Kienda

Should have made the show for the fans. Without them you got nothing.

@blockfight @Titntin thanks for the replies. I think I might start with some remote play and see how it goes.

@blockfight is the portal worth it?

I’m finding I have limited alone time with the TV because the wife wants to watch or the kids steal the Xbox so I was thinking the portal might help me just get some extra screen time.

@themightyant yeah, I guess.

I think though that PlayStation has a more engaged audience. I could be wrong. But I wonder if these stats are skewed a bit by lots of people having “Xbox” but it’s just on their PC for one game they play, for example. Or people who dabbled with gaming on cloud.

If this is just Xbox console users. I’d be surprised.

@Dr_ENT Erm… you’re a troll right?

Even as a CEO of a massive company he should still have enough down time to play that much… easily.

There are 52 weekends per year (104 days). Not to mention his down town after a busy working day, plus annual leave and national holidays.

Maybe get off your high horse. People need lives out side of work.

Well played Jim. That’s an average of 2.5 hours a day.

I honestly thought that would just be an average time for most people, but it’s top 5%. I’m at 350 hours and in the top 15%. Meaning most Xbox players play less than an hour a day. In fact, most play less than hour a week more likely. I’m a bit shocked by that.

I watched the first three episodes on a long haul flight.

It wasn’t that bad as a show but I can understand why some fans weren’t happy.

@Boogaloo_Jenkins I wonder how BG3 will sell on Xbox if it doesn’t come to Game Pass.

If it sells poorly they’ll likely make a deal for Game Pass in the next few months.

£150? I could buy 6,300 Yorkshire Tea bags for that price.

That’s like 10 years worth of tea!

I bought Dragon’s Dogma 1 for £4.20 a few months back. Great game.

I’ll be playing this when it’s under £20, all patched up and has DLC.

Skylanders Swap Force for the win!

The fact some people are out here defending this scummy invasion of marketing is troubling.

Is it a deal breaker? No. Is it the end of the world? No. But that doesn’t make it acceptable.

I nearly pulled the trigger on a PS5, but resisted the urge.

Also hoping for a good deal on Xbox controllers. Need to upgrade an old one.

@Sifi you don’t want to know how little I’m paying…

I got it below £2.50 per month (I think £2.12?) until the end of 2024. (Got Xbox Live Gold for £25 per year x3 using VPN and then upgraded to GPU for £1)

However, that’s not the point. Even if it was 1p per month and they were taking away three games per month I would complain.

Why?

Because they took away a benefit I used to get. They lessened the service and we as customers should be allowed to complain about that.

I don’t know why people are so defensive of Xbox when they make a bad move. And it is a bad move. Microsoft is a multi trillion dollar company. They can do be better and be better and we as loyal fans and customers should expect better.

It really isn’t a lot to ask.

And yes, I still enjoy my PS+ subscription because they give me games. However, they upped the price which sucks. So I'm not so happy with them either. But Xbox also upped the price and I’ll never get that sub £2.50 price ever again because they changed the rules.

@Maddie47 I’m paying the same amount for Xbox Game Pass that I was paying 3 months ago.

But I’m getting 3 less games per month.

So yes, they were free. Because I was getting them for the same price they’re not giving me them for.

And the PS+ sub is a moot point. Sony still lets me keep 3 games a month. Xbox stopped.

That’s not fun as a customer.

Of course. They we’re free games.

Sony still give me free games, but Microsoft don’t.

Xbox is Team Green for a reason, I guess.

However, I can’t help but think that Microsoft has probably helped add more plastic to landfill than probably any other company. How many billions of old PCs with Microsoft software on are just sat there poisoning the earth right now? How many old Xboxes and controllers and plastic game cases will there be piled up in 10 years time?

I’m no eco warrior, but that’s not exactly green is it.

I love Xbox, but… there is a reason Xbox is in 3rd place.

Lack of good quality first party games (or any first party games during Xbox One) has been a massive contributing factor.

They’re trying to rectify this now, but back in the 360 era there were so many unique and exclusive titles only on Xbox. So I think the lack of nominations is just evidence that Xbox lost its way on game development side of things. Rectifying it with acquisitions may give them higher quality exclusives, but overall it doesn’t improve the offerings available, just shifts multi format games to Xbox only.

Now, I do think Starfield should have gotten a nomination. I even think it would have been better reviewed and gotten that cherished nomination if it was multi platform. I think there was some politics in all this. It doesn’t deserve to win though. But hey, that’s just my opinion.

@DennisReynolds I was saying it’s one of the most unique and daring in scope “for the year”.

You’re right that the game isn’t as good at space exploration as some you mentioned, for example No Man’s Sky, but in other aspects it’s gigantic.

Just think of the amount of items, lovingly crafted. The literal hundreds-of-thousands of lines of dialogue. And all those other things. It is a massive game in scope compared to many others releases this year.

All I’m saying is the game deserves some recognition.

Yeah, it’s Fallout in space, but Spider-Man 2 is Spider-Man 1, but now bigger. Resident Evil 4 is literally a remake of an old game with additions. Not to mention TotK and Mario Wonder being improved versions of older entries in the series. Great games? Sure. But a few of them are not as much a step forward as Starfield (in my opinion). So it’s a shame Game Awards seemingly chose politics over appreciating the developers.

That being said, Baldurs Gate 3 likely deserves to win.

That’s a slap in the face.

Golden Joystick Awards gave PS5 game of the year to Resident Evil 4.

That game is on Xbox, but Starfield beat it.

Here they put Spider-Man 2 above Starfield and FF16. That’s a bit of a joke imho.

Starfield is not the best game of the year. But it’s one of the most unique and daring in scope. The amount of work that went into it is impressive.

My Xbox is not dusty, but that top vent has caught some things…

We got a new kitten and at the same time my wife bought a new plant and placed it next to my Xbox.

When I was playing one day the cat attacked the plant and all I hear is the sound of a couple twigs and some leaves getting churned up in my Xbox’s fan as the cat knocked the plant over onto the Xbox.

It still runs fine though.

360 - without a doubt!

It had a massive catalogue of diverse games and competed with Wii and PS3 valiantly.

My heart was set on a PS3, but I bought the 360 at launch on a whim and I ended up waiting a few years until I finally got round to buying a PS3. Why? Because the 360 was enough.

I will definitely get this. We need more action/adventures that are family friendly.

This actually looks good!

@TheSimulator calm down.

There is a big difference between John Wick and this.

@Deljo

First, I don’t have an “agenda”. I have always advocated that video games don’t make mass murderers. I’ve even spoken with politicians about this because my line of work.

Does this mean video games have no affect on people? No.

Second, I’m not contradicting myself by saying I am unfavourable of censorship but am in favour of this game being limited. There is a thing called nuance in language. I’ve not called for this game to be banned or that it shouldn’t exist but that doesn’t mean it should be available on every platform.

YouTube, for example, doesn’t allow certain types of content. Porn, extreme violence, etc. That isn’t “censorship”, it’s the responsible thing to do for the platform. I’m not in favour of them censoring words and opinions they don’t agree with. That’s the difference.

Just because you or I can play this game for laughs doesn’t mean everyone can or should.

This alone is why it is important for platform holders like Xbox to limit extreme content on their platform. And despite this games poor graphics, it is extreme content.

It should also lead developers to think, “what was the point of us making this game?” And players to question whether they should be spending their time on something so mindless.

There are better things to do in life than play garbage games. And I say that as an avid gamer whose played his fair share.

@GunValkyria who cares about the $$$?

If glorifying the mass murder of kids is only for money then they can take that money and shove it.

@TheSimulator it’s not about the adults. If this censorship stops one child from playing this game, then it was worth it. Adults can buy a PC and play it if they must.

I’m not for censorship, but in this case well done Xbox and Nintendo.

My job includes documenting murders and terror attacks. I can say with some authority that this type of game isn’t doing any good for anyone. The trailer alone is garbage.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but some people here need to get a grip of reality and take a break from the internet and video games. Life is beautiful, but I have seen first hand its darkest parts. And this game just glorifies it for money and internet clout. It’s pathetic.

@Zenszulu it’s not really “entitled”.

They work at the company and the company rewards them with perks. It’s now taking away a perk it gave them for a long time. And there is nothing wrong with being unhappy about that.

It’s a trillion dollar company and Game Pass is almost free for them to give away to their employees. It’s a bad move by Microsoft.

@Zenszulu take anything away from anyone and they will be hurt by this.

But not all their 230,000+ staff are high earners.

This sucks more for the lower paid staff.

I bet there are many janitors, cleaners and other staff on low wages that have lost this perk also. And they’re likely not the ones complaining.

@Mephisto2869 regardless of the reasons, I never thought I’d see the day when Xbox outsold PlayStation in Japan.

You are right though for the reason. It likely won’t happen again.

To be honest, I think I prefer AI voiceovers than I do randomly generated or procedural content.

At least the developers are still writing the phrases that are being spoken and curating the sound of the voices through tools to adjust them to sound as they would like, so there is human input.

But this is probably only the beginning and in future we will see the AI doing the creative parts which I don’t like so much.

The Gunk is a great game and Game Pass is a great service.

If it wasn’t for Game Pass I wouldn’t have even tried this game and I ended up rating it as one of my favourite for the year it released.

That sounds about right for 2023. Release games that used to work fine but now need patching to fix because the industry is incredibly lazy when it comes to quality control prior to launch.

Metal Gear Solid here I come!

All the best with the wedding @FraserG - May you have many years of happiness together.

Nope. I’m in the 99%

Even though I have owned every console from the big 4 (Sega/Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft). I think the only console I bought at launch was the 360 and that was maybe within the first couple weeks.

Fortunately, I’m not an achievement junkie.

Congrats to all who have it though.

Yes, right in the middle of my Final Fantasy 13 play through.

It made me quit Xbox for a bit (couldn’t afford another one) and I just went to PC gaming before eventually getting a PS3 and then upgrading to PS4/Xbox One a few years later.

I still have my copy of FF13 and still haven’t finished it. Even though it’s now 40k 60fps on Series X.

One day I will complete it!

Always sad to see people’s hard work flushed down the drain.

I’m assuming there will be some PC versions of this game being preserved and possibly improved upon by modders in the future.

Origins is my favourite.

Haven’t yet played Mirage.

Yes, we NEED this in my house.

We have one Series S and one Series X.

My kids are always using my Series X for physical games. Skylanders and the like. Why? Because ONLY Skylander Superchargers is playable on Xbox Series S. the rest are physical only. We even have an Xbox One to play a couple of them which don’t work on the Series X.

We will lose access to certain games in a digital only world. And I don’t like that one bit.

But more importantly, I want my Xbox back!

I really hope this is true.

As a massive JRPG and Final Fantasy fan, this would be a dream come true.

I also wish they’d release some other PlayStation/Nintendo JRPGs from Square Enix like the Secret of Mana series on Xbox.

@FraserG

I wanted to say thank you for the game club.

I’m not able to do it every month, but in August you guys played Ori and the Will of the Wisps.

Well, I never played an Ori game and I am not a fan of 2D platformers in general. But I thought I’d try out Ori and started with the original.

Before I knew it, I was hooked. Everything in it, the characters, the music, the environments and the gameplay were all magical. I didn’t just finish the game, but I 100% completed the game.

I now have Ori and the Blind Forest listed as one of my favourite games of all time and I even bought the Ori collection on the Switch so I could have a physical version of both games in my collection. My kids have also played it after watching me play. And my brother might be getting it as a present in the future, also. But don’t tell him. 😅

I’m saving Will of the Wisps for a bit later so I can spread out my Ori adventures but I’m sure it will also be just as amazing.

Ori was truly a magical game that I likely would never have experienced if it wasn’t for the Game Club.

So, truly, thank you.

Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen

I had no desire to play this game. Didn’t really know much about it. Then saw DD2 was coming out, so searched it up on the Xbox store and saw DD:DA was under £4. So I nabbed a copy and have put about 10 hours in so far and having a great time with it.

It’s a bit janky in places, but when you get past that you realise it is a stand out and unique RPG from the 360/PS3 era.

I think some people are not understanding his role.

He is a ‘Senior Producer’. There are usually multiple ‘senior producers’ and a few more ‘producers’ and they fall under the Executive Producer(s) who heads up the ‘Production’ side of the game rather than the ‘Design’ side.

It doesn’t mean the game is years from release. It might just mean they are getting an experienced person in to help finalise / refine the game.

His main role will be managing a team and giving advice and direction. And clearly he has good experience in both RPGs and Racing games, which seems a natural fit for both Fable and Forza.

Okay, important question.

Does this mean I sell all my Skylanders because their price will go down, or buy more Skylanders because their price will go up?

Disappointing. Okay, some good games, but I expected more.

Square Enix are beyond toying with us. It’s not only frustrating, but it’s hard to feel anything but disrespected at this point.

I am not buying any Square Enix game except from FF7:Remake and FF16 as long as they come to Xbox.

It’s a principle thing for me. Xbox fans deserve better from Square Enix and other third party developers.