RadioHedgeFund

So worthy exploration, great combat and no meandering social nonsense with your party? Sign me up.

When I went to FFXIV the option wasn’t there

I bought a Series S to largely play my 360 catalogue from an SSD. The amount of ‘next gen’ titles I’ve actually bought or finished is in the single digits and all PS5 ports bar Starfield.

Will I buy another Xbox? Not likely. I’ll probably pick up a PS5 as and when Horizon 3 comes out. But the Series S is a lovely dinky console. I don’t know why Microsoft don’t market it more as a cheaper way to get into gaming.

It would be nice if they rereleased it. They could port it to PlayStation at the same time so everyone is a winner.

POWERSTONE! POWERSTONE!

@anoyonmus Microsoft don’t make any money on console sales anyway. It’s just a software delivery system for them. If you buy them on another platform they make just as much money.

@SMJ I wouldn’t mind them doing as Stadia and giving us a full refund for all those digital purchases!

Even at 50% I’d cash out.

Spring 2025 for PS5 = Switch 2 launch title.

Now that is an interesting place to play it.

Nobody asked for GTA6. If anything we want smaller more bite sized games that are cheaper to develop and thus sell for a lower price. This allows us to play more of them and in turn buy more!

If big games go close to $100 in price then they may as well just cave in to F2P and subscription models as the future.

Microsoft only have themselves to blame. They have always had bottomless pockets and regardless of the number of studios they could have farmed things out. The Series X launched with zero system selling exclusives. None. And had they have done so it would have just been a new Gears or Forza, more dull shooting or racing.

Sony had a few cross gen ports but you could always buy yourself Demons Souls or Sackboy to play with the kids and they were still exclusives.

@OldGamer999 I assume you mean 3DS and not WiiU!

I reckon the wording is a little off and it's a 'new entry for Xbox' meaning Final Fantasy XVI

@Scrubchub They’d probably read Lord of the Rings and complain about the graphics!

@GuyinPA75 The whole point of the S/X is that the X plays S games in 4K120. If they aimed for the lower console you'd hit this level of performance on the top model.

What we instead have are games on the X and PS5 with so much visible vegetation pop-in it would make the PS1 blush.

I would sink the cash tomorrow

Developers should build for the S first and then up the ante for the X rather than the other way around. The majority of games do not need the full power of top end consoles.

A Series S in Xbox 360 colours together with a green power button, please!

One shall stand, one shall fall.

The long held assumption has always been that the plural of Xbox is Xboxen

I’ll stick with Merry Christmas.

One generally has holidays at any time of year and hopes they are happy.

PORT HEXIC RUSH TO IOS AND ANDROID THEN

What he’ll probably find is there isn’t enough demand from anyone.

I strongly disagree. I’m sure all locals say this about every other game but the scale just felt all wrong. Edinburgh to the Cotswolds? Who signed off on that one?! Has they had just done Cumbria it would have felt a little more realistic.

It’s fun to drive around certainly and unlike 5 the weather actually means something. I still think No. 2 has the best map.

It starts up so quickly it’s just as easy just to turn it off at the mains.

When is somebody going to comment on what Sega might be up to? The licensing doesn’t expire on their own titles. It seems likely they’re hordeing them all for some future streaming service, right?

Sega delisting all these games for no real reason indicates that they’re planning a streaming service of some sort. I’m amazed no news outlet has even entertained the idea.

Well if Death Standing can come out then anything is possible!

I can see their point. 343 didn’t go too daft but the idea of custom skins in Halo just didn’t sit right.

The problem is that maintaining an ongoing shooter, even server costs isn’t cheap. The upfront cost is one thing but skins do drive engagement and revenue.

Perhaps in the case of Call of Duty they should stick to military-themed licences too. I know they’ve done Rambo in the past; there are loads of other movies and franchises they could include without changing the spirit of the game.

The best game on the Xbox platform of course: Geometry Wars!

Good bloody riddance! The 360 Avatars still look a lot better than the ugly new ones anyway.

Not going to lie: the ability to stream FFXIV without having to download updates on any device is a GAME CHANGER

An easy 10/10. Outside of the bonkers story the game is incredibly chill with a lovely melancholy soundtrack as you traverse the Spartan landscape.

Big single player open world titles were what separated the PS4 from the Xbox One. It’s finally nice to be able to play one of them.

(If Microsoft are reading this a deal with Sony to port their PC titles to Xbox in return for some big tier Xbox games like Halo and Forza would be most welcome)

Given the Series S is more powerful than a PS4 you’d expect it to be better. I’ve been playing it on the XSS and performance has been brilliant. It’s a very welcome game in the single player open world genre, an area the Xbox has been lacking in for some time.

I know Sony didn’t publish it but I wonder if Microsoft could do some sort of ‘swapsies’ with Sony for a few older titles. I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt either of their bottom lines if for example you could get Horizon Zero Dawn on Xbox and Forza Horizon 4 on PS5

I can go either way. I dislike intensely detailed ones because I have to spend hours perfecting it. Give me a nice simple one like Destiny or Phantasy Star Online any day.

It's a difficult one. My favourite time in any consoles life is the first year on the market, where Devs are trying to see what works. The Series X for all its strengths took an entire year to offer any sort of compelling exclusive title. There wasn't really much I couldn't download or stream on the Xbox One.

The launch of Starfield sticks in my mind. Id never really played a Bethesda game before and I found the open ended roleplay to be incredibly compelling.

This is brilliant news! The Xbox has been lacking in the 'single player open world' category for some time and I never finished it on Playstation

I could never get into Gears of War. After the quick-play firefights of Halo I found having to sit in cover against samey bullet sponge enemies to be incredibly dull. I've tried again since but to no avail.

All the imaginative weapons that Perfect Dark 64 still has tucked away to rip off and the best they could come up with was an SMG?

My main question relates to the dialogue. I don't mind branching quest conversations but I recall getting fed up with the original game because every NPC seemed to also have them, taking 10 minutes to extract (say) the location of the local tavern when in an older FF game it would have been one line of repeated speech.

There seems to be more than a few fogged up rose tinted glasses with this one. I'm not trying to beef on anyone's favourite game but it seems like the only people calling for a rerelease of this were the original creators and upper members of Gen Z who played it as small children.

This game did not review well on launch and is objectively pretty terrible. We nicknamed it 'Crock of ****' at school for a reason!

I can't help but feel a 50v50 mode of Spartans Vs Covenant would have been a good laugh.

@Jenkinss You should try number 4. It perfectly nails what it's like to be 17, but for middle aged dudes like us who have nostalgia for that time. The plot deals with some very adult themes including sexuality and gender identity. I know these might make some people groan in 2024 but this was a game that came out in 2008 making it incredibly forward thinking.

It sounds great but when did PureXbox hire Eddie from Friends?

Now can we finally get some ports of old Windows Phone titles that have been lost to the ether? Id quite happily like Hexic and Spartan Assault back please with full achievement support.

They need to try a new structure. I enjoyed Halo 5 but it was too close to Destiny. Infinite was fun but a little too farcry. The grappling hook was brilliant though.

I don't think an open world really works for Halo. Id love to see them tackle the Metroidvania genre. Metroid Prime x Halo 2

Take the template and battle system of Tales of Symphonia/Hesperia. Add in different bending skill trees (eg Earth to Metal or Lava). Tell the story of a previous Avatar and their companions eg Avatar Salai, the earth Avatar before Kyoshi.

Here’s hoping for some square announcements

@LastSaneManOnEarth You know deep down that isn’t true. I enjoyed Starfield but you surely can’t be that blind to its faults? I’m not trying to be insulting here, just realistic.

Terrible main plot. Barren procedural planets. Repetitive space combat. Too many nonsensical ammo types. Dismal space magic ‘puzzle’ on repeat. Footslogging over miles. The same deserted outpost on every planet. Etc etc.

It’s a fun space role playing game with a lot to love but at launch at least it was far from perfect. 7/10 tops.

And whilst we’re here there is no such thing as a ‘real’ video game. People who play titles like Fortnite and FIFA are as much gamers as enthusiasts like yourself or the commuter on the bus playing Candy Crush. There is room
In the industry for all sorts of players, friend. Hobbyists or not, if people enjoy a game then that’s all that matters. Just because you don’t enjoy something doesn’t make it invalid.

Remember those mobile games people despise so much are no different to the simple arcade titles of the 1970’s. They all featured a 25c paywall once all your lives were up.

@KvallyX I really don’t mean to sound sarcastic here but surely you must be aware of the furore over Starfield? I enjoyed the game but nobody would describe it as Bethesdas finest hour.

The expectation is it’s better than Starfield.

That’s a pretty low bar to start from!

(And I like Starfield)