Awesome to see these again, but I do worry how long Fortnite Festival will be around for as while it was SUPER popular when it first released the player count has dropped significantly since then.

Considering it needs an influx of new songs (they're adding a couple a week right now), and licencing costs for the music, and specific devs for that mode I do wonder if it'll stick around.

@ironcrow86 I'm always reluctant to buy from 3rd party key selling websites as they can come from shady sources.

So are they including the ActiBlizz revenues for the time BEFORE they bought them? I don't think that should count.

Darn. Well maybe this'll be one to play over the Easter weekend.

Darn. I was hoping for a little something off Baldur's Gate 3. Guess I'll keep waiting.

I have about 10 physical games I think. All ones I got very cheap second hand. I got out of console gaming after my PS3 died, and didn't get back in until the One S, and since then I've been digital first for sure (especially with Game Pass).

I've expressed my opinions on here before that the physical releases have been rendered useless as games are tied to their servers and updates so you don't really have the game on your shelf any more. You have all the disadvantages of physical (takes up space, can be lost, need to swap discs), but almost none of the advantages besides marginal resale value, and lending to a friend.

Ok that's cool. One of the great things (in theory) about cloud and remote play on mobile is that it can be one of those things you can jump on when you find yourself with time to kill. Having to carry a bluetooth controller with you in case you fancy a game isn't particularly convenient.

Interesting. I wonder how this works when it comes to money. Usually Apple take a 30% cut of payments so does that mean they'd be looking for a cut of my GPU subscription to use the app?

@Beetlebum91 Limited Run don't always have the rights for digital release of titles. So for "Game X" they could have the digital AND physical distribution rights, but for "Game Y" they only have the physical rights so would not make money on a port to a particular platform if the physical sales aren't there.

If it is real that looks quite nice, and a subtle design.

I've been meaning to play Talos Principle for ages, and now I've got it. I've spent more than £3.50 on a Pizza slice so I'll go for it.

Now it can languish in my library, but I've taken one step closer to actually playing it

If they report "record profits" in 2024 they should be forced to give it to those people they laid off.

When there's a mid generation refresh they'll keep the disc for the highest end model, but I'm not as sure with whatever will come next.

The used and retail market is dwindling so there's not the pressure there there once was, and game discs are becoming pointless as you need to install the game to the hard drive and update from the internet to play anyway.

The only reason I'd want to get a version with drive is so I can play movies and CDs all on one device rather than buying separate devices for everything.

At least migration to PC is possible for console gamers. I play Star Trek Online which is old by MMO standards and I do worry that if they shutter the console versions I'll be left stranded as there's zero cross platform accounts in that game

@Romans12 I'm 90% going to get it anyway if I get some Xbox gift cards as a present, but I wouldn't mind saving 10-20%.

Well my birthday is around then so I hope Baldur's Gate 3 is on sale.

I'm tempted by Midnight Suns as I've heard good things, and seems interesting for an XCom style game with superheroes.

@ZYDIO So they haven't been taking away games. Just TV, music, and Movies?

That's a different matter as my point is games now are all tied into the platform and publisher's eco system so they'll shut down the game and update servers, and it doesn't matter if you have a disc version or not as it's all a digital passkey. I bought CoD WWII second hand the other week, and I still hade to download and install the 45Gb game to my hard drive despite the disc.

If they remove a game it wouldn't matter what medium you have. Unlike movies, TV, and Music which don't have all that, and so can be kept in physical form independent of an online requirement.

@ZYDIO I've looked it up, but can't see anything about digital games being removed, but the disc version still working.

I just see recent articles about them removing TV shows, but can't see what you were talking about where they removed digital games.

Good to see more work to squash some bugs

I had fun with Starfield, but haven't played in about two months now I think, and I was looking at that 100Gb+ install the other day when I needed to make space on my hard drive. It's staying for now, but it was close.

@ZYDIO I wasn't aware of instances where the digital one becomes inactive, but discs still work. Usually they'll close some servers, and all copies stop working.

So they seem to have looked at Avengers, and said "One of those please!". Shall we take bets if the servers last as long as that one did?

Honestly I don't really buy games physically any more. The only time I do is when they're 2nd hand and can thus get the disk cheaper than the digital version.

Games these days require online connections, updates, DLC, etc. so the disc doesn't really have the game like in the past. So really it just takes up shelf space, and turns it into a collectable shelf ornament.

Glad to see it's been identified. I've been waiting for it to go on sale first before I think about getting it anyway.

Interesting. I assume it's something related to maps, etc. as a "Great Circle" is the shortest distance between two points on a globe.

This is better that it just being called "Indiana Jones", and then having to put a year after it when they decide to reboot it.

These look cool. I guess I'll see the price, but really when I've got two controllers already I'm not really interested in buying more.

I mean Atari and Sega are long gone as hardware developers despite being massive in the gaming space.

MS are more diversified than they were, but that can also mean they could cut their losses more easily if the hardware market didn't work out.

I'm in favour of more cross platform titles as when hardware manufacturers need to compete on price, features, and quality rather than just having the most popular software.

I'm looking forward to seeing what this'll be like.

Personally I think they should pull a MGS2 and have Indy die after the first mission, and have you play as Shia LaBeouf instead.

I've been playing it since it came to GP, and I'm really enjoying it. I mean it's pretty much the FarCry formula now with really just a change of setting from 5, but still it's an engaging formula.

I may give it a go if it's on a good sale next Christmas or something, or comes to Game Pass as I've never played a Tomb Raider game before.

@rustyduck Yes it's co-operative as it's two sides against each other so you have to work with your teammates rather than everyone for themselves.

I'm interested in Hell let Loose, but that's a game where I'd need to team up with a bunch of people who know what they're doing as it's quite unforgiving.

Rewards is going to be gutted by the end of this year for sure. It's clear someone in Microsoft ran all the numbers and saw that it just was too expensive a system to run, and they need to slow down the points gain.

GPQ was a good way to get people to engage with different Game Pass games, but a requirement to do all this to get rewards is a barrier to all but the most dedicated, but still keep the points to save face. I think they'd get rid of it all together if they could.

As the Legendary pirate Guybrush Threepwood once said "Never pay more than 20 bucks for a computer game."

I assume the reason they don't offer local save backups has something to do with sharing save files to get achievements or something? I remember back when you'd get Demo discs with magazines hat included some save files on to unlock all the characters in a fighting game, or all the racing tracks.

I think it's really good, but with more and more games having online centric features it can cause annoying issues that mean you have to restart the game. Also there's a couple games (Guardians of the Galaxy is one) that have had issues where quick resume makes the game gradually slow down.

I just think more developers need to take QR into account. Fortnite is the biggest game on the Xbox, and one of the biggest in the world, but still has these issues years later.

522h this year across 22 games. So about 10h a week!

As expected my big 3 were Fortnite, Star Trek Online, and Starfield. With Fortnite having a comfortable lead.

Submitted. Though I find the "Which of the following products do you own or are you thinking of buying in the next year?" question a bit odd. Do I own RAM? Do I own, or plan to buy "Other"?

Besides some really bad scams and asset flips developers really do work hard, and put their talent and experience to the best use they can. that's something that should always be acknowledged and respected.

In the end though sometimes bad creative choices are made, and even if executed perfectly you need to accept the consequences of those actions.

Still this small sub culture of people picking on individual developers, etc. needs to stop, and treat people with respect and have some damn perspective. For gamers this is all a fun past time and distraction, but for developers this is their career and their livelihood (and that of their families) can be ruined by scapegoating.

The Far Cry games are fun to play usually so I'll likely get this downloaded ready for some lazy sessions over christmas.

I enjoyed FC5, but wasn't too keen on the ending :/

I never get them near release as they usually come down in price pretty steeply so I'm glad they're being put on Game Pass.

I enjoy the Far Cry games so FC6 could be a good Xmas break game I can play on my time off.

Nice to see if get in under the wire for 2023. I still need to play more Starfield before I start on another big game though.

It looks really cool, but I don't know why they're putting all these different modes into Fortnite rather than having their own games. They want to do a rocket league racing spin off, and Rockband rhythm game then why put them in a Battle Royale shooter?

Looking forward to Open Roads as that looks promising.

I think they've got a good compromise. It's designed for new players and for people who want to just chill out a bit.

The level cap means that high level players will get nothing worthwhile out of it. So when you're starting out learn now things work in Safer Seas before moving over to high seas.

The game has a very steep learning curve, even with the added starter island, and this should help out.

I'd LOVE one, but can't justify dropping that kind of money just before Christmas.

Glad to see this'll be included, but regular, large, patches for practically every game is the reason I don't really bother with physical editions of games any more as they're outdated almost as soon as they're released.

If you get the physical edition I'm sure you'll have to install it on your hard drive anyway (plus any updates, etc.) so I'm not bothering with physical releases. I'll wait for a good price on the digital version.

I'm glad there's people working on this browser. The current Edge App is far better than the old version which was barely better than nothing at all, but it's still far from easy to use or stable despite the series X being far more powerful than my PC, laptop, phone or tablet (maybe even all combined).

I've got too many streaming services so I'm not interested in adding another one.