RBRTMNZ

I’m disappointed to see that every single person didn’t vote for “none of these”. This is all ***** and they’re very literally destroying the world to build it. Don’t use this *****.

@Questionable_Duck Yes absolutely outside the top 50. I have only played 33 2025 games but I have it ranked 29/33 on my personal list and there are dozens of games I still want to play, most with better critical and public receptions than SoM. It’s the 246th highest rated game of the year on opencritic and as I scroll through the list of games ahead of it I see dozens of games that it’s easy to believe are better.i would rank it #8 on a list of Microsoft published games. I liked the game but great art direction can only do so much when the gameplay is tedious and repetitive and while the story was interesting I kind of hated Hazel.

I enjoyed South of Midnight but it doesn’t belong on a top 50 list let alone top 10.

I expect to continue to feel like a fool for ever having had any brand loyalty to Xbox.

I gave it a 5. I’m a little shocked by how well it reviewed. It’s not necessarily a bad video game but it’s also definitely not good.

Well you’re defending Microsoft so literally by the definition of the word you’re being defensive. Furthermore, you’re coming in with in accurate information so you’re not pointing out facts. This is an article about the first October drop which does not include those games you listed and with the additional context that this “big” addition was supposed to be the start of justifying the new cost, which it absolutely does not justify, makes your comment, at least to me, come across as defensive.

I'm baffled by the shockingly decent results of this poll. I love indies but these games are very underwhelming.

@Llamageddon In order to make them available to as many people as possible. It doesn't seem like XBox is very close to making the steam experience on Windows as seemless as it needs to be and some people are not going to want to fiddle with it. I suppose if the Xbox install base craters in the next gen they wont do that but I think if 30-40 million people buy the new console then it makes sense.

@Questionable_Duck I think it’s a lot closer to he’ll freezing over than you’re giving it credit. I think that if Sony really wanted to prevent this they could do so but they have chosen to allow it to happen because they want to have their games on Xbox but don’t want to upset their most loyal fans. I think they are very happy to have the back door option for Xbox players both for the additional profits and to normalize having their games on Xbox so that it’s not as big of a deal when (not if but when) they decide to start dropping them on Xbox natively.

@Fiendish-Beaver You’re assuming what I am assuming. I didn’t assume anything about what people will or will not buy. I said that you can currently play the Sony games listed in a different comment on an Xbox and you can do so. What I said was factual and devoid of any assumptions.

@Questionable_Duck That’s a weird purity test. I have no such qualms about what counts as a true Xbox game. If I can play it on my Xbox it’s an Xbox game to me. I will be able to play all four of those Sony games on my next Xbox.

@Questionable_Duck You can already play all four of those games on the ROG Ally XBox and you will be able to play them on the next XBox console.

The middle class is dying. More and more products will be premium products made for the upper class.

@Toot1st Being defensive on behalf of a company raising prices by 50% is a weird choice.

Oh cool one new game I want to play for just an extra $120/year.

I’m a GP fanboy, not an Xbox fanboy, but very specifically a GP fanboy. Even then, I think this might lead to me cancelling my subscription when my current two year stack runs out.

This tracks. GPU has been insanely good this year.

Clair Obscur, Silksong, Doom Dark Ages, Avowed, Lonely Mountains Snowriders,The Alters, Wuchang, The Eternal Die, Ghostbike, and Monster Train 2 have been amazing day one highlights for me.

Wow those sure are some games.

Good call on the mobile workaround!

I tend to finish around 95% of the games I start but I still want games to have very strong openings.

@FatGuyInLilCoat I've been thinking about this too. They're just flooding the market with games the last year and a half and I often wonder if they should be holding some of them back for an unforeseen fallow period. That's how Nintendo avoids droughts. They reportedly hold onto completed games for years sometimes.

@Nic-Noc20th-C They don't have enough games to put out two monthly. They do have enough games to put one out roughly every six weeks and I think that would be a great cadence.

This is such a weird release strategy putting all these games out in quick succession. They did it earlier in the year too with Doom, Elder Scrolls 4, and South of Midnight. I prefer Nintendo's game of the month model and think that would makes more sense for GP.

That is an absolutely amazing line up of challenging indie action games.

That sure is some technobabble.

And in the end I’ll bet this new gen feels exactly like the last fairly meh generational transition.

The problem with Wuchang is it feels frustrating rather than challenging.

I’m hoping to see a bunch of Xbox games that will be cancelled in a few years in order to juice quarterly profits.

It feels like for high paying positions the only criteria is already holding a high paying position. It's like rich people have an exclusive club and just keep hiring other members qualifications be damned.

@BacklogBrad I think tactical strategy games and the parrying in E33 both kind of do the same thing for me. Both add layer of complexity that prevented the turn based combat from becoming repetitive. I think deck builders are great for this too. I'm down for turn based combat but it has to feel dynamic. If I am just doing the exact same setups over and over, like in most JRPGs, it gets old fast.

There is a lot of fanboy coping in this comment section. I am a full blown Xbox/nintendo fanboy but I also have a PS5 and their first party games are dope AF. It feels silly to me to see people who care enough about games to be in this comment section just outright dismissing those games

@Ernie Naughty Dog and Guerrilla games both had major live service games cancelled. It’s still ***** up but it’s nowhere near as bad as what Microsoft did. Sony would have done these layoffs even if it were still possible to shame corporations. Microsoft would not have done theirs in a sane environment.

@Ernie Dude don’t console war over real life humans being laid off. People’s lives are more important than a plastic box.

And if you do want to console war your argument is bad. I’m an Xbox fanboy but this is way worse than what Sony did. Xbox is one of the most profitable companies in history laying people off from successful studios. Sony is a strugglig company that closed down studios working on failed business venture (making live service games) so there is a massive difference. Both companies should but shamed but Sony is just bad at business while Microsoft is straight up evil.

@InheritNegative Yeah you’re right. There really is no reason to engage these sociopaths. They think doing the evil thing somehow makes them smarter and more strong willed. As if we all don’t know it’s an option to get ahead via being evil and have simply chosen to be good people instead.

@ImAlreadyHipp Holding these companies accountable does indeed do something. That’s why this ***** didn’t happen everything three months before the last decade. As little as a decade ago layoffs did enough damage that their stock and public reputation would tank. The thing that changed is now there are people like you who see this as smart, necessary, acceptable that they can just get away with doing it every three months.

So yes you’re right my efforts will not change this but you have the option to continue being an awful person who excuses corporate greed and allows this to continue or you can learn a little empathy and most likely class solidarity and stop giving them enough cover to do this *****.

@GoldenPants I feel like the problem is that in the old days you didn't have an army idiots defending layoffs as necessary financial moves. I hate that so many people are willing to buy their BS nowadays.

An AI could do his job. All CEOs follow the exact same ***** script. They are pointless.

I was planning to buy this game even though I have very serious concerns about their labor practices. Now I think I will skip this game even though I also own a PS5, S2, and SD. I wanted to play it on Xbox where I play all of my third parties. I did the same for Black Myth and don't regret it.

Sifu is a top 10 game for me. The combat, level design, world building, and art are all perfect. I was really bummed out that they followed it up with a goddamn soccer game.

I don’t usually like survival games or narrative focus games but both aspects of their game hit so well. I’m really loving it.

And just like that people are talking about Game Pass rather than the real problems - Corporate greed and incompetence.

@demian Thank you for mansplaining that to me. Please see my comment currently at comment #80.

Also, I’m not greedy. I contribute to a lot of causes despite having sacrificed my earnings potential to do non-profit work. A lot of people are not greedy. It’s *****.

@bazchillin I fully understand the full picture. My issue is with the blood sucking shareholders who are never satisfied with obscene profits and demand unsustainable growth. It is destroying literally every industry. It only works so long as there are more industries to ruin but once they run out of industries to "maximize profits" it's going to be a global economic meltdown on a level never seen before.

@DennisReynolds On the one hand I agree with you that Phil is a snake and sucks ass but on the other hand this is not a Phil problem. This is a shareholders problem. Even if Phil wanted to deploy a long term strategy that put workers and consumers first he would not be able to because the shareholders demand more and more profits every quarter. I think society would improve overnight if we could somehow end the practice of quarterly reporting.

@bazchillin We can totally complain about both price increases and layoffs. Microsoft is obscenely profitable. These layoffs are happening because profits are not enough. The blood suckers require exponential growth.

@demian “Improve financials” is an overly kind way to say commit unrepentant greed. Their financials are already spectacular. It’s just never enough for these ghouls.

This is all corporate speak for we’re making a lot of money but we would like to be making more money and are okay ruining the lives of dedicated employees to do so.