Saved by GTA 6 for growth the next quarter!

If only Xbox put this awesome level of effort into Halo 🤩

I liked the Xbox campaign that was promoting how the best shooters are on Xbox.

Definitely think it needs more variety but it's still one of the most common genres I play with friends since it's always dynamic.

Asha only needs to focus on one thing to save the Xbox brand and that is making excellent games. Xbox has spent way too much time marketing (toasters, fridges, IKEA furniture) this decade while losing console market share & damaging their brand. She can probably offer to sell movie rights for over a billion dollars if they focus on beautiful worlds in excellent games with characters people care about. Without that they're just selling bargain bin IPs that people are forgetting about and they own a TON of IPs they can be making new games for. Gears and Halo aren't saving the brand anymore & Minecraft is their crown jewel yet they still output crap games like Minecraft Dungeons 2. Let's get it together on the games! Capcom and Nintendo are showing how to do it right with high quality titles fans want with regular release cadenences and then producing content in other entertainment areas. Just my opinion as all I care about on Xbox are the games and not if I can watch a Gears anime on Netflix.

I don't care about the look of the guy but with all the Mass Effect news, this games certainly has my attention

Let's go internet

@Bob_Tempura worst case scenario they make a similar space drama and relabel it. They have the right people for writing whereas I think major corps are leveraging AI for generic scripts. The Mass Effect Universe trailer (even if it turns out to not be legit) would've been a cool move in the right direction for the franchise, so indeed fingers crossed something good comes out of it!

@AshKirin19 exactly. My hope is there are a lot of good IPs and genuine leaders that have been axed recently. Maybe something good comes out of the ones that have cash and talent to invest in a new company bringing well known talent together where people can express their creativity. There's room for small to mid size studios to do some cool stuff outside of these oligopolies but most likely it'll turn up on PC or the Switch since it's cheaper and easier to develop for with much larger install bases. All of gaming can't be will investors forever. The 2020s have been bad for gaming 😭

Well with raised prices...

I hope somebody will buy the rights to this and produce something great out of it. Bioware really got the bad end of the stick with their management focusing on multiplayer and shooters, instead of their strong RPG focused single player games. Their new investors probably had a say in it as well so they can focus on constant monetization of online multiplayer games 😭 RIP

May as well buy an Evercade or whip out your 90s and 2000s gaming handhelds of choice for that price with an Everdrive cartridge packed with roms. $120 gets you a handheld Evercade and a couple of carts to easily fill 10 hours per month AND you get to own a physical copy.

Most of the value is from ABK and Minecraft, the other IPs Xbox have poorly managed so I imagine the right investors could actually help make the rest of their IP highly profitable and more focused. But who knows

@HelloCraigo since it's Microsoft I'm fairly confident they're leveraging Claude in Copilot and having it create clickable prototypes for them based on images or other documentation they've dropped in. It's not a bad thing to get consumer feedback at low cost. There could've been a handoff to an actual dev as well but who knows

Wow he finally used his Copilot license at work to make a prototype after 5 years! It's really easy to create and show mock ups, I'll be happier when. It launches

Positive news us welcome

$1k+ and you may as well get a PC. Have been saying for a couple of years (can't believe it's this long) based on comments from Phil Spencer that since PC is their fastest growing market, they will push Xbox fans to PCs. Likely why disc to digital is there. It honestly is cheaper in the long run due to cheaper games on PC sales and the multiple storefronts you can access there but I will miss the simplicity of an affordable home console from Xbox. Let's face it, Xbox always had a premium price but now I think it's quite bananas.

@Banjo- Xbox makes super comfortable controllers so any additions like that are welcome!

@Banjo- I picked up the Wuchang special edition controller since I kept getting drift this gen and it's been great. I didn't want a USB dongle but for the quality and how good it's held up, I'm a fan

@Banjo- you know I wish Switch 2 had a more powerful console only version (not handheld) with more power knowing it doesn't have to have the handheld requirement. Then we could see more high end features the handheld is capable of but with dedicated power for it.

Separately, back to the topic and my opinion ,owned the Series S for a short time and returned it. Put the money into a gaming laptop and later picked up a Switch 2. Series X always works for me and it made no sense to have a second machine, the graphics were not as nice and I always want the highest frame rates possible when it comes to Xbox titles.

I did manage to convince some friends that are not big gamers and they love the Series S. It doesn't take up space and plays their favorite franchises on it so it really depends what you want and I'm glad there are options. I hope next gen, they just have ONE variant so they can reduce costs and maybe just differentiate with color and memory size.

Obvious statement? I mean Xbox hardly digs into their great franchises and past IPs to begin with so maybe a strong focus here and also creating new IP is the way forward? Capcom is a big leader here so would take a page from their playbook

Well the 2020s have been brutal for affordability and end of the day gaming is a semi-luxury hobby. It's safe to be expected consumers don't want to pay more for something that was cheaper a few years ago & with cost of living going up, this is one of those things affected. I'm happy with my consoles right now and in no rush to get something new without killer apps and games lined up. Xbox or OS should only release with a strong line up and year one release roadmap

I put my money into a Legion gaming laptop with a 5080 in it so I can get the flex of a super powerful laptop along with gaming capabilities. Battery life is so-so with more power but the screen is massive and beautiful. I kind of pulled the trigger after being disappointed with the ROG Ally Z1 Extreme and the price increases on console + Xbox's wishy washy support strategy back in 2025. These PC gaming handhelds can't really play AAA titles at the settings that match console so it's a good in between for me. Very happy with it and it should future proof me until the 2030s with it's components. I actually think the value has increased by $300-500 since I bought it.

I would prefer the only thing on my dashboard is games, it's a terrible menu system still and highly geared towards adverts. The other things they've done this year have not drastically improved my experience on Xbox. I boot up and play one game most of the time despite owning well over 100 titles, have not been that hyped on Xbox this year to be fair and have actually been playing my Switch 2 a lot more after a few physical carts dropped I really wanted. Pinnacle for me was the blades system on 360, I didn't like the McDonald's ass and Walmart ads I was getting on my Series X dashboard. One positive is the removal of Copilot! Less AI, more games and was access to my games

What are these no name websites for the reviews? I recognize Game a informer and the new Steam Hype, don't know how to feel with the other randos on there. Game looks great but not for me! 😂

Microsoft is really poor at managing games continues?? I want to buy this game so will wait to see what final updates and the roadmap looks like as I think it has a ton of potential given the country's rich car history and racing culture. They have likely been affected by layoffs and the Fable work, still not an excuse to not at least engage more with the community and this is a start! Hoping for the best

@ScottW on top of their Xbox price increases for what were basic services included in what we pay for, I just saw Microsoft trying to actively sell me more email storage and they have a permanent pop up saying my storage is almost full with $2-5/mo plans. C'mon Microsoft! They're always nickel and diming now because their memory costs have gone up due to their own investments in AI 😭

Let's see how sustainable their growth becomes. I've spent less on Xbox the past 14 months than I've ever spent on the console & will have a wait and see approach. I'll probably renew for Gold one more year and then see where it all ends up.

Xbox needs to double down on taking full advantage of the Series X hardware for their existing fan base with these memory shortages. System is very capable and rarely taken advantage of due to the Series S holding it back in a few areas. Don't get me wrong, Series S is an amazing console and value but no way I'm buying another Xbox if it's over $700, will keep my X forever and just let everything else fade away

I'm impressed what Switch 2 does with DLSS for a handheld, as long as it's optional I don't see a problem as it gives more choice to players. If it leads to lazy development welll then not good. I play on performance modes anyway so faster frame rate is more important to me than fidelity

@GuyinPA75 they still have better gunplay than Halo Studios. I'd hope Marathon would be closer to their original vision from the first Marathon.

@badboidre I'd agree that ID is a great fit for Halo

Hot take but give it back the Bungie

@Mr-Cage this is most of my new games I buy 😂 still .managed to get a few missions done and move to a new town but been there for 4-5 years

I mean let's face it, Microsoft's gaming division essentially became ABK the moment they invested billions of dollars and years of lawsuits. Let's see what good or bad comes of it all.

Looks pretty basic for the development time. Way over hyped and the zombie genre has kind of moved on. Too little too late really liked their first two games but will skip out on this, too many other good titles coming out from my time and money

It's probably their crap mobile games like Candy Crush, if it comes to console it will be trashed. I have way more respect for Nintendo keeping apps off their devices and focusing on GAMES

I thoroughly enjoyed Fable back in the day, poured a lot of time into the trilogy. The first fable felt like Xbox's answer to Zelda, Forza was the answer to Gran Turismo and Gears + Halo was the hardcore gamer inspired mix of gorgeous graphics + fun gameplay release that helped establish Xbox for online multiplayer. Since that time so many good franchises and games have come out, they took so long 5+ Zelda games will have launched in between & I feel Ocarina of Time is going to take a lot of the mainstream audience away from this game, Xbox fans will of course play it but I have a feeling it's going to be a "top of the charts for 2-4 weeks" type of game before the sales fall off, start of next year is going to be very busy with everyone waiting for GTA 6 to be released. Feel like it's poor timing for the franchises, hoping it's a hit as it looks gorgeous and gameplay looks cool, I'll wait for a sale since it's not really a nostalgia release for me personally.

She will be in her role for 4 years and move on

The best thing they can do is get rid of Game Pass, offer free online play and offer Xbox Game Studio coupons where you can get discounted Xbox games like Nintendo does for their ticket system. They can add free demos for all their new titles so people can play a few hours / the first level & purchase the game at a discount.

Struggling to make games and now going into TV and movies where they can't make those either (Halo on Paramount 🤢). Xbox needs to focus on games, characters and build up / rebuild core franchises and get that ship right before making movie and TV deals on games that other publishers dropped due to profitability concerns..

I'll be playing with some of these later today.
What I don't understand, is why they keep all these other tiers of Alpha and Alpha Skip Ahead, just pick one or label the other one Beta. It's all very confusing how they communicate when and how these come out, way too vague for general Xbox users. Our community is relatively small compared to Sony or Nintendo so any clarity for the rest of us Xbox owners would be appreciated.

With the way Microsoft has handled COD, I feel they really had no way of determining it's value and benefit on monetizing it. Cold War seems like a title that every tier could have played, giving it only to Ultimate seems like the way they want to recoup their investment even though it's a bit more of an obscure title than the rest of the COD lineup. Would have been better if they released a general All Tier COD and then this one for ultimate so we can better understand what types of COD titles you may wanna cough up a few more dollars for to try out. I for one don't play COD anymore & the way it's restricted I am still not super interested

I'm not converting any

FRASER! I love the stopwatch picture 💚🫶💚

Thank goodness for consumer protections where terms and conditions apply. Back to this news. I honestly don't care what perks they offer, I'm only subbing for online play which I wish would be free.

I only did this as part of their Reward challenges which I guess really bit them in the behind as all that compute was wasted

@Jenkinss they wanna use the compute power for Azure and other AI services that's more profitable for them 😔

Haha knew they would monetize it & shoot themselves in the foot again! The sad thing is this hurts a hardcore base that uses the service. Once it's all digital they can do whatever they want to your online experience and access + cost to access and the only thing you can do is leave their ecosystem. They may as well just get rid of this & straight charge for access rather than tease us with any option. I never use it because it's been a poor experience more often than not.

@asdfghjklz I was on GPU for a while and the price hikes made me realize was getting very little value for games I didn't play. So did what you do and just buy games on sale. No more on my Xbox wishlist though, mostly buying on Switch 2 now.

Whew 16 years for 1 game vs 6 years for 3. Hope they're already reusing this engine for Fable 2 with a 14 hour main and 14 hour end game + side quests so they can recoup their investment in the world and characters

Entering ALPHA?! State of Decay 2 was a fun romp for a B studio and I just can't support them at this point, they could have done Alpha 2-3 years ago