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@Kloppo Screwing over loyal fans and straight up alienating everyone who is looking to buy a console right now, a friend recently asked me a recommendation to buy a console and having both I just said to get a PS5 or wait for the Pro, even tho Sony has also been a bit disappointing this generation but at least it isn’t trying to kill PlayStation as Microsoft is with Xbox.

@Sol76 They will have a final sale that will last until it gets discontinued, I’m gonna wait until almost the very last day to get my code but if I don’t I’m just gonna buy it.

@NEStalgia I’d say the last great year for Xbox maybe ever was in 2021, Series X|S was selling almost on par with PS5, Game Pass was growing and most importantly we got great games with Psychonauts 2, Forza Horizon 5 and more or less Halo Infinite.

2022 was when the downfall started as they announced the ABK acquisition and quite literally forgot about everything else, they didn’t release a single game, understandably Game Pass and consoles sales got stale, Cloud gaming got straight-up abandoned and we haven’t seen a single improvement since, 2023 wasn’t much better with Redfall being a disaster and Starfield disappointing (I don’t hate it but I did have higher expectations) and the little tiny ray of hope with Hi-Fi Rush turned out to be such a “break-out hit” (Aaron Greenberg’s words) that awarded them a studio closure lmfao…

For a multi-trillion company that controls a good chunk of the entire internet it’s honestly not great at all, even mostly bad I’d say.

I’ve had the chance to test Amazon Luna, Nvidia GeForce Now and Google Stadia (back when it existed) and they all have a much better experience, same thing I heard with the new PS+ streaming tho I haven’t been able to test it myself.

@Markatron84 If by October I haven’t received my code I’m gonna start asking around in support so that I can have time to buy it if Microsoft tells us yet another “f*ck you” and doesn’t deliver the codes.

@Ricky-Spanish We need another price hike so that they can add those games /s

And what about the rumor of MW3 dropping to sort of justify the price hike? They couldn’t even bother to do that?

It’s ridiculously nothing from Activision has made its way to the service other than Diablo IV, but I guess it’s part of the “Game Pass ain’t it” strategy currently being implemented.

@FraserG That’s quite important, it means that more than half of the audience seems already trained to expect X game in Game Pass, otherwise to not care in the slightest.

This is a big problem since it indicates that basically half the users on the Xbox platform solely care about games coming to Game Pass, which is what Microsoft actually wanted a few years ago, but what incentive remains for third-parties to port a game to Xbox if it ain’t gonna sell at all whether it arrives the service or not?

Yeah Microsoft, keep the f*ck you’s coming to your most dedicated user base…

So 3 days after the price hike and they haven’t even bothered to justify it?

And btw they announced they’ll be removing Game Pass from MS Rewards meaning you can’t use your points to get the sub, just a fantastic week for Xbox gamers, again.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner Even here on Mexico, which is one of the very few markets where Xbox has the lead (and quite substantially above both Sony and Nintendo), I haven’t seen ONE single piece of marketing in any type of media, seriously, not even a single poster, billboard, advertisement, nada.

Why stop at certain markets? Give up on Xbox altogether as Microsoft seems literally in a hurry to get rid of it.

I won’t sell my console right away as I’ve invested quite heavily on my digital library, but sure as hell I’m not investing one more cent on the platform.

@PKDuckman Who said anything about Sony? I already cancelled PS+ since the last price hike was too much and I’ve been quite outspoken about some baffling moves they’ve made.

But you know, Sony’s screwups doesn’t invalidate Microsoft one’s, the difference is that Sony is currently successful and can afford to have some misses, Xbox is trailing even behind Xbox One and yet they kick their console users in the balls every 3-6 months.

Honestly, being an Xbox customer this generation has been exhausting, console users are being treated like third-class citizens by Microsoft, we have to pay to play online, and now we have to pay more to have any version of Game Pass and waaay more to get games day one compared to PC, and this comes after the shift in strategy where most if not all Xbox exclusives are heading to PS5 or Switch.

Funny how literally just yesterday I was just thinking to myself, “Xbox has been on a streak lately, maybe they are finally done with screw ups” and hours later they announced this, next generation I’m out of Xbox, if it still exists anyway.

@NEStalgia Lmao I agree, but from what we can see they seem to not only don’t care about console users, but actively despise us and wish we rather play on PC or competing consoles, at this rate next gen I think I’m gonna grant them their wish.

@NEStalgia I had the opportunity to stack up 3 years of Ultimate but I kinda regret it now, I don’t want to support the service, ever since Tango’s closure I really really don’t like the direction Xbox is heading.

Also $20 bucks a month is just ridiculous, I’d rather buy a game on a sale upfront and own it forever.

Yet again us console users get the short end of the stick, now gamers on PC only have to pay $11.99 USD to play day one games, while console users need to pay almost double, plus the paid online requirement, it’s a triple spit to console users.

It’s good, sure it might not be as generous as a few years ago but it’s still the best Rewards program out there, no one gives me $5-10 bucks a month to spend on games.

It’s ridiculous it has taken this long to add ABK games to Game Pass, I’m okay with them drip feeding those games but they should’ve started since closing the acquisition imo.

First game that came up to mind was Indiana Jones, and upon further inspection of the entire list it’s definitely Indy, looks amazing in every way plus it comes out this year.

Even tho they look great is harder to be hyped about games that don’t even have a release year like Gears of War or Perfect Dark, otherwise both would’ve been my choices.

Tango’s closure will forever be a stain in Microsoft/Xbox history, the biggest most unpleasant stain imo as it screams mismanagement and corporate greed.

We’ve heard Phil saying for more than a decade that he wants Xbox to have a foothold on Japan, for that they need to have relations with Japanese devs or having a Japanese team.
They finally got it in 2021 with Tango being included with Zenimax, they made 2 current-gen only titles (not many studios can say this currently), with one, Hi-Fi Rush being a “smash hit” (MS’ words) with both critics and public alike, personally becoming my favorite Xbox game of the last decade.

A few months later Xbox announces they’re taking the games to other platforms with all the excuses they gave but supposedly to “nurture the IP” but literally a month after launching on PS5 they closed down the studio entirely, it’s been a month, they showcase has passed but they still haven’t gave a good reason on why the studio deserved to be closed down, we’re only left with the rumors that it was just bad timing, the fact they weren’t in active development made them more disposable, which is just infuriating to me, talent means nothing, awards mean nothing, appraisal means nothing, being a ‘smash hit’ means nothing.

The showcase was great, really great, but this will always make me wary of Xbox and Microsoft moving forward.

@JayJ That rumor was debunked by people still working on the studio, don’t spread misinformation.

Nonsense PR we saw a mile coming the day this was announced, it’s sad that even though today’s showcase was great the stain of Tango’s closure is still there lingering and tbh stops me from being fully excited about Xbox’ future.

The story got very convoluted at the end of 5 so I guess not even them were sure how to continue it and they rather went back, but honestly this I what I wanted to see from Gears ever since the very first one so this is incredibly exciting.

The fact it’s called Gears OF WAR made me way more excited than it should have lol

Lmao these are priced to scare players out, the 1TB Series S is $349, all-digital Series X is $449 and 2TB Series X with Disc Drive is $599.

Microsoft really doesn’t want to sell consoles…

Except for the ones who were shown the door a month ago…

(Still very bitter about Tango’s closure).

@NEStalgia Exactly this, if there’s something that can move the needle in terms of Xbox’ popularity is Call of Duty, the game will be a financial success either way but where and how users play it will ultimately determine the future of the platform.

In terms of gameplay I’ll never shut up about how they NAILED it in Infinite, the lack of content and lackluster campaign killed the game but the gameplay was at its best imo, keep that gameplay, take your time to build up significant content for the next release and you already got a solid ‘Halo 7’ multiplayer.

However for the campaign… it’s got sooooo convoluted that I honestly have no idea where to go from here, they could follow-up Infinite’s story for the
Endless and all that but honestly I’d want a soft-reboot or just pretend 4/5/Infinite never existed lol.

Make no mistake, this is a make or break situation for Game Pass and the Xbox platform in general, if CoD doesn’t bring meaningful traction to both Xbox consoles and Game Pass subs we can be sure that nothing will, however if this actually becomes a bigger success than expected and even reverses the downtrend for Xbox consoles and Game Pass subs, Microsoft might just realize their platform is worth keeping…

I mean, it’s not like we could ask since the studio will no longer exist, I guess with the offline mode is enough, the game may not be great but at least everyone will be able to give it a chance instead of ceasing to exist when they pull the plug on the servers.

The discourse around the game is starting to get real bad :sigh:

From what I’ve been reading the game is exactly what I expected, same gameplay as the first with a gruesome harsh story and that’s perfectly fine for me however I’ve read countless people expecting it to be God of War from Xbox and it ain’t that nor it tries to be.

There now people complaining that “all you do is walk and hear voices” that is what Hellblade is my friends…

Hopefully it gets 60 FPS somehow, kinda jealous of the PS5 version since that patch came out.

Look like there’s still a little hope for the Xbox platform.

• If CoD can bring meaningful traction to Game Pass and Xbox consoles then we can be certain that Microsoft will still be supporting it (at least for a long while).
• But, if CoD fails to bring new audiences to the service it’s certain that both the platform and service are dead and Microsoft will just go full multiplatform.

Is there like a deadline that Xbox can’t exist in 2025 or why the f*ck is Microsoft rushing so much to get rid of Xbox?

He’s right, Microsoft has to commit to either their Xbox platform, Game Pass and their users, or just drop everything become Microsoft Gaming and be the biggest third-party publisher in the industry.

This in-between isn’t working for anyone, it feels there’s a civil war going on at Xbox right now where Microsoft Gaming is taking over and I must say, after giving Phil and the Xbox team a decade and 80 billion dollars to turn things around and failing it was obvious Microsoft had to step in at some point.

Xbox ran out of time and now Microsoft will get their money back even if that utterly destroys the brand which is already happening, and there’s no going back, I really do feel this is it for Xbox.

@Banjo- I didn’t mean to sound so hostile, as everyone can tell by my comments I am very angry lol, probably have never been actually angry at a company ever before but yeah, my anger should always be directed at the company, not other people, for that I’m sorry.

I got frustrated that there’s lots of misinformation floating around, it’s true that some people left Tango but we’re not talking about even 5% of team and it’s now known they were in pre-production of a sequel to Hi-Fi, and according to Bloomberg it seems the only reason Tango was shut down was bad timing, the fact they were not in active development made it easier to save up on resources than cancelling a game already in development that would’ve already used some resources (time and money).

While I understand the business side of decisions to me it seems incredibly shortsighted, plus the fact that just some months ago Spencer, Bond, and Booty all claimed porting the game to PS5 would help to ‘reinvest’ in both the IP and the studio, only to shut down the studio 6 weeks after porting it to PS5, that blatant lie is so infuriating to me and show such a clear lack of vision that I really can’t even think of Xbox having a future.

That’s great, but I don’t anymore, there’s no way around it, Xbox is dead, Microsoft Gaming has taken over and there’s no way in hell I’m sticking to see their administration.

After watching Sarah Bond’s interview I can bet she’s gonna be leaving in the upcoming months, she looked so uncomfortable and I almost felt bad for her because it’s obvious she didn’t make those decisions and she hasn’t been around as long as Phil Spencer or Matt Booty, who should be the ones answering these questions, it feels they just promoted her to be the scapegoat.

@Kooky_Geezer I’m kinda looking at a 4070 setup, but I might just wait for the 5070 coming out later this year, in the meantime next week I’m getting a Rog Ally or Legion Go to basically begin testing how gaming on a PC would be (I’ve always owned all consoles but no PC).

@Kooky_Geezer I’m also on that boat, I’m already looking into how to begin the transition to PC, the main obstacle right now is my digital library, I’ve got around 60 games that I only own on Xbox so that’d mean having to rebuy them eventually.

It still sucks. I live like 10 miles away from the closest Microsoft Data Center (with xCloud servers apparently), got a 5ghz mesh Wi-Fi 6 router, got a Wi-Fi 6 compatible phone and the experience still sucks.

There’s noticeable lag, becomes very blurry and overall it ain’t a good experience in all the games I tried, it’s usable but I wouldn’t play anything more than 5 minutes.

@CallMeDuraSouka Same but I’m going with a Rog Ally since I have some games on Epic and MS Store (through Play Anywhere) and I don’t want to rebuild my library from scratch.

@RIghteousNixon No, that was actually Tuesday’s news.

What’s even the point now…

F*ck you Microsoft. That’s all.

What a ***** show, but if CoD doesn’t get into Game Pass make no mistake, the service will be dead as we know it in a matter of months.

Honestly the healthiest thing to do seems to scale Game Pass back, don’t make it the top priority of MS Gaming, don’t launch games day one but still keep the catalogue for every Xbox/Bethesda/Activision/Blizzard title released in years and generations prior, kinda like Sony does with PS+ Extra.

Thank god that Moon Studios didn’t sell to Microsoft back then, and yes I’m aware they had issues of their own but at least they still exist unlike Tango.

Also, just read how the devs look at Microsoft, can’t imagine any studio currently wishing to be sold to them, and can you imagine how the people already working at Xbox Game Studios, Bethesda and Activision-Blizzard feel right now?
The message that Microsoft sent yesterday and the entire industry heard loud and clear was that it doesn’t matter how good or bad, how expensive or cheap, how successful or not a game is, they will layoff and close the entire studio in a whim.

Also, that they will blatantly lie and we can’t take one single word from a Microsoft executive as the truth, one moment they claim a game is a runaway success, the other they port it to other platforms to supposedly ‘nurture the development’ of the IP, only to close the studio literally weeks later.

We as customers are left wondering, is MS going to do the same with the Xbox platform? It certainly looks like they will.

I think it’s pretty safe to say that Game Pass as an strategy failed, it failed to attract new audience to the Xbox platform, it failed in giving games more exposure leading to more sales and most importantly it failed to reward or compensate the developers who made those games.

As an user it has amazing value and it allowed me to play so many games that I wouldn’t have otherwise but if that comes at the expense that most developers will not reach financial success and therefore leading to layoffs or studio closures I’d rather prefer that Game Pass didn’t exist.