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@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.

@Kaloudz And when an earthquake happens and kills a hundred people do you just shrug your shoulders and say "that's just how tectonic plates work"?

I honestly don't know what's worse, the callousness of these megarich corporations, or the absolutely pathetic shrills that defend them just because they once made a game they liked. I could not care less whether this was inevitable, whether it made good business sense. The fact is 1,900 families are waking up today scared about how they can pay their mortgage, or their medical bills, or their kid's college fees. Being made redundant is terrifying and yet what do pathetic apologists like you say about it? "Congrats to MS".

Shame.

@Markatron84 Please don't let the fact that I never once said Indies were shorter anywhere in my comment detract from your diatribe. Nor the fact that I explicitly said they were not lesser games, in complete contrast to your assertion.

My point was about the value of Game Pass, not the value of Indies. One of my favourite games of the past 10 years was Hollow Knight. It cost me £6 to own and I played it for months. By contrast Game Pass Ultimate is £13 for just one month. Can you see now the reason some folk have a problem with Indies forming the mainstay of new Game Pass content? It's because Indies alone will struggle to justify the cost of the subscription for many people.

@Kaloudz The issue isn't that Indies are somehow lesser games - I love Indies and have already played and enjoyed most of these (completing Celeste without assist was a real labour of love) - the problem is that Indies tend to be smaller and cheaper. In fact you can easily pick up most of these games and own them forever on other systems for less money combined than the cost of one month of Game Pass Ultimate. Indies absolutely belong on Game Pass and are a brilliant addition to it, but they need to be accompanied by larger titles as well to keep the value there.

@Kaloudz You mean 50 Call of Duty games you can already pick up for £1.99 from CeX? Yeah great. Anyway I guess this finally means the end of Bobby Kotick so good riddance to that creep at least.

@Kaloudz They could have put the ABK games on game pass without having to buy the company though. Wouldn't have cost them $69 billion either. I just don't understand why people are celebrating like their football team just won the league just because they now have a slightly different way of paying for how they consume their games.

@Kaloudz Genuine question - Why do you care so much? You already have access to every ABK game so this gains you absolutely nothing. All it does is monopolise a huge segment of the gaming industry so unless you are a shareholder this is literally nothing to celebrate. And I'm a Nintendo fanboy btw so I have no horse in this race.

I wonder whether they'll ever unearth a Microsoft email where a Director suggests investing in and growing their own existing studios? Wouldn't that be something.

@Nickhyazaki Microsoft does charge 70 dollars for all Day One games. In fact it charges 35 dollars even for games that on Game Pass for true day one thanks to this 5 days early access nonsense.

@Kaloudz I think we are asking the wrong question here. Instead of asking "is Game Pass good value after this increase" we should be asking "will it still be attractive enough to win over new subscribers"? There is no point increasing the price 15% if you lose 20% of your audience. You still get a lot of games for your money but there comes a point where the value is irrelevant because the cost is too high. This just seems a perverse move for a company who's entire strategy is based around getting more people on Game Pass, not less.

Perhaps this is just paving the way for the eventual ad supported tier to look even more attractive by comparison?

@RIghteousNixon Blimey it would take me at least 5 years to get through that. I think that's the issue, for people like yourself it's clearly great value but for most of us we simply don't have enough time in the day. I get literally 1 or 2 hours a day to play so something like Tears of the Kingdom takes me months. I simply can't extract the value required to justify a subscription. Far cheaper to buy what I want and trade in. I think that's why Game Pass is proving a harder sell than expected.

Game Pass is now over 150 quid a year. Genuine question, not trolling - over the last 12 months did you really get £150 worth of value? Bearing in mind you can't trade a game in or keep it forever?

Gotta bleed the money out of those Games Pass subscribers somehow!

Sony left Microsoft with an open goal and they just about managed to scuff it into the net. They said every first party game would be gameplay, well I must have a very different definition of gameplay because it was very poor on that front. Fable was a whole load of nothing as was Hellblade. Do we know more about those than we did before? No. And what even is that Midnight game? Too much space taken up with updates on existing games too, SoT, Fallout 76 (!), Overwatch etc. Really not much there when you drill down into it.