@Gabrie I'm the same. I tried playing some games via Amazon Luna on my phone with touch controls recently. I felt like I'd forgotten how hands work.

@awp69 I'd personally have worded it "23 Games Coming to Various Tiers of Xbox Game Pass". It conveys the information that there are 23 games and sets reasonable expectations.

@Kaloudz God no! 🤣 The thousands of roms I have are testament to that.

My rule is:

If I can give a company money for something, I will. If I can't, it's fair game.

@Kaloudz

I like piracy

BUSTED!

This made me chuckle. (I can't get the image to show up in the comments)

@MasterChiefoftheEast I completely agree with you. I don't know what Xbox does to reverse its fortunes but it isn't going to happen overnight, whatever it is.

@Kaloudz it is quite preposterous... but I dunno, I enjoy that film for how absurd it is.

Also: don't forget a villain who whitewashed himself and donned a suit of power armour. 🤣

@Kaloudz not a fan of invisible cars and solar powered death rays?

Also, I second @EvenStephen7's suggestion of The World is Not Enough. If you liked GoldenEye, you should have a good time with it.

@Tasuki If anti-Sharma sentiment was flat out not allowed on this site, you'd basically have no comments left. And yet scrolling through your comments shows plenty of them are still there.

Hmm.

@Tasuki Do you think maybe - just maybe - that it's not your opinions on Asha Sharma that are the issue? This is an honest and genuine piece of friendly advice, but take it however you like:

Try expressing your opinions on Asha Sharma, without referencing "the Sharma Brigade" or "happy thoughts" or the misguided notion that any negative comments regarding her leadership of Xbox are somehow not allowed. Try that for one whole week.

Again, just a bit of honest and genuine advice.

@Pigrotto @Lup if you think that GTA VI will release and then we'll stop hearing about it, you are dreaming. It's going to be non-stop articles on every website about sales, revenue, guides, Easter eggs, "when's the online component launching?", spoilers and literally anything else outlets can write about.

For 13 years, probably. Strap in.

Modern Warfare 4 must be pretty good, my sole bit of reasoning being that it's been out on general release for 4 full days and I haven't seen a single person complaining about it. Even the Steam reviews are sitting at "mostly positive", which is almost unheard of for a Call of Duty game.

@Dark_Gamer_X You should see my Steam one.

Next case: Asha Sharma v. Achievement Hunters.

@BeastfromtheEast There isn't one.

@kmtrain83 AYN Thor is a dual screen handheld. It came very highly recommended for (allegedly) playing DS and 3DS games. 😀

I should be ok using the stylus as the main input. I got on well enough with Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks.

Xbox has spent the past few years binning off staff and IP, so no.

It's always sad to see a beloved studio close. I adored Dragon Age Origins and Mass Effect.

It became increasingly evident over the years that the types of games Bioware was making just didn't gel with what EA's MO became: churning out games in a series if the first one is successful, or inject live service elements into everything whether or not it fits the game or the studio. This is why we got Dragon Age II farted out in 14 months. This is why Anthem was a collosal failure. This is why Veilguard's development was so troubled. EA was never the right steward for Bioware or its games, regardless of who left the studio.

Side note: thanks to everyone who cited "wokeness" as the reason Bioware is no longer around. That ignore button sure is getting a workout today.

@kmtrain83 I have an AYN Thor on the way and Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood is on the list of games to play.

@GeeEssEff People like that just get on my wick.

@strzelec Cool. Enjoy living your life thinking that anyone born differently to you is inferior and doesn't have the right to live their lives. You truly, truly suck. I'm clicking the ignore button now because you legitimately disgust me.

@strzelec Being transphobic, homophobic and a racist isn't having common sense. It's called being a piece of s**t. Guess everyone here knows where you lie on that spectrum now.

@strzelec I would rather see the entire planet succumb to entropic heat death than see Xbox fall into the hands of Trump's racist, transphobic, homophobic, COVID denying rent boy.

The cynic in me says that this is because EA is owned by Saudi Arabia, a country whose desire to associate itself with sports around the world has been rampant in recent years. So of course they'd be keen to get a new boxing game out.

I'll be watching, despite the possibility of seeing Shrek 2 Remastered.

@Tasuki Psssst. This studio is not owned by nor does it have any ties to Microsoft. Good effort though 👍

@WhiteAzn Every time I see someone using X I despair.

@Onlyboxmatters You're insane, I love it.

I've never owned a Series S, or played on a Series S, but I will say that if the Series S is "holding back gaming" because it's not as powerful as the Series X, then the Series X is also holding back gaming because it's not as powerful as my PC. And my PC is holding back gaming because there are more powerful PCs.

The very notion that gaming is in a worse place because of the Series S is utterly, utterly, utterly laughable. Games are scaled to work across everything from the Switch to a fricking RTX 5090. If you've been playing on a Series S this gen and have enjoyed yourself, more power to you. 💪

Surely Aspyr hasn't reached the bottom of the barrel already? 🤔

@strzelec I suppose it does in the most indirect roundabout way imaginable. 🤣

@TheSimulator if it had physical media, he'd love it.

It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.

Make all these games exclusive and they won't sell nearly enough. Put them out on other platforms and you give consumers fewer reasons to invest in your platform.

After nearly a decade and a half of bad decisions, flip-flopping back and forth between strategies, binning off studios/IP and having Game Pass cannibalise game sales - all of that coupled with skyrocketing hardware prices - I honestly don't know what Xbox does to dig itself out of the hole it's put itself in.

@Fiendish-Beaver I haven't played E-Day yet, but are there characters in that game that never appeared in Gears 1-5? If so, one of them could have ties to the events of the E-Day era.

I mean, even if that character doesn't exist, I can solve that. If the game featured both E-Day and Gears 4-6 story segments, you literally just create a new character that appears in both eras and ties those periods together somehow. That way, Marcus doesn't even have to have prior knowledge of any betrayal / actions / whatever from the past. Problem solved.

Both, ideally. But maybe both games in one? Find some reason to tie the Gears 4-6 story and the E-Day era stuff into one narrative?

The comparison picture looks like a wild Xbox controller next to the genetically modified version of an Xbox controller you buy in a store. Like, did you know that actual bananas Xbox controllers look like this, and not this?

@HelloCraigo Damn, I set you up for that one, huh? 🤣

I don't follow football or play football, but I'm a sucker for a good arcade football game for some reason. I'll have to check out that Freestyle Football 2 demo.

Edit:

The developers describe how their game uses AI Generated Content like this:

Generative AI was used to assist in the creation of certain game art assets, such as textures and UI elements. These assets were further refined and polished by our internal development team to ensure visual quality and consistency within the Unreal Engine environment.

Hmm, maybe not.

@Fiendish-Beaver First he spoils the end to Titanic, and now this. Thin ice, @HelloCraigo.

@IronCrow86 They both have their places and use cases, for sure.

@Microsawft That was last month. This month it's new IP. Next month? I dunno, magic beans?

@IronCrow86 Call me crazy, but I would think that a rhythm party game that uses simple inputs has infinitely more mass market appeal than a game designed to teach you how to actually play guitar.

@RTGX Yeah, silly me. 🤣

If only they had more studios that they could utilise to create these new IP.

Oh wait.

@BacklogBrad If I did as many 180s as Xbox I'd need to sit down for a while.

@somnambulance Yeah, the campaign in Fever is utter rubbish. If I were Nintendo, I'd be embarrassed. Like you say though actually playing tennis in it - even without any of the Fever racquets active - is absolutely top notch. I feel like Nintendo could genuinely put out a cracking tennis sim if they really wanted to.

The 2026 releases I've played so far are

• Mario Tennis Fever
• Mewgenics
• Mixtape
• Forza Horizon 6
• 007 First Light
• Yoshi and the Mysterious Book
• Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Resynced
• Pokémon Champions
• Mina the Hollower

So not many. 007 First Light is my game of the year so far. Pokémon Champions is my most played game (425 hours), while Mina the Hollower wins disappointment of the year.

I hope it's not another Lego or Hot Wheels themed expansion. Please.

PLEASE.

Some sort of street racing themed thing would be cool.

This handheld looks cool and more importantly affordable. However, I can (allegedly) tell you that there are better ways to play Banjo-Kazooie 😉

@RTGX Yeah I've heard it's pretty intense. I'd be playing on PC. It was in the Steam autumn sale but I don't think I'm in the right headspace for it at the moment.

@Banjo- Ah right. I thought they got the rights to it outright. That's a shame.

@Banjo- Oh, all videogame based media as a whole is a mixed bag. I just think that if Microsoft wants to use that to bring in new Xbox customers, it needs to swing for the fences because if the next family of hardware is prohibitively expensive then it's potentially a huge investment for little payoff.

Now onto videogame movies and TV! 😀

I didn't watch Halo yet but I've been meaning to since Netflix obtained the rights.

The Super Mario movies are... for kids, but not in the way many DreamWorks and/or Pixar films are for kids; those appeal to all ages because there are jokes/references that kids just won't get.

I watched the first two episodes of Fallout before the ads got on my nerves, but from what I saw it's great.

The first season of The Last of Us is great. I haven't watched the second, but then I haven't played the second game either.