Kilamanjaro

Game pass was and is such a gamble for Microsoft. The average consumer doesn't understand it and even Rockstar's CEO and many others in the industry has said how those type of services just aren't profitable in the long run. I'm not gonna pay more than $20/me for games when they inevitably raise the price again.

I am excited for Avowed. Managing expectations that it's a B-game experience

@MonsterMike Switch is a console. Nintendo did a great thing combining all their devs behind one form factor although I'm sure many miss the easier development of their weaker handhelds. My worry with Xbox is they make a handheld and they absolutely drop the ball and split their resources or they try to shove a PC experience into handheld rather than make games with portability in mind. Nintendo make awesome experiences that really feel at home on the Lite or handheld mode of the main console. They've been making handhelds far longer & so has Sony. If Xbox just does a Steam deck copy but with your Xbox library I might be into it but for under $400. But yeah, Switch is a console for sure.

Business = make that paper

Outriders was great and people poopoo'ed on it too much. My custom character was very memorable and I enjoyed the combination of Gears style gameplay with Shadow of Mordor style powers. Think it makes total sense they work on Gears.

@JorutoHayabusa I haven't played a GPU game in a month & it was only to try it out. Demos would honestly be enough. Like Nintendo offers 2 hours to play games before release sometimes & that's typicallly enough gameplay for me before I decide if I wanna buy. GPU has lost a lot of value for me personally as I mostly play Hunt Showdown which I bought before the GP release. I'll just do Core and buy games. My backlog would take me years to beat anyway

They should make online play free on Xbox

A long way of saying they want to transition to be a publisher & developer first, hardware maker second. It's a good strategy for overall growth of the business and a big move away from what we're used to as niche console players. Won't buy another Xbox but will continue to buy their games.

@Fiendish-Beaver I want to say there is somewhere or maybe I tried it on a Free Play Days weekend once.

@Jenkinss that's totally fine, I've played Fire Emblem 3 Houses and I play Hunt Showdown pretty regularly, so perma death is my best friend for learning 😂

I want to get Castlevania Dominus but I think if I wait a few more months they'll drop the price to $10 and then I'll nab it. I own every Castlevania game on Xbox. It's one of the few platforms with nearly every release available on one console.

Alright alright Xbox, I will finally buy XCOM and let it sit in my backlog after doing a 30 min tutorial 😭 wish more games would just let us into the action like From Software does. Get murked. Have fun.

EA only really has Apex going for it. I was just thinking about how great their Lord of the Rings and Stars Wars games are not it's just sports games and Apex. Anything I'm missing? Know they've had a lot.of new big IP miss the mark

Very solid release lineup, almost one a month. Looking forward to Avowed, think I will just play it over a 2 week period of grinding it out

Absolutely true. I can already feel my blood boiling on a thing from the past changing. I'm not even over 360 blades being gone! I am a poison in this earth: toxic.

I would play Banjo in Game pass.

Yeah but the quality will never surpass Mario games. That's unrealistic. A solid fun platformer is all they need to achieve and I'd happily eat that up. I also like good kart racing games so hoping they release more Crash Team Racing now that they own Activision. They can add Banjo as the Donkey Kong equivalent racer lol

I'd love if they could get Starfield to run properly on a handheld. I tried it on the ASUS ROG Z1 Extreme and the results were "meh" so I returned the whole unit. I'll be getting the Switch 2 on Day 1 if bots don't beat me to it.

They need to release more games and less controllers. 2 of my special controllers have unusable drift and YouTube didn't help. I'll have to take them apart or try out that one repair center mentioned in a previous article. Wish they'd stand behind their quality and offer paid repairs behind the warranty.

Developers love Nintendo platforms because they're easy to develop for, cost less to develop for and the hardware innards are typically older so everyone is more comfortable using it. The fan base are not begging for graphics and don't care about them if the game plays nice and it looks beautiful. COD was on the Nintendo DS and so many other ports of games, I hope they release more on Switch 2

I always rotate games. Majority are old Xbox OG to Xbone games so maybe I should buy a smaller hard drive for it

Getting an actual owner's key for digital content like on PC would help justify ownership pricing. Otherwise this is just a more expensive rental. They could get rid of ownership altogether and be like Gamepass for monthly fees but Rockstar will never do that. They'll raise prices. They're a company, not the industry and consumer habits are hard to change. Most mobile players and maybe even console players are on F2P games as it is. Hardcore gamers that like physical and ownership are in the minority. We are niche. Hope some company exploits us. Evercade for example has done an excellent job taking that demographic.

270-300 million are Candy Crush players. Look it up.

@themightyant thanks for the tip. I'll also checkout the chain they mentioned, saw they have a location not too far away. Maybe they'll do controller fixes too

Wish they'd let me fix my controllers outside of warranty. I'd happily pay for it.

Xbox always starts off strong, I had very fond memories on the Xbox One. I feel the jump in graphics were never really that big between Xbone and XSX as it was between Xbox OG & 360. Diminishing returns now so hope they focus more on easier to develop games focused on great gameplay.

A rich heritage, man, they need to make more content like Halo 1-3, Halo Reach and Infinite. Keep the story badass and to the point with a nice twist somewhere & that's the formula

@trev666 exactly, that's my point. I mean will people really be willing to pay for access just to this novelty in droves where it becomes profitable? Time will tell.

More power with more computing power closer to consumers is the only way they achieve this and quite frankly every region of the world develops at different speeds & the reliance on Internet access everywhere at a reasonable price is another challenge. Power to those that can benefit. Personally Google Stadia had the BEST cloud gaming experience and they failed . Still have my controller as a nostalgia item.

Square Enix or From Software

I'll give this one a try and just manage my expectations that it's a B-exclusive (not AAA) and that it's not super long. This is the type of game I wish they released more often. Less than 30-40 hours for the main story & quicker to release than a massive behemoth.

I'm quite sick of nuclear waste games. Game looks great so awesome for those into the genre, not for me. The setting looks awesome.

Just bought a bunch of Nintendo stock on this news

Hopefully this means they make more games per annum

@Th3_Highlander yeah 360 really pushed the boundaries of the Xbox brand to make it more appealing. I loved being able to play my own music at anytime and while I can do it now, it's not as seamless. Windows 8 with their stupid tile system to try to crossover with their mobile and tablet divisions was a big mistake in my opinion because it led to the terrible UI on Xbox today. Blades were simple, press the bumper to get to your form of entertainment,play music seamlessly and hop online quickly. It's kind of bloated now and I hate the ads on the main dash. My Games and Apps should be the absolute first and only thing you see on boot up so we can get straight into our library rather than seeing the latest releases & game pass ads. The two months I didnt have game pass I would get popups every time I turned on my Xbox, it was aggressive and annoying but now I'll just stick to Game pass core. Xbox really needs a reboot.

I buy a lot of physical for the Switch and JRPG games. Any 2D-HD games are an instant buy on Switch since it's not going to look much better on other consoles. I prefer switch but hardly play it due to my Hunt 1896 addiction

@Th3_Highlander the avatars were cool. I created a new one on XSX but it doesn't do anything

Now Nintendo does these great 1 vs 99 or 1 vs 30 games with Battle Royale style challenges across vibes franchises like Super Mario, Pacman, F-zero and more. Pure fun.

This essentially wipes out all of their energy saving credibility

15 min each is too long, a lot of the times I'll find out if I like or dislike the game much faster than this. Just an artifact barrier to help them hit some KPI for giving out free money. MS Rewards are pretty cool though so not entirely lost.

Xbox did the right thing on supporting Xbox One longer for users but that also hurts their sales. Also their confusing naming scheme hasn't done them any favors.

@Deshalu Phil has straight said all the growth is in the PC market so think they've been pretty explicit. They'll release consoles but their games will always be on PCs and more often they'll be on any gaming system that wants their games with a sizable market. I'll keep the XSX forever, might be the last console with a disc drive they release (let's hope not)

I called it at 18 months from now, let's see. I'll keep the XSX as they'll keep supporting cross gen exclusives for a long time. With the next Nvidia Blackwell chips coming it makes a lot of sense to get into the PC scene now with the price dropping on a lot of their older highly capable products or just buying their new GPU, it'll be future proof for a long while

@OldGamer999 totally agree with this, too much dependency on multiple computers for resources a world away.

@Balaam_ Nintendo needs to add cartridge slots to TVs and then I'm in. The future is worse, less ownership and worse quality. Only a few good companies remain making high quality products you can keep anymore man.

@OldGamer999 lol a little over the top with that description. Cloud gaming is pretty terrible.

To save you the Google of the acronym: AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution technology, FSR 4. Explicitly developed for RDNA 4, starting with the upcoming Radeon RX 9070 XT and 9070 GPUs, FSR 4 represents a significant evolution for the upscaling technology because it marks a shift to a new ML or AI-powered approach.

Console is the only way I play

This is what everyone wants. Microsoft needs to get the Super Smash Bros concept of celebrating their IP with appropriate crossovers. Literally some of the best shooters of all time with similar themes and they out MC in R6 Siege.

This is the year I switch back to Xbox Live Gold (GP Core) and buy any new games on sale. Hoping to add a lot more physical to my collection before they announce the next Xbox in the next 18 months.

You guys rock, thanks for giving me something to read and for the news coverage on all things Xbox! Wishing you and the writers and staff a wonderful New Year Celebration! 🥳 Here's to hoping for more things Xbox in 2025!