Markatron84

@Fiendish-Beaver I don't doubt the rumour that PS6 hardware will go into production next year, especially if 2027 is the intended release year. I do, however, doubt that it was reported on accurately on Push Square. Over the last eight days, I have made four attempts to get an incorrect piece of information - concerning Xbox Game Pass price changes - on one of their articles changed. It still hasn't changed.

I bet if Sammy Barker was reporting on PlayStation Plus price changes, he'd get it right.

Donkey Kong Bananza.

Oh good. Twitch streamers finally got their way. We can all rest easy.

It's hilarious that 37GB is now considered "modest". 10 years ago, a 37GB download would have been gargantuan.

I'll tell you what's not looking good: that YouTube thumbnail.

I got all the achievements in Vampire Survivors last week. I've still been playing, because the game's just too good, so more content is more than welcome.

Nice of Funcom to shut The Outsiders down after it said that Dune: Awakening was its fastest selling game in its 32-year history. Good work, lads. 🙄

Many years ago, Peter Molyneux brought an acorn into work. He planted it, nurtured it, watched it grow in real time.

And that acorn grew up to be Phil Spencer.

I don't doubt that Microsoft is going to have a crack at a new generation of hardware. But if they can't move the needle and gain some sort of foothold in that market this time around, I do doubt there'll be another gen for them after it.

Oh no, not Gears POP!?

Ubisoft games go dirt cheap very regularly. For example, Skull & Bones is on sale on Steam right now:

• Premium Edition £5.99
• Deluxe Edition £4.49
• Standard Edition £3.49

And every game included on this Ubisoft Classics thing gets deep discounts with alarming regularity. Who in their right mind wants to pay an extra monthly fee for a library of (old) games that you can regularly get for a song? If I was a GPU subscriber, I'd be pretty pissed right about now.

@Jenkinss the way things are going, you'd be lucky if that $500 got you the controller, never mind the console.

@el_pieablo I'm 41 and the plan is to play videogames until the point I'm physically unable to. Or I die. Whichever comes first.

@Titntin I'll admit to being swept up in the ABK acquisition hype. I'll also fully admit that it was stupid of me to not see the bigger picture.

@FraserG I'm going to leave this here. Everybody make of it what you will 👀

@EvilBear Just got to accept that we probably can't change peoples' minds on this sort of thing, and be content with not being part of the problem 👍

"BETTER VALUE LOL"
Phil Spencer

@Vordus I read all the books, watched all the films; really enjoyed them and the world Rowling built. Then, like with yourself, her politics ruined it for me.

I would love to play Hogwarts Legacy, but I can't bring myself to do so knowing that any money I spend on it helps further her abhorrent goals. My oldest friend (of 37 years) is a trans woman. I don't begrudge anyone playing it, as long as they know what they're funding and can say with conviction that they're ok with that; that way, I know to keep them at arm's length.

@PartyMarty oh nice!! I'm rocking an Intel i9 and RTX 4080; not the top of the line machine it used to be but it still runs most things I throw at it on max settings at 4K/60, and the few outliers at 1440p. Yours is an absolute beast though.

@FraserG Hot Wheels Monster Trucks: Stunt Mayhem is on there twice, fyi 🙂

@Ricky-Spanish I also haven't had Game Pass in over a year. And I only had it then because when I upgraded my internet I got a code for a year's worth of GPU. Having Game Pass isn't a given, just because someone interacts with Xbox

@Scrubchub I haven't regretted stepping away from consoles (apart from Nintendo, because it'll be a cold day in Hell before they put anything out on PC) for one second. I went into PC gaming knowing that things like optimal settings in games aren't going to be spoon-fed to me, and that my first port of call in any game should be the display/graphics settings menu, and that small "inconvenience" has been outweighed by the benefits a thousand times over.

Haven't had Game Pass in over a year and haven't missed it. It's undoubtedly been great value for money, but being on PC there are so many ways to get cheap games that I didn't see the need for it.

@Grackler each time I've jumped ship to a new gaming ecosystem, I just haven't looked back. There's no point in stressing over it, especially as there's no guarantee that the games we own in said ecosystem will even be playable in one or two generations' time, let alone further down the line.

I would argue that including Skull and Bones actually lowers the value of Game Pass Ultimate.

@Valhura I agree. Yet another case of Microsoft's general incompetence.

@Questionable_Duck not my fault Klobrille is an idiot and doesn't know what a roadmap is 🤷

@AverageJoseph Here.

Good work Microsoft. More people whose livelihoods - and lives - are being put in jeopardy because of your incompetence 👍

@AverageJoseph I assume @Ricky-Spanish was referencing Kenan Thompson. Although it was actually Kel Mitchell who used to say "aw, here goes".

OMG EDIT I just watched a clip and he does say "aw, here it goes"! I never heard the "it" as a kid! I'm so disillusioned!!!

@Kendoguk my comment was more on how this "roadmap" - ie. something that's supposed to look ahead - has more past games on it than future ones.

@Questionable_Duck you do realise that a business roadmap is for stating and/or visualising future goals?

@SaltySpitoon957 yep. Lots of different factors at play.

@Kaloudz Same here. Real-time strategy and 4X games just aren't for me. For example, I've tried Civilisation VI on three separate occasions and every time I have quickly become completely overwhelmed by all the systems and information it throws at me.

@SaltySpitoon957 I imagine that already happens. Games get censored and/or altered all the time for all sorts of different reasons in lots of different markets.

I'm one achievement away from getting them all in Vampire Survivors. It's not even a hard one (settle down) so I should get that tomorrow. I also got the super deluxe ultra mega edition of Hot Wheels Unleashed 2 for a song and have been playing that. And I started Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion, but that's not really grabbing me.

I love how they cling to the past five years in these Xbox roadmaps. Guys, you've got some duds lingering on there; just start at the current year.

@Kaloudz you're in luck. The remake of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is coming sometime before the entropic heat death of the universe.

Lost Crown is excellent. Anyone who likes Metroidvanias should try it out.

@ButterySmooth30FPS a game that's announced and never comes out.

Mmmmmmmmm yes please.

Cool, so I've got until 14th March 2027 to keep not playing MyFaction in WWE 2K25. Why anyone regularly engages in those sorts of modes is beyond me. I got around 2 hours into MyFaction before finding myself in the position of either having to grind out the currency or spend real money. Nah.

At this rate it's going to get to the point where the money I spent on my PC won't seem so ridiculous.

I was three years late to the party, but I've been playing Vampire Survivors the past two weeks and am borderline obsessed with it, having put 51 hours into it so far. And I'm definitely going to be looking at Deep Rock and the games some of you have mentioned.

@OldGamer999 pop a laxative and watch the whole thing 👍

@Ricky-Spanish Sammy couldn't be unbiased and objective if his life depended on it.

@Fiendish-Beaver which is why showing restraint is in our best interests. Games launch broken because publishers know people will buy - or even worse, pre-order - them anyway.

@themightyant 🤣 don't forget that it's also a premium product for premium gamers.

@Titntin wait... you were at Bullfrog?! What did you work on? Did you know Peter Molyneux?! The questions are coming quicker than I can type them!

@somnambulance oh, they would have got somewhere. But 8 years is a long time and there was no way either game was going to be the success they'd need to be to warrant the time and money spent on them. Like you said, incompetent management is probably what's to blame when you get down to it. Unless someone like Jason Schreier gets the skinny then we won't know for certain.

@somnambulance I feel like even Microsoft isn't stupid enough to not realise the backlash and ill sentiment it would face if it shut down Double Fine. Tim Schafer alone is just too beloved in the industry and by the people who play DF's games. If, hypothetically, Microsoft decided it didn't want Double Fine anymore, they best have a buyer lined up or set the studio up to go independent again.

The Initiative was a bad idea from the start. A new studio set up that does very little of its own development and partners with other studios who do all the work? Ask Keiji Inafune how well that goes. Now add to that numerous management shakeups, a protracted development cycle and the stress and expectations that come from developing so-called AAAA games? I'm amazed they lasted as long as they did, to be honest.

@Kaloudz thanks for the info, much appreciated 🙂👍

@Jenkinss but it also takes nothing away from your accomplishment if you don't use the escalator and someone else does.

@CenturianShark

I remember this was supposed to be a launch title for the xbox one.

Maybe in your timeline it was. In ours, proper development didn't begin until 2013 and the game was announced at E3 2014.