IOI

@Questionable_Duck If you want to believe that I respect it but don’t be too disappointed if a Sony game you want never gets announced for Xbox, I do think that live-services may be the exception to the rule since Sony has lost billions into that failed strategy and those games depend on player counts, releasing on all platforms is the best move specially for those games’ communities but Sony can be incredibly petty (just look how they attempted to force PSN into it or restricting all PS games in several regions at Steam where no PSN is available) in any case for now Helldivers 2 on Xbox is great news for everyone.

No, and as a journalist it’s irresponsible to set that expectation, this was a very particular situation, Arrowhead is not owned by Sony and their team pushed to be on Xbox and every platform since the beginning, Sony caved because it’s the only successful live-service game they have amidst failures and cancellations and they can use a boost since player count continues to drop.

Just like another particular situation when MLB released on Xbox, it didn’t result in God of War or TLOU coming to Xbox which was theorized back then and today’s news don’t take us a step closer to that at all. I understand fans need to cope after yesterday’s news, but if you expect more Sony games to come over you’re going to be disappointed.

@Balaam_ Lmao 2 of them have already said exactly that

It’s honestly great news, but it isn’t what people think it is, Arrowhead, the developer that isn’t owned by Sony pushed for the game to launch everywhere since the very beginning and it seems Sony finally caved and decided it’s worth seeking as much audience as possible for their only successful live-service game as player count continues to drop and amidst their other failures with live-services, point is don’t expect to see God of War or Spider-Man on Xbox anytime soon or ever.

@BAMozzy I’d buy into the narrative that layoffs are because of corporate overlap if these were the first time it happened, it’s the third mass layoffs since they acquired Activision-Blizzard, and the sixth since ZeniMax.

Not to mention the closure of Tango, Arkane Austin, a new studio at Blizzard and today’s news, the countless IPs they bought are worthless if they don’t nurture them, how can you excuse studio closures and talented industry veterans leaving as overlap in publishing or other corporate structure?

No point defending and excusing this BS with hollow arguments.

Lmao sorry but it’s so funny to read “they have got to run a business” when Microsoft spent nearly 100 billion dollars in game studios and every single quarter they beat their own record with billions of dollars in profit, and yes every corporation in the world has layoffs but the fourth time in less than 2 years? It’s just ridiculous at this rate.

Multi platform pivot was supposed to let Microsoft Gaming thrive as a publisher, but by shutting down studios, forcing talent to leave and the ones who stay facing mass layoffs every 6 months is so stupid, shortsighted and frustrating. They’re in such a rush to burn down the brand even faster than Windows Phone.

@NishimuraX The latest one is “they gotta run a business” as if MS didn’t spent billions acquiring all those studios and they were reporting losses each quarter…

@Kaloudz You’re again spinning your argument that it makes sense closing studios and canceling games because those studios make no money, avoiding answering why did MS spent billions to buy them in the first place (or showing vaporware gameplay), you say you still feel good about the future and let me ask you, after the last couple of years what will it take for it to be otherwise? Cancelling Clockwork Revolution? Closing Turn 10? (Laid off half the staff today btw) Cancelling first-party hardware? Closing Ninja Theory, Double Fine, Compulsion and half the Xbox Game Studios that make no money? Because I honestly see all those as a real possibility.

I truly respect your opinion and your trust in Microsoft’s decisions but blind positivity can be very toxic for yourself, don’t spend your time and money spinning trying to make sense on this bs.

This MF should’ve lost his job a loooong time ago instead of the thousands of people they spent billions into hiring by “spending Sony out of business” per his leaked emails.

@Kaloudz You’re trying to make it seem that it isn’t so bad because it was expected as layoffs were rumored since last week but respectfully you’re fooling yourself, many studios indeed have been mismanaged but whose fault is that? It’s clear now with so many studios that it’s Microsoft’s.

Now if they’re not in the business to break even why did they buy studios like Ninja Theory or Double Fine? I love their games but I really doubt ‘Keeper’ is going to even break even and I now fear for the future of the studio.
Also, all this recent multi platform pivot stemmed from the idea that studios needed more revenue, but now it seems they won’t even give them a chance?

It’s pivot after pivot after pivot, everything just highlights that there’s no strategy or even a long term vision for Xbox and more importantly for all the studios and the talent they spent billions into buying and now they’ve now just laid off, studios don’t work without talent, for me the big red flag that made me distrust Microsoft/Xbox was the closure of Tango, it was so insulting having the first great Xbox game in years only to strip away the exclusivity to “foster the IP” and then close the studio, and today they’ve done it again, showing solid but vaporware “gameplay” of a game 12 months ago only to cancel it, reminds me of Scalebound but worse since this was a first-party studio and will no longer exist.

@Kaloudz You don’t have to excuse them for everything, I see you’ve been trying to put a positive spin to today’s news but this has been yet another brutal day for Xbox.

I honestly feel way past the point of trying to excuse them or even finding legitimate reasons for their actions, yes games are expensive to make but Microsoft is quite literally the wealthiest company on earth, plus the “gameplay” they showed just last year wasn’t even real, everything around Microsoft/Xbox these days are deceptions, broken promises and disappointment after disappointment.

I swear Microsoft is so pathetic, the only studio they didn’t buy ended up being closed before shipping one game, plus that means the demo we saw on last year’s showcase was nothing more than vaporware.

They really did buy half the industry just to lay it off, and I know layoffs happen everywhere but it’s the fourth time in a couple of years that Microsoft does this and particularly with MS Gaming/Xbox.

@themightyant But why do Xbox owners had to wait until the game was ported to PS5 to get this enhancements? That’s the main issue for me and it’s not the first time it’s happened, I understand every game will be more polished after time but I’m sure they could’ve delivered this patch months or weeks after the game launched, not after 15 months only to line it up with the PS5 port.

I know it’s ‘normal’ now to have Xbox games releasing on PS5, but do they really need to treat every PS5 port as the definitive version? It makes it feel like people who bought it on Xbox or played through Game Pass were little more than beta testers…

Every single time Xbox seems to be getting some sort of momentum they squash it with some terrible demoralizing moves…

This is my fear tbh, what’s the purpose of Microsoft building a console if they won’t care to distribute it outside the US…

The more times they come out and say they’ll still be doing first-party hardware I honestly believe it less and less.

However, giving them the benefit of doubt, if they actually pull it off having a PC/console hybrid with Steam, Game Pass and all of my legacy Xbox library I’d definitely look into buying it day one, that is if Microsoft cares enough to distribute it globally and not only the US as the Series X|S is right now.

In my opinion this device will only damage the brand further as it’s already creating confusion, Microsoft has been talking about “taking our Xbox library on the go” but that’s incredibly disingenuous since our Xbox library isn’t compatible with this device except for some few Play Anywhere titles (not even 10% of my own library).
People will be quick to point out that for $900 you can basically get a Switch 2 plus a PS5 or Series X and still have some money left.

They’re not being clear since they’re trying to market this as a console instead of a PC, and it’ll only get worse once people spend $600 or $900 for the device only to find out their games aren’t there, this should’ve existed once MS figured out how to bring console games to PC, not before.

Good news is you don’t need to wait, play them right now on a Rog Ally X with 95% the same experience.

Microsoft is setting this game to fail with that price tag, no one that has played the first game ever thought “you know this actually is an $80 dollar franchise”, if they’re going to do this with every AAA then we’re going to have lots of studio closures in a few years or months.

@NeoRatt You got many specs wrong for the current Rog Ally X and it all feels like comparing the iPhone 15 to the 16, virtually the same devices with some tweaks, not a generation apart from each other at all lmao

The point still stands, if you want to wait 6 months to spend $800 on that thing to not be able to play your owned consoles games as any other current PC handhelds then go ahead.

@NeoRatt Lmao that Xbox UI is literally just Windows 11 in a different coat of paint and they already said all handheld PCs with Windows 11 will eventually get that same UI, and aside from some design tweaks it’s the exact same device that has been sold for 2 years or a year for the Ally X, you could’ve played all your Sony Steam titles there but it’s now news because it has an Xbox logo?

This is unacceptable, why even bother at this point, we rapidly devolved from full games on disc to 80mb on disc to now the very worst option, selling a code in a box.

If you need it so bad, just get the normal Rog Ally X right now as it’s exactly the same thing as the Xbox branded one, if you’re waiting for the Xbox UI for Windows 11 they already said it’ll be released for all PC handhelds with W11.

That is until games are delayed to 2027 lol

It was an ok showcase but definitely not as good as previous years, we shouldn’t excuse it for tomorrow’s promises.

It wasn’t bad but certainly not as good as in previous years.

It has got to be the most overhyped and overrated game I’ve played in a long while, it’s impressive at first but the game really is just a non-stop boss rush that aside from getting frustrating it gets pretty repetitive, left it around 6 hours and debating to resell my physical copy tbh.

Nothing at Xbox makes sense anymore.
I hope we can get PCs running steamOS in a near future so it can fill the void of Xbox consoles.

@Medic_alert My thoughts exactly, I was very hyped for this game and sadly I keep getting bored every time I play it, some bits are amazing (the dragon) but the pacing feels very slow for a DOOM game, I finished both 2016 and Eternal in around 5 days and I still haven’t even got to half of The Dark Ages.

Once again, Xbox is so f***ing dead.

I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if one of these days another article comes up saying they’ve stopped or “sidelined” all development of future hardware, the way Microsoft is doing things Game Pass itself might get sidelined in favor of selling more copies on PlayStation and PC.

The death of Xbox consoles is now set in stone, on the upside is seems MS gaming is thriving as a publisher.

@HonestHick LMFAO. Perfect example on why prices should only increase for you guys in the US, YOU want this, YOU voted for this, YOU think manufacturing of millions of consumer goods and supply chains can be switched overnight, YOU are under the illusion paying more for imports will somehow replace your income tax (spoiler: it won’t), YOU are “happy for it”, so YOU should be the only one paying more instead of screwing the rest of the world.

It’s so unfair for everyone outside the US, if prices need to increase there because of tariffs then just increase it there, in the end 50% of their population voted exactly for that, why tf does everyone else globally has to pay more to offset their poor decisions?

Does anyone doubt a substantial price hike for Game Pass is coming?

Also, I find it sooo gaslighting that just yesterday they’re were boasting about great numbers and MS Gaming having its best quarter ever, just to kick fans in the balls, again, less than 24 hours later.

What a big load of BS, I could understand the console raising prices, but it should only affect the US since the tariffs are a US problem but we’ve seen every company raising prices everywhere else to offset the increase there, it sucks.
Pricing themselves above the PS5 while becoming multiplatform is yet another death sentence for Xbox consoles, even the PS5 Pro is now cheaper than the most expensive Xbox!

What I find unjustifiable is $80 dollars Xbox games, they literally saw Nintendo doing it with Mario Kart and said why not us with Call of Duty…

@NattyKing That has been the way for a long time now, they don’t disclose most things, I’m saying it’s great in the context of last quarter where everything was down, and if Microsoft says gaming was a “business highlight” means numbers are good.

Great numbers tbh, Game Pass is having its best months EVER so expectedly many people are signing up, hardware isn’t down as much as they were expecting so I hope they realize there’s still many people interested in their platform.

@Coletrain If that even happens, which I still doubt it as we’ve seen nothing but rumors, you can be damn sure that Sony is going to do what it takes to block their games from the Xbox PC device, wouldn’t be surprised if they come up with their own launcher and even delist existing games off Steam, Sony is THAT petty.

Very cheap and fair but it’s just some skins plus digital artwork and soundtrack.

Game Pass is just on fire, already downloading the 123 GB of it but really wondering if I’ll be able to finish it before Doom comes out.

@Fiendish-Beaver Agreed, I’m excited for E-Day but the ending for Gears 5 now feels distasteful, it ends in the biggest cliffhanger of the franchise after a decision that no one knows which is canon and a follow-up might never happen and if it does it will be in the 2030s at least 5 years after E-Day releases, just wild.

And what’s more sad is that it’s not the only F-you we Xbox fans have gotten in the last few years and it’s certainly not going to be the last.

As long as they don’t close the studio after releasing a new IP, sure go for it.

@dskatter Yeah, what I mean is that even an obvious disaster like Concord also had some propagandists claiming in the first impressions that the game was ‘actually something special’ (I recall someone specifically saying these words lol), so these “impressions” are nothing to go by, I don’t think it’s gonna be another big disaster like that but personally it doesn’t appeal to me in the slightest

@K1LLEGAL Bungie is not part of Sony Interactive Entertainment, at least not yet, and besides, do you really think if this game does well Sony is suddenly going to port God of War and Spider-Man to Xbox?

Spoiler: Not gonna happen.

Lmao gaming media really has no shame with their PlayStation bias, just a refresher, the first impressions of Concord were very, very similar to these, needless to say how it turned out.

@Kaloudz Last time they did increase it a few months after Sony in the same territories by the same amount, but I don’t think they will this time.

Nah, they’re not even distributing them.

If you ever want to see how cope looks like just take a look at Push Square, absolutely nothing in this game looks appealing to me but they’re convinced Bungie is going to come through when Bungie’s last good game was Halo Reach and it was a completely different team, not a single person remains of the Bungie that made Halo and I’ve never been a fan of Destiny and specifically their monetization model.