Jakovasaur

@yeaman im in a similar boat, but a 53% price hike for content i won't use is an awful business practice.

Idiots, taking the headline 1st party day one an Xbox titles and bundling it with EA and Ubisoft back catalogues, Fortnight Sub service and Game Streaming.... none of it I will us, I only want the Game Pass content put your first party titles on premium or come up with a Micorosft offering that works in these hard financial times.

If there is no coop its DOA

Empty and all the Encounters are very limited, with zero variation despite being on different planets.

No grit or drama, every NPC is very similar in personality, and there is little to no choice or dilemma in the content I saw.

@Sol76 Don't worry we will get news of a Halo Remastered remaster soon!

Talented and creative developer, I thought Outriders was better than similar games such as Division, fingers crossed for them, they can secure a deal that makes them profitable.

There are two brilliant use cases that this is providing me personally: First it's plugged the couch coop gap in today's games, I sit next to my wife while she plays on the SX side by side, gamepass doubles in value on those games.

Second is travel, I am based in hotels a fare bit and it goes into my backpack with a power cord and controller with no reliance on choppy Internet connections to play most games I'm interested in.

I thought screen would be too small but playing FPS, 3rd Person and Isometric games with no issue, I have decent eye sight mind.

It's for the younger generation, so more politically correct I'm guessing, devoid of any sexualisation because sexuality is evil and violence is wholesome so better make all the female models masculine. Chuck some cuss words in so it can attempt to remain "edgy", hmm feels like a standard affair now days... oh well that's what you get for corpororate nature of the industry.

Let's see if they can pull a Hello Games No Man's Sky over the next 1-2 years. I know they have DLC planned, but it sounds like there are some fundamental issues that need addressing around AI for this to be a truly immersive free-roaming RPG.

There is something to be said for a more linear approach to building RPG worlds such As Outer Worlds or Greedfall, you can rely a lot less on the simulation aspect that games like Red Dead and Skyrim provide, meaning less need for more immersive AI and you can focus on the aesthetics and storytelling to sell the universe.

@Olliemar28 Perfectly fine, looking to play that at some point, never bought the originals, think I was online PC gaming focussed around that time.

@Nexozi: Good news, Control Ultimate comes with the upgraded Series X/S Enhancements, so if you have a shiny new console, it should look and run above and beyond what you would get through Game Pass, + I think there is some DLC in there so not a total waste of money

@Sunanootoko Wonderful customer experience... except it's very unlikely and an actual retailer who holds actual stock and sells directly to their customers, is ever going to be scamming its customers... sure mistakes can happen anywhere, but the scamming risk is exclusive to Amazon, Ebay, Wish etc.

Tomb Raider, Rise of Tomb Raider, Hitman & Hitman 2 all roughly £10 or less through store or retailers.

I'm actually not getting Cyberpunk and part of my reasoning is due to Gamepass and getting Valhalla for Christmas, I personally think there is so much to try out and why waste by pre-paid subscription time? Fingers crossed the S/X optimisation will be out by March or April for Cyberpunk and I can get it then.

4% of users with bricked Xboxes? Is this really a true number, I'd expect anything over 1% to make the news.

I've had a few crashes, but mainly on older games, not sure if there are some backward compact bugs, but given I have put in a 100 hours + on the console this feels pretty reliable compared to my PS4 Pro or PC.

@AJDarkstar Yes they can, not suggested otherwise, just that it was not as neat or convenient and there is an element of future-proofing once a year or so in.

Yep but for the obsessives this is a little annoying, they were marketed a more powerful machine as far as pixel-pushing power goes, and it's not delivered on the highest-profile game for Christmas, it's probably a little embarrassing for Xbox, but I think the blame likely lies with optimization on Ubisoft's behalf.

As a newbie to Xbox being absent these last 8 years, the Drive is excellent, I have just about to breach my internal storage (I'm grabbing so much in Game Pass).

It means I can just crack on, I guess I could have picked up an SSD but this is neater and I managed to get £20 off so seems fair considering the general SSD cost of this spec.

@UltimateOtaku91 Both are sold out.... MS has managed to manufacture more Series S consoles than X, MS also forecast higher demand for the Series S than X... Not sure what is Ouch about that, no one is making money from hardware sales, and if the more casual gamer is being brought in to the mix, due to the cheaper option, then I would suggest that they may have the right idea in creating the 2 product options.

Lasted a couple of hours, thought my console was dodgy as me use just went grey when trying to sign in.

Well ordered from Argos, no notifications, came late but I did get 2 free controllers so that’s nice.

Ugh, is there a worse company than Take Two for anti consumer practices? Codemasters will be making racing as a service games filled with loot boxes and other gambling practices before we know it, not to mention those instant loading times promised this gen will be glogged up with adverts.

Nothing, I think Argos have taken my money and run, no one is getting confirmation of delivery and orders are processing despite committing to delivery on 10th November.

*Edit, support confirmed they have dispatched, but they are behind on sending emails.... like this is done manually

Nice energy, shame about the pandemic, I assume these will all be digital affairs?

I personally think these tactics are in poor taste, a whole mode that has been developed and then cut out of other platforms as an incentive to play on inferior or less desirable hardware just makes me not want to invest in that game full stop.

With cross-platform online play, this becomes an even greater issue with friends not being able to play certain modes together as a result.

I feel this can be done tastefully, such as a beat-em-up character being added based around a platformed owned IP, or level theme added, e.g. Diablo 3 last of us enemies added to random dungeons. Spider-Man was obviously a sore point due to the fact this is not a Sony Grown IP.

That all said, I have to buy a COD game in over 4-5 years I think, so makes little odds to me.

@NEStalgia silky smooth 4K at 60 FPS with some hdr support, would be nice if it included ray tracing but I imagine it will be smoother than Xbox One X, personally I’m coming from Xbox 360 so it’s going to be a grand improvement.

I think that multiplayer could launch first, spoilers are the risk to consider, however, with game-pass and the option to download the parts you want to play, I could see this as a natural progression with 1st party Game Pass model, with full releases being held back for physical/digital purchases only.

Perfect, It's been a decade and I plan to play through local coop on the old Halo games, so glad this has hit the list.

Yehsit's great, I have been using my iPad Pro to stream my PS4 Pro for some time, great when the demand for the TV is high and normally best used for those games where your grinding side quests or whatever and the cinematic experience is less important, D3 Seasons or 70% of Assassin's Creed content for example

Look forward to doing the same on Series X.

I just picked up Crackdown 3 on game pass, loved the 1st two games and this is better still, good sandbox to play around in over this weekend.

King skull island is probably up,there, easiest 1000 points in the business back then... Also two worlds was just garbage after oblivion and Skyrim.

My 2 cents, if it’s jarring, then that would be a shame, if it’s not true native 4K it does not matter, if the update damages performance or load times, that would be terrible.

Hmm I selected "It Was Good" and it shows 0%...

As much as I liked it the Xbox 360 Controller was an improvement.

Meh, the guy being transported into a virtual world, has been done to death, TBH show th games or do some crazy ***** like PS1 ads.

@Alpha_Pulse TBH I formed the same opinion off the back of proprietry cables, updates that slow devices, locking out 3rd party peripherals several years ago, before I even get started on the App store and software side of things.

The problem is, people who have invested heavily in their infrastructure will find it very difficult to exit with all their photos, music, videos, files and games accessible through their cloud services and only on their devices (with exception to some of the worst windows applications designed, throttles and bug ridden).

Now just to be a hypocrit, that still did not stop me from buying an iPad pro for drawing, but I avoid all the services like the plague.

No chance I'll disable it, I only play 1-3 games at a time, 5-8 second load times is a game changer for those juggling hobby, home and work time.

@AJDarkstar True hopefully that proves to be worth the cost, I'm amazed at how well quick resume is performing on PS5, hopefully PS5 loading times will translate into something even more impressive.

@AJDarkstar Yep at the minute there does not seem to be a price advantage with the first announced PS5 1TB drive being slightly more expensive than the Xbox offering, however, this could change if the propriety nature of the Xbox design somehow eliminates competitive offerings.

Even if Apple change their mind, MS is better of spending their money on the browser functionality and marketing the hell out of it. Apple along with Amazon is up in my list of crappy dismal ethics businesses.

@BlueOcean Yeh, it's sad to see, even some of my favorite YouTubers who through in the disclaimer of "I will get both consoles and enjoy them both" at the start and end of their videos, can't help but show bias, I honestly crave factual representation and calling out of speculation where present, some folks have integrity, others understand what gets those views or what their loyal fan base is expecting to hear.

And yet this morning are yet more articles from "reputable" tech bloggers and sites, spouting the overheating issues on Series X.

The guy who originally mentioned in on the cast has had this all taken out of context, and the fact is, news regardless of whether it is political or technological in nature is driven by the need to get as many clicks as possible for ad revenue, so controversial and shocking news will always trump factual.

Typical, devs talk about more powerful machines being more expensive to create for, but it can result in lazy optimisation from some teams.

Some many cutting edge games run on lower spec PCs, it's not hard to configure lower textures and graphics quality to make use of hardware with lower GPU and RAM.

Well plans to capatalise on the All Access pass fell through with game.co.uk being useless as usual.

Managed to grab one through Argos, tried the MS store but it said their was a problem updating my address or adding, any type of payment method.

Great news!...... (Additional words added for the sake of appeasing the posting rules engine)

I dont think I'll need it for 6 months or so, hopefully the modular game downloads and compression systems will make the 1TB of the series X last.

I am hoping for a price reduction also, however I am aware that older SATA SSDs of the same capacity are still £100+ so this is not a shocking price point.

Its interesting, the main reason I wanted a PS4 were for the exclusive games with strong single player narratives. I've not regretted the decision to go with sony last gen, upgrading to a Pro and enjoying exclusives over the years, I thought PS5 would be an instant buy for me.

Now I'm leaning towards Series-X, I want crossplay support which sony has been reluctant to support, I don't agree with the price hikes given on software and peripherals or lack of backwards compatability on the latter, nor Sony's desire to try and sensor games on their platform.

MS is offering the more powerful console with access to hundreds of games, 100% backwards compatability with enhanced perhformance and graphics on many and compatability with older peripherals. I think I'll be slapping down £28 on pre order date and picking up a second cheaper controller to see what I've missed over the last generation.

For me though, crossplay will be critical with Windows, I want to play some online games with the wife without buying another gaming laptop and I do hope that the 1st party development investment pays off withsome quality games, I cant say Crackdown 3 and that pirate game caught my attention any and Halo 5 sounds like it misfired terribly, hopefully talent is gorwing and lessons learned.

I'll end on the fact that I think the PS5 is very tantelising, their 1st party exclusives will no doubt continue to break bounduries, but if I can play them on the Pro for the next 2 years, why bother with PS5, it's not like native 4k and faster loading times are going to be enough to get me hyped out of the gate.

@xMightyMatt14x Yep it's not impossible to create mighty set pieces, character showdowns and engaging narrative in openworld games, but every event should be unique in its purpose and give the player something special to remember. Narrative can be built into side quests and if the pacing of the main plot is interwoven it could be decent. My concern here in the demo was there were 3 AA turrets referenced, they could be seen on the map, it was clear the goal was to destroy 3 AA turrets, im not sure what about doing that activity 3 times will add to the game beyond duration. Whist this is not an rpg I don't see why you cant build in narrative into side quests and have open random events that will capture the imagination, e.g Skyrim, Red Dead Redemption, Fallout, GTA 3 or Vice City, Cyberpunk, Witcher 3.

If this ends up being Far Cry 4 where half way through i did not know what i was doing other killing guys in a particular uniform and liberating some downtrodden people, this will have failed for me.

I am hesitantly interested, if like a great coop experience to play at home with family, but this feels like filler is what 343 are gunning for here.

@Jaxx420 Agreed, i didn't get an Xbox One so never played Halo 5 and if i am honest i got bored playing 4 due to the enemy type so i have yet to see how far they have fallen from a narrative perspective.

I'm less convinced than others on the open world approach, any reminants of an engaging plot can all too easily become background noise to a series of checkbox exercises laid out on a map. Combat looks great but graphics are a bit meh for the big exclusive, im not sure infinite is a console seller, but that's not really MS

I have a feeling this is not going to recreate the same intense coop legendary difficulty slogs i enjoyed back in the day.

Nope just look at digital pricing on PSN & Xbox Marketplace, even Steam, GOG & Epic have upped their game prices inline with consoles, my concern with the digital drive is there will be zero competition and MS & Sony can charge what they like, just like Nintendo to a certain extent.