Markatron84

This is why I prefer Opencritic. It takes every score across all platforms into account.

Cool, I hate it.

I personally don't think that catering to Xbox fans means a return to exclusives and a pivot away from third-party publishing on other systems/marketplaces, and I find it ludicrous that people think doing this would somehow reverse Xbox's fortunes, as if it hadn't been floundering for a decade prior.

Xbox catering to its fans - so, existing customers - wasn't cutting it with Microsoft, hence the pivot. They need to reach new customers, and those potential new customers weren't buying Xboxes. If Xbox needs to third-party publish to stay afloat, then they should do it.

@UnlimitedSevens I miss the old days, when Microsoft would constantly say "Microsoft does not comment on rumours or speculation". We knew where we stood.

I'm still neck deep in Mewgenics; grinding out Act I while breeding cats, because Act II is kicking my arse.

I bought my wife Pokémon Pokopia, and I played around two hours after she went to bed last night. It's slow going at the moment and the state the area is in is giving me anxiety, but I think I'm going to stick with it.

@FraserG Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. And if you say anything bad about it, then we (and by "we", I mean "I") riot.

@Tasuki I heard you can only play as Brock Lesnar two dates a year.

I think it makes sense to hold off on reviews at least a little bit. Marathon's balancing around things such as loot drops and classes might not become evident until someone's spent a good chunk of time with it.

Halo was iconic, but those days are long gone.

A lot of the text is way too small for me and there's no way to change it, so I gave up pretty quickly.

@sixrings true, those games came back. But there's every likelihood they'll go away again. In the case of this collection, I'd bet money on it. They're called Limited Run Games, not In Perpetuity Games 😁

@sixrings it's not that simple, unfortunately.

Step 1: steal underpants
Step 2:
Step 3: profit

Her chair isn't even warm yet and the Internet is already lining up to bully or discredit her over nothing at every opportunity.

Judge her on the decisions she makes, the direction she takes Xbox in and the success of the brand in general. It'll be a few months at the absolute bare minimum before any of that becomes evident, so people need to step back, wait to see how things shake out and - most importantly of all - stop being impulsive childish cretins.

What were the people running Xbox supposed to do though? Shareholders want growth year on year, and catering to existing customers wasn't delivering that growth, so they went where that growth might be. And going back to how things were before might not be so easy, and I very much doubt it'll result in more success than their current multi-platform strategy. It's not like people are - or were ever - tripping over themselves to buy an Xbox.

Oh yeah, Microsoft should definitely buy Bluepoint. That way the studio might end up being shut down twice 🙄

He tried his best, and he was probably the last obstacle standing between Nadella and the Xbox brand imploding.

I maintain that Microsoft/Activision should scrap Call of Duty campaigns entirely and put the resources essentially wasted on something hardly ever plays into the multiplayer, or knock the game back down to $60.

Makes sense to me. Why port it to Series X and S if the next Xbox can play Steam games?

Thomas the Tank Engine of Skyrim fame? Cool!

I will be taking the fight to Cyberstan in Helldivers 2, solving splodgy puzzles in Picross S8 and breeding weird gross cats in Mewgenics. I've been binge watching Superman & Lois most of the week so I haven't done much gaming.

Helldivers 2 in three of the four categories? Nice. Managed democracy reigns supreme.

I've played around 7 hours so far and Mewgenics has already joined my small batch of forever games, alongside The Binding of Isaac, Vampire Survivors and Helldivers 2. God help me when I get it installed on Steam Deck.

@AccessibleDaydream my absolute favourite error message ever was back on Xbox 360, sometimes you'd put a disc in and it would pop up with "please insert this disc into an Xbox 360".

@FraserG is that your setup? If so: Pepsi Max, you're a man after my own heart.

@Royalduder yeah, it's quite sad. If someone doesn't like the look of the gameplay loop or the mechanics of the game, then whatever; that's their perogative. But the comments here have been quite an eye-opener.

If it's at least as good as Horizon 4 and 5, I'll be happy. The new features, cars, etc, are all good points and I'm personally not looking for a seismic leap forward in innovation with this game (although I suspect that I might be in the minority?).

This looks cool. I'll check out that demo, for sure.

I predict The Last of Us: Part I Remastered (a remaster of the game they already made, remastered and remade) and The Last of Us: Part Deux (a remake of the game they already made and remastered). They'll be released on PlayStation 5, PC and Playdate.

@FatGuyInLilCoat @Elbow Ricky-Spanish was my guy. I also miss him.

@Daffy-Duck Operation: Valid Pretext must succeed!

@themightyant do you have any food or potions?

I had a lot of fun with the last Captain Tsubasa game so I'm in.

@eduscxbox almost every news story about Epic over the past however many years has been about their ongoing battle to not give platform holders a cut.

The article mentions how Steam has a Big Picture mode and Xbox has a Full-Screen Experience mode that can be used to make their storefronts more intuitive on Windows 11 devices, but Epic doesn't have anything comparable yet, and the company is "investigating these new opportunities as well".

Epic itself has been saying for years that its store "sucks" (their words, not mine) and has done nigh on bugger all to improve it. Maybe learn to walk before you can run, and get the core user experience to not be so sh*t (my words, not theirs) first?

@Weebleman among other things 🙄

@Trmn8r yes

@Trmn8r it was pretty clear in my comment that I was referring to the goals of Microsoft as a whole - and its moving of goalposts - and not Urquhart specifically.

The hope, Urquhart says, is that Xbox continues to fund riskier projects and values achievements besides strong sales

But I thought Microsoft only valued strong engagement? I can't keep track of how many times those goalposts move.

I've never had this problem, as when I smoled (I actually stopped just over a week ago) I always went outside to do it.

I love how Deadlock is #6 in the Steam chart and Valve hasn't even officially announced it yet. They just refused to acknowledge it existed for months before slyly dumping the alpha onto Steam without a word. Only Valve 😂

@Weebleman

it wont be for everyone

Approximately how many dead grandmothers are in this game? Ballpark figure.

@RentedPanda have fun with Dispatch. I adored it and will be going back for a second playthrough at some point.

During the week, I finished up Gotham Knights and slammed through The Rogue Prince of Persia, the latter of which is one hell of a game. As a Dead Cells enjoyer I couldn't put it down. I did end up with a sequence break though, which rendered two of the Steam achievements unobtainable unless I start a new game. You know what though? The game's so good, I'm not even mad and I probably will start a new save file to get them.

So I might do that over the weekend. I'll also still be chipping away at Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp, playing some Helldivers 2 and maybe pick something else out of the Backlog of Shame™.

@OldGamer999 Happy birthday!

@Jenkinss Not only that, but it's got one of the most welcoming and friendly communities, in my experience anyway.

@Weebleman ❤️

@Lup I would hazard a guess that there's not a snowball's chance in hell that all 400+ are included in the base game.

Well, that didn't take long. I guess it could be taken as a good sign?

@Weebleman please tell me it's what I think it is...

@abe_hikura you just need to wave your hands side to side and believe enough.

@FraserG you've basically just told us "I'm going away for the weekend. NO PARTIES." We're going to be straight in the liquor cabinet as soon as you're not around. 😁

@DonkeyFantasy Fraser has always looked shifty to me.

We're only looking at a group of just over 2,000 people that make up these results, so they're not necessarily representitive of the entire industry.

I didn't know you could get that much sugar on one spoon.