JayJ

This game is basically COD: Fortnite edition.

@Gabrie Problem is they are right now in a situation where they are basically trying to squeeze everything they can out of their existing customers, essentially taking advantage of their captive audience, and it will definitely hit them hard at some point later down the road. Like they might not see losses soon, they might even see more profit temporarily, but the day will come when they will ask "what happened to our customers, and where did all our fans go?"

Thing is by the time they ask that question, it will probably be too late for them. Bridges will have been burned down, former fans will want nothing to do with the brand, and they will be in a panic wondering how to salvage what remains as the investors turn on them because earnings are going down.

@datamonkey I feel like this is far worse. All that stuff people had against the Xbox One never really happened, it was proposed then it was removed and the actual Xbox One never had the problems people were complaining about, the backlash was literally to the proposition of those ideas. Now, what we are dealing with here, this is actual policy and action that has been implemented and taken direct effect.

It's like I stuck with Xbox and bought an Xbox One because despite all the bad PR the actual console never had those issues and I thought it had some great games (Forza 5, Forza Horizon 2, and Ryse) while the PS4 had nothing I was interested in during launch. Now though, even as someone who stuck with Xbox throughout the One era, I am done with the brand and completely turned off by what Xbox is doing.

Rewards have been reduced to next to nothing, Gamepass going up in price, discounts being removed, it's like they want to give me zero incentive to have anything to do with them anymore.

Xbox is becoming the type of brand I want nothing to do with.

Doubt many of those 75 games would be games I would be willing to pay $30 a month to rent.

I already downgraded to Core after their last price hike, now I'm going to downgrade to no subscription at all.

@The-Doc Yeah I was there where you are right now when they did their last price hike. I tend to buy a lot of games on sale so I got to the point where I took note of how much I was spending on Game Pass Ultimate, took note of the games I was playing on it, and realized how I could just buy the games I really want from it on sale for about what I was spending on the subscription. So I bought them on sale and downgraded to a year of Game Pass Core. Seemed like a decent deal at $60 but now they're charging $75 and I think I will drop Core as well. I'm out when it comes to playing games online at Xbox, I'll just stick to PS5 and PC for now on.

This is corporate talk for "yikes this is really going over poorly and we really need to do some PR damage control."

Okay now I'm pissed. I just checked and they upped the price on a year for Game Pass Core. Just back in Feburary of this year I bought a year for $60, now it's selling for $75.

Sure, it's only $15 more but it's amazing how these increases can become a straw that broke the camel's back, making me ask if I really need it. Might just abandon their online services entirely, I play most games on PS5 now anyways.

I already downgraded to core at the end of last year because I just couldn't justify Ultimate anymore. Sounds like I will just be sticking with core for good until I am done needing online access on Xbox, which might be pretty soon looking at the way things have been going. If the monthly rate keeps going up I'm out. Stuff like this is why I plan to go with a PC next gen.

By this point I don't even care anymore, feels like the Series X just doesn't really matter anymore.

@Cakefish The secret is unlike Microsoft, Apple isn't trying to make any excuses and is simply trying to deliver the best hardware they can at the best price they can.

@TheGameThrifter Yeah not sure what this brand is really trying to be anymore. Seems like they're obsessing over being some type of 3'rd party service or generalized PC gaming brand as opposed to being a real platform anymore.

I don't really see the point of the rewards program anymore. It was nice when I would get a decent amount of credit for buying games I could use to redeem gift cards, but now I get so little points for buying games it feels pointless. Seems like it's now just a bunch of busy work for meager rewards.

MLG and the competitive gaming scene has been the only thing really keeping this franchise alive. Doubt the people deep into that scene are going to abandon it.

The comment section for that video is hilarious

@Michael2008ish Yup willing to bet they only manufactured a small batch for the initial pre-sales and we aren't going to see what the actual demand is like until they have them readily available months later.

Nope, I already got a Steam Deck and I hardly use that as it is. Handhelds this big and complex just aren't the type of thing I consider a go-to handheld, more of a home handheld device for when I want to play a game on the couch while some sports are on or something. The battery life is also never really good enough when playing the sort of games that justify the existence of these things. Yeah you can play some simple games and get better battery life, but what's the point when I could just play that stuff on a Switch which is far more portable?

In the end I simply have no desire for this device, especially for it's price. At $1,000 there is simply nothing interesting or enticing for me here, and the entry model feels like it would be pointless for me. I have already tried out these sort of devices, I already own one, and it's just not the sort of thing I need to have a bunch of.

@LuckyKant Yeah backwards compatibility was the #1 reason why I was such an Xbox fan earlier this gen, but I think we have seen that go as far as Microsoft is willing to go with it. It's part of the reason why I really don't see the desire for a next gen Xbox anymore, we have learned this gen how new standout games take forever to release and even longer to get patched up, and I don't think we are going to see much in the way of backwards compatibility beyond what we already have access to.

Yeah I'd really like to see them show off that JDM car culture. I would honestly like to see them move it into a more sim-like direction as it feels like Forza Horizon games have only been getting increasingly arcadey over the years and there comes a point where it can feel a bit too over the top and I would like to have things more grounded.

@Briarback Yeah the way Xbox has been this year has given me absolutely no confidence or desire to have anything to do with them next gen. Like why should I buy a new Xbox console at a premium when as far as I can tell the brand has nothing exclusive to it anymore and doesn't even seem to be serious about competing with Sony and Nintendo anymore? If they can't even sustain any sort of real retail presence, what chance they they have at having a real presence next gen?

I simply have zero confidence in the brand by this point and no desire to have anything to do with any next generation they could have. Like why would I even want a next gen Xbox, what selling point could it have to offer me?

@Jenkinss Yeah I was going to say as a former Sega fan who was one of the few people I knew back in the day that loved Dreamcast, this feels like a repeat of what the Dreamcast was like in it's late days before it was officially over.

Wow Xbox truly has nothing for me to took forward to outside of Forza Horizon 6, and that will probably be a multiplat game.

@BaldB3lper78 Not surprised. Either they only had a small amount of early order spots available, or the scalpers are rushing in.

This is one of those situations where I doubt it would work out for the scalpers though. I have a hard time seeing people lining up to spend over a grand on one of these.

This seems pretty stupid. My Steam Deck basically eliminates the desire for the entry model, and I am not spending $1,000 on one of these fancy gaming handhelds I barely use, I'd much rather just buy a new laptop or something more useful.

Honestly I would be all over this if it used a native Xbox OS and allowed me to play my full Xbox digital library, but as it is, it's really just a more Windows based alternative to a Steam Deck.

After inventing the strand-type game he has now invented the first match-type game.

@IOI Yup some people try to blame politics, and I get that, politics is something some people absolutely obsess over these days, but the fact remains that a company like Microsoft could easily afford to take some losses on hardware, which used to be the standard for the console market for a long time I might as well add, the mentality was always to take a loss on the hardware to get it out there then collect on the software.

What we have been seeing lately is a big corporate culture shift away from that, although Sony and Nintendo seems to be more willing to make sacrifices to keep the price down. I feel like this is all a part of the infinite growth profit chasing all the corporate investors seem to push for now a days. I guess like consoles and the Xbox brand just isn't a part of their infinite growth plan anymore, everything has shifted over to the services when it comes to Xbox now a days because that is where the most profit can be made. It's all business at the end of the day, and what we're seeing is how Xbox is not going to be much of a brand anymore, I think it's getting reduced to some online service plans and controllers for gaming PC's. Wouldn't even surprise me if they released their next gen Xbox console as some streaming-only Gamepass machine.

@LocalPenguin Yikes, if they're counting on skaters loving this game, they really screwed up. Just about every decision they made with this game feels like it was done to appeal to the average normie audience over skaters. I think that's why it feels so "Fortnite" despite having more of a Sims aesthetic, it has that made to please everyone look and feel. I think a lot of skaters would be put off by the lack of authenticity here. This game feels like what most skaters would call a poser.

I just played some Skate 3 on Xbox before I played this and the new one simply feels "off" or wrong in many ways. It completely lacks the atmosphere and feel that the Skate games had, that's for sure, and the art style feels very Sims 4 or Fortnite. I can see how some people could call this soulless because it really does just feel like a generic corporate gaming product in 2025. There is just zero passion or authentic skate culture that can really be felt. The basics are there in terms of the controls and your ability to skate around, but most of the time it simply feels wrong for a Skate game.

I've been playing Session and Skater XL and both of those games really blow this one away when it comes to controls, accuracy, and capturing the feel of skateboarding and skate culture. Especially Session, that's more of a complete game while Skater XL is more dependent on it's community created content.

This new Skate simply doesn't feel like a proper skateboarding game to me. It's more like The Sims Skateboarding or Fortnite Skate. It feels like a product made to be like that, which is made worse by the way everything is either micro-transaction content or some lame slow trickle down of random clothing and stickers.

Only good thing is how this is early access and this might change or improve over time, but for now I am having a hard time seeing myself really putting much time into this beyond checking it out.

I love extreme sports games, wish they were as popular as they were back in the 00's, but this looks pretty good, kind of like Session or Skater XL.

This reminds me of when they re-released those old Sega CD FMV games with some remastered treatment. Yeah they're awful games but that's sort of the point, it's real cult fanbase stuff.

I'm sure this is going to be a big deal to the 5 people still playing this game.

Also I doubt Grid Autosport is going down as it's still being sold on the Nintendo switch and it's easily among the most popular racing games on that platform. To top it off they are presently marketing it as "with online multiplayer" as a selling point today.

Wow I'm surprised most of these games were still working online in the first place.

Other numbers that are unheard of in handheld gaming: the price

The fact that it's so popular despite the lack of journalist reviews speaks volumes about the current state of journalism.

Sounds like they might as well just put a fork in it. Make a better game if you want better reception.

Roadcraft is fantastic if anyone is into a mix of offroading and road building.

This release is just a mess, it even has some serious problems running properly on the PS5 Pro. It's just kind of a joke by this point.

The series basically became Fortnite FPS.

This definitely feels like the last console generation for many. The price keeps going up on these things while exclusive games are largely going away. Gaming hardware feels like it's generally become pick your favorite flavor sort of thing with there being different ways to play the same games.

This just feels kinda unnecessary after the Xbox One version which already did a great job of updating a 360 classic. This is a modern "remaster of a remaster" situation that has been becoming relatively common now.

One good thing I can say at least is how I was given this game for free so at least they weren't trying to nickel and dime me for this. I think it's pretty obvious how this mostly exists for the Playstation crowd.

Never. I played it but never beat it. Never was much of a Gears of War fan to be honest, never saw what all the fuss was about.

@Kaloudz Yeah things got kinda weird towards the end when it came to Dreamcast games. The plug got pulled on things really fast, as for Shenmue 2 not sure why that happened, but it might have had something to do with Microsoft quickly making it a game for the original Xbox.

Wow, very excited about Euro Truck Simulator 2 & American Truck Simulator coming to console! Can't say I care about anything else here though.

@Kaloudz Yeah true Shenmue 2 was just an absolutely massive game for it's time, especially for a Dreamcast title. I think it's the only multi-disc Dreamcast game I can think of. A shame it never released in the US, I think it's the only Dreamcast game I have a PAL import for.

@Kaloudz I think it's just the feel of the game. First game just felt like more of a passionate life sim to me, second was more of an adventure game.

The first Shemnue was incredible for it's time. The sequels always failed to capture it's magic for me.

Oh wow live service crossovers and some game I probably won't care about.