InvaderFromSpace

Can we take a quick moment here: how does that ad work? Like what happens when you click on it? Does Xbox have a McDonalds app? Does it pull up a QR code for you to download on your phone? I don't even understand what this is doing?

On the issue of ads, yes this is just the next step to even more intrusive ones. And they are moving pretty quickly. In just the last year they have added:

Boot up ads first for first party games, starting with Starfield (I was personally ok with this)
Boot up ads for their Developer_Direct and Showcase (this was a little more concerning, since it's kinda an ad for a longer ad)
Boot up ad for their Summer Sale (this is over the line, because there are weekly sales, and more ads are definitely coming)

Non-gaming ads being accepted is pretty much the floodgates opening. If I had to guess, we are probably about two years away from a boot up ad every time you you turn on your Xbox, and anything will be on the table

@Chaotic_Goat It's pretty doubtful that Sony is paying for exclusivity, seeing as they haven't been involved in marketing this at all. The idea that Sony dropped a truckload of money to delay an Xbox release and isn't taking advantage of advertising it is laughable.

This is either an issue getting the game running on the Series S, or just a small studio not having the resources to focus on both PS and Xbox releases at the same time.

I've seen it mentioned in a couple places that the Avowed delay was in response to Stalker 2 getting pushed to November. There are also already rumors that Fable won't make 2025, so people should start getting ready for that.

Their list for the rest of the year starts looking less impressive when you see that 3 of these are DLCs (WoW, Diablo, Starfield) and another one is PC only (Ara). So for Xbox players you have Age, CoD, Flight Sim, Indy, and Towerborne.

I guess as long as Indy and Towerborne come out this year, I'll have stuff to play.

I have 2 dungeons left in Dungeons of Hinterberg, so I should be able to beat that this weekend. Then I'll get back to my playthrough of the Halo 2 campaign, where I have a couple levels left. I might be able to beat that too (2 games finished in 1 weekend!)

I'm not going to buy Xbox's spin on this. This didn't get delayed because they have too many good games coming out. It's delayed because they suck at planning and scheduling and everything they have for this year was pushed into a 3 month window. They have released 1 game in the last 10 months.

2024 is now the third straight year of "Next year is when the great games really start showing up!"

A lot of people like to say the Xbox sales were cratering even before the news of PS5 ports, but there is a pretty big difference between the six months before that (-7, +3) and the six months after (-31, -42).

Apparently Microsoft's estimate for the next quarter is another similar year-on-year decline, so they don't expect a turnaround. I expect we get an announcement this quarter about more games being ported to PS5.

I started Dungeons of Hinterburg a couple days ago and I'm really enjoying it so far. I'll mostly just play more of that this weekend.

I've also been playing through the Halo campaigns and have just a couple levels left on Halo 2. I guess that will have to wait for now.

@Nightcrawler71 It always charts at the top of sales lists because the games comes with Shark Cards that give in game currency for GTA Online. At the sale price it is cheaper to buy a new copy of the game then to buy the currency at the standard price. It's crazy.

As for my purchases in the sale, I bought the Mafia Trilogy. $15 was too good a price to pass up, even with my concerns about the long term stability at Xbox.

I've had some interest in the Legacy of Kain games, but Steam doesn't have the original Blood Omens or Soul Reaver. If we get remasters that make all of the games available, I'd probably pick them up.

Slightly off topic question, but does anyone not have the 20% 'Game Pass Discount' on any games that came to game pass this month in the store? It shows up for MWIII and for Journey to the Savage Planet, but games like Dungeons of Hinterberg, Neon White, and The Case of the Golden Idol are all listed at full price for me. Is this some bug, or is the same for everyone else?

The names are bad, I almost think they made them confusing on purpose.
They could have stuck with the '360' naming scheme. 360, 720, 1080 (where we are now), 1440 (the next one that no one will buy because they are burning their brand to the ground), 1800, and so on...if the consoles were good and popular, people would have liked the names, which is what happened with the 360.

I'm pretty excited about this, since the story has looked good in the cutscenes they have shown. But you can count me as another person who thinks this gets delayed to next year.

I made it about halfway through the first season, and it was one of the worst shows I've ever seen. It's stunning that you could mess up a Halo show that badly. I don't care if the second season was "better", I have no interest in anything that comes from anyone that was involved with the show.

I'm playing through the Halo Master Chief Collection, currently on the Halo 2 story. It's my first time playing the anniversary versions of Halo 1 and Halo 2, so seeing the updated graphics/cutscenes has been cool. Also, these games never get old for me.

I think the first game is better, but both are good games. I guess it didn't live up to the hype of it being some huge blockbuster, but it never should have been hyped like that. It was announced too early and shown way too many time over the years, allowing expectations to get out of whack.

The Doom and Indiana Jones trailers have way more views on the Bethesda channel than the Xbox channel, so this isn't totally accurate. And I think that some of these trailers have been run as ads on youtube, which boosts their views. Still interesting info to see.

I understand that this had to happen, as the rewards were generous enough to almost fully fund a gamepass subscription on their own. But it sucks to have this happen right on the heels of a price increase.

Also, I've never been able to get the auto-redeem thing to work anyway. I've always had to buy the 3-month subscription, which looks like it is also going to increase. This is probably going to make me reconsider my subscription more than the price increase itself.

@abe_hikura They do it this way because the news is terrible. They can sit back and let every awful rumor run wild. Then when some confirmation comes in a couple weeks, people will be relieved to have more information, no matter how much worse it actually is. This is the exact playbook that was used for the multiplatform announcements too.

Also, anyone else find it funny that Jez is running defense on Twitter saying it isn't so bad, but also admitting that he doesn't actually know what the plan is?

So it's obviously worse than the current 'Console' tier and more expensive. And they have made it deliberately vague on what will be on this tier and when. If day one third party games are delayed, will they stay on this tier longer than they are on the Ultimate tier, or will they be here for a shorter time period? A lot of games are on the service for a year, if it comes to Standard 6-months later, will it only be there for 6 months?

A lot of un-answered questions, which seems to be their goal.

I decided I wanted to play through all the Halo campaigns since I haven't touched a Halo game in over a decade. Haven't played anything after Reach, so looking forward to getting to those newer for the first time. Playing through the original in the MCC has been pretty cool.

If they don't have a game started now, there is basically no chance they will start one in the future. As they de-emphasize console sales, there is less and less likelihood that any Xbox studio will work on game types that are not in "smash hit" categories (similar to what just happened with Bethesda). You don't see other third party publisher put out many mid-range or niche games, which is what platformers are now.

@karlhendrikse Nobody is losing it. It will no longer be for digital sale. Anybody who owns it will still be able to download and play it. Anybody who has a disk can still stick it in a console and play it that way too.

Playing a couple of shorter games this weekend: Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons on Game Pass and Cat Quest II on Steam

@NEStalgia I fail to see why there would be any third party support for Xbox the moment they announce that new hardware will run on Windows versions. As soon as next gen gets announced (2026? 2028?), there will be a huge drop in games that launch on Series consoles. Why would anybody bother? Xbox would be a dead ecosystem at that point.

I'm assuming this wasn't announced at the showcase because it won't be making it onto console for a while. Maybe sometime next year?

Did they say what the price is going to be?

The lengths sound good, but I care almost as much about the quality of the side content. Is it an extra 30 hours of just running around the map picking up collectables, or are there interesting quests/stories out there to find? I willing to accept way more side content in Bethesda games because so much of that is in the form of things like faction quest lines, which are way better than just killing 6 guys in a bandit camp and opening a couple chests.

Either way, I'll keep an eye on how this reviews and consider playing it down the line.

DLC has been the best part of every Bethesda game in the last 25 years (Morrowind, Oblivion, FO3, FO 4, I guess Skyrim is up for debate), so this should be good (maybe even great)

@Banjo- I don't know, coming out of the showcase with no dates for Starfield DLC, Avowed, or Indy, combined with Ara and Towerbourne not even being at the show makes me think something gets pushed to next year.

This was an enjoyable showcase, but there are a couple concerns. Shattered Space, Avowed, and Indy are all coming this year, but none of them got dates. Towerbourne and Ara are also supposed to be this year and didn't show up at all. I'm expecting a couple things to get delayed into 2025 at this point.

2025 for both Doom and Fable is awesome though (fingers crossed on them making it)

I started Hellblade II finally, so I'll probably play through some more of that. I feel like I can't play through more than one chapter at a time, so I don't think I'll finish it until some time next week.

I was looking through the list of games that may leave Gamepass in July and saw Arcade Paradise on there, so I will try to start that up too.

Hoping this will be as good as the Shredder's Revenge TMNT game from a couple years back...and that it is coming to consoles

This is definitely the game I am most looking forward to coming onto Gamepass. I played a lot of Tony Hawk back in the day but never bought the remake.

I still think it's more likely that the AB games get added slowly over a couple months than with a big one time drop.

@Banjo- I replayed all of the old AC games a couple years ago and it really stood out to me how different Ezio is compared to most of the other protagonists just because he is so much older in Brotherhood and Revelations. Connor starts as a teenager, and Edward (Black Flag), Arno (Unity), and Jacob/Evie (Syndicate) are all in their early 20s.

In terms of game quality, I think that the original is rough to play now, but most of the others hold up pretty well. Personal favorites are Black Flag and Brotherhood.

I'm not as much of a fan of the newer RPG-like versions they have put out the last couple years (still haven't played Valhalla or Mirage), but I'm still interested in the series

I started Ravenlok on Friday since it's leaving gamepass at the end of the month. A couple hours on Friday and a couple hours today, and I think I'll be able to finish it tomorrow. I'm a big fan of the voxel art style, and while the game is simple and pretty easy, I've enjoyed it.

I'll get back Eiyuden Chronicles: Rising after that and hopefully finish it by next weekend.

I just started Eiyuden Chronicles: Rising yesterday, so mostly that probably. I should be able to finish it before Hundred Heroes comes out in a couple weeks. I've also been playing Kingdom Two Crowns on Steam, so I might do a little of that too.

A live action Elder Scrolls show sounds like it would be bad. It would have to be heavily CGI, which TV shows usually don't have the budget to do well. And I don't see the internet handling the casting of all the different races in the games well either.

It could maybe work as an animated show, but I just don't know that this is necessary.

Not much gaming this weekend, since I'm watching a lot of the NCAA college basketball tournament (it's my American duty). But I'm hoping to get in a few hours of Enslaved: Odyssey to the West on Steam. I started it earlier this week and it seems pretty good so far.

EA added The Saboteur to Steam, so I bought that and can't wait to fire it up. I've been mad that it isn't backwards compatible on Xbox for a decade.

I've also been playing Ni No Kuni 2 on Xbox, and am in the endgame DLC stuff. It's gotten pretty grindy, so I might just pass on the rest of it. Mostly super long procedurally generated dungeons and a couple super high level bosses.

This actually helps to make Xbox'x terrible performance over the last decade make more sense. They have actively damaged their own brand over and over because they are so 'forward thinking' that they can't operate in the present. The fact that they have believed that consoles are dying for over 15 years already when there has been no decrease in the market shows how far they are from reality.

Whatever 'future' box they try to release as their next generation is also sure to fail, because it won't be what anyone is actually looking for.

@eire-shabba I think this is big, and we will see a drop off in big, cutting edge technology games in the next couple years.

But I think that another part of this is that the gaming industry has just gotten too big. I don't know a single person that has kept up with even the most popular games that came out last year. The amount of people who have time to play Zelda and Hogwarts Legacy and Baldur's Gate 3 and Spiderman 2 and anything else is not enough to support the costs. Even in online places like this, where you have a bunch of people who probably play way more than the average person, everyone talks about having a giant backlog that they can't keep up with.

I think that its value is probably going to be bigger than what will show up on a gamer website like this. It has a bunch of games that are very popular with the masses, but don't seem to ever draw a lot of interest in online spaces: they have the most recent versions of Madden, NHL, UFC, and F1, as well as a bunch of Battlefield games

For me personally, there are a handful of games on there that I want to play still: Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Unravel, Wild Hearts...and after all these years I still enjoy Fight Night every once in a while

I started Spirit of the North this week, so I think I'll be able to finish it this weekend.

I had also been playing Batman: Arkham Knight, but I have now gotten a glitch that will prevent me from being able to 100% complete the game and would require a restart after about 25 hours of playing. That has really sapped my enthusiasm, and I'm going to leave it alone for a while before deciding what I want to do.

KOTOR II was my vote, but Stick of Truth is excellent as well. This was a bit of a challenge, and there are still a couple games that I haven't played but really want to get to at some point(Pillars, Grounded, and F:New Vegas).

Honestly, this kind of feels like he was forced out. Basically, leave or be fired. It sounds like the game that was canceled wasn't anywhere near being ready, so Xbox is clearing house and starting fresh.

Anyone else find it fascinating that people get up in arms about the look of the game but no one cares about games that copy game-style whole cloth? There is a whole genre of games called 'souls-like' for straight up copying the gameplay and style of FromSoft games, and people love those. Like there is nothing original about Lies of P, but there are zero calls attacking that game.

I'm a huge fan of Stoic's Banner Saga games, so I've been looking forward to this. The description of seasonal content makes it sound like it could be more of a service style game than I was expecting, but I'll still give it a try.

If we use 30 million subscribers in September and 33 million now, that is a 10% increase in the last 4 months. That's still pretty good. Gamepass is a mature subscription service now, it isn't going to see enormous leaps in numbers like it did when it was first starting out.

Streaming services like Netflix ran into issues by not being profitable before they stopped seeing growth, so they messed up the transition. Xbox claims GP is profitable, so they can hopefully handle a shift from growth to stability better (without a bunch of rapid price increases).

@Kaloudz On Steam it hits about 20,000 concurrent players everyday, and it launched there after everywhere else so I assume it is one of the smaller player bases. I know that the online enthusiast crowd tends to dislike these MMO style games (FFXIV, Sea of Thieves, Fallout76, etc.) but they all have pretty healthy player bases even after all these years.

The format of the show is great, but it has to be expensive and very time consuming to make these. I understand why they can only do this once a year. I love how personalized each part is, each studio's presentation is somewhat different.

The only hit I can give the show this year is a lack of release dates, only one. But I guess that first party output is low in the first half of the year, so not much they could really do about that.

I'm sure this is being run with hard in the anti-Gamepass corners of the internet. But everywhere is deliberately leaving out this part of the interview:

"The point is not to force users to go down one route or another," he explains. "We offer purchase, we offer subscription, and it's the gamer's preference that is important here. We are seeing some people who buy choosing to subscribe now, but it all works."

Subscription services are an EXPANSION of player choice, not a reduction. No one can name a single game that is only available through one of these streaming services.