IOI

Once Halo releases on any console other than Xbox, the brand is absolutely, utterly and irreversibly dead, shouldn’t even bother with another console tbh.

I don’t think selling nostalgia themed consoles and controllers is remotely a priority for Xbox right now…

This might be worth doing if you’re really engaged with Xbox/PC and Game Pass, but I’m out, now they feel like such a chore to do I’m not even going to bother, and I had been doing quests since the Rewards app back in the Xbone generation where you could actually gets lots of points.

It’s still something but now it’s clearly designed to boost their metrics as it’ll only rewards you almost the same points if you play continuously all 7 days a week, don’t miss a single streak and spend hours trying different Game Pass games, that way you appear as such an engaged customer even if you only played the required 15 minutes, in a few months or years I can totally see them using this argument “yes there’s less sold consoles and less active users on our platforms but user engagement is very high so it’s all fine”.

It’s so disappointing that right now the current consoles feel abandoned and an afterthought for Microsoft, there’s lots of things to fix in the Xbox OS since the Xbox One generation (captures for instance) and they promised several times to overhaul it but didn’t.

Their focus currently really is the PC and competing consoles, of all the “Xbox devices” the console feels the more neglected, and they think we are going to buy their handheld in droves? Lol for me the Series X is the last device I ever buy from Microsoft, the prospect of a Steam home console or PCs with SteamOS would make me jump ship real fast.

It’s sad that the 24 year journey is coming to an end, and what ended up killing Xbox was none other than Microsoft Gaming.

@Foxx_64740 It wasn’t Microsoft first attempt at mobile, in fact before Google and Apple came into play Microsoft had a grip on smartphones with Windows Mobile for years, nearly a decade, once the iPhone was revealed Microsoft’s CEO infamously laughed it off and they took years to catch up, coming up very close with Windows Phone 7/8 but completely fumbling it a few years later as they lost most third-party apps support, spent billions buying Nokia, and shortly after they wanted to recoup that investment ASAP and released Office in iOS and Android, effectively killing the only advantage WP still had over those platforms and obviously WP dwindled until it became irrelevant and died.

The similarities are remarkable and with Microsoft the writing is on the wall, if you don’t want to see it that’s another story.

This generation is just sad and I can confidently say now way worse than Xbox One, because back then we still had the promise of better things to come, still had some exclusives (tho very far in between) and less third-party games skip Xbox, whereas nowadays the talk with every Xbox game is when will it come to PS5, many developers choose to skip Xbox, Microsoft lies to their core audience on a weekly basis and we are left wondering if there’s going to be an Xbox at all next gen…

@Foxx_64740 Remember what was actually backed up by a trillion dollar company in the fastest-growing industry at that time and ended up shutting down? Windows Phone.

@FraserG The only way I see it making sense is if this new console breaks the norm in so many ways, being an open-platform with Steam and other storefronts.

I’m very skeptical it’ll happen as the entire business model for consoles would have to be rethought and Microsoft doesn’t seem to be willing to lose a cent from their gaming division.

I’ve been collection rewards points since 2015 but with this I’m out, this requires too much time and I just don’t use my Xbox that much anymore, plus it’s clearly designed to boost up console engagement metrics, Bing searches give you way more points and it’s less time consuming.

Xbox Series X|S for my 3 choices as those are the only Xbox devices, until I can play 100% of my library on any other device that isn’t branded as an Xbox this marketing stunt is just obscenely stupid.

So free marketing for Xbox IP’s and they rejected it, this would’ve at least intrigued some people into trying the games, maybe even subscribing into Game Pass as both franchises are there, oh but that’s right, they were busy marketing my phone as an Xbox even when I can’t play 90% of my library…

@GamingFan4Lyf @FraserG Stop doing mental gymnastics and just cope with the fact Microsoft lied and there never was an exclusivity agreement or “incentive” with Sony, I don’t know why it’s so hard to accept that, it’s not the first (nor the last) lie MS has told us.

It’s yet another Microsoft lie and people still trying to spin it as Sony’s fault somehow.

The facts are that Microsoft outright doesn’t care about their platform and bringing third-party games to it, plus they’re a bunch of double-faced liars as they implied the game wasn’t coming due to an agreement with Sony and saying specifically “it isn’t because of the platform limitations” and it turned out to be exactly Series S limitations, but for me the worst thing is Xbox’ attempts to keep lying to their core audience, which is all they’ve done last year and this entire generation.

It will go down in history as one of the most shortsighted decisions Microsoft has ever taken, and personally it is the thing that made me completely lose faith in Xbox.

So glad that Krafton stepped in and saved both the studio and IP, it’s sad that The Evil Within will forever remain in Microsoft’s IP graveyard but hopefully they’ll come out with a spiritual successor or something like that.

January is always the backlog month lol

You got some nerve reposting this at these times…

Microsoft Gaming has a (great?) future, Xbox is dead.

With all the Xbox uncertainty I haven’t bought a single game in the entire year, only got Forza Horizon 4 for free as I owned DLC and Game Pass, and used Rewards points to pay for a month of Ubisoft+ and play SW Outlaws.

So sad to see that every single time the brand is getting momentum (with 2 great AAA releases) they fumble it somehow with baffling statements like wanting to ‘redefine’ what means to be an Xbox fan…

Now let’s see if the industry treats it as the Insomniac leak which nobody wanted to discuss for “respect” or instead they run rampant as they do with any other leak that isn’t from Sony…

@Millionski I was holding my purchase for the announced physical edition but it seemingly isn’t coming anymore ):

@PSDeckSwitchOwner Mikami wasn’t involved much in Hi-Fi Rush, in fact he left shortly after because he saw what the studio was capable of doing without him being involved.

I’m literally just waiting for the next discount to get it… on PS5.

@Millionski It did move the needle… to PlayStation favor, honestly it’s shockingly terrible the platform offering the biggest game of the year for “free” in their subscription didn’t entice basically any users to it, but rather pushed PS5 sales even further.

Xbox is beyond cooked.

Lmao, there’s one official comment (by Nadella) and within hours the usual grifters come up with their “sources” claiming to know more than anyone, that’s Jez Corden and Jeff Grubb, at least Grubb is sometimes right…

Meanwhile this video makes it perfectly clear why it’s such a dumb marketing move, at least for now where none of those devices can actually play 90% of Xbox games:

https://youtu.be/BmVoVgN1Oes?si=gzViD0JpyTsgIvut

I mean, they wouldn’t say otherwise, wonder if he’ll feel as good as consumer spending drops dramatically with people dropping out Game Pass or Xbox altogether.

And he’ll feel even greater when their own storefront becomes irrelevant and they become dependent on Steam, PlayStation and Nintendo to be able to sell their software; exactly what happened when they fumbled Windows Phone and became dependent on Android and iOS to sell mobile software. Very, very good indeed.

@AverageGamer We should but ‘Play Anywhere’ is yet another project Microsoft never fully committed to, as not all Xbox Game Studios, nor Bethesda, nor Activision or Blizzard titles are ‘Play Anywhere’, only a very small selection.

They could reach an agreement with third-party devs like they’re doing to be able to play owned games on the Cloud, not sure how it’d work tho.

My only wish is to be able to move my Xbox library to PC, if this OS or whatever it is allows me to do so I’ll be happy.

They REALLY want us to know Xbox is royally f*cked, it’s all Microsoft Gaming now.

@TheEstablishment For me the problem isn’t that Xbox doesn’t have exclusives per se, but that the platform is becoming more and more irrelevant as developers choose to skip the platform, not even paid to do so, and with first-party games releasing elsewhere there’s just no point in getting an Xbox for the vast majority, and even if there is still a market for the platform, is it sustainable for MS to keep selling hardware as a loss (as has always been the console’s business model) if the user base keeps shrinking more and more? They will quickly realize it isn’t if their next hardware isn’t a hit and given their current strategy it seems impossible.

It’s only a matter of time until they won’t have a platform at all going forward and have to rely on other company’s storefronts at PlayStation, Nintendo and Steam to sell their software and get money.
Such Windows Phone vibes right now with Xbox…

I like more the map from FH5 as it’s more diverse though it’s feel somewhat disjointed, FH4 really felt like the UK, for better and worse lol

Damn. Other than Indiana Jones my other picks are just not available on Xbox lol

@Millionski Not even Microsoft themselves spend that much time trying to defend their baffling decisions…

@Fiendish-Beaver Yup, this is the timeline we’re in and we just gotta accept it and cope with it.

For anyone who somehow still believes in Xbox lies just look back at Windows Phone and how it was slowly abandoned just after a big acquisition that was supposed to enable them to compete more, looking awfully similar to Xbox after the Activision buyout.

The Xbox spiral of death continues and seems to be nonstop, MS announced a first-party game to PlayStation but yet again many third-party announcements from last night will skip Xbox and there’s an ever growing list of games that are not and may never get to Xbox, exactly the thing I feared when the first batch of games was announced and it’ll only get worse.

Personally my spending on Xbox this year is an all-time low, haven’t bought a single game or subscription with my money (only Rewards points) and I’ve already started to move my library to PS5 to move away from Xbox entirely next generation, the way Microsoft handles things our digital library will end up stuck on a dead platform and I’m just tired of dealing with their flip-flops, also thinking about building a PC but one thing is certain, I won’t ever get Microsoft’s hardware ever again.

@K1LLEGAL It’s sad that after a decade trying to get this momentum they have just now decided to launch most if not all their games on competing platforms, and even worse, that Xbox still got noticeably less game announcements last night, they’re just porting everything over while getting less games from third-parties.

Lol Sony will cancel the Xbox version once they buyout Kadokawa.

Been playing since last night and I just keep wondering what game did this site’s reviewer played to score a f***ing 6?

The few hours I’ve played already warrants a 9/10 at the very least.

Usual grifters overhyping an already overhyped event…

@LogicStrikesAgain Absolutely, I’m not saying it’s a universal rule, there’s some reviewers that for whatever reason didn’t enjoy the game like this site’s review, but there 100% is a general bias from a big chunk of media outlets that if whatever game is not available on PlayStation they hold the game to a higher scrutiny and it does result in lower aggregate score, I can bet you right now that in a few months when it does launch on PS5 that version will not score lower than 90.

If you really think that very obvious bias is a myth just take a look again at media outlets, specially bigger conglomerate ones.

This is great news! Without the Xbox tax this is a 90-95 release, finally a great AAA game from Xbox.

I think this reviewer expected a different game entirely, most outlets are giving a 9-10.

This is my most anticipated Game Pass launch since Starfield, at this point I just hope I won’t be disappointed yet again.

Looks hideous…

@PsBoxSwitchOwner The mere fact it’s not available yet on PS5 leads to higher scrutiny from reviewers, whether they’re playing on PC or Xbox.

I think it’s yet another example of the ‘Xbox tax’, yes the game has a few bugs but nowhere near CP2077 back at launch as some reviewers were saying, also they’re being very picky with the game itself complaining about even the smallest of things, I expect the very same thing to happen with Indiana Jones (might even score below 80) but when the PS5 version launches it’s gonna be “GOTY”.

I’m trying it today, it will hook me or getting uninstalled lol

This is a PS5.
This is an Xbox

Sorry just had to.