eh

I would have also loved something like this as a kid but had to settle for a gameboy (not even colour).

I gotta wonder about the quality of car’s internet to stream games though. Streaming to my phone or tablet is crappy enough when I’m sat next to my router using 70mbs fibre optic. I’m no Network Engineer but surely a car is going to be unable to meet the speeds required for decent cloud streaming.

Don’t know if it’s worth the hype on gamepass but it’s certainly scratching the each on Steam via Steamdeck

Will Nicki Minaj be playing herself?

Cataclismo has been on my Steam wishlist for ages but I have a feeling it might be a bit too involved so looking forward to trying it this weekend. Roadcraft is another I have been unsure of pulling the trigger on so good month for me!

@Fiendish-Beaver Genuinely the Helldivers community is ace. I hadn’t put on a headset and spoken to randoms in about 15 years but have done it quite regularly on Helldivers and always had a blast spreading democracy.

One of my favourite moments was playing 6 or 7 missions in a row with a group and we didn’t speak atall but worked well together. I had to leave so put in the chat “gtg I love you guys” and got back a “we love you too soldier”…dunno why but that just really tickled me.

@Drago201 I was 18 in my first year of uni….Don’t worry you are still a youngling to some of us!

It looks good and if I had money to burn I would be interested but I’m happy with my Steamdeck.

@WildConcept6 I see thanks for the info. I don’t really use gamebar and have Steam as a win11 taskbar shortcut anyway so will continue to just use them as separate apps for now.

@kezelpaso Hey Ben do you know how this works in practice? Like if I click on the Steam tab will it show me the exact same view I would see if I opened the Steam app or just a list of my games? And then if I clicked on a game would it still need to open Steam to run the game, like I think I previously read?

Edit: for clarification I’m talking about PC rather than handheld here

@Fiendish-Beaver 100%…. I can get the digital deluxe on CDkeys for £20 cheaper than console storefronts standard edition. Same with most games early doors. I managed to get KCD2 a few weeks after release with all future DLCs included for £50 and Monster Hunter Wilds has been less than £25 for at least a couple of months.

If the CDkeys prices for Xbox games were similar that’s a different story but there’s only a £6 saving on this one.

@Coletrain yeh I didn’t look at any prices in the run up but just assumed it would be around £50. I’m getting it for Steam on CDkeys as they have the standard edition for £46

@WildConcept6 I have a Steamdeck Oled which is serving me perfectly for my needs. I was just surprised the Ally doesn’t come with a case at that price point. Even the controller they announced yesterday comes with a protective case and I’m pretty sure most, if not all competing handhelds do as well. IMO it’s a must have for something that expensive and fragile. I’m so paranoid about dropping mine I even case it up when I’m carrying it from one room to another.

Does it not come with a case?!? Even the cheapest model of the Steamdeck comes with a case and it’s £200 less.

@BAMozzy I genuinely think that if the Nextbox has Steam and it doesn’t cost the earth it will appeal as much, if not more to Steam only players who want a reasonably powered box under their tv to play their games. For once I think you are underselling the appeal of a hybrid in saying it’s mainly for current Xbox users. There are about 40mil Series consoles in the wild and about as many Gamepass subscribers (and those are charitable estimates)…..Steam has about 70 million daily logins and 130mil monthly logins which have been steadily growing year on year. Do not underestimate the amount of people who could buy the next Xbox solely for a console Steam experience and never use it to play a single Xbox or Gamepass game.

@Fiendish-Beaver If steam is on the Nextbox I could see MS only allowing a proper nerfed down big picture mode because frankly on PC the Xbox can’t compete. Things like searching the store I can get down into granular detail of “I want a roguelite fps, costing between £10-£15, must have co op, at least a positive rating and support the Dualsense controller” and do exactly the same with grouping my library. The moment people start exploring CDkeys or find out about the 3 click no questions asked refund policy from Steam direct the jig is up.

@BAMozzy yep but Steam already has all of that. If Steam is on the Nextbox it is going to have my entire library (not just play anywhere titles), achievements, my steam friends, my humble choice games, my mods and every cloud save.

I don’t want to put words in his mouth but the point I think @Fiendish-Beaver was making is that anyone who is currently Xbox only who buys the next one is quickly going to realise that Steam offers more functionality, more games, better sales, more options for purchase and a better version of play anywhere. Even the staunchest Xbox fans will likely start building Steam libraries and potentially make it their first choice platform. As good as Gamepass is it is truly a tiny tiny fraction of all the games available that end up on it. For most PC gamers it is not a replacement for buying games and that’s because the choice and quality available on Steam at dirt cheap prices is simply too good to avoid.

@BAMozzy Play Anywhere is not going to be a major reason for people to buy into the Xbox ecosystem over Steam unless the entire library is Play Anywhere. Steam has essentially had its own version of this for well over a decade. Any purchases on Steam will carry over to any platform that runs Steam with cloud saves be it a PC, handheld or the speculation Nextbox. Maybe 10% of my purchases I buy on Xbox/Xbox PC will be playable across both platforms and handheld. I understand Play Anywhere is good and better than anything Sony or Nintendo are offering for PC but claiming it can compete with what Steam offers, particularly if the Nextbox runs Steam, is naive.

I downloaded void/breaker last night and it was buggy as hell. The screen wasn’t centred and it wasn’t registering my mouse location or clicks so I couldn’t even try and sort it out. Tried three times but had to task manager my way out of each one so in the end uninstalled. Disappointing because it looks right up my street.

@DonnieTACO Some of the ways I have used the Steamdeck:

• Sitting out in the sun
• On the couch in front of the tv
• In bed
• I’m truly ashamed to say but on the toilet
• Flights/trains
• Downtime on a holiday e.g waiting for the wife to shower and get ready before an evening meal
• I take it to my mates and play multiplayer games with him while he’s on his PC
• As a mini PC while docked to a monitor (before I got an actual PC)

Reasons I love it:

• I was a console only gamer before getting the deck. Even with power limitations it opens the door to hundreds if not thousands of games that aren’t on console.
• PC games tend to be much cheaper than their console alternatives
• Mods!
• I can stream Xbox and PS5 games from my console
• A more open ecosystem with different storefronts (which will be even easier to access on an ally)
• More options on how and where I purchase my games such as Fanatical and Humble

They absolutely aren’t for everyone, especially at the high price entry point but they are a fantastic gateway drug into PC gaming and great for people with kids who don’t necessarily have full access to their console tv all the time.

@BAMozzy good point well made. Gone are the days of mind boggling generational leaps like we had between the earlier generations and I’m personally ok with that. In general the sentiment about this generation has been pretty negative but we have got lightning fast load times, 60fps as standard, quick resume on Xbox, Haptics on PS5, a dramatic increase in streaming quality and some of the most graphically impressive games ever. Tbh I have found the leap between Xbox One/PS4 > Series/PS5 more impressive than 360/PS3 > Xbox One leap and this generation has pumped out some of my instant top 10 games.

Next gen is likely going to be even more disappointing for people who hate this one because the gains are going to be even less noticeable. Probably targeting 120fps for performance modes and 60fps with ray tracing for graphics modes.

@WildConcept6 Nintendo could make a s**t ton of money off this deal with very little effort so I’m sure they are pretty interested.

@Kezelpaso Yeh I’m sure they are working hard to get it on Switch 2 and I think it would do very well. If I was Nintendo I would be banging on Phil Spencer’s door waving that signed document in their faces though.

@Kezelpaso Oh I completely agree which is why it was a silly commitment to make in the first place but MS are the ones who claimed day one parity for Switch and its successor following closure of the deal. It’s almost like they were willing to say/do anything to get the deal over the line and in the intervening 2 years we have seen how much of it was lies.

They are doing a terrible job of honouring this 10 year commitment to bring call of duty to Switch. This will be the third COD released since they closed the ABK deal and not a Switch port in sight.

I have tried a few of the old Mafia games and didn’t enjoy them all that much so have very little intention of buying this one. Good for them though, it’s always good to see a game do well.

#PlaySOMEofYourGames

Unless they plan to make the entire Xbox back catalogue (third party included) play anywhere they need to rethink their advertising on this. It has class action lawsuit written all over it.

@Elbow I have a Deck and I love it but I wouldn’t say the library is bigger than the Ally which won’t require dual booting to access to Xbox PC, Gamepass, Gog and Epic. Not to mention the Ally is more powerful so likely to run games that the deck struggles with or just outright doesn’t support. I personally won’t be swapping my Deck for various reasons; price, steam verification system, the trackpads etc but if I was purely chasing the option to play the most games I may be tempted.

*Unless of course you specifically just mean Play Anywhere titles in which case yes Steam is amazing for it. They didn’t even need to come up with a catchy name like “Play Anywhere” because it’s just kind of accepted that if I buy a steam game I can play it on any PC/Handheld with access to a steam client and carry my saves over instantly. Still applies to the Ally though because I could play my steam library there.

Congrats Obsidian! Not played it myself yet but I intend to in the not too distant future.

@Grippie I think it entirely depends what the launcher would do. If I can play my first party PlayStation games on PC without buying them again on Steam then I’m all for another launcher. Naturally people will complain about anything and everything anyway but I don’t see how Sony adopting their own version of play anywhere could possibly be seen as a bad thing.

9 Kings is meant to be excellent so that's a get for me.

Tony Hawks for me but I’m enjoying Abiotic Factor as well.

The Eternal Life of Goldman looks awesome. Great trailer

@Millionski Strictly speaking it should score higher. It has had 2 years of bug fixes, QOL updates and a 60fps option added. It is objectively a better game now then it was at launch and will likely be in an even better state when it releases on PS next year.....Still not a particularly good game mind but its always better to have your high hopes smashed in 60fps!

@Sol4ris Forza Horizon 5 has been getting bug fixes pretty much every month since it released four years ago….must be crap eh? https://support.forzamotorsport.net/hc/en-us/sections/4408834302355-Release-Notes-and-Known-Issues

Am I right in reading on the tweet that only the Deluxe and Premium editions will get disks suggesting the standard versions won’t?

Surely its not coincidence this massively jumped up the same month the Switch 2 and a new Mario Kart released.

Cool feature but would have still liked the option to choose which version of the game to install. I would rather be able to play indie and some AA games from my external hard drive where the S/X upgrades are negligible but they are taking up valuable SSD space instead.

I don’t buy anything on my Xbox so no

Personally at the higher price point I would rather just get a gaming laptop. You can get a 4060 laptop in the UK for less than £900 which is going to offer more power and more versatility.

@BAMozzy “It mislead the Gamers who believed the game was much closer to releasing and probably led their boss (Matt Booty head of Studios) to believe things were progressing well”

If that slice is the only thing Matt Booty bothered to look at in 7 years of development he deserves to be sacked. It’s even worse if that’s the only thing
he saw and then had no further questions because it was quite clearly not pure gameplay. Xbox have, once again, mismanaged their studios and no amount of blaming the devs will change that.

@Kaloudz I could kind of see your point if MS acquired Rare halfway through Everwild development but they have owned them since 2002! I feel a reasonable portion of the blame should be on Xbox/MS for mismanaging their studio. I know we don’t know exactly who has been cut but I’m willing to bet it’s the people who are on the receiving end of bad decisions rather than those making the decisions.

@Toot1st Thoughts? You love complaining on pushsquare whenever they post anything Xbox related that has nothing to do with PS so I thought you’d be all over this bad boy.