@fatpunkslim I think next gen will be all about price rather than performance and features.Most people’s wallets will have a cap on what they can justify paying.
A lot people will probably not jump on a 1K PS6 and view it too expensive, if the Helix is 1.5-2K with better performance and features it may be better value/bang for your buck but will still be out of reach for a lot of people.

1TB Carbon Black Series S for £270 two years ago.

@Lanmanna I guess it’s just because I’ve never been a PC gamer and don’t have a catalog of PC games I’d like to blend in with an Xbox library.
There’s probably an element of ignorance and or fear of the unknown maybe?

I’m just into consoles and feel like Helix being a hybrid is going to make it more expensive and change the experience the experience compared to a straight up Series X successor.

I definitely see the appeal for people who have steam and PC games as well as an Xbox and will be able to play it all on one box under the living room TV.

@Millionski interesting what you said about the Ally X. Like you I feel like the experience on helix will roughly be the same, will be windows based and boots up in Xbox mode.
So you saying it’s not a great experience does sound like it won’t be as smooth to navigate as previous generations OS. I also don’t want to have to try and change the settings on each individual game, performance or quality pre sets are about as complicated as I’d like my settings to be 😂

It certainly looks like Helix will be more expensive than the Steam Machine and has someone that doesn’t have much interest in the PC side of things it seems like a lot of money to drop on something I don’t feel will be for me.

@Millionski yeah E Days won’t make a huge difference in sales. You know what higher ups are like, they’ll say this is the first new exclusive since the change of direction and console sales are down and other metrics to show it to be a failure and ignore the effect of price rises.

@Fiendish-Beaver it’s a shame, any other generation and they’d be doing an E Days bundle with a discount to attract new players.
It puts the studio in an awkward position as an exclusive it’s supposed to increase engagement, but then Xbox are putting the console price up and cutting them off at the ankles.

@Millionski yeah this is my thinking of wanting to go from a Series S to an X. That will do me for any Xbox gaming, don’t have interest in a PC hybrid and certainly not at the price a helix will cost.
At least I’ll still get a mini graphical and fps bump.
Series X will be good for game pass and 1st party games until they stop supporting it further down the line.
I won’t get a PS5 pro and keep the money aside for the PS6 at launch instead.

If they delay next gen consoles until 2030 there’s a chance we’ll being seeing a $999 Series S by December 2029!!

I remember the good old days when PS5 Pro came out and Phil Spencer was like LOL there’ll never be a $1000 Xbox console!

Anyone know when they are planning on stop selling 2TB Galaxy Black Series X??
I was hoping to eventually save up reward points and get wallet top ups from Shopto or loaded to get it for £500 by Christmas or Easter.

This is a surprise really after Destiny 2 coming to an end and no D3 insight.
Marathon hasn’t done too well I don’t think.
By all accounts both Destiny and Marathon were really good games, but the live service thing doesn’t really appeal to me.
I like the looks of Marathon, shame it wasn’t a traditional single player/co op fps with multiplayer as I would have jumped on board.

All round not good in the industry, rising prices and costs and lots of devs losing their jobs 😰

I think someone may already mentioned it, but this seems to be accelerated by COVID. The industry had a bump was everyone was in lockdown and now people are going back to their pre covid habits with a combination of post covid price inflation, AI driven inflation forcing consumers to spend even less and putting us in a bad spiral.

@Millionski I agree with both points, current gen still has legs so I don’t think people will be too disappointed to play games on current hardware in 28/29.

However I also don’t see prices of components coming down. They might level off and stop rising but won’t go lower.
If they want to sell consoles at 1000 in 2027 postponing to 2029 it’ll will still be a 1K and by that point slightly older tech.
I just can’t see wages rising enough over that two year period that makes a 1K console more affordable for the average consumer that will be put off by a 1K console next year.

@AI-Generation the biggest appeal to me is the day one games. I know I can basically pay £150ish for a year with vouchers and play those games you mentioned without having to fork out any extra.

That’s the great thing about game pass for us players and consumers, but from a business perspective does stop people opting to pay for the games.
Any of them I like I’ll get once they’re cheap.
I prefer to “rent” them first and at a later date add them to the collection for one day when I’m sure I’ll no longer have game pass but still have my Xbox.

I liked having COD day one with game pass.
Black Ops 6 was first one I played in years and really enjoyed the multiplayer and put a fair few hours into it. Skipped BO7 as that didn’t look great and I preferred to get BF1 instead.

I won’t buy MW4 as I’m happy to just wait a year 🤷🏻‍♂️.

I’m a digital player so I won’t pre order straight away as I’ll have to pay for it now.
Will just pre order a few days before release so it’s paid for and downloaded just in time to play. 😊

I’m in the camp that says if they release a Series X Pro or upgraded version similar in spec to PS5 Pro and uses its own up scaling equivalent to PSSR then I’d prefer that to a PC hybrid model.

@Coletrain yeah I wasn’t too impressed when I paid up for the extra £3 per month and Amazon said congratulations you’ve now unlocked ad free streaming or words to the effect…I already had it! They took it away and charged me for it but made out like I was getting a new benefit for that extra £3 🙄

I haven’t had any issues with FH6 yet and love the quick resume. Makes it more appealing to pick up and play for short periods of time knowing if I have to stop during race I can pick it back up at a later point.

However I did have an issue when playing Modern Warfare 2019. Got near the end of a mission and the game shutdown. Every time I tried to reload back into the middle of the mission it would shutdown again.
I deleted the save and re downloaded from the cloud but didn’t make a difference.

I just had to restart the mission from the beginning so not a big deal.
Not sure what caused that save to become corrupted.

@fatpunkslim I’ve been playing Modern Warfare 2019 for the first time and have almost completed the campaign. Have to agree with it’s been absolutely fantastic. I’m looking forward to playing the campaign to the sequel once i’m.
Will give this years game a go once it comes onto gamepass next year!

Just like pretty much everyone has already said I have such a huge backlog that I don’t need to get FOMO.
My favourite franchises I’ll get day one and play straight away. The last two was RE Requiem and Battlefield 6 so that’s one every six months.
Other than that I put them on my wish list and then wait til they drop under £50 and if I have time for them.

I’ve been building a backlog on my Xbox to complement my PS5 one 😂 I can’t help it when there’s OG and 360 games that drop to a couple of quid.

I really need to make more time to play my games, having games pass makes it even harder to work through the backlog.
I’ve started COD Modern Warfare campaign and hope to have it done in time for FH6 so don’t know when I’ll get time to play through anything else for a while!

I will probably play on quality mode on Series S, that’s how I’ve played FH5 and FM and enjoyed them both.

@Nakatomi_Uk I know know what you mean. There seems to be a lot of positivity right now and some good changes since Asha has taken charge. Are these her changes or was all these pivots put in place already and she’s the public face of it?
With Spencer how much say did he have over things? People have always credited him for the good stuff and anything bad has been credited to Microsoft micromanaging him.
It does seem like he was forced out.

Either way Xbox is going in a good direction right now.

@cornholio005 yeah I’d say if you can get a new Series S for £250 it’s a good deal to get in the Xbox ecosystem.
I don’t own a Series X, but if you can about power and performance it may be worth putting the £400 away and seeing how much the Helix is going to be. If it turns out to be really expensive can they try to find a good deal on a Series X instead.

Once of those things where as we get closer to next gen is in worth getting a console now or saving for day one of next gen?

Edit: just seen the two posts above me and refurbs or 2nd hand may be a good way to go!

@shiny-enzo I agree a customisable version could be the way to go.
You pay your basic online fee and then add everything else piece meal. So if you want 1st party games day one it would add x amount, 3rd party x amount, COD x amount, that Fortnite thing we currently get in ultimate would add x amount.
That way you can pay for what you actually want to use rather than having to pay higher fee for Ultimate for some stuff you want whilst other benefits go unused.

@ZeD I know what you mean. I’ve never really noticed these things too much in the past. The only things I can think of is the likes of GTA 3, VC and SA when you get your wanted level up and started blowing up all the tanks with a rocket launcher it use to stutter a hell of a lot but it never bothered us back then!! That was just normal 😂

I didn’t even pay attention to resolution and frame rates last generation. It’s only since I got the PS5 and have to choose between performance and quality, always done performance by default as it’s most likely both a higher resolution and frame rates last generation than the PS4 version so still an upgrade 🤷🏻‍♂️

I started getting into digital foundry and watching videos and reading reviews about performance and it slightly changed my opinion, however even watching some videos I don’t notice the minor drops in frame rates.

Getting my Series S has also changed my opinion as I have it on quality mode a lot and have gotten more use to playing at 30fps and still enjoying the hell out of games!!

Only game I can think of that annoyed me for low frame rates was Gotham Knights as it’s 30fps across all versions and the combat feels sluggish especially say compared to the Spider-Man games.

Damn post Covid has not been good to the games industry.
I’m super glad I got my digital PS5 at launch for £359.99 and sold my PS4 for £160. Looks like a proper bargain now. Crazy to think the price has gone up by £160 since then that’s extortionate.
My Carbon Black 1TB Series S at £269.99 looking like a good investment also.

I wonder if Microsoft will increase the Xboxes again.
I think they should just take the hit and keep them at current levels and take the loss to increase sales.
In the space of 24 hours their consoles have gone from being overpriced to competitive and they haven’t even had to do anything!

Series X now £70 cheaper than PS5 and the 2TB model is only £20 more than the PS5 which has gone back to 825GB instead of 1TB SSD.

I’m still waiting for MW19 to come on game pass so I can play the 3 campaigns.
I played multiplayer on MW2 & 3 but didn’t see the point in doing the campaigns if I haven’t played the first one.

I liked BO6 multiplayer, keep meaning to do the campaign.
BO7 didn’t appeal to me in the slightest, preferred to buy BF6 than play BO7 on gamepass.

Hopefully this years MW is a return to form.

@Tanjo unfortunately I have a digital PS5 and Series S…😂
That’s where they get you!

@Tasuki I think you’re right, I’m probably going to play FH6 on gamepass and Batman and Bond later in the year. Will probably wait til their £45 to buy.

I don’t think this one is for me.
I’m not really interested in PC gaming, I’d be interested in a next gen console, but see £799 as my top end, no way is this going to even be £999.
Think I’d just be better off trading my Series S for X.

@Gemini53 can I recommend if you’re looking at getting GP to buy a voucher from loaded.com one month of GP Ultimate is £16.99 there as opposed to £22.99 via your Xbox. Not sure if you’re in UK but the other currencies should still give you a 26% saving for one month or 38% saving for 3 months.

@Gemini53 yes! I only buy retro too, either old school Xbox games or maybe if I have games on disc for PS2 or PS3 I’ll get them on Series S for a digital version.

I have gamepass so if anything comes out day one on gamepass and PS5 I’ll just play the Series S version. Other new games such as Battlefield 6 and Resident Evil Requiem I’ll buy for PS5.

In the last sale I just treated myself to Dead Or Alive 3, Red Faction 2, Onimusha, Witcher 2 & 3…
God knows when I’m going to be playing them 🙈😂

@Gemini53 you got a good deal there, an external hard drive will come in handy. I found especially with gamepass I tend to download quite a bit to add to my backlog 😂

Thanks for these backwards compatibility articles, it’s giving me some great ideas to add my list. Looking to build up a good library of great games from previous generations 😬

@Banjo- Yeah I assume there won’t be any next gen Xbox games, it’ll be play anywhere titles so on the new box you’ll be playing the PC version but will also have access to a Series X/S version same way they’ve done cross gen bundles this gen.
I assume that want to also convert everything currently available in the Series store going back across the gens into Play Anywhere titles so you’ll get full access to your library on the new Xbox and to ensure backwards compatibility.

@Coletrain I have yet to try Luna, I was flicking through it just a couple of days ago and they’re getting a fair few decent games on it.

I’ve done cloud gaming on Xbox via the Amazon fire stick I have in my bedroom.
It’s been okay, though I mainly stick to Football Manager as it’s not a graphic or frame rate intensive game that will be affected by any dips in the WiFi connection.
Only just realised recently I can remote play to the fire stick and get much better results.

@Coletrain I agree the move away from console before the arrival of GTA 6 was a big error. It’s a massive system seller and now Xbox have basically stopped selling hardware I imagine GTA 6 will see an uptick in PS5 and most likely PS5 Pro sales.

Going all in on gamepass and the cloud seems good in theory, but society isn’t ready for it and I don’t know if it’s financially viable.
I thought Google Stadia was a good idea (not good enough for me to adopt though!) and it clearly didn’t take off and closed down.
Netflix has had to keep increasing prices as subscribers plateaus and is similar to game pass in they produce their own films to attract subscribers but its push up costs. All very similar to Xbox putting first party games day one on game pass without seeing an increase in subscribers.

Sounds like a great time to jump on and play it for the first time!

Damn I had enough for £5 and was working towards £10.
Decided might as well cash in the £5 in the next couple of days and just realised it’s going to cost my points than had I done it last week 🙄
Not the end of the world, but is never a good look when they change the rewards scheme.
I remember when Tesco you cash in your vouchers for 4x partner rewards, then 3x and now it’s just 2x…

@FraserG sweeet, thanks. I’m looking forward to adding it to the backlog 😄

I haven’t played any of the fables before, think I might jump on the bandwagon and join you guys before the 2026 comes out.
I have Series S, I’m guessing it’ll be 1080p, will I still get the fps boost to 60?

Like a few people have already mentioned the more I hear about the less I like the sound of the new “console”. Sounds like a PC which will be able to play BC titles. I have no interest in PC whatsoever so will just be easier for me to trade my Series S for an X and that will give me access to 4 gens of Xbox plus new games during the cross gen period and a PS6 and I’ll be sorted.

I hadn’t played a racing game properly in years. Started Forza Motorsport this year and have to say I’ve really enjoyed it. Haven’t played multiplayer just single but put about 50+ hours into it. Shame Microsoft have stopped supporting it so soon.
I treated myself to Forza Motorsport 7 for Christmas, got the code of Loaded so once I’m done with FM I’ll start FM7.
I am tempted with Gran Turismo though, looks really good. Will probably bite the bullet once I’m done with FM, FM7, FH4 and FH5!

@FrenchVaniIIuxe I was thinking about that as I read this article.
$300m lost on a successful game so how much will this one lose?
Don’t know what this means long term as putting COD on Game Pass as far as I know hasn’t led to an increase in subscribers and can’t essentially sustain subsidising for years to come.

@themightyant that’s what I was thinking, must be a number of people who have the lowest tier of game pass just to play online and so will lose those subscribers.

@Madnurz that’s exactly what happened to me. (Definitely agree about the name) I got to the checkout and as you said the price was higher so thought best to double check Shopto before pulling the trigger.

@Madnurz this is what I did a little earlier, extended it by six months so I’m covered til the end of next November.
It worked out a couple of quid per voucher compared to Loaded.

@TheOldHunter4K I usually get the vouchers from loaded too.
My game pass expires at the end of April.
I might just get another years of vouchers now.
Works out £145 cheaper than paying the new monthly fee for a year once my current subscription expires.

@Ricky-Spanish okay, I’ll play Old Country first and leave 3 until last.
Haven’t heard many good things about 3 but it’ll still be good to give it a go and make my own opinion.
I’m enjoying the story focused nature of the first two games so should enjoy Old Country at least even if I don’t like 3.

I’ll definitely get it, play Mafia definitive edition on game pass and really liked it so bought the trilogy when it was on sale for something like £8.99!
About 3/4 of the way through Mafia 2 at the moment and enjoying it. As Old Country is about £35 on CD Keys I’m tempted to play it before I start the third game.

I haven’t checked my PS5 recently, but I noticed my 1TB Series with 1TB expansion card has 25 games on it and just under 10%/ 165GB free I think.

@FraserG unfortunately you have to these days, once you’ve updated a small handful of games you’ve lost the same amount of storage as what the games themselves were originally taking up!
I assume it’s easiest to keep all the backwards compatible games on external hdd?

I’ve had my 1TB Series S and 1TB expansion card for a year and have about 22 games on it and 75 or 80% full I think.