On paper it doesn't really matter. I personally don't buy physical games anymore so this isn't me lobbying for myself either.

But MS going hard at bringing back physical is the exact kind of PR win they haven't had since Peter Moore was here and it's the kind of PR win they desperately need.

Therefore rest assured they will not do it.

@Fiendish-Beaver I'm pretty much in the same boat as you. I don't like screwing over and I don't like being screwed over. It's one of the big reasons I don't like Sea of Thieves.

My limited understanding is that no, you won't be playing by yourself. What I mean twas you'll be in a lobby or world with other people playing who are also solo, as in, not joined together with others as a group. Again though I want to make it clear: this is me talking about what I know from other games in a genre I've never even played, nevermind specific to this game 😂

I thought you were Mr. Horde Mode? I know you don't get full teams of 5 but I thought you were co-oping it with smaller teams?

Now, let me preface this with the fact that I've never played an extraction shooter. But my very basic outsider understanding of them, mainly through watching some Arc Raiders clips, is that you can play them solo, and you'll be in a solo lobby with other people playing solo. If you play co-op, you'll be in a lobby with other groups. Anyone who actually plays these games please chime in if I'm wrong.

Mild interest in Mistfall Hunter, if I find time I'll give it a shot. I don't really have much time to devote to it though, and it sounds like the kind of game where you will get erased by people who no life the game, so my personal hopes for sticking with it are not high.

It's just 4 games, guys.

Also Microsoft: sent TWELVE LAWYERS to Brazil to stop a guy from getting his hacked account back

Celeste is quite the hidden gem.

@fatpunkslim I've made peace with the fact that I'm going to go to my grave not sure if you are a parody account.

Glad I didn't preorder ffvii rebirth, that's a quick price drop. Gonna grab it and play it when I eventually finish Kingdom Come Deliverance

Great article. This guy getting justice because he went wildly viral is not a feel good story. The rest of us are dead if this happens to us.

We’re sorry this happened, it’s not the experience we want anyone to have when their account is compromised.

the ***** it isn't. As if they ACCIDENTALLY sent TWELVE lawyers to Brazil just to keep that other poor guy's account banned forever. This company is actually scum of the earth at this point. Billions in PROFIT every year, and they will go to the mat to ensure that you, their loyal paying customer, get absolutely f***ed. Twelve lawyers to Brazil instead of 1 support guy to review the case. Never forget.

@oopsiezz I stand with Pierre. I've seen who is at 343 and they need a taskmaster, and they're exactly the kind of people that would cry about it being"harassment."

This is historically completely false, however it could be a new normal if prices continue to rise (lol).

Xbox 360 sales, for example, climbed every year peaking in its 6th year.
PS4 climbed and then peaked in its 4th year
PS5 climbed and then peaked in its 3rd year
Xbox One climbed and then peaked in its 4th year
Switch climbed and peaked in its 5th year

These aren't cherry picked they're the first 5 I checked. You can knock a half year on some of these if you want to exclude the first fiscal year they were available but it doesn't change anything.

Microsoft Game Studios is "making a fortune." Xbox isn't making *****. Rebranding MGS was a genius move because they knew it would lead to nonsense headlines like this.

this is embarrassing, typical MS speak and the usual suspects are eating it up. Just 4 games all over again (and over and over and over again).

I have hundreds of Xbox and 360 games, but maybe a dozen physical Xbox One and Series games. One of those cool sounding features that isn't really going to help me.

I mean yeah, I still have my Coleco in my basement. I leave Burgertime in it to play it once every few years when I'm feeling super nostalgic.

I resisted Steam for a few years specifically for all the reasons mentioned above, but eventually relented because of Team Fortress 2 (I played thousands of hours of Team Fortress, and thousands more Team Fortress Classic. Valve won). However there was never a specific moment in time where the conversation blew up like it is now with Sony abandoning physical. It was more gradual on PC. I would say the closest thing to this would be when Gamestop stopped carrying PC games in stores.

I hope this isn't one of those games that's still in early access when it leaves game pass.

I actually disagree with your general point here. There's several scenarios where someone can try to revoke your physical game license that I can think of:

The platform holder itself can:
An online hardware ban. You can buy a new console and continue to use your physical games.
An account ban. You can create a new account and continue to use your physical games.
A hardware and account ban. You can buy a new console, create a new account, and continue to play your games.
The developer or publisher of the game can only do the 2nd option, which is easily worked around.
And to me the most important test is, in any of these scenarios, you can sell your physical copy to another person, and it will continue to work.
The caveat here is an online only game that comes with some kind of code in the box that ties the game to your account only. In this case you never really had any ownership anyway as the game could never be sold/transferred as soon as you installed it.

It seems you're already in a contentious argument about this so hopefully my disagreement doesn't come across as dog piling.

Gamerscore is meaningless and anyone who thinks otherwise just needs to look at this story vs Shadow of the Erdtree having 0 achievements.

I don't mean they have very little meaning. I mean they are meaningless, and there is a huge difference between the two.

What is more sad is they also cancelled a Shadowrun game Obsidian was developing. That's per Chris Avellone who has been pretty spot on with his Obsidian leaks, only thing he got "wrong" afaik was he thought Avowed was so far into development that MS wouldnt cancel it. Never underestimate MS's ability to cancel and lay off

Just divest Rare and let them make it.

This is the single worst thing Xbox has ever done. Been here since day 1 through the good and the bad. This is a new level of bad.

F*** Satya Nadella, F*** Amy Hood, F*** Asha Sharma, F*** Matt Booty, F*** Aaron Greenberg. F*** every one of these clowns.

First of all, it's no secret how skeptical I am of all this. But I can easily be objective here.

The timing of this makes it impossible to recover. Phil said Xbox lost the console war because they lost to ps4, and everyone built their digital libraries and would no longer move. I emphatically disagree with him. Xbox could have made a comeback. Right now though, no. The price of hardware is just prohibitive of any shift happening. People have what they have right now, and that's it. The days of selling 9 million units in a quarter are so far gone, they're not even memory anymore. They are legend. They are gone forever.

So, what they want to do is impossible. However, the skeptic in me knows that THEY know that. This isn't a reboot, it's a managed shutdown.

I'm sorry but what the f*** are these people thinking announcing half the layoffs are yet to come?

So now EVERYONE across all these studios is going to work every day, going to sleep every night, thinking the axe is falling on them? Like what in the actual f*** guys, really?

I'm sure the products in the pipeline are going to be absolutely wonderful, the best creatives make their best work when their is a loaded gun to their head. FFS this company is unreal and it's so frustrating to have gone down with this ship.

Lots of great friendslop this month and I'm all about it. Probably not great for the single player only crowd.

Before clicking I assumed this was going to be a new klobrielle roadmap

The only reason they would do this at this point would be to show they are still fighting for customers - so obviously they aren't going to do it. We are long past that stage.

You can be sure with 100% certainty that they purposely float rumors like this through their mouthpieces like Jez and Tom Warren, taking temporary wins at no cost to themselves.

They aren't trying to stop the ship from sinking. They're trying to make as much money as they can before it sinks.

This is a blessing for State of Decay 3, the game will actually get marketed now. It was going to quietly get sent out to die by the incompetent dipsh*t Aaron Greenberg.

I clicked the Star Trek trailer

LOL, no regrets

GOLF WITH FRIENDS, NOOOOOOOO

Well, now to wait for the sequel

I'll also miss Stellaris, great game even without all the typical Paradox expansions.

Forever Skies looks like it might be fun with friends

@beltmenot played them on PC after kickstarting the first one. Shadowrun is an incredible unique setting, fantasy cyberpunk. Judging by the other comments the console port might not be great.

This happened to my friend in FH5, really sucks. Don't know why this is such an issue in this one series.

I had over 500k at one point. I stopped doing it, my time is worth more, even if that's just idly surfing while at work. The final straw was when I was temporarily banned in a mass mistaken ban wave.

I've never sold a game, so to me this is exactly the same as a code in the box. Actually, it's far worse since you can't game share it.

Just give me Dragons Dogma 2 Dark Arisen!

This is one of the games Microsoft got when they bought Candy Crush, right?

Does it continue The Dark Ages story? Because I could really do without that.

Finally @Balaam_ can get rid of his pesky game discs and go fully digital like he's always wanted.

The narrative will now change to digital being superior and physical being outdated and useless.

If they release it at 60fps, how could they sell us a 60fps version 8 years from now?

This feels like a sequel to my favorite Xbox cancellation, True Fantasy Live Online back in 2004.

Lmao this actually surprised me, and now I'm sitting here wondering how this could have possibly surprised me. I really thought Undead Labs was safe for now, inexplicably.

If my friends are interested I'll give mistfall hunters a try.

How braindead does someone have to be to willingly waste $20 on horse armor 🤣

2x series X on launch day for 499 each (myself and my wife)

A series S in 2023 from Verizon for 150 (impulse buy for the bedroom)

On one hand, it would be nice if there were announcements for these things before they happen.

OTOH, I can easily see why Xbox or any platform would not want to draw attention to this. Even though it has nothing to do with them, it's not a great look that content is not permanent.

If you want to get into this hobby we have a console for you; it's called the Xbox 360.

Bungie was a comically bloated studio tending to 1 game - and development on that game just ended.

I used to do MS rewards and at one point have over 500k points, but after a mistaken banwave, when I got my points back i cashed out as fast as i could.

Meanwhile, I buy credit cheap. Yesterday I got $100 from newegg for $83. Raise also usually has good discounts. Then be patient and buy games on sale and it's like double coupon day.