Philly

There's better options at lower price points that have better features (TMR sticks, higher than 125/250Hz polling rates etc). The Gamesir G7 Pro is a good recommendation (that one is also officially licensed for Xbox too)

@Ricky-Spanish Cause it helped inflate playerbase size by accounting player counts from all 4 games (MWII, MWIII, BO6, Warzone) all for the sake of keeping shareholders happy.

@Broosh couldn't have said it better myself

Remember, this comes from the same company that believes that "Microtransactions make premium games more 'fun'."

https://wccftech.com/ubisoft-microtransactions-make-games-more-fun/

@crackeastwood2 @Kieduss very constructive statements guys...

@Cakefish You're right, i should have clarified that this is mostly a problem on PS5 due to it not being hardware-based (although I'm not sure if anyone had any similar VRR issues with non-native VRR games on Xbox). However, since this features list is advertised for both console platforms, it makes sense to specify VRR being a native feature due to the above circumstances.

@Cakefish Always better to have a native implementation rather than depend on OS level support. Games that don't support it natively could suffer from flickering/stuttering and audio desyncs, to name a few.

Still sucks that career mode will be absent from THPS 4. A huge miss

An unpopular one: None. Microsoft already owns a decent amount of IPs, more is not always merrier

@HelloCraigo Thanks Craig, best of luck with the new Youtube channel, will be subbing to that in advance

@Kaloudz I wish I could share your excitement lol, My expectations are extremely low and thus I doubt anything of value will be delivered but I'm hoping I'll be proven wrong in due time.

@Kaloudz I'd say be aware of anything higher ups promise in terms of future hardware capabilities. A lot of fuss was happening about the Velocity Architecture this gen, but a decent amount of features comprising this "architecture" (maybe a fancy marketing technique for people that don't quite comprehend every aspect of it) were not delivered in any game thus far. Still no DirectStorage or mesh shaders implementation, although there's a small chance i might be mistaken.

@themightyant Maybe an unpopular opinion, but given the poor hardware sales this year they most likely want to leave this gen behind as soon as possible. Probably the worst generation in terms of hardware reach/interest, in my opinion of course.

This might be a reach for Activision standards (and a lot of copium on my behalf), but it would be cool if the Season Passes became free as well so that there is no player splitting in Multiplayer. A few months ago they made the Map pack for COD 4 free for everyone, so who knows...

Very surprised by this. They've been free ever since early 2019 from what i remember. I guess it's cool to let people know about that later than never.

For the most part it was a lot of stuff we already knew, or in the unfortunate case of the FF Pixel remasters leaked before the show. No FF16 was definitely a bummer for me.

However Tanuki: Pon's Summer looks really charming, definitely looking out for that one

Color me surprised

@StylesT Why shouldn't it be? Obviously I understand that there's people out there that wouldn't mind trading off the framerate for higher graphical fidelity, however, and dare I say, the majority of people would rather sacrifice image quality for 60fps. Giving options to players is always better than restricting them to one sole option that will leave one group or the other dissatisfied.

Let's also not pretend that the current gen systems aren't capable of pushing out 60fps in these games. I find the lack of a performance mode in any of these games more of an excuse rather than an incapability on the dev team's side.

@eduscxbox Except Head of Marketing for Xbox clearly mentioned in this tweet that it should have been one

https://x.com/aarongreenberg/status/1258378640087060481?t=vKIEhu66eorRLDOcP9zDqQ

P.s Cheers @andrewsqual

@StylesT If someones questioning the absence of a basic feature for a video game released nowadays is equivalent to a crybaby by your logic then you're part of the problem.

"you don't necessarily need that 60 frames"

Yeah, sure...

After the Cease & Desist, someone leaked the files related to H2M and people do have access to the mod once again (even if you don't own MWR on Steam, although im not 100% sure on that one). So the project lives on, just not "officially". Lots of players on it too still.

@__jamiie but it's not gonna be Xbox's 5th console generation.

I can "kinda" understand it from a competition/marketing point, as Playstation will be in their 6th console iteration, and the "bigger number=better" mentality will affect the buying decision of most casual buyers (which let's be honest, are the majority) but i find it not only misleading but also stupid to not call it Xbox 5 and instead call it Xbox 6 (tbh, even calling it Xbox 5 is kinda ridiculous considering the fact that they've never properly named their consoles after the original Xbox. They have dug a whole they can't get out of).

That's my 2 cents on this story though.

@pip_muzz is this your definition of an apples to apples comparison?

@GuyinPA75 the newer ones were for me too, but if we're talking classics too then it's a case of agree to disagree i guess

@GuyinPA75 Battlefront ports!

Ironically this update made the netplay experience worse, similar to what Steam players experienced when rollback dropped last year.

@AccessibleDaydream Then what's the point of his CEO role? If the decisions he and his team take for "the better health" of the brand don't do the job then it's obvious people above will take over.

Sounds like the average low-effort PR response.

What a surprise...

After watching Christopher Dring's (Gameindustrybiz) report on the declining approach towards the Xbox ecosystem by 3rd parties, i am in the belief that this hiring won't change much in this regard. I hope i'm proven wrong, but i expect to see even less 3rd parties porting their games over to Xbox including some bigger publishers

@FraserG Of course, and thank you for updating this list.

@SnowKasumi Hyperscape got shut down in April 2022

@FraserG Correct me if I'm wrong, but i'm pretty sure Modern Warfare (2019) is still locked at 60fps on console.

@Romans12 layoffs are bad for the industry period. Don't try to excuse what happened over at Microsoft's side.

@Kaloudz probably confusing this with Crossfire:X, that one got shut down

@Mince please spot the sarcasm in my comment

No thanks, I'll continue to stay "uncomfortable" knowing that I'm not actually owning the stuff i spend money on.

Pretty bad on my end. I remember purchasing GTA IV + The Ballad Of Gay Tony and KOF XV, had no playtime on both and went for a refund the day after i bought them (in the off chance they had a greater discount in the future). Microsoft denied both of my refund appeals even though I'm pretty sure i covered both eligible criteria for refunding. This would also be my first and only attempts at refunding games, so I'm afraid i should be more careful about what games i buy in the future

Not an article-related comment, but good luck to your team Fraser tonight in FA Cup!

@Cashews Don't get me wrong, i'm not a fan of this song either (could be because im not quite a fan of Imagine Dragons in general), but the fact that a marketing soundtrack is a cause for your review score for the game to be lowered is lowkey ridiculous lol.

That or I just missed any sarcasm implied

Definitely weird to not see Battleblock Theater being included in the list, because i would definitely go for that!