The new head of Xbox is a potato!

@GamerScore200K “Another box tick employee”….explain please

I personally don’t like the guy. He has always struck me as a used car salesman type who won people over because “look he’s a gamer like us.” I do however massively respect how he worked his way to the top and think a lot of recent decisions have been out of his hands. He’s much less of a knob than Mattrick and I would put money on him being better than the AI puppet taking over. On the plus side the cult of Phil Spencer is over and there wont be 500 different articles across gaming media dissecting his every vapid word everytime he does an interview.

I have been playing this regularly on Steamdeck since it released and it is fantastic. Not sure I would play it solely on console all that much but it is great for handheld in front of the TV, especially when you start getting more staff members and can automate parts of the business. I love that stinky customers is actually a game system you have to manage 😅

@fatpunkslim Aside from not being able to buy any Forza games before Horizon 5 or Motorsport 8 they did this EXACT thing with Halo. You can’t buy any of the 360 editions because the Master Chief Collection exists. It is genuinely hilarious/pathetic how often you get called out on your nonsense and you still continue to spout it.

@Llamageddon Finally someone gets it. This is late stage capitalism and the real customer of the PLCs is the shareholder not the end user. Sony are chasing console sales to get people into the ecosystem, MS are chasing software and service sales while the consumers are wasting their time arguing over which one is a bigger piece of Sh%t. If people want an actual decent service that has pretty much everything they need to get a PC and start building up their Steam or GoG libraries. Both are still (and hopefully forever) private companies who don’t need to chase endless growth to appease their shareholders so can offer value to the consumer. I still shudder at the rumours of MS buying Steam.

I love a good “Sony bad 😭” meltdown in a Pure Xbox comment section and there’s like three going on at once. What a treat.

My body is ready. Horizon is hands down my favourite Xbox IP so I am v excited even if it is more of the same in a new location.

@fatpunkslim link me to where you can buy third party keys for this game. It’s sold 900 copies on Xbox…let’s not pretend it’s setting the world on fire.

I liked the humour and premise of the first game but the gameplay was very generic so didn’t get too far before putting it down. It’s safe to say I have very low expectations of the sequel but if it turns out to be good I will pick it up in a sale further down the line.

Nioh 3 and it’s going to be that way for a while!

Merging premium and PC just sounds like the enshitification of PC gamepass which is currently the best value tier by a long shot.

@Fiendish-Beaver That ignore button has got to be looking pretty tempting by now.

I’m fine with the console dashboard as it is but boy oh boy do they need to do a lot of work to get the PC app up to speed with competitors like Steam. The UI design is the least of its problems.

@Jenkinss As always I love the cynicism and this comment made me laugh. However if the next Xbox is the rumoured all singing all dancing PC they are going to be giving major sticker shock regardless of when they announce. I think they might actually be better off announcing early, let the price sink in with people and then after PS6 is announced, hammer hard on marketing features which PS6 doesn't have to explain the price gap. Of course the Xbox marketing team seems to consist entirely of an intern with an X account so they will probably announce it a year early and then not mention it again till 1 week before release.

I went for Beat of reincarnation purely for the surprise. I expected fable and Fh6 to be great because Playground is awesome.

Undead Labs closing in 5, 4, 3…….

IMO FH5 is the best horizon and one of my favourite games of all time but progression was a bit wild compared to most racers. It was just chucking insanely good cars at me pretty much from the offset so I kind of felt like I didn't have much to work towards except for completing everything and smashing some time trials. I'm glad to hear they are addressing this in 6 and its making me even more excited but if I'm honest with myself they could have just put a Japanese skin on FH5 and it would still be a 10/10 for me.

lol absolutely not. Standard edition with reward points for me. Happy to play on day 4 and not gambling on DLC that could be terrible.

A from me. Fable looks unbelievable and going in knowing nothing about Beast of Reincarnation I’m now very interested.

I’m looking forward to seeing more in depth fable footage. Also thank you Xbox for always putting these at a reasonable time for Europe!

@PsBoxSwitchOwner XboxEra is the most ridiculous gaming site I’ve seen. I’m not usually one to criticise and compare review scores because they are subjective but anything developed by or exclusive to Xbox without fail gets 1-2 points higher than the average. They lost any shred of credibility for me when they gave Redfall an 8.5 and high on life a 9. It says it all that the dude who reviewed FF7 has mostly spent the last 4 months writing individual articles for every single big game asking if it’s coming to gamepass. “Is Metroid Prime 4 coming to gamepass?” Is my personal favourite.

I check every time but the vast majority of games I have bought over the last 12 months have not been play anywhere and a fair portion of them aren't even on the Xbox store. I picked up Arc Raiders (which I didn't think through because I can't actually play it on Xbox now my Gamepass has lapsed, but could have played on Steamdeck) and OuterWorlds 2. For the most part I buy on Steam where every game is "play anywhere". If the rumours are true and the next Xbox runs Steam then I would probably never use the Xbox store again.

I hope so. I will probably get bored pretty quickly like I do with most multiplayer FPS games nowadays but I am still looking forward to giving it a try.

I refuse to buy an overpriced proprietary expansion card so space used to be an issue. Now Gamepass has lapsed it is not.

Whilst I hold out high hopes for Fable 2026 I bounced off 2 and 3 pretty quickly. Although I wasn’t all that into fantasy RPGs back in the day when I initially played them.

It’s lapsed and I haven’t renewed. I may subscribe for a few months when some of the big games release this year but will likely just buy them on Steam.

I picked up a second hand Xbox around 2004 with Halo 2 and Chronicles of Riddick. TBH I didn’t play it much as I couldn’t get onboard with that massive controller and I preferred the PS2 and GameCube. When the 360 released however, Xbox became my main platform for the best part of a decade.

@Fiendish-Beaver It’s great solo, with friends or with randomers. If anything Solo is a bit easier because other players are less hostile but the Arc pose more of a threat because there’s no one there to rescue you if they down you. I’d say your mileage with it also depends on whether you are willing to get on the mic though. You can get by with pings and the built in voice commands but it really shines when you start talking to other people, teaming up, working together and occasionally getting stabbed in the back. I have only got on mic with strangers for two games in the last 20 years…this and Helldivers 2 but both were worth it.

Even now it’s a good reward programme if you get into the swing of things. I tend to just do the random bing searches on the app throughout the day during a dog walk or in front of the tv. I also use edge on my pc which is painful but if MS are willing to give me free money for my engagement I will engage. Most games I buy through Steam or PS store but if I can get a few Play Anywhere titles a year on Xbox I will have considered it a success.

@LaurenceJ1987 I don't do well with horror games or movies. Village is the first Resi Evil I managed to complete and it's mostly jump scares rather than genuinely terrifying moments. Although there are a couple of parts that I wouldn't play on my own in the dark. Great game, I hope you enjoy it!

The Forza Horizon series deserves every bit of its success. I can’t wait for 6!

@Cakefish this winds me up so much. I have demos and F2P titles from years ago I can’t get rid of. I don’t have much confidence this full screen experience will solve any of the many shortcomings.

No idea how much I’d spend until I know for certain what I’m spending money on. If it’s a standard Xbox console I won’t buy it atall. If it’s a PC hybrid with all store fronts I would be more tempted but at the same time I have a pretty decent PC so won’t be dropping ridiculous money on something just because it’s a bit easier to play from the couch. Given that 99% of my PC library is on Steam I will be following their offering closely and making a more informed decision after Xbox lay out some concrete plans.

Merry Christmas Pure team and community! Hope you have a fantastic day

Only two. But that’s a pretty good year tbf considering I had only bought four Xbox games total this gen.

It’s not perfect but it’s a fantastic game that has been really well supported over the last 3 years.

This is a bit cringe

It’s been another great year of games! My best guess for my split:
PC - 40%
Steamdeck - 20%
Switch 2 - 15%
Series X - 15%
PS5 - 10%

That’s a shame but tbf these things are a nice to have rather than essential. 2025 is likely the first time in a decade Xbox has more playtime than my PS albeit mostly on PC. Steam has dwarfed everything else by a country mile though.

@themightyant very good point. I tend to use a combination of Steam and Metacritic when I’m looking at buying games to try and get a complete picture but the percentage score on Steam deffo helps, particularly for smaller indie games that don’t often get full critic reviews.

The Outer Worlds 2 and THPS 3+4 for me.

@Fiendish-Beaver turns out I only got it half right. 500 reviews at 95% to be overwhelmingly positive but only 50 reviews at 80% needed for very positive. I was looking at steam store this evening and saw a very positive game with 280 reviews and immediately thought “I’ve just outright lied on Pure Xbox”

@Fiendish-Beaver It doesn’t completely help but for something to be “Very positive” or “Overwhelmingly positive” on Steam it needs at least 500 reviews. If a game only had 200 reviews for example it would just be “Positive” or “Negative”

I loved the first but didn’t get on as well with the second. Either I’m very much looking forward to seeing what they do next with the series!

@Chip-Douglas the ‘scale’ depends entirely on what games you are interested in. Highly acclaimed indies like Deep Rock Survivor, Mullet Madjack, Digging a hole, Supermarket Simulator and Back to the Dawn are going to be more interesting to a lot of people than Phantom Blade Zero which, for all we know, could be a steaming pile of 💩 when it releases.

You also don’t actually know any of the details about any of the deals in place. For all you know MS could spend more than Sony per year targeting indies for gamepass. Sony might not have even needed to pay for this game if the devs have no desire to release on Xbox or Switch. Absolutely pointless speculating on who is worse or who does what because at the end of the day it’s all part of business dealings we aren’t privy to. Enjoy the games where they release and if that’s not on your chosen platform either get a PC or cross your fingers for a future port 🤷‍♂️

@Chip-Douglas Well now you’re just moving the goalposts. Either third party exclusivity is bad or it isn’t. It can’t be fine when Xbox do it and bad when Sony do it.

@Chip-Douglas see my comment #28…that’s not the full list btw that is just some of the more popular games and all third party.

Friendly reminder that Xbox also has plenty of console/timed exclusives so if Sony are an evil moustache twirling villain then so are they. This year saw Mullet Madjack, Deep Rock Galactic Survivors, Routine, 33 Immortals, Dome Keeper, Cloverpit, Decenders Next, Mechabreak, Lonely Mountain Snow Riders, Void Train, Space Marine Remaster, A game about digging a hole, Back to the Dawn, and Super Market Simulator.