Grumblevolcano

"discs (and note I said discs) don't really make sense for the consumer" makes it sound like soft confirming that GTA6 is coming to Switch 2 and there'll be a cart release.

I don't think remakes of Halo 1 and Gears of War 1 were the right path for the franchises' debut on PS. It's not identical but it reminds me of when Square Enix remastered Crisis Core in 2022 for all platforms while keeping the FFVII Remake games PS exclusive.

I think porting over MCC for Halo and creating a Marcus Fenix collection for Gears would've been much more effective.

Games With Gold was a really nice bonus to Xbox Live Gold and I think Xbox should've stuck with that model instead of creating Game Pass.

It's off topic but Currys has the new UK Xbox prices listed:

• 512GB Series S - £429
• 1TB Series S - £519
• 1TB Digital Series X - £619
• 1TB Disc Series X - £669

@Fiendish-Beaver I think their plan is heavily relying on the 30% cut from GTA6 purchases on Xbox consoles and that theoretically MW4 would be able to massively outsell Black Ops 7.

I think this outage is caused by the rumoured disc to digital program. It's very fishy that the outage says you can't even play physical games:

"You may have problems playing disc-based games right now."

https://support.xbox.com/en-gb/xbox-live-status

So what I think is happening is Don Mattrick's 2013 vision of XB1 has returned.

@Fiendish-Beaver @MinervaX76 We already know E-Day's multiplayer is going to be heavily monetized by looking at the Premium Edition preorder contents. The extras are cosmetic packs (including 1 each for seasons 1-5) and 1000 iron.

I see Helix being exclusive to Microsoft Store and PS6 being exclusive to Playstation Direct rather than being purchasable at normal retailers, especially with both Microsoft and Sony wanting physical completely dead. This along with the likely insane price resulting in both devices being super niche.

@Fiendish-Beaver I think the main things in favour of a delay are that there's not yet any sign of trailer 3 and that the August Take Two earnings call is on a Friday. They could maybe even announce the long rumoured RDR2 Switch 2/PS5/Series X|S version to soften the blow.

@Millionski @Fiendish-Beaver Planning a release schedule around Rockstar constantly delaying GTA6 is tricky. Back when it was announced Halo, Gears, Forza and Fable was coming in 2026, GTA6 had only recently been delayed to May 2026.

To be honest, with no sign of trailer 3 I'm not exactly convinced GTA6 is actually releasing in November 2026. Could see a delay to Spring 2027 which then delays Fable to Fall 2027.

At the time the ports were greenlit, all 1st party games day 1 on Game Pass was likely still a mandatory requirement. As they massively price hiked Game Pass in October 2025 because of Black Ops 7 being a day 1 release, I think it's a relatively safe guess that they skipped doing Xbox ports of Black Ops 1 and 2 disconnected from backwards compatibility to avoid the day 1 on Game Pass requirement causing more damage.

Really horrific the damage that Xbox is doing, absolutely unacceptable that they continue to do lots of mass layoffs and closures every single year. Looks like Asha Sharma was brought in to kill off Xbox.

@Optimumjay Judging by the PS store listing, you can't even play the game offline at all. It's a huge shame that Stop Killing Games were unable to convince the EU to stand up for consumers, this always online nonsense could've been stopped.

@Fiendish-Beaver I think Campaign Evolved hints that there's a multiplayer live service Halo game inbound soon. It's what Activision did with MW2 (2009), remaster only came with the campaign because they wanted you to play the new microtransaction ridden multiplayer entry (Warzone).

I wonder if the strategy for Helix to be more affordable is to ditch alternate PC stores. Having Steam on Helix would lose Xbox a lot of money because Steam is the more consumer friendly platform.

I think they're trying to show to the Xbox playerbase that exclusives don't work for Xbox. If Xbox platform growth doesn't increase with Gears and Clockwork, they have all the evidence they need.

@BacklogBrad My guess is that the day 1 multiplatform for everything strategy isn't ready yet so they're giving the illusion of return of exclusives so that the initial sales of the last remnants of timed exclusives (e.g. FH6) aren't hurt as much by the transition away from exclusives.

@Fiendish-Beaver Good news for your theory, the Switch 2 eshop shows Minecraft Dungeons 2 releasing September 29th which means E-Day could be late August like you predicted.

@LostInBlue0 As time moves on, things change which affects the licensing side of things. Sometimes the changes makes licensing easier and sometimes it makes it harder. For example in the case of easier, I'd guess that the Activision Wolfenstein games are more likely now than in 2021.

I also think they will start with Gears but because it gives clear communication about multiplatform. As one of the few upcoming Xbox 1st party games (and only one of 2026) that hasn't already been announced for PS5, what's shown at the end of the trailer tells people clearly what the multiplatform strategy is. I think it'll be day 1 on PS5.

As for the general showcase, I think they'll provide updates on the already announced stuff and maybe reveal some remasters like Fallout 3 or 360 era CoD.

Not sure about 3rd party presence considering there's 3 other events happening in close proximity. Like Remake Part 3 is very likely Summer Game Fest but maybe Xbox showcase and Nintendo Direct also has that game.

@TrollOfWar The Xbox showcase by default has transparency issues with regards to platform logos because Nintendo likes to save 3rd party announcements from other events for their own events.

Like for example if DOOM The Dark Ages is coming to Switch 2, you'd likely see a situation where a DLC segment in the Xbox showcase only has "Xbox on PC/Series X|S/Steam/PS5" and then a Nintendo Direct later in the month reveals the game and DLC coming to Switch 2.

So not much really changes whatever Xbox does with platform logos in events. If the PS5/Switch 2 logos stay, cool but Nintendo players are still going to have to wait for a Direct to get news. If the PS5/Switch 2 logos go away, maybe you have SoP appearing after the Xbox showcase instead of before with a sizzle reel announcing Xbox showcase content.

@Fiendish-Beaver The podcast said Minecraft Dungeons 2 was releasing between Halo and Gears so I'm leaning towards August being Minecraft Dungeons 2 and early September being Gears of War E-Day (the same slot Gears 5 took back in 2019).

@Millionski Back in 2024, Microsoft kept vague release windows for Indiana Jones and Avowed until August when the December release and delay to February happened respectively. I could see them doing the same for Fable, keep the Fall 2026 release window until August and then delay to February 2027 if GTA6 isn't delayed again.

@Fiendish-Beaver They could add always online DRM to last gen and current gen Xbox consoles then allowing you to do the license transfer on those with a disc drive in preparation for Helix. The PS4/PS5 situation earlier in the year shows that the way DRM works can be changed via system update.

Of course this horrible outcome would cause massive backlash but I don't think Microsoft would care this time.

@Fiendish-Beaver It sounds a lot like Don Mattrick's vision of XB1. Not exactly the same but there was the setup of that each physical game had the license tied to one account and was enforced via the always online DRM.

That kind of setup would be able to enforce that 1 physical disc translates to only online 1 digital code.

@ILuvGames I was looking more at the PS5 side of things. If E-Day is day 1 on PS5 you have E-Day, FH6, Fable and CoD 2026 to fit into like 1-2 months as I really doubt Microsoft would want to release any 1st party games in November/December because of GTA6.

We saw how releasing Age of Mythology, Oblivion, Indiana Jones, FH5, Age of Empires 2 and DOOM The Dark Ages in a very short space of time made game sales of most of those games suffer a lot. So to get the best sales I think they'd delay Fable to 2027.

I think late August/early September makes the most sense for Gears but which happens depends on Fable. Releasing Fable in October is sending the game out to die so if Gears is September then it feels like confirmation that Fable is 2027.

They returned to Hot Wheels after the Forza Horizon with Hot Wheels (FH3) was delisted in 2020 so considering FH4 was delisted in 2024, it makes sense that FH6 would return to Lego.

@Shinato2024 Maybe FH6 revisits FH4 in some way like a new Lego expansion and the cover car appears there?

I think it's way too early to say, Xbox's worst news during a specific year mostly took place during the time window of May - July (close to Microsoft's end of fiscal year in June).

@ElectricWizard You can only skip the full screen notification by being put into offline mode though.

They should prevent the console from auto-updating while you're playing games then. Imagine playing online games and every 2 weeks you're forced out of a multiplayer match to download an Xbox console update resulting in being banned from the online game for "quitting".

@Fiendish-Beaver I think Xbox sticking with multiplatform needs them to commit to bringing the classics to other platforms rather than just bringing newer games day 1. Imagine trying to get into the Gears of War franchise when faced with the current situation:

• Available on PS5 - Gears of War, probably Gears of War E-Day day 1
• Xbox/PC only - Gears of War 4, Gears 5, Gears Tactics
• Xbox console only - Gears of War 2, Gears of War 3, Gears of War Judgment

It's a mess and while E-Day is a prequel, I could see this setup result in softer E-Day sales on PS5/PC even if it releases same day as Xbox version.

I think the best tactic would be to bring back Xbox Live but a slight adjustment (in this scenario Xbox Live Bronze would be the free accounts):

• Xbox Live Silver - $20 a year (2 retro games a month)
• Xbox Live Gold - $60 a year (2 retro games + 2 newer games a month)

Scrap the concept of Game Pass completely and it would fit perfectly into the motto of "return of Xbox".

Even though Ultimate is way too expensive with its annual price hikes, I do wonder if this comment is more about the entry point than trying to make Ultimate cheaper. Game Pass and PS+ don't have an equivalent to base NSO, in fact the "Essential" tiers of GP/PS+ are double the price of the most expensive NSO tier.

@ILuvGames Doesn't make sense to officially announce a delay prior to Rockstar providing an update on GTA6 because if Rockstar chose to delay to 2027 then you've put yourself in a worse position. If a Fable delay is being considered, you'd make that announcement at some point during the summer once the GTA6 situation is more clear.

@BIG3 Unless GTA Online 2 is FTP, you'd need Game Pass on Xbox to play the online.

@Fiendish-Beaver Your streak continues to be spot on, there's now rumours of Fable being delayed because of GTA6.

The timing is weird unless the proper reveal is soon like if in the next few months we saw the equivalent to the December 2019 Series X reveal/May 2013 XB1 reveal.

A lot of that showcase was very far away:

• State of Decay 3 - TBA
• Forza Motorsport - October 2023
• Everwild - Cancelled
• Avowed - February 2025
• Hellblade 2 - May 2024
• Fable - Fall 2026

Wouldn't this be preparation for the Xbox mode coming to PC this month?

@darylb24 There's also the PS5 version of FH6 to fit in there, we know that's releasing later this year.

@Elbow I doubt Xbox minds whether some features are exclusive to keyboard + mouse considering their heavy push into the PC space with Helix.

@Questionable_Duck My guess would be Sony doesn't allow games to be released on PS if they can't be fully played with a normal controller. The Switch 2 remaster has mouse mode exclusive minigames.

I have a bad feeling this is about the Muse AI thing revealed in February 2025.

https://www.purexbox.com/news/2025/02/xbox-is-exploring-ai-to-make-its-older-games-playable-on-modern-hardware

@themightyant The sudden pivots from both companies so close together makes me think it's possible GTA6 comes day 1 to Steam. If such a thing happened it would hurt both Sony and Microsoft as you have the option to skip both PS and Xbox completely meaning reduced console sales (though less important for Xbox as they already abandoned selling Series X|S), reduced subscription numbers and loss of the 30% cut.

In Microsoft's case, I wonder if their pivot is about backtracking support for alternate PC stores. For example, @Fiendish-Beaver has already talked plenty about how Steam on Xbox makes no sense financially.

@Fiendish-Beaver @Millionski I think the lesson to learn would be not to cram everything into a small timeframe. Look at the list of Xbox games brought to PS5 during March - May 2025 for example:

• March 4th - Age of Mythology
• April 17th - Indiana Jones
• April 22nd - Oblivion
• April 29th - Forza Horizon 5
• May 6th - Age of Empires 2
• May 15th - DOOM The Dark Ages

Some games are naturally going to be overshadowed when you release them so close together.

@Fiendish-Beaver As long as Satya Nadella is obsessed with AI and Amy Hood wants obscenely high profit margins, I don’t think there’s any saving Xbox as a whole.

I saw on the Xbox subreddit that lots of people are getting repeated spam notifications from Xbox which is connected to an AI thing called “braze”.

@Fiendish-Beaver If they went back to exclusives, I don’t think people would actually believe they’re exclusive and just wait for a multiplatform port instead.

So like @Cakefish says, I think the more effective tactic if they wanted to push consoles would be to get rid of the online paywall and aggressively price consoles instead.