Comments 161

Re: Talking Point: Are You Happy With Xbox Game Pass Ultimate In 2026?

GoldenPants

I'm at Ultimate with about 1.5yrs left. Mainly due to the $1 conversion of multiple stacked years of cheap old Gold tier then Rewards points conversions continually earning me more free months. Multiple places you can still get Ultimate at old pre 50% price increase (Costco in store & others online). So approx CAD$22/mo. When you consider current Rewards rate, nerfed but also easiest time wise it has ever been to earn, approx CAD$18/mo gift card earnings. So net cost of $4/mo. I think I will stack another 3-6 months, that should cover me to PC gaming on Helix.

I didn't have a gaming PC, but finally realized in 2024 PC gaming is the future. Have been collecting free Epic & Amazon games plus buying Steam game keys on key shops at massive discounts on super sales. Add another 2yrs of collecting PC Games while I have Ultimate & PC backlog will be absolutely enormous. Will then switch to PC gaming on Helix & tackle the backlog, can easily justify buying premium hardware due to everything that was saved on software through the years.

Re: With Xbox's 'Project Helix' Revealed, How Likely Is A 2027 Release Date?

GoldenPants

@sixrings Can't speak for anyone else, but for me, of course I would rather not have to deal with the memory/hardware price inflation, but at the same time I am super frugal in practically all areas of my life (no booze/smoking, rarely eat out, no pro sports, no concerts, cheap camping/fishing vacations, no gym memberships: workout at work gym & ride bike to work, etc), so for me the new Helix is reasonable for something I enjoy (of course can't be stupidly priced or I will just buy a gaming PC).

Plus I already spent so little on gaming, Helix is a reasonable reward. Up here in Canada there was this retail rewards program that was quite generous (got multiple digital cameras, budget laptops, tablets, headphones, etc over the years but sadly like everything else now enshittified & no more electronics) & I got my Series S for "free". Did the multiple years of cheap Game Pass Ultimate conversion for $1 hack. Then bought a used Series X at essentially 50% off & sold my Series S. Not to mention I have been collecting the weekly free PC games on Epic & Amazon Prime & buying games on steep discount, so I am amassing an absolutely massive PC gaming collection. By the time Helix comes out it will be time to focus on the PC gaming backlog, so my software costs will be negligible for many years.

Re: With Xbox's 'Project Helix' Revealed, How Likely Is A 2027 Release Date?

GoldenPants

@Krzzystuff I'll probably get it right away regardless of price. Hardware will no doubt be expensive, but the software gaming cost will be negligible. I already came to the realization in 2024 that the future was PC gaming, despite not having a gaming PC I started collecting all the free Epic & Amazon free games, while also adding PC Games on steep discounts, primarily through key shops. Still have another 1.5yrs of games pass ultimate, so I will be collecting all the free games & continue buying on deep sales. By the time Helix launches, my games backlog will be well over 500 games. My software gaming cost will be essentially zero for years as I take the backlog, so I think I can justify the cost of the hardware.

Re: Next Xbox Console: Everything We Know So Far About Microsoft's Next-Gen System

GoldenPants

The $1000 console not growing the market attributed to Phil, was taken out of context. He was talking about a Pro version that only provided incremental benefits. When you consider that the Helix/Magnus is not incremental, the $1000 comment is no longer applicable. When you also consider Phil made that statement before massive hardware price inflation it should be obvious Helix is a premium product that is going to be the most expensive Xbox by a long shot & it won't be less than $1000.

Re: Windows & Steam Support Will Make Project Helix 'The Most Open Xbox Ever', Says Report

GoldenPants

@Sheppard Magnus/Helix has to be running Windows 11 at its core, I can't imagine the Windows OS will be so crippled that you can't run any PC application or game, otherwise Magnus/Helix makes almost zero sense. Which then means you should be able to run Steam, Epic, GOG, stores/game launchers standalone. Now of course Microsoft would rather have all have stores/games appearing within their App, so I imagine at that point you do need some kind of agreement, but that already exists in the Microsoft PC App.

Re: Windows & Steam Support Will Make Project Helix 'The Most Open Xbox Ever', Says Report

GoldenPants

More choices for consumers is always good, but I feel like the Magnus/Helix gaming PC that also plays Xbox console games is going to have a very limited market share. It is going to be too much of a leap price wise for the Series S market, especially with RAMageddon & hardware prices not subsidized, which leaves about 10 million Series X potential upgrade market at the high end. While PS6 upgrade path will have potential 100 million from the PS5 market. This is inherently why Xbox can't effectively compete anymore, captive audience is too small, it's a vicious downward spiral.

Re: Xbox Head Doubles Down On The Importance Of Console, Says It's A 'Reference Experience'

GoldenPants

I find it hard to take the console is important news from the new boss seriously, next Xbox being a PC is they only thing that makes sense, but that also has its own problems... Namely Steam, GOG, Epic , etc. The Xbox console market is basically toast. The last I saw Xbox console sales were in 4th place behind a console I have never heard about before (Nex Playground) & being outsold approx 5 to 1 by PS5. Also keeping in mind that the new Steam Machine likely eats into Series S sales the most vs say PS5 sales. At current Xbox pricing (with little/no sales) vs cheaper PS5 pricing & sales, Xbox console pricing is just not competitive & Microsoft can't fix that... Small market share means, less volume to get economies of scale (hardware & software sales) & it is also software sales which subsidizes the hardware. It is a vicious downward spiral that keeps feeding back to make things worse.

Re: Xbox Head Doubles Down On The Importance Of Console, Says It's A 'Reference Experience'

GoldenPants

@Greenbasilisk If you have Twitter/X maybe reach out to the new boss (I'm to old school to do social media...)? Suggest bringing back the Movies & Tuesday sales. I don't have a huge Movies library, but I did take advantage of the Tuesday Movie sales. No more new content on Movies just added to the feeling that Xbox is winding down, especially knowing next Xbox is a PC, I'm only buying through Steam, GOG, Epic, or through key shops.

Re: Opinion: Xbox Should Consider Cancelling Halo: Campaign Evolved For PS5

GoldenPants

I can't believe this exclusives topic keeps coming up, it is obvious Microsoft can't do exclusives anymore. Let me explain the math in case you still don't get it. If you sell 1x of your first party games on Xbox, sure you get 100% revenue, but you have to remember that many are also on Game Pass so actual sales is likely less than 1x, but lets just go with that for ballpark discussions. Now current gen PS5 is approx 3x of Series gen (and gap is increasing, because why buy an xbox console now?), so if you sell on PS5 you potentially get 70% of 3x. So approx an additional 2.1x in revenue. So potential revenue goes from 1x to 3.1x if you also launch on PS5. People be serious, stop with this exclusives talk already. There is no way Microsoft leaves thus much money behind.

Re: 'Is Xbox Ending?' - The Official Answer Is No, But A Recent Interview Clearly Caused Panic

GoldenPants

Obviously Xbox is too big to just go to zero, but there are plenty of precedents where big corporations sell off or spin off big segments of their business when that segments is no longer core, has declining growth & profitability. Xbox is obviously in a death spiral that there is no reasonable way to pull out of... Xbox has much smaller installed hardware base than PlayStation, which means your captive audience/storefront & software revenue (first party & 30% of third party sales) continue to decline & the only logical choices continue the death spiral. No more exclusives, because it's the only way to adequately increase software sales & making your console a PC puts you up against Steam, GOG, Epic, key shops, etc. Hardware & Software revenue will continue to decline. It's hard to see how Microsoft does not eventually spin off or sell xbox.

Re: Poll: How Optimistic Are You Feeling About The Future Of Xbox?

GoldenPants

I am not optimistic due to xbox seriously lagging in console market share (and getting worse) & that is not likely to have a miraculous turn around, terrible economies of scale have essentially doomed the future. Also I get the feeling AI boss is very good at making it look like she is doing and saying the right things, which differs from reality. Doesn't anyone else feel AI boss gamerscore is unrealistically high? How in the world does she rack up 10,000 gamerscore in one month? If I racked up gamerscore at that place I'd probably have 500,000 gamerscore, but I only have like 27,000 & I game a lot. There was no year end review in 2025, but 2024 year end, said I was in top 1% in gamerscore, so it's not like I'm slacking off. And I've been at it since 2021.

Re: Xbox Boss Questioned On Whether Exclusives Could Return In The Future

GoldenPants

People need to stop with this exclusives talk already, don't you understand math?
1) Xbox Series user base is too small to get an adequate return on investment from exclusive sales. PS5 installed base is approx 3x more that Xbox Series X|S & the divide is growing. Recent black friday headlines were PS5 almost 5x the sales of Series X|S, which was in forth place in sales (PS5, Switch, Nex Playground, then Xbox)!
2) Exclusives won't get people to switch to Xbox, their investment into their existing libraries are too big to switch. As Phil previously said there is no world where Starfield is a 11/10 and people sell their PS5's for an Xbox. There is no amount of exclusives that will reverse the market share imbalance.
3) Xbox can't match Sony's hardware prices because software subsidizes hardware & Xbox cannot match software revenue on PS5 due to much bigger captive audience. As Phil also said, Sony takes 30% of Xbox games sales on PS5 & uses that to compete against Xbox, but you have to give that 30% to Sony, because Xbox would be cooked without getting 70% on the 3x larger PS5 user base.

All of the above continue to contribute to Xbox being cooked. It is a self reinforcing death spiral, where xbox is damned if they do and damned if they don't. Going PC is the only realistic answer, but Xbox essentially becomes a 3rd party publisher as Steam will dominate the lion share of gaming sales, with sales also going to GOG (those who believe in actually owning games that can't be turned off or delisted) or frugal gamers who collect free games on EPIC.

Re: Talking Point: You're The New Head Of Xbox, What Do You Do Now?

GoldenPants

I feel like so many of these suggestions just don't understand that Xbox is essentially already cooked, the math doesn't math anymore:
1) Exclusives: You can't go back to exclusives because your installed base is too small compared to the competition & the gap is widening. You will never get an adequate return on investment by only selling to your small captive audience & you're not going to get enough people to switch either. So your hand is already forced to not do exclusives.
2) Matching PS console prices. You can't do this because software subsidizes hardware & you can't match PS volume of software sales so you can't subsidize hardware to the same extent.
So 1 & 2 continue feeding the ever widening competitive gap, which really can't be addressed.
3) making next Xbox a PC is the only viable alternative, but you're also eventually cooked there, because of Steam. Most PC game sales will be through Steam, which means you lose 30% of your "console" first party sales & you also lose your cut of third party game sales.

I hope I'm wrong, but as far as I see it, Xbox is in a downward spiral that just can't be pulled out of.

Re: 'Return To Our Roots' - Xbox CEO Reiterates Her Goals For The Future

GoldenPants

The angle that new AI boss is here to sunset Xbox, is probably not far from the truth. You can't go back to exclusives because your installed base is too small & shrinking. If you go PC your sales are obviously mostly going to Steam, so you lose all third party "console" sales & the 30% cut you took on those, plus you can't get 100% of your first party sales either because Steam, Sony & Nintendo,et al, are taking their 30% cut of your sales. I don't think this ends well.

Re: Xbox's Sarah Bond Issues Statement On Her Departure From Microsoft

GoldenPants

I must be missing something, can someone please explain to me what Sarah accomplished from her statement?
-Did she make PC and cloud gaming great?
-Did she make a great next gen console (which is anyhow a PC)?
-Did she make Activision purchase great?

Seems to me like she really didn't do anything other than pumping up hardware and game pass prices so we get more for less & giving away exclusives to other platforms so that there is no real reason to own an xbox anymore.

Re: Microsoft Rewards Quietly Increases Its Prices For Xbox Gift Cards

GoldenPants

I am honestly shocked that Microsoft just does not just go Sony route and cancel rewards program.

Rewards has been so insanely good, it's obvious Microsoft has no idea what they are doing. To me Rewards is still insanely broken despite the ongoing Nerfs. Case in point, here in Canada you can still buy Game Pass Ultimate at pre 50% price increase from codes from Amazon & Costco & other online stores. So CAD$22.99 on Amazon a little cheaper on Costco. At GPU tier looks like I am earning 13,000 - 14,000 points/mo at new rewards conversion rate that is about $19 in gift card money. It is also easier than ever to earn points (no more search timeouts), just sitting on the toilet moving my bowels I did everything points related on my phone in under 5min (checkin, searches, news, daily sets, etc), then launched solitaire in the background on my laptop, watched youtube video while having breakfast, popped the play PC game, Game pass achievements. Now when I actually play a game on console for 15min, I pop the console requirement.

So effectively I can still get Game Pass Ultimate for net cost of $4/mo. Microsoft does not know what they are doing.

Re: Two Games Are Available Today With Xbox Game Pass (February 13)

GoldenPants

Kingdom Come Deliverance was given away for free on EPIC so I'm not going to playing that until later, which is basically when my Game Pass Ultimate runs out and PC XBox comes out & I'll trade my Xbox Series X for the new PC XBox. Then I'll be tackling my backlog with no subscription fees.

PSA: The future of XBox is PC so make sure you are collecting all the free PC games. For basically forever I did not own a PC/Laptop good enough for gaming, so it was not on my radar to accumulate the free games. In the last year and a half my PC games library (EPIC, GOG, Steam) has gone from basically zero to almost 500 at very minimal cost (Free games on EPIC & Amazon + deep discounted sales). Sure most the of the free games I probably won't play, but even at 10% of the free games that I would want to play, the backlog is becoming quite substantial. Once I am done accumulating free games for next almost 2yrs while I still have GPU I'll be ready for no monthly cost gaming on the new PC XBox.

Re: Microsoft Apparently 'Expects' The Xbox Series Era To Last, Despite Next-Gen Plans

GoldenPants

@Gabe250 In a way I agree, Xbox Series X|S sales are tanking so bad that keeping the generation going seems pointless, but at the same time since there is no true replacement, I guess that means by default Microsoft will keep this generation going with minimal marketing & development. The PC XBox is not a true replacement as it is supposedly a premium device that will likely cater to an even smaller subset of the existing console generation. People are delusional if they think PC XBox is going to be affordable like a console, it won't be subsidized (same issue as Steam Machine) & as a result it has to be priced like an equivalent PC.

Re: Talking Point: Will The Next Xbox Console Be Revealed In 2026?

GoldenPants

@OldGamer999 The sales figures are basically confirming what you are saying. Last I saw was xbox was less than 14% market share, in 4th place behind some obscure console I had never heard of... NEX Playground!

The next PCBox is the only thing that makes sense for Microsoft. However, of course only knowing actual pricing will determine if it actually makes sense or something else makes more sense PS5 Pro, PS6, Steam machine, PC...

Re: Three Games Are Available Today With Xbox Game Pass (January 21)

GoldenPants

I can't say I'm thrilled with the "MASSIVE addition from Kojima", I expect more when you charge 50% more for your game pass product. Death stranding feels like getting crumbs at this point, this game is so old it has been given away for free already twice on Epic games, it is also "free" to play on Amazon (many have Amazon Prime accounts & where I already played it) & if you wanted to buy it, you can basically own it anytime for like $15 (official store sales or PC game keys). Plus like others, I found the game to be boring.

Re: Talking Point: How Do You Feel About Xbox Game Pass In 2026?

GoldenPants

Game Pass Ultimate has been hands down unbelievable value for me, still have 1.5yrs stacked. Started with converting old Games with Gold tier to GPU for $1, then converting rewards points to more GPU. You can still buy discount codes that effectively negates recent 50% price hike. At list price that would be CAD$400 for a year of GPU. I hardly doubt I could get value out of that.

Re: Microsoft Rewards & Xbox: How To Make 10,000 Points Per-Month (2026 Edition)

GoldenPants

@themightyant What I was trying to point out is that when people say 10min/day = 60+hrs/yr & you could have made more money doing some other job (even minimum wage job), the fallacy in that argument is you could never have monetized that time. Sure I could pick up at least an extra 7 shifts at work in 60+hrs, but no one I know has a job that lets them pick up 60+ hours in a year a few minutes at a time.

However, if someone were to say they find collecting rewards points annoying so the reward is not worth it to them, sure I understand that.

Re: Microsoft Rewards & Xbox: How To Make 10,000 Points Per-Month (2026 Edition)

GoldenPants

@Netret0120 YMMV, but I can get all daily points done in 10 minutes/day. I definitely have some inefficient downtime/gaps in my day that I can use for that & can't monetize. No one is going to pay me for a 10 minute job randomly scattered throughout my day, so there is no opportunity loss.

The main hassle for me is the search timeout on PC, not exactly sure what it is set to (6 seconds?), but for sure 10 seconds per search does it for me. 90 PC points/3 pts per search * 10 seconds = 5 minutes. Everything else is click through without timeouts, even mobile search. So everything is done in less than 10 minutes.

Now that you don't actually have to play a game to earn an achievement the "playing" a Game Pass game is also easier than ever. I just launch solitaire on my PC while doing something else & if I don't actually play a console game, I similarly just launch a console game. So even the play a game pass game for 15 minutes takes actually less than a minute of my time to just launch the game.

@themightyant Also doing the math on electricity cost... electricity use on Xbox Series X is probably using about 150Watts/hr or less as the game is basically idle. 15min of energy use = 37.5Watts. For me electricity is tiered on time of day, but say CAD$0.15/KW, so electricity cost is less than 6cents/day. Add in electricity use for my phone (mobile searches/activities) & Laptop electricity and I am still at only 10 cents/day. So 10cents in electricity use vs earning at least 50cents in rewards points, still makes sense for me.

Also at least for me, for where I live the 10 cents in electricity use is not "wasted", it has dual use, as essentially all electricity use ends up as heat and except for like 3 months of the year, the extra heat in the house is welcome heat.

Re: Talking Point: How Much Would You Be Willing To Spend On The Next Xbox Console?

GoldenPants

Nextbox is a powerful PC & will be priced like one. Anyone, thinking it will be less than $1000 is dreaming. Pricing has to be in line with an RTX 5080 PC (supposedly what it is equivalent to) or PC gamers will just scoop them all up & we will have to deal with pandemic scalping situation all over again. PC gamers won't care that console gamers are crying over the price.

Have you priced out an RTX 5080 PC lately? Even an RTX 5070 PC under $1000 with the amount of memory the nextBox "Magnus" will have is dreaming. I highly doubt AI bubble will burst in the next two years. Plus we haven't even seen the effect of Nvidia reducing GPU production yet. Pricing will get worse.

Either be prepared to pay up $1500+ or enjoy your current setup/backlog.

Re: Xbox & Microsoft Dominate The List Of 'Most Covered' Gaming Companies In 2025

GoldenPants

We should also consider that number of articles is not a good metric of "Most Covered" (whatever that is supposed to mean).

Just from a week ago... search for full details... "Digital Foundry’s Alex Battaglia revealed that their Xbox-related videos failed to attract a substantial audience. Any Xbox-related content they posted in 2025 got very few views, even for AAA titles."

I mean, I could write a ton of articles on my first PC the Commodore Vic 20, but if the user base has shrunk so much & there are no eye balls on the articles, it is kind of meaningless.

No matter how people want to spin the positives, Xbox is seriously bleeding... console sales crashing, console price hikes, Game Pass price hikes, needing to put "exclusives" on other platforms...

Although I must say, if you knew how to "game" the Xbox system, it has been truly great: $1 Gold to Game Pass Ultimate conversion, Rewards points conversion to GPU

Re: Battlefield 6 Players Think They've Spotted Evidence Of AI-Generated Cosmetics

GoldenPants

I really don't see what the issue is with using AI. It is a new tool that should be used appropriately (review the output so you don't get 6 fingers and what not...). Sure if you are losing your job or getting less work, you won't like it, but why do things the slow/inefficient/expensive way? If you have a new tool use it. Like unless you are Amish, tell me you want to plow a field with a team of horses or oxen instead of using a tractor??? When I started my undergrad engineering, we were taught to do drafting by hand. Learning that skill aged badly with CAD. Should I get up in arms and complain of loss of engineering jobs because of CAD? Sheet happens, people need to adapt. We can't just say lets do everything by hand to preserve jobs. I also have a slide ruler, anyone want to borrow it to do some math by hand? And no I don't know how to use it, I bought it at a garage sale out of curiosity/novelty. I'm not that old!

I bought a condo, closing this week. 39pages of legal jibberish. I've been e-mailing back and for with questions to my lawyer. Answers typically take a few hours or next day to get answers, let me review I'll get back to you... I decided to upload to ChatGPT. It basically read the whole thing instantly and gives me immediate answers, both more detailed & summarized than my lawyer gave me. Now tell me. Should I use AI or should I stick with the more inefficient/expensive way and be part of the lets preserve lawyer jobs?

Re: Talking Point: What Games Are You Playing Over Christmas Break?

GoldenPants

Primary couch co-op games the family can play together...
TMNJ: Shredders Revenge, Marvel Cosmic invasion, Brotato, Vampire Survivors, Rayman's Legends, Overcooked 2
For The King (maybe... game takes too long for run through)

Will also try out some games on PC:
Sackboy: A big Adventure
The Jackbox Party Pack (free from EPIC a couple weeks ago)
Amazon prime gaming/Luna also has some GamesNight couch co-op games (phones as controllers) that we'll give a try: Who wants to be a millionaire, Tetris...

Anyone, got any other good recommendations out there for quick couch co-op to play as a family?

Re: 'Xbox Wrapped' Ditched For 2025 Due To Ambitious 2026 Plans, Suggests Report

GoldenPants

No year end review is absolutely insane!!! What happened did they not save the code from last year? Get an intern to change the year of your query from 2024 to 2025... better yet ask AI agent to make the year change.

I realize there is also some electricity cost & I am sure some where in Microsoft data centers there are a few spare cycles to run the job... But, what the heck, not in the budget?!

Re: Microsoft Rewards Is Allowing You To 'Double Your Points' Until Early December

GoldenPants

My account is already flagged for unusual searches. Doubling searches would likely get me fully blocked, so nah, I'm not taking advantage of this offer... err I mean punishment.

For example, I can't earn any extra points for the Refer and Earn promotion as my account is already flagged for unusual searches... I just do one starting search & then search whatever Microsoft next puts in the Bing search drop down. So if I have unusual searches it's all Microsoft's fault.

Re: Poll: How Important Is The Xbox Play Anywhere Program To You?

GoldenPants

@NeoRatt I'll say similar... Although I don't travel much, except to go fishing/camping & I am not gaming then... Being able to play on PC is all about future proofing my purchase. I play on Series X|S, ROG Ally & PC. Plus the writing is on the wall for xbox. I have GPU stacked for another 1.5yrs. That largely takes me to next gen console/PCbox. So content I buy now must take the future into account, it better be playable on PC since I doubt next gen Microsoft console/PCbox is going to be subsidized, it will not be cheap. I might just end up on a gaming PC for next gen.