Ooccoo_Jr

It's so good Microsoft are rewarding them by gutting the studio and firing the guys who made it. Well done everybody!

What you can't see is Asha holding a BFG to the head of the poor guy having to type this.

Fantastic news, more "trimming the fat" right guys? Serves them right for taking too long to release mediocre games, that's what you all say down here isn't it?

@Kilamanjaro They can't, thankfully. Japan has laws to stop hostile takeovers from foreign companies (that's my understanding at least).

It remains to be seen how bad this really is. If these studios can truly survive independently or with new owners then they are better off without Microsoft and their horrific mismanagement. What I want to know is how many people have been left without any job after this? Still hundreds and maybe thousands I imagine, which is utterly shameful.

Just a horrible situation all round. There are no winners here, despite how some in the comments will try and spin it.

@NishimaruX Exactly. As a maths guy I don't dispute the IGN poll numbers, it's people's conclusions I have an issue with. Perhaps PS5 owners are just more likely to pre-order in general? After all it is a completely pointless exercise to preorder a digital product this far out. Maybe Playstation bombarded their fans with far more emails and links than Xbox did? Maybe PS5 players are more used to going to the store and pre-ordering games than Xbox players are because of Game Pass. Or maybe PS5 players simply engage with IGN more often.

In the end the game will sell best on PS5, that is an absolute certainty. Probably not by 8:1 but still sizeable. None of this is news.

Isn't PureXbox and IGN owned by the same people?

@RegnumSolipsi I mean the original Switch was $300 at launch in 2017 so $350 for Switch 2 would have been optimistic.

Incidentally the ROG Alloy Xbox suddenly looks a tad more attractive at these prices, especially over the Series S which is now completely pointless.

@tho_mi 500 dollars actually gets you the Switch 2 bundle with Mario Kart World which is looking like an incredible deal these days.

@RegnumSolipsi The table is incorrect as the Switch 2 price is actually $449, the same as at launch. It will increase by 50 dollars but not until September and the table claims to be for August.

@themightyant You "feel for them" ?!? They are about to fire hundreds of innocent workers because of their own massive incompetence on top of the thousands already fired and their own paymasters at Microsoft are the ones causing the components cost crisis by fuelling their AI obsession with the dream that they can one day fire tens of thousands more. But sure, poor old Asha, and thank her generous soul for XBOXs short them finance options. They truly do care about the little guy.

Don't worry about the increase lads, Clockwork Revolution is an exclusive. That'll bring the punters flooding back.

@datamonkey Thank you, finally a voice of reason down here. I can't believe the disgusting level of sycophancy of some of these comments. Absolutely staggering that some fanboys are so deeply entrenched that they actually defend and even celebrate people losing their livelihoods. Absolutely disgusting.

Massive layoffs incoming. Asha fiddling while Xbox burns.

This strategy (off lack thereof) is so stupid. As a Nintendo fanboy I fully understand the importance of exclusives if you want people to buy your console, but it can't just be a couple here or there. No one is choosing a Series X over a PS5 because of Clockwork Whatever. If you want me to buy an Xbox then I have to know with certainty that future games I want to play will only be available to play there. That confidence is currently completely absent and will not lead to any console sales, in which case just make everything cross platform and take the software revenue. Either way just make a decision.

Translation: "we are making it up as we go along"

What the hell is the strategy here? Fable and Halo are Day One on PS5. Forza Horizon is a timed exclusive. Gears of War is exclusive. New announcements like Senua are on everything. The thinking is all over the place. Either have exclusives or not. Pick a lane.

This is obviously a great deal for everyone because even if you love Call of Duty it is now cheaper for you to subscribe to Ultimate and then but CoD outright, plus you get to own it forever.

But...

How did we know this isn't just the start? How do they convince us that the next Halo will be on Game Pass Day One? Or the next Fallout etc? The original point of Game Pass was that it was a simple pitch. One price and you get everything. Now it is a complete mess.

It looks incredible, no doubt about it. But am I alone in wishing it looked a bit more arcade-y? This looks more like a Motorsport than a Horizon.

Still need proof that Game Pass isn't profitable? Here it is.

@Kaloudz I swear to God you must be a parody account right? No real person can possibly be this ignorant.

To be honest I had completely forgotten it existed.

When I was growing up Rare was my absolute favourite Developer. It was just hit after hit in a huge range of genres. GoldenEye, Banjo, Diddy Kong Racing, Jet Force Gemini and so many more. It's heartbreaking to see what they have been reduced to now.

I've seen some folks down here trying to claim that it is the studios' own fault for getting shut down because they failed to deliver their games on time. What these clowns fail to realise is that when a game suffers in development like Perfect Dark and Everwild did then that is a failure of Management. And yet who pays the price with their jobs? Not Uncle Phil and his ilk, oh no. Xbox's management has been absolutely criminal and it is time fansites like this started talking about it.

I'm just grateful it didn't lead to mass layoffs like we all feared...

@Questionable_Duck I am blaming Xbox for pushing Game Pass and by doing so devaluing games themselves. I am not blaming the users. If I had Game Pass I wouldn't buy games either, because that is what I have been conditioned to do. Look at Pure Xbox articles, three of every four have Game Pass in the title and they have said themselves that is because they get the most traffic. This Game Pass is all that matters narrative leads to the idea that games individually are not worth paying for and that has serious ramifications that are now being felt.

As for the games being cancelled for taking too long? That is a failure of Management, pure and simple.

Obviously it is not sustainable or we wouldn't be seeing all these cancellations, studio closures and redundancies. Game Pass is being bailed out by Microsoft in the hopes that one day it will turn a decent profit but it clearly isn't going to happen. People can only consume so much in one month, so there is only so much you can charge them. Third Party sales may now start to cover any Game Pass shortfall but the subscription model itself simply doesn't work.

Just think about the headline of this article for a second. This perfectly illustrates just how much Game Pass has devalued games. We are now at the point where a fansite has to ask the question whether a critically and commercially successful game is worth paying for if it is not included in a subscription. This is why people claim "Xbox players don't buy games", this is why Xbox is closing studios, this is why we are inundated with free-to-play and gatcha garbage.

I hope you Xbox fans really, really like Call of Duty, because that's all you're going to have left.

"You know that scary new tech that we hope will render your job obsolete? Why not use it to try and get a job (before it gets rendered obsolete)?"

@Runex2121 A pathetic 3% higher than an already very small number is disastrous. Not to mention the already poor console sales are plummeting even further. This is supposed to be the peak years of the Series S/X life and yet they simply cannot shift any units. The strategy of Game Pass and hoovering up all these Developers has failed. Time for a new strategy. It is time to go all in on being a Third Party Publisher.

@Kezelpaso To be fair I mean disastrous for Microsoft more than us gamers. I am still excited by what games Xbox have coming but I cannot see anything other than a future as a multiformat Publisher. In fact I actively hope for that now as the alternative is more layoffs and studio closures.

Nice try at spinning it but that is a disastrous set of figures for Xbox. Hard to see anything other than an expansion to the program of releasing on other platforms because nothing else (Game Pass, console sales) is growing whatsoever.

@MrGawain Even that though is not a direct comparison. At least if you bought the three games you can play them again next year. With Game Pass you have to keep paying for them all over again if you want to go back to them in the future. Also if you got any DLC that would become obsolete unless you kept on subbing as you would not be able to access it.

Game Pass only makes sense at this point for a 'fast food gamer', consuming and disposing of games at a rapid rate. For anyone else the far better option is to buy outright.

@BAMozzy I get all that, but I, like yourself, am a gamer who is clued up and understands this sort of thing (at least I do to a point - neither of us can say when I am getting new releases, if ever, on Standard tier). But this is a horribly confusing way of doing things if you are trying to appeal to new customers.

Why invent the Series S to aim at the more casual crowd if you are then going to ask them to navigate this off-putting mess of poorly defined options?

How can you have both Game Pass "Standard" and Game Pass "Core"? How is the average person meant to know which one of those they are going to need? The whole point of Game Pass is that it was a simple sell - pay the sub, play every game Day One. Easy.

Now it's becoming a right old mess.

Then again, I guess that's the point...

For everyone here saying $20 is still good value - you are right, but only for the sort of hardcore audience that frequent Xbox fansites and can consume more than $20 worth in a month. For the rest of us this is an impossibly high barrier. We simply don't have the time or inclination to play that much. If Microsoft are serious about growing subs this is not going to do it.

I wonder if the experiment to release the games full price on other consoles has opened their eyes to the benefit of selling games outright vs subs.

Nintendo fanboy here admitting that was a great show by Xbox. Mostly there was loads of gameplay shown which is always welcome, still too many games CGI only but overall not bad at all. Minor quibbles about lack of release dates but overall extremely impressive. Best show I've seen from any of the big three for quite a while.

Not surprised Doom is on PS5 given it is the continuation of an already multiplatform franchise. Similarly I am not surprised Indiana Jones is Xbox only (so far) given it is a new IP. However I was watching the showcase yesterday thinking, "wow, this is really great, maybe I should pick up a Series S to go with my PS5" but the thought that most of, if not all of these games, will come to PS5 means I will never do it.

The problem is we are in this weird middle ground where we don't know if all games are coming to PS5 or only some of them. Just come out and commit either way so I know what to do!

The obvious take is that Hellblade is the only exclusive in this list, but interestingly if you run the same experiment for PS5 they only have two exclusives (and one of those is TLoU remake). In fact the PS5 list even includes Hi-Fi Rush!

The Switch list also has only one exclusive and is actually topped by Pentiment!

So fair to say for this year so far Xbox is doing on average at least as well as any other. In fact looking at the release schedule for all three I fully expect Xbox to end the year on top, which would be quite the turnaround.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner You must be taking the mick right? It's because of the games. The complete lack of must-play, only-available-on-Xbox games. Compared with Sony Xbox has been a wasteland for years, so why on earth would anyone pick them over PlayStation?

@EvenStephen7 I've always been a fanboy, first Sega and then Nintendo, but always in regards to the games and the consoles. I've never understood the weird loyalties people have to these megacorporations like the people I have argued with down here who were celebrating the ABK purchase and even the resulting redundancies, just because they no longer had to purchase CoD separately to their Game Pass sub.

But with that being said I am becoming increasingly proud of my Nintendo loyalties as they seem to be the only ones left not acting like supervillains.

@EvenStephen7 I'm not defending the guy, just explaining the actions. I for one have rallied against this idea of "Nice Guy Uncle Phil" as I can't see what he has possibly done to be praised so much. Just because he owns a Battletoads shirt it doesn't make him the gamer's friend. He's just another suit looking out for his shareholders and paymasters and not doing particularly well at it.

@EvenStephen7 All it proves is that Spencer is not an idiot and he knows when to lay low and keep his mouth shut. He isn't going anywhere, he's just being sensibly quiet so as not to add any fuel to the flames.

"Day One" is an utter lie. Games will only be available Day One for those who spend 30 quid extra for the Premium Edition. Everyone else will get it Day Five or whatever and I would expect more of this sort of stuff to continue. I've no doubt they will stick to the idea that every title in some form or another is released on Game Pass but I fully expect this to more and more resemble a 'base' version, encouraging subscribers to pay more to add on missing content.

It is crystal clear that Game Pass just ain't working for Microsoft so they desperately need to encourage users to spend more than just the basic monthly sub.

@awp69 Only Day One if you pay the 30 quid upgrade fee for the deluxe edition

After all this time it "feels rushed"? I'm too old to know how to insert a facepalm emoji so can someone please do it for me

"No need to worry"? Tell that to the people and their families who just lost their jobs.