RBRTMNZ

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.

Remember last week when purexbox asked if the XBox showcase renewed our excitement for XBox? I answered no because I knew at some point the other shoe would drop. It always does. Microsoft is a truly ***** corporation.

@Lup I'm very annoyed by Game Hubs popping up every time. Anything that adds inputs to the simple act of playing a game is a bad design choice.

I can only get so hyped considering that XBox tends to over promise every June.

The fact that it has now taken almost two years to add these titles has significantly damaged my view of the Xbox brand especially as it pertains to consumer friendliness.

I don't even want to play any of the AB games, none of them appeal to my tastes, but all the same this is some anti-consumer BS that does not sit well with me.

I would like to see them drop the festival vibe. It gets grating fast.

I disagree with this. I don’t buy less full price launch games because of game pass. If game pass didn’t exist the money I spend on it would go towards deep discount games not full price new games.

@Kraven The big thing is the game play. The character movement looks like it prioritizes animation over movement which always feels janky to me. Every shoot out they show the player is just standing in the open shooting so it looks kind of mindless like Far Cry combat. They show a lot of driving combat and that always sucks. Beyond the game play the world just seems incredibly generic.

@Kraven I give a lot of games a chance, usually 60+ each year, but I still took one look at the trailers for the game and thought it looked like *****. We only have so much time on this earth and so much money to spend on games so you need to curate what you play and this game has given so many reasons to skip it.

If it has steam I will definitely consider selling my steam deck to buy this. The deck is great for streaming Game Pass but I want a native option for playing GP handheld.

On the one hand I don't care, I never spend more than a second on the home screen, but even then I can still appreciate that this update looks dumb AF.

I’m lucky enough that I can afford $80 games but also disciplined enough to wait for sales so there are not many.

Xbox: RE, Control 2, anything FromSoft, Jedi 3, anything CD Projekt
PS: GoW, anything Naughty Dog or Housemarque
Nintendo: Mario, Zelda, Mario Kart, Pikmin, DK

GP has been on fire for like 7 months at this point. It's crazy.

I think it has edged Split Fiction for my GOTY so far. I don’t like it as much at Eternal (a top 10 game for me) but I do think it’s amazing in its own way.

I have owned my Series X since 2020 and I think I have recouped the cost every single year thanks to Game Pass. The games I have played this year on GP cost $430 and I spent $96 on GP for the year so I am up $334 on the year already.

I’ll play whatever as long as it’s good but i prefer the wide linear concept where a linear game will have a few small open sections with exploration and side quests. The Last of Us 2 and RE4 remake examples.

The next Xbox could cost $1000 and it would still be a great value for me thanks to all the value I derive from Game Pass. I will definitely continue to buy Xbox even without exclusives.

@fatpunkslim Dungeons of H was such a pleasant surprise. For me it’s the perfect game pass game. I don’t think I would have paid for it so I’m so glad I was able to try it through GP as I ended up loving it.

@CallMeDuraSouka During this console generation, the last five years, Xbox has released more games than Sony and their games have a higher average score on open critic. They had one bad year in 2023 but did really well in other years including being named the best developer by Metacritic in 2021 and probably again in 2025.

I think the narrative that Xbox does not have games is due to having the smallest install base so they have less console warriors supporting their games.

@PlatinumMikey I just checked my top 100 games. Xbox - 14, Nintendo - 17, Sony - 10, next highest publisher Devolver - 6. Xbox definitely has games. They just have a smaller install base so they don’t have as many console warriors staning for those games.

Also so as not to make this about my opinions. For the entirety of this generation Xbox has released more games than Sony and those games have a higher average score on open critic.

But I was told Xbox doesn't have any games

@abe_hikura That type of calculation does not make sense for inessential goods. People are spending so much more on essential goods that discretionary budgets have all but disappeared. This is an insane time for these companies selling inessential goods to be raising prices. They might make a little more now but it will further erode the video games market by excluding millions of players. The console market is already contracting rapidly and this will accelerate that trend making gaming a less profitable business. All these corporations cant ever think any more long term than their next quarterly report.

Also you really shouldn't call what happened over the last five years inflation. It is verifiable corporate greed. Their finances are publicly available and show this clearly.

@carlos82 It definitely costs them less to make these consoles now then when they were released. This has nothing to do with costs and everything to do with greed.

This from a company that several times over the past year cried poverty as they laid off thousands of employees and killed studios. Never believe these companies when they cry poverty.

It's a tie between Avowed and Lonely Mountains Snow Riders. Both are on GP. I love GP.

I enjoyed the first game a lot but was not too hyped for the sequel initially. However, after playing Avowed my excitement is now out of this worlds.

I had never heard of Hela. It looks amazing!

@acmiguens I think the Switch 2 is going to help the S. It just makes economic sense for the majority of developers to target the Switch 2 specs rather than Series X and PS5. As result there will be less games that are speced above the Series S capabilities.

I’m still very excited for it but the concerns here about the new slower play style being innovation for innovation’s sake fit with the concerns I had after watching the trailers. I love the speed of Eternal.

They didn’t cancel the DLC. They just decided to pretend they did so they can sell at as a $70 game.

My guess is they put out a statement saying they are going to fight this and then just quietly enjoy the increased sales.

Prince of Persia and then just keeping making 2D metroidvanias.

@Foxx_64740 I thought I was crazy for trying to knock out two games. NMH3 is a lot better than I expected. Weird AF but in an interesting way and the combat is good enough.

@RiverGenie I appreciate your letting me know but even the hint system would annoy me and make me feel inpatient. I am the type of gamer who used guides to make Elden Ring linear. I prefer to go from objective to objective even if I can see how figuring it out in a game like this is probably incredibly satisfying. I wish I had the patience.

The previews confirmed for me that I would hate playing this game but I still have so much lingering FOMO. I think it’s going to be great for people who want a less guided experience.

I’m so excited for this. I had considered buying it several times.

I don’t care about multiplayer but it NEEDS coop or I have zero interest. Gears to me is first and foremost a coop game. Playing through with my wife is peak gaming for me.

@AlwaysPlaying Why talk ***** if you don't have any idea what the games is or how good it is?

I like it better than PS but would ultimately prefer the simplicity of Switch. My biggest gripe is that play time is weirdly buried.

@Ilyn I thought Wolong was so much better than the Nioh games. The refinements to looting and upgrading alone makes it better but I also thought the switch to a more dynamic parry based combat system was a major improvement.

@Ralizah for this generation Xbox games have a higher average review score the Sony published games. And that’s in spite Xbox games having twice as many weirdly low outlier scores that are way lower than the general consensus meta score.

@Jonnyfalcon I had the time today and I am petty so I decided to back my assertion up with data.

I looked at all the new games published by both Sony and Microsoft this generation where the game scored a meta rating of at least 80. Based on the data, Microsoft games are twice as likely to have outlier scores that fall more than 20% below the metascore. This data covers thousands of review scores so it is statistically significant.

My initial statement that Microsoft games receive a weird number of outlier low scores is correct and factually true.