Kienda

I have to admit, while I’m sad to lose 24 free games a year, this wasn’t a great year for it.

Star Wars Episode 1 Racer was the best. I had fun playing it with my kids and telling them my memories about the game from when I was a kid.

The handling is still great on that game.

I’m glad Microsoft is committed to updating games like this.

It helps breathe life into older titles and allows those of us who are yet to play these titles to experience the best versions of them.

I used to play Killer Instinct on the SNES a lot. It was up there as one of my favourite fighters alongside Street Fighter II. So it will be great to see what the newest game offers once these updates go live.

Quake 2 was my jam back in the day. Played on PC competitively. Was in multiple “clans” for different game modes and leagues. Mainly played Rocket Arena and CTF and had a blast.

Gonna be great playing it again.

Finally, FF14 is long overdue on Xbox.

Unfortunately I don’t have time for it (nowadays) but I will hold out hope for the FF7 remakes and FF16.

Sad to see GwG die.

It deserved better, and so did we as customers.

I bought the original Ocean Horn on sale the other day. I am hoping it hooks me in so I can enjoy the sequel when it comes out also.

It’s really interesting reading people’s stories. Thanks for sharing everyone.

My entry was the original Xbox.

I’ve been very fortunate to own every console from each of the big four (Sega/Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft) but I didn’t have my eye on the Xbox until a friend bought it and showed me Splinter Cell and Halo: Combat Evolved.

Once I bought mine, two more friends had also got Xboxes and we had LAN parties of Halo. We would borrow controllers from distant friends and rope in sisters and their friends to play 16 player Halo across four TVs and four consoles. Usually it would dwindle down to 8 players or some such, but we would play into the early hours and it was honestly some of the best gaming fun we had.

We even created our own alcoholic concoction called “Chemical X” which we would drink to accompany our gaming sessions which would make it even more interesting.

That era of gaming, the Dreamcast, GameCube, PS2 and Xbox is probably my most memorable time gaming. Although each generation has been special to me. Good memories.

This is a step down.

Core is just “okay” as a basic entry point for NEW subscribers, but all us loyal Game Pass Ultimate subscribers are losing out.

We now get 24 games LESS per year.

PS+ has been giving me amazing games almost every month for years.

I wanted Microsoft to raise its game and match what Sony was doing. Instead they are taking away games.

So I’m not happy with that.

I will miss Games with Gold. I think Core could have been in addition to it. And I think it’s sad if Xbox fans accept this as a good thing because “GWG sucks so why bother”. That’s such a lame excuse.

The fans should expect better and Microsoft should want to deliver better. We know they have enough money to be better.

@InfamousOrange I bought the early access to it simply because I couldn’t take time off work on 6th September so I will happily be playing it five days earlier.

Managed to get it for £18 from the Iceland (I think) Xbox store. So almost half price.

@Amigator we wanted decent games. My PS Plus sub has given me decent games for years.

Second, this actually takes away a benefit from Game Pass Ultimate subscribers.

So yeah, I’m gonna complain. Sony can do it (and better) and this is a mega corporation taking away a benefit from me. So why can’t I complain?

For new subs, Core is likely better, especially if they expand the library, but not for current GPU subscribers. We now get less.

This is not a win.

On PlayStation Plus we get 3 permanent games, often good games.

We already get these “Core” games with our Game Pass Ultimate sub. So this is a DOWNGRADE for Game Pass subscribers not an upgrade.

It was nice having bonus games on top of the Game Pass catalog, they just needed to give away better games. And the Core pack could have been in addition to those games for those on the lower tier.

Remember, this is a multi-billion/trillion dollar corporation…

@Dramlin yeah, it is a bit annoying having to sign up to so many things. It’s mainly a practice of email gathering so they can market to you.

Exoprimal all the way. Really having fun with this one.

@Bleachedsmiles a true ensemble of British comedians being the villains in this game would be amazing. There is so much they could do with that, but I think we’d have seen more if anyone other than Richard Ayoade was in it (let’s hope though).

@GamingFan4Lyf if you want to get a taste of some British comedy watch a couple episodes of the IT Crowd and Derek and that will show you all the names mentioned above. Derek is newer and more likely easier to get into for Americans, but I have some US colleagues who love the IT Crowd.

@Dramlin I went through this and it didn’t seem any different to other company’s account linking methods. It’s just asking if you want to give permission to access your Microsoft account through the Capcom website, and naturally, when the accounts link they’re going to speak to each other about your activity, share friends lists and so forth.

Microsoft wouldn’t allow this if it breached rules. And other companies have the same stuff.

Well this won’t help my brother’s “Apple sucks and Samsung is the best” attitude at all…

@TheSimulator I wondered if the latest anti-Xbox Twitter talking point would appear in the comments and I wasn’t disappointed. The first comment!

Steam numbers are down a lot. It’s true. But the game is mostly played on Xbox consoles and the Xbox PC app, so it doesn’t tell the full story.

Still a shame though as I really am enjoying the game week in week out. Not sure why people hate on it so much.

@ZYDIO that’s impressive.

I’ve been watching someone on and off as they play through it on Twitch. It’s a long haul and something I don’t really have time for, but I’m likely going to grab it eventually. I really enjoy the AC open world games and Valhalla looks the best of them in my mind.

My brother takes a day off every time they release the new Pokémon. It was his first game as a kid and it’s now a tradition for him.

Personally, I have taken days off for gaming, mainly for games like World of Warcraft back in the day.

Nowadays, I have family and so my days off usually coincide with my wife and kids days off. But as my kids game we often have a few gaming days together if my wife is working.

This year I decided that I would take a day off just for me for Starfield’s release. And actually it was my wife’s idea.

@IOI it’s interesting that you point this out. Technically, if Xbox hadn’t bought Bethesda you’d still not be having a day off for an Xbox made game.

@ZYDIO can I ask, are you playing this game daily for 7 months or am I missing something?

@Suda52 and Sony started with Psygnosis (creators of Wipeout) in 1993 before Xbox even existed.

They have since bought Bend, Naughty Dog, Insomniac and many more, including Bungie as the latest.

Nothing Microsoft is doing is different to what Sony has done, just that Microsoft is making an acquisition on a larger scale than Sony has done.

Activision-Blizzard put themselves up for sale. They were not forced to be bought. If Microsoft didn’t buy them someone else would have.

So what is your point?

Edit: On your second point. Microsoft didn’t say they wanted to spend Sony out of business, one executive said that in an email. That doesn’t mean it becomes company policy or that it was adopted. And trust me, I’m sure Sony’s executives have also theorised how to beat Microsoft at business. As someone who works with big firms for marketing, I can assure you it isn’t uncommon to hear people talking about competition like that.

@Suda52 but Microsoft isn’t buying an entire market, they are buying a publisher.

What are you even talking about?

Jim knows that you can’t claim something is wrong when you have done it yourself.

When Sony acquired Naughty Dog or Insomniac (or many others) they ensured the future games they developed were exclusive to their platform.

It wasn’t illegal or wrong or “anti-consumer” then so Microsoft doing so with Bethesda isn’t either.

It’s not rocket science.

@theduckofdeath but why wish for the death of physical or support business practices that hurt those who love physical just because you don’t like physical? A company can continue being a mix of physical and digital for years and it won’t affect you being fully digital in the slightest. Everything you have said about physical is opposite of how I enjoy my console games.

@CallMeDuraSouka I agree. Because consoles are enclosed eco systems I mainly buy physical on console. But I also play PC games that never release physically, so my PC collection is almost 100% digital. But I don’t feel so bad about this because PC games never die because of the way it works on PC.

I’m surprised so few people here care about physical games.

The excuses here:

• “It’s on GamePass who cares?”
• “It will be bare bones anyway without patches so why bother.”
• “Everything should be digital.”

I’m a big fan of Game Pass but why do we make so many excuses for massive corporations cutting corners.

It’s good this game is releasing physically. Game preservation is a good thing. Allowing frugal gamers to resell their games and trade for new ones is a good thing. Allowing collectors to enjoy their physical collections is a good thing.

Why are people so willing to throw this gaming lifestyle down the drain?

I’ve just decided that I’m buying this game physically and never playing it through Game Pass out of principle.

@PhileasFragg haha. Well that’s a very cynical way of looking at it.

I actually think it’s more that they didn’t think they were needed and then will likely add them after people repeatedly ask for them.

A example is Guild Wars 2 which launched without mounts. They didn’t have them in GW1 and even though World of Warcraft (their main competition) had them from the get go they didn’t think they were needed. Then when they did add them in GW2 they were the best mounts of any MMO and they complimented the game perfectly and the new content they added was made all the better for it.

So Starfield could be the same. Right now they don’t seem needed (by the developers) but in future they could come up with great DLC for them. Underwater content, long distance travel on planets etc could be enhanced with their addition.

@MayaMousavi okay, you got a bit hung up on the word ‘monopoly’ there. I didn’t mean it that PlayStation has exclusive control of the market, but that they are in the dominant position compared to Xbox.

The way I see things is that Xbox and PlayStation are direct competition.

Nintendo, PC and mobile compete in the same space, but they are different to the PlayStation vs Xbox battle.

During the 360/PS3/Wii era it was more of a three way battle and Xbox held its own then. But things have changed a lot since then.

Last gen this was the result:

PS4 = 117 million consoles sold
Xbox = 51 million consoles sold

2022 Profits:
PlayStation = $24.2 billion
Xbox = $16.28 billion

PlayStation is dominant and Microsoft had to respond to that to try keep up.

I’m not saying it is fair that Microsoft is buying studios for exclusivity. I’m not saying it’s fair that Sony pay for exclusivity with first parties. If you want to cry about fairness right now, Sony has blocked Xbox gamers from buying 3P games far more than Microsoft has done so to PlayStation gamers. And Sony was doing it far more aggressively last generation than in the PS3/360 gen. So Microsoft’s response was to buy up studios.

But there is one more thing you’re missing.

Activision-Blizzard put itself up for sale. If Microsoft didn’t buy them, Tencent or someone else would have.

@MayaMousavi the thing is Sony didn’t need to buy studios. Sony had the monopoly on the market and had the ability to secure exclusive third party games, either by paying for them or (most often) simply promising better sales on PlayStation if they remained exclusive.

Xbox had a choice. Either shut down the console side of things to try and compete. So they made two key decisions, first was to create the Netflix of gaming, the second was to start obtaining exclusive titles. They did that through acquisitions.

Netflix did a similar thing. They started by just being a streaming service. Then they made shows that they released both on Netflix and elsewhere. Now most of the Netflix made content is exclusive.

I think the problem is people keep looking at this from human terms. We take the side of our favourite. We think people are doing things out of human emotional reasons (spite, envy, meanness etc) when in reality it is just business and they are both making decision to compete.

Sony has 19 studios. Microsoft currently has 23. That still doesn’t mean Xbox will have more games in the future. Most Japanese games are still going to be PlayStation exclusive because loyalty means something in that culture.

I think the future is going to be much better now that Xbox is making for better competition for Sony. I still think certain things can be improved on both sides. But taking emotion out, this will help both companies compete more strongly.

@MayaMousavi this is factually untrue.

Sony’s first acquisition was in 1993 of the UK game studio Psygnosis (developers of Wipeout).

Microsoft’s first big acquisition was Rare in 2000. That same year Sony bought Bend studios and a month later bought Naughty Dog. Sony was in the process of buying them before Microsoft announced buying Rare.

Big businesses acquire smaller businesses. It is not unique to video games or Microsoft. Look at all big companies, they all do it. My friends company was bought by Samsung because he owned the patent to a software they wanted for use in Android and to stop Apple getting it. It happens all the time.

Big companies do stuff to get to the top or stay at the top.

Sony is currently winning. They’ve done that by throwing their weight around. Forcing companies to sign exclusive deals with them. Or even paying for it. There have 8 exclusives to every 1 Xbox has. And most of them are third parties because Sony has pushed them into it.

Microsoft, now forced to counter this, are throwing their money around, buying up companies and buying exclusivity that way.

They are two different tactics but it is ultimately two giant corporations fighting for supremacy and using different tactics to achieve that aim. And even though I love PlayStation, I don’t feel like Sony has been the nice guy in this situation.

Edit: And in response to your “8 acquisitions in a single year” claim. That was 2021 when they bought Zenimax which included eight studios. That same year Sony bought 6 individual studios. So it wasn’t much different, just that Microsoft made arguably a better acquisition.

I don’t think I will ever pay full price for Game Pass.

I’m all paid up to November 2024 having bought three years worth for about £2.50 per month.

I’m assuming when I renew next year I will find a deal, obviously not as good as that, so that will be fine for me.

Even at full price it is worth it. Even if you subscribe for a few months at a time to catch up with the games you missed then unsubscribe for a bit.

Having said all that:
Microsoft don’t ‘need’ the money. And so I’m not gonna defend them when everyone is struggling financially, especially low income families. A lot of mums won’t know how to get these good deals and will once again be paying more for the same service, just as they are paying more for almost everything right now.

Little people will continue to lose out while the fat cats of multibillion dollar corporations continue to rake in money while telling us “we are all in this together”.

So I’m not gonna justify the price hike. It still sucks, even if it won’t affect me personally too much.

Personally, I’d have loved to have a ‘Lunar Rover’ type vehicle to explore in. Or other on planet crafts like boats and so forth.

Hopefully they can add it in future DLC.

@Ep_13 yes, this is time for 343 to be open and honest, but instead we get marketing speak that is anything but honest.

I work in marketing. I’ve manoeuvred companies public messaging while they are shutting down offices but still promising “nothing is changing”. I’m glad I’m away from that stuff. That’s how I noticed the marketing speak.

To be clear, I’m not bashing 343. I play Halo Infinite weekly and love the game. But they cannot claim that cutting content is a good thing. It always leads to bad things (even if the current new content is exciting).

This is more a Microsoft issue to fix. This is their flagship game. And they should invest in it as a loss leader, not cut budgets, teams and content. It doesn’t look good or bode well so I hope they will course correct.

Not good.

What this means is their budget and staffing has been reduced. So they have had to cut content.

The marketing speak is that they are doing it to ‘focus on gameplay’ but that is bull.

Marketing 101 (or should I say 343): You never admit a weakness or inferiority. Even when you deliver less you tell customers you are giving them more.

Fixing the broken relationship with Square Enix.

If I had a chance of getting Final Fantasy 7: Remake and Rebirth at SOME point on Xbox, it would be great.

@Ep_13 I probably shouldn’t have mentioned woke in my first comment. I was more just aghast at the backlash this character and the developers received.

I think what I refer to as woke is different to you. What you refer to as woke, is what I would just say is common decency and respect for all people regardless of who they are. So maybe I’m woke without realising. Haha

I’m not sure about Brexit. I don’t think Brexit should affect our ability to be kind to each other. I think politics has gotten to very angry (maybe it always has been) and so I tend to avoid it.

@Ep_13 maybe my interpretation of “woke” is different to yours.

I’m liberal, I thought woke referred to the crazy far-left fringe stuff that pushes beyond the basic decency of giving representation and respect for all and instead moves towards high minded ideals that are impossible to maintain and just cause confusion.

I agree that Fable’s character creator should allow people to make the character how they want and I think representation is good.

It didn’t make sense that people were angry about this character as being “woke” or that the developers were “bowing to wokeness“ (as I saw some claim) when actually it was just a good way to show the customisation you can do. The character they made suited the style of the trailer and they knew what they were doing with and made jokes about.

@InterceptorAlpha enjoy your launch party. I’m gonna take the day off work when it launches to get the most out of it.

@Hurblyburbly if gaming has taught us anything, it’s that more than one is a party. Hehe

The ‘ugly’ lady caused a bit of a Twitter storm about wokeness the other day.

Personally, I’m not into the woke stuff, but it was obviously a joke about how you can customise your character (like past fable games) and make them fugly.

The reason we know they weren’t trying to push this ugly girl as beautiful is how they revealed her. Shock and horrified people gasping.

They mocked her looks.

If she is the main character then that’s also fine with me. Having an ugly lady who is brash and effeminate suited the styling of the game for me.

Also, having the dude from IT Crowd was great, and showing their big named celebrities being killed was a master stroke.

All in all it was a great trailer and I just hope the game delivers.

But…

All Xbox Series S/X first party games are streamable on Xbox One if you have Game Pass.

I don’t know why Xbox doesn’t advertise this. It means no one is left behind.

It looks great, but I just wish the enemies weren’t so vile.

It’s another game I likely won’t play as I cannot play it in front of my kids.

@Green-Bandit exactly.

I want FF16 and the FF7 remakes on Xbox so badly. And it doesn’t make sense unless Sony is paying them.

FF15 released multi platform and outsold FF7: Remake, which is a much more popular franchise. So you’d think they’d have learnt this by now.

Anyone actually playing Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis?

I see the perk every month, but I haven’t really tried the game. I’m a big MMORPG fan, but wasn’t sure how this was compared to others.

@EVIL-C there are browser plugins that accurately reveal the like to dislike ratio.

Even though YouTube hides it, that ratio is still there for content creators to see how people gauge their content, it just isn’t shown publicly. 90% of people will have no idea it is downvoted so much, but those of us with the tools can see it clearly.

It looks like a good game, BUT it isn’t for me.

I would be all over this if it was a proper 3D adventure/platformer. But I have zero interest in side scrollers.

This isn’t to say it is bad. Just that my excitement dropped when it revealed itself as a side scroller. No matter how good it looks.

@Altaria_97 @Somebody @BoiAster

Thanks all for the info/opinion on which to choose.

As 4 and 5 are on Game Pass I have downloaded both and will dedicate some time to each to try them out. I’ve been putting them off for too long.

@BoiAster I’ve not really played the Forza Horizon games. Maybe 2 hours of FH5.

However, I was thinking of getting into it properly and really experience the game. In that case which would you recommend 4 or 5?

I want the best game, but also one with some still active online multiplayer content. So which is best?

Waiting for Game Pass.

I may be shamed by the anti-Xbox world (and indeed some in the pro-Xbox world), but I’m not buying either yet and will either wait until they are on Game Pass or heavily reduced in price.

I’m a thrifty gamer and my patience is unrivalled.

He warned someone without an Xbox to bring spare underwear.

This makes me feel like they are gonna do something crazy like shadow drop it after the showcase.

Just imagine.

@Kaloudz Haha. Yeah, I think the camera makes it look like the TV is close to the coffee table, but it’s probably further away and is big.

My TV also doesn’t look that massive next to my Series S.

@Kaloudz that’s probably just a massive TV next to a Series S, or it’s a small ornament in the shape of a Series S.

I don’t think they would design a new device and make it look identical to the Series S design but just smaller. They’d likely make it a square or something. I also don’t think they’d reveal it alongside a Fable reveal, but that’s just my take on it. Sorry.