@FraserG Yea, and what I outline is just an educated guess. Still, there is a non-insignificant chance Xbox might have some patent on this feature that locks Sony from offering the same.
This would be a very unconventional way of using that Blu-ray serial key, and likely very patentable. It's normally meant as a piracy check to ban pirated copies (from a time before handbrake could just break all drm and movies got simply dumped as 4k movie files online).
Preordered the controller. I wonder how they measuring loyalty... if it's based on digitally bought games, I should be getting an email for sure! If it's based on gamerscore... unlikely.
Not sure I want to spend that kind of money, but I know fomo will make me want to try to get this even if I should not be spending this kind of money right now...
I been holding back on preordering this one. I think I am placing that preorder right now... physically off amazon. Getting ready to make use of that digital entitlement program!!!
@Millionski Hell, I need to wait for more details, but I might never buy a digital game from Xbox ever again, if a physical copy is available. Got to see what games are not covered by this feature and why (my guess is limited run games might be using non-standard pressing that makes them incompatible but that's just a guess). They might also be withholding some third-party games from the program upon their request.
I think the big problem here (or advantage, depending on how you see it) is that each disc from the Xbox One era onwards was fitted with a unique identifier that allows this feature to work, whereas the same can't be said of OG Xbox, Xbox 360, PS4 or PS5 discs.
I'm not clued up on the specifics, but that's what I understand the situation to be.
This is an educated guess, but I think this is leveraging something that has always been a Blu-ray feature. Each Blu-ray disk has a sector that contains a unique encryption key that could be leverage for this.
I made a long reply a while back with info on the tech I assume is being leverage for this feature.
In theory, PS4 and PS5 should be as capable to do the same thing. Assuming their disk pressing is standard and not reusing keys for some reason, or that their drives somehow block their console OS from reading the sector.
The charging side table is also peeking my interest and hope it comes in black. I been needing something just like that for a while now. Currently all my charging stands are behind my TV and controllers end up gathering a lot of dust.
Auto removing bought games from the wishlist is “why wasn’t this always a thing” level of baffling.
Managing saves is going to be interesting. Curious to see what game saves are actually a storage hog. (Bet it’s going to be Creation Engine games).
The immersive bg thing seems… odd. I don’t want to turn the background into a screensaver, I want to remove the bottom row that shows the huge store icon and ads. Or at least make those icons way smaller!!! Why is that row bigger than the game history row???
The work on the badges makes me curious if the rumored achievement work is going to leverage badges, like some sort of “completed games” series of badges. I didn’t even realize those badges existed until rather recently… making them more visible is very intriguing and tells me they are going to be leveraging them a lot more to foster platform attachment in the future.
I still need to sit down and play Moonlighter 1...
Forever Ago looks like a game I would love to play, but not sure I can find the time to squeeze it in. It also looks like it will make me cry for days...
Castlevania has long been preordered for me! Can't wait!!!
That barbie game looks like pure masochism in a box... but lord do I need that deluxe edition doll with the Atari t-shirt...
Deep Dish Dungeon... so glad I watched the trailer. That art card does not do the game any favors. Love the PS1 3d pixel art aesthetic... I will have to keep my eyes on this one!!!
At Fate's End... the art and the premise of fighting your way through your family tree... sign me up!!! I do tend to play my metroidvanias on steam though... is it play anywhere? I am assuming yes since it's an indie game in GamePass...
The Eternal life of Goldman, same as above!
Spine: is that an indie game? If so its punching way above its league! The visuals, facial animations and combat fluidity seem extremely impressive!!! I'll have to keep my eyes out for this one!
Ikuma: the frozen compass, definitively vibing with this one, another one I need to keep an eye on!!!
Out of Words is one I been waiting for a long time but given what I read from the devs themselves, I am not holding my breath it will make it this year. If it does, I'll be there day one (if I notice it land...)
My personal opinion for a while now has been that Halo studios should be likely kept BUT it should lose its independence and be moved under current ABK management teams. I think one thing we can tell is that they know how to manage the development pipeline even if a few of their releases are duds once in a while.
The biggest issue with Halo is, IMO, not the team but the management. No one there seems to know how to manage a project.
Also: Halo should be more than just Master Chief. There should always be multiple campaign games being in development with only one of them focused on the main Master Chief saga. The most memorable entries in the series are precisely not centered on Master Chief at all (Reach and ODST).
If the re-re-re-remastered trilogy indeed has play anywhere the way @Banjo- thinks, I should get it... I wonder if that 50% offer I got is good for long enough for me to find out or if I got to just bite the bullet and upgrade now...
I already own two Series X consoles and a Series S. I got my first XSX at launch and the others on some damned good discounts before the industry went crazy. My second XSX was a steal under $400 with Diablo 4 bundled in (I should redeem that code... never did...), especially given the current economy and the XSS was barely a burden. I have literally hosted dinners that cost me more (it was just $150 after some in-store gift card).
So I would not have to worry much if I lost one of them. If I did, well, one of the reasons I love Xbox is Play Anywhere. I would still be able to play most my games on my PC, and those that are not Play Anywhere are mostly Xbox One gen games that I could just play on my older Xbox One or Xbox One X should ALL of my Xbox Series console somehow be lost.
Honestly, to get there, my house would have to catch fire and I would have way bigger issues than what am I going to do about gaming.
@VisitingComet1 I think a Morowind remake would need a LOT more work than Oblivion had. I don't think the text based quest log of Morrowind would fly these days, for instance.
I love Xbox controllers, but I have never bought an elite model. In great part because I have heard too many stories from almost anyone that I know to ever own one that they break constantly and the battery life is terrible.
I have never broken a traditional Xbox One or Series X controller and the battery life is fantastic even with a rechargeable pack, but even more so with double A batteries.
I do hear they feel fantastic, while they last, but feel extremely reluctant to buy one if it's not going to last on me given the extremely high costs. I do hope this revision is sturdier.
I voted "other" because it depends on the platform I buy the game for.
My priority to buy something is:
Xbox (if play anywhere, buy digital) > Steam > Xbox (no play anywhere, buy digital) > Nintendo Switch (exclusively physical), PlayStation (exclusively physical).
If Xbox starts rolling out Project Proton, I likely will stop buying digital and start buying disks to take advantage of the whole Physical to Digital thing while also be able to lend games to close friends.
As for the topic of Rebirth, third parties accepting money hatting for exclusivity is idiotic. Only first party platforms ever benefit from such moves.
Expensive still but ironically this whole memory crisis seems to be making prices somewhat more competitive with NVME drives. Still a premium, but not as drastic as before.
Looking at Amazon prices, SANDISK Optimus NVMe drives for these sizes are $99.99, $179.99 and $299.99 respectively. That means a $10/$20/$40 premium for the "convenience" of hot-swapability. I think at peak prices, NVMes could be 50% to 75% the price of these proprietary expansion cards.
Still wish Xbox would just ship a revision that simply accepted NVMes, but I doubt that will ever happen this late in the generation (unless it somehow saves them money)
I would like to see something more elaborate than just "got all achievements" and instead get categorized mastery achievements.
Like, Campaign Mastery that unlocks once you get every achievement that is unlocked via completing the baseline campaign (in games that have one) or Online Mastery one for achievements earnt during online/multiplayer play.
It would be a lot of work but sites like True Achievements already do a lot of this flagging and Xbox could work with them to retrofit back catalog games and mandate devs going forward to use the flags while registering achievements.
@Fiendish-Beaver It's not exactly a secret (since it's just part of the Blu-Ray standard) but it was also obvious that this was going to be leveraged for the Xbox One DRM fiasco. Nintendo also has a similar feature on their carts and has had it since at least the 3DS days and has used it to go after devices playing pirated copies.
Although this was originally designed to prevent piracy, it seems Xbox was planning to leverage it at first to further lock in sold copies to devices semi-permanently, and this new project does the opposite: leveraging the Volume ID system to give an extremely powerful pro-consumer service.
The AACS cryptic system is overwhelmingly complicated to explain. The system employs digital signatures and a key revocation system to protect against unauthorized copying and distribution. It encrypts content under one or more title keys using the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). To view a BD-ROM, the player must first decrypt the content on the disc. The decryption process is complex.
The disc contains 4 items—the Media Key Block (MKB), the Volume ID, the Encrypted Title Keys, and the Encrypted Content. Think of the keys like the offline activation keys for DVD-ROM games, except the player is the one reading and activating them, not you
List of Keys in a Disc
Media Key Block (MKB) Every commercial Blu-ray contains a Media Key Block (MKB)—a large cryptographic table (~1–4 MB) embedded in the disc’s lead-in area. It holds thousands of encrypted Device Keys and revocation data. When a licensed player inserts the disc, it uses its built-in Device Key to process the MKB and extract a Media Key. New MKB versions (e.g., v77+) are released yearly to revoke leaked or compromised keys, ensuring only authorized hardware can proceed. This is the first gate in AACS decryption.
Volume ID The Volume ID is a unique 128-bit identifier physically etched into the disc’s Burst Cutting Area (BCA) during manufacturing—a tamper-proof ROM Mark that consumer burners cannot replicate. After solving the MKB, the player combines the Media Key with this Volume ID to compute the Volume Unique Key (VUK). Without reading the BCA, no decryption is possible—even with a valid MKB solution. This ties protection to the physical disc, not just data.
Encrypted Title Keys Scattered across the disc’s file system are Encrypted Title Keys—one AES-128 encrypted key per movie, playlist, or bonus feature. These are useless until decrypted using the Volume Unique Key (VUK) derived earlier. Once unlocked, they yield the final Title Key, which acts as the direct password to unscramble the actual video and audio streams. This per-title encryption allows studios to protect different cuts or extras with unique keys—all on the same disc.
Encrypted Content The movie itself—Encrypted Content—is stored as scrambled H.264, HEVC, or VC-1 video and Dolby/ DTS audio, encrypted in AES-128 using the Title Key. During playback, the player decrypts this data on-the-fly in real time, feeding clear streams to the output (HDMI, etc.). If any prior step fails (MKB, Volume ID, or Title Key), the result is unplayable digital noise. This final layer ensures no usable content leaves the player unencrypted.
@Fiendish-Beaver good and bad news at once is that you won't have to digitize all your 360 games because what has been rumored so far stated that the process would only work with Xbox One and Series X|S games, even then not all (assuming specially printed ones like Limited Run ones won't work).
As far as I understand, this whole thing relies on disk serial numbers that only started being used in the Xbox One generation.
The good news is most backwards compatible 360 and OG games tend to be cheap enough that it would not be a pain to buy the ones one wants most, but it would still be likely prohibitive to try to re-buy something the size of your current disk collection.
@themightyant Honestly, although I would prefer more granular mastery type of achievements as I described, I think it would be rather cool if we got separate mastery/platinum achievements for DLCs.
Although I have no clue if the achievement DB inside Xbox SDK's even splits DLC achievements though, since they don't on the UI (PlayStation ones do split each DLC's achievement lists).
I just hope it is a very different take because I hate the way platinum trophies work. It's universally "get every launch achievement" in a game, and that always annoyed me.
I wish it was smarter, like "you got every single player mode achievement".
I doubt we will get anything too elaborate, but I can hope for them to leverage data that is out there (like from TrueAchievement's db) that flag various type of achievement categories (story/multiplayer/finished the story, etc)
But chances are they will just award a global generically titled Mastery Achievement for getting every achievement.
Multiple versions of cloud saves would be a huge blessing for getting certain achievements that require some branching choices yet offer no manual saves (looking at you, Elden Ring). Such game usually require doing external save backups, not exactly rocket science but way easier to just pull an older cloud save from a drop down menu.
The only thing that had happened prior to the E-Day announcement was the ability to Wishlist the games, but again, that is not a binding contract so Sharma could have cancelled the games, endured the ire of the PlayStation community, and made the games exclusive had she wanted to do so, but for whatever reason, she chose not too. I think it was the wrong decision, but what do I know...
Were you not one of the ones that was against EDay being canceled from PS5 due to concerns of it hurting the health of the studio? But if I read you right, you now seem to feel not dong the same for Halo and Fable was a mistake?
I for one was all in on the multi-platform strategy at first, and if I read you right, today I agree with you. The low volume of sales these games are bringing on PS5 did not seem to have done much to offset the negatives. I do think Halo Campaign was too close to release to get the PS5 version canceled, but do think they still should cancel both Fable and Horizon 6 for PS5.
@CallMeDuraSouka I am not sure PS has ever been that big on western rpgs, they always been bigger on PC (and historically on Xbox before Xbox One happened).
But we shall see next year if the PS5 audience does indeed cares enough about Fable to drop the Laufey game, that is way more aligned with the PS audience's taste for third person action/fantasy trends.
My favorite part of the Tokyo Game Shows tends to be all the announcements of partnership deals with developers that historically skipped the platform, especially when they embrace Play Anywhere.
Looking forward to seeing what comes off this show under the new management, although I am a bit concerned since Sara used to be the main Japanese dev liaison behind most such partnerships.
@Mr-Cage I generally dont oppose the concept of multiplat releases, but outside of Forza, PS base has not proven to be all that into the releases.
That said, I will agree with one BIG thing: if Xbox wants to keep up multiplat releases at any level, ALL of them should go to both Switch 2 and PS, not just PS.
I seriously think PS5 would not be as dominant as it is right now if players could actually buy the latest Call of Duty day one on Switch 2. Every time Xbox launches a game on PS but not on Switch, they are giving PS5 an even bigger slice of the market. If they really wanted to level the playing field, they would do all they can to release all their multiplatform titles (service or otherwise) on S2 day one, or delay the PS version as long as it takes so it launches alongside the S2 edition.
Edit to add: Also, I seriously have come to feel that PS5 editions don't boost sales as much as they cannibalize Steam/Xbox PC sales. A huge chunk of the gaming community that does not have an Xbox likely has a PC capable of running most these games at least at minimum settings, and given no other option they would had purchased the games on a PC storefront instead. Again, this just gives PS more market share instead of leveling the playing field and that's the last thing Xbox should want.
I really expect the PS5 sales to drop fast. This initial burst likely was the "novelty" crowd, while pc and Xbox players are more likely to actually want to play this.
Honestly, PS players these days have proven they are a lot more interested in service games than campaign focused experiences, especially if they are third party or "new" IPs for them.
I seriously would not be shocked if Asha took a huge gambit and canceled the PS5 version of Fable. I am certain that version will flop HARD.
I know the Switch 2 has half the storage as the Series S, but still having a higher price than the Switch 2 in some regions is confounding.
A huge benefit of the Series S was that it was the cheapest entry into console gaming for players that don't mind a hit in fidelity, a market that heavily overlaps with Switch player base.
I feel that at least Xbox should try to introduce a new Series S SKU with less storage if that can bring down the entry price to $399. I **think** there might be a market for a 256gb Series S, even if it would restrict most players to a single triple A game or a handful AA ones installed at once.
Side note: Xbox REALLY should consider a revision that at least replaces the storage expansion slot with a microSD EX card slot (similar to the Switch). Sure those are still expensive as hell, but people are more likely to have one around somewhere. Alternatively, just a standard NVME compartment slot.
I never been interested in this series but suddenly getting an urge to play it and debating if to jump into EDay "first".
I do have an interesting background with this series. Shortly as I married my ex, she went to a GameStop to get me a game. Since I am a big gamer and she knew nothing about games, she asked for recommendations. The store guy recommended their newest Xbox game: Gears of War 2.
I never played the first one, and was never into such gory games (I am cool with violence, just not so much gore and always been more of an RPG girl). I was surprised at the gift because I know my GF also hates seeing gory stuff, she had no clue what she gave me! Anyways I did buy the first game to try it but never got far, so never even got to launch the gifted game.
This release is for some reason now starting to trigger some memories of those days and am tempted to buy this (only a GP Essentials subscriber) just so I can play the campaign, and perhaps then play the Gears 1 remake...
Too big of a backlog, though... Will make up my mind later but kinda hope they eventually give Gears 2 the remake treatment they gave the first one. If they did, it would be a no-brainer for me to venture on the journey.
@Sindayl Like it or hate it, it's not unlike Nintendo and Zelda/Mario/Metroid.
And just like Nintendo, especially these days, Xbox has a lot more than just those IP's. Those are just logical to highlight in the context of the anniversary.
New gears is console exclusive to Xbox playstation literally got the worst version of the worst gears game same aswell with halo a single game with just campaign no multiplayer.
And according to this article, Halo is getting as weak a reception on PS5 as Gears, so for sure this multi-platform experiment is over.
Intrigued by Beast of Reincarnation, but my backlog is huge so likely will hold out until I see it on sale since chances are I won't get around to it until it's on deep discount EVEN if I bought it day one.
Never played it, I kept feeling if I hopped in I would be very disappointed about hopping into the non-remastered Gears 2.
I might hop into the series if they ever give Gears 3 the remaster treatment too. I still had some eek memories after playing Halo 3 in MCC and it looking so bad relative to Halo 1, 2 and 4.
Sounds like the only thing people didn’t like about the “this is an Xbox” campaign was the slogan, because they are not showing any signs at slowing down the expansion.
I think a lot of people are taking the focus on consoles wrong. It’s not just about XSX, and not even Helix. It’s about canceling attempts at propping up competitor consoles.
Every Xbox game you buy from either an Xbox or PC Xbox app still fleets you on their ecosystem. Even Steam sales at least keep you playing on Windows.
But a sake of an Xbox game on PS is likely stealing what would had otherwise been a PC Xbox or Steam sale, removing a user from their ecosystem.
To make their whole strategy thrive, they need to focus on console first because those game sales attach users not only to Xbox consoles, but also Windows and Cloud streaming.
Honestly, it sounds the “everything is an xbox” campaign is full steam ahead, just without the pitch line. Just look at news from today about cloud streaming coming to even more TV apps.
@Millionski this page tends to be better than most at flaming the console warfare (and I admire PureXbox’s resilience seeing how their sister site thrives on console war trolling) but I do get frustrated that most Xbox finished communities ignore what has made Xbox the preferred play to play for so many that have jumped into this ecosystem: the flexibility of PlayAnywhere.
I don’t need an Xbox Series Max because I built my own (48gb ram on my livingroom PC and a 5070ti, 16gb video ram and 32gb DDR5 on my office desk PC) at the same time I can take most my games on the go with my ROG Ally x.
Yea, the PS5Pro might technically be the most powerful console (I own one!), but playing anything on it comes with so many restrictions… if I’m ever dissatisfied with the performance of one of my PlayAnywhere games, I just hop from the console to the PC nearly seamlessly. I can’t do that with PlayStation.
But I guess the bulk of these sites readers are here exclusively for console centric coverage. I do wonder how sites will adapt to a Helix future, though…
@Banjo- I would not say everyone (Capcom is still very hit and miss), but a lot of people are.
Maybe this is a staged thing. They did only started adding Steam achievements retroactively to their games a few years back and that actually got them a sales boost.
Here I’m crossing my fingers. I tend to mostly buy PlayAnywhere games on Xbox but something in Ubisoft games makes me prefer playing them on Xbox over Steam or PS. Would be fantastic to just get the flexibility to hop back and forth between my Xbox and the Rog Ally X instead of being stuck on my couch even if the weather is great outside.
@Michael2008ish I will literally buy the same game in multiple platforms to reearn achievements 😅
Not all games, only ones I absolutely love. Mostly AC and FarCry games. I beat Odyssey to 100% on Xbox and Steam and I assure you I’ll someday do the same on PlayStation.
So, I had a hiccup just at midnight but was able to play for an hour before going to bed. The only game I wanted to play was Black Flag, and was not able to by the time I woke up. It was fixed by late evening but at that point I was just super sleepy and called it a night.
From what I read, this sucked worse than PlayStation’s outage because even physical disks would not work. I do think the outage was shorter than Sony’s though.
It really angered me that most their communication updates were through Twitter. I won’t ever again use that app and they have a Threads account. They should have shared updates there too!!!
@Michael2008ish most these should sync save data with consoles if you have that enabled. Ubisoft added their own save cloud syncing a while back and games released post that all sync to all platforms, even competing consoles.
Personally I disable it because I’m a maniac that loves re-earning her achievements 🙃
@HelloCraigo this is confusing me so much more now… these games got added to the pc Xbox store but the giveaway is for Ubisoft connect store versions? If I want the Xbox pc store version I still must buy that? Am I reading this right?
And yea, for some reason Ubisoft stop adding achievements to their Ubisoft connect portal. Used to be all their games had native platform AND Ubisoft achievements but no more.
Comments 4,223
Re: Xbox Disc To Digital Announced, Supports Thousands Of Physical Games At Launch
@FraserG Yea, and what I outline is just an educated guess. Still, there is a non-insignificant chance Xbox might have some patent on this feature that locks Sony from offering the same.
This would be a very unconventional way of using that Blu-ray serial key, and likely very patentable. It's normally meant as a piracy check to ban pirated copies (from a time before handbrake could just break all drm and movies got simply dumped as 4k movie files online).
Very curious if my assumption is correct, though!
Re: Xbox Series X25 Console & Controller: Prices, Release Dates, Pre-Orders Announced
Preordered the controller. I wonder how they measuring loyalty... if it's based on digitally bought games, I should be getting an email for sure! If it's based on gamerscore... unlikely.
Not sure I want to spend that kind of money, but I know fomo will make me want to try to get this even if I should not be spending this kind of money right now...
Re: Fable Looks Absolutely Incredible In New 18-Minute Quest Gameplay
I been holding back on preordering this one. I think I am placing that preorder right now... physically off amazon. Getting ready to make use of that digital entitlement program!!!
Re: Xbox Disc To Digital Announced, Supports Thousands Of Physical Games At Launch
@Millionski Hell, I need to wait for more details, but I might never buy a digital game from Xbox ever again, if a physical copy is available. Got to see what games are not covered by this feature and why (my guess is limited run games might be using non-standard pressing that makes them incompatible but that's just a guess). They might also be withholding some third-party games from the program upon their request.
Re: Xbox Disc To Digital Announced, Supports Thousands Of Physical Games At Launch
An interesting side effect of this feature:
We can for all purposes buy a physical game (I assume all first party games will feature this) and claim the digital entitlement.
If we lose the disk due to damage (disk rot, a house fire, flood, naughty dog, careless children) we won't be losing the game.
However, theft can still cause us to lose the game, should the thief eventually insert that disk in another console.
Re: Xbox Disc To Digital Announced, Supports Thousands Of Physical Games At Launch
@FraserG
This is an educated guess, but I think this is leveraging something that has always been a Blu-ray feature. Each Blu-ray disk has a sector that contains a unique encryption key that could be leverage for this.
I made a long reply a while back with info on the tech I assume is being leverage for this feature.
In theory, PS4 and PS5 should be as capable to do the same thing. Assuming their disk pressing is standard and not reusing keys for some reason, or that their drives somehow block their console OS from reading the sector.
Re: IKEA Unveils First Ever Xbox Collection Including Chairs, Stools, Cushions & More
Ok I definitely need me a few of those cushions!
The charging side table is also peeking my interest and hope it comes in black. I been needing something just like that for a while now. Currently all my charging stands are behind my TV and controllers end up gathering a lot of dust.
Re: Five New Console Features Begin Rolling Out Today For Xbox Insiders (August 19)
Auto removing bought games from the wishlist is “why wasn’t this always a thing” level of baffling.
Managing saves is going to be interesting. Curious to see what game saves are actually a storage hog. (Bet it’s going to be Creation Engine games).
The immersive bg thing seems… odd. I don’t want to turn the background into a screensaver, I want to remove the bottom row that shows the huge store icon and ads. Or at least make those icons way smaller!!! Why is that row bigger than the game history row???
The work on the badges makes me curious if the rumored achievement work is going to leverage badges, like some sort of “completed games” series of badges. I didn’t even realize those badges existed until rather recently… making them more visible is very intriguing and tells me they are going to be leveraging them a lot more to foster platform attachment in the future.
Re: Xbox 25th Anniversary Controller: Release Date, Price & Other Details Seemingly Revealed
I’m definitely getting one of these!!!
Re: 20+ Under The Radar Xbox Series X|S Games Still To Come In 2026
Thank you for this list, @HelloCraigo
Re: Xbox Has 'Explored' Using Activision For Future Halo Games, Suggests Rumour
My personal opinion for a while now has been that Halo studios should be likely kept BUT it should lose its independence and be moved under current ABK management teams. I think one thing we can tell is that they know how to manage the development pipeline even if a few of their releases are duds once in a while.
The biggest issue with Halo is, IMO, not the team but the management. No one there seems to know how to manage a project.
Also: Halo should be more than just Master Chief. There should always be multiple campaign games being in development with only one of them focused on the main Master Chief saga. The most memorable entries in the series are precisely not centered on Master Chief at all (Reach and ODST).
Re: Kingdom Hearts IV Joins Xbox Play Anywhere, Along With Multiple Other Surprises
If the re-re-re-remastered trilogy indeed has play anywhere the way @Banjo- thinks, I should get it... I wonder if that 50% offer I got is good for long enough for me to find out or if I got to just bite the bullet and upgrade now...
Re: Talking Point: Amid Rising Console Prices, What Would You Do If Your Xbox Broke Tomorrow?
I already own two Series X consoles and a Series S. I got my first XSX at launch and the others on some damned good discounts before the industry went crazy. My second XSX was a steal under $400 with Diablo 4 bundled in (I should redeem that code... never did...), especially given the current economy and the XSS was barely a burden. I have literally hosted dinners that cost me more (it was just $150 after some in-store gift card).
So I would not have to worry much if I lost one of them. If I did, well, one of the reasons I love Xbox is Play Anywhere. I would still be able to play most my games on my PC, and those that are not Play Anywhere are mostly Xbox One gen games that I could just play on my older Xbox One or Xbox One X should ALL of my Xbox Series console somehow be lost.
Honestly, to get there, my house would have to catch fire and I would have way bigger issues than what am I going to do about gaming.
Re: Xbox Unveils Two New Official Controllers For Gears Of War E-Day
Edit: false alarm, MS site had the wrong price (maybe they added the cost of the charger stand)
Original post: $114.99 for a standard "limited edition" controller??? That "black leather-like" back better be real leather!!!
Re: Xbox Boss Reveals Brief Thoughts On Elder Scrolls 6 After Seeing A 'Live Playthrough'
@VisitingComet1 I think a Morowind remake would need a LOT more work than Oblivion had. I don't think the text based quest log of Morrowind would fly these days, for instance.
Re: Xbox Fan Somehow Manages To Buy A Prototype Of The Elite Series 3 Controller
I love Xbox controllers, but I have never bought an elite model. In great part because I have heard too many stories from almost anyone that I know to ever own one that they break constantly and the battery life is terrible.
I have never broken a traditional Xbox One or Series X controller and the battery life is fantastic even with a rechargeable pack, but even more so with double A batteries.
I do hear they feel fantastic, while they last, but feel extremely reluctant to buy one if it's not going to last on me given the extremely high costs. I do hope this revision is sturdier.
Re: More 'Avid Consumers' Are Pre-Ordering $100 GTA 6 Edition Over The Cheaper Version
I can patiently wait multiple years for the discount they tease won't be coming anytime soon, or better: the PC release's eventual discount.
Re: Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Has Solid Start On Xbox, Despite Launching Two Years Later
I voted "other" because it depends on the platform I buy the game for.
My priority to buy something is:
Xbox (if play anywhere, buy digital) > Steam > Xbox (no play anywhere, buy digital) > Nintendo Switch (exclusively physical), PlayStation (exclusively physical).
If Xbox starts rolling out Project Proton, I likely will stop buying digital and start buying disks to take advantage of the whole Physical to Digital thing while also be able to lend games to close friends.
As for the topic of Rebirth, third parties accepting money hatting for exclusivity is idiotic. Only first party platforms ever benefit from such moves.
Re: SanDisk Announces Three New Expansion Cards For Xbox Series X|S
Expensive still but ironically this whole memory crisis seems to be making prices somewhat more competitive with NVME drives. Still a premium, but not as drastic as before.
Looking at Amazon prices, SANDISK Optimus NVMe drives for these sizes are $99.99, $179.99 and $299.99 respectively. That means a $10/$20/$40 premium for the "convenience" of hot-swapability. I think at peak prices, NVMes could be 50% to 75% the price of these proprietary expansion cards.
Still wish Xbox would just ship a revision that simply accepted NVMes, but I doubt that will ever happen this late in the generation (unless it somehow saves them money)
Re: Talking Point: Xbox Is Getting Its Own Platinum Trophy, But What Will Make It Different?
I would like to see something more elaborate than just "got all achievements" and instead get categorized mastery achievements.
Like, Campaign Mastery that unlocks once you get every achievement that is unlocked via completing the baseline campaign (in games that have one) or Online Mastery one for achievements earnt during online/multiplayer play.
It would be a lot of work but sites like True Achievements already do a lot of this flagging and Xbox could work with them to retrofit back catalog games and mandate devs going forward to use the flags while registering achievements.
Re: Talking Point: Will Xbox's Disc-To-Digital Feature Become Essential For Delisted Games?
@Fiendish-Beaver It's not exactly a secret (since it's just part of the Blu-Ray standard) but it was also obvious that this was going to be leveraged for the Xbox One DRM fiasco. Nintendo also has a similar feature on their carts and has had it since at least the 3DS days and has used it to go after devices playing pirated copies.
Bellow is some background info on the technology and source link if you want to dig deeper.
Although this was originally designed to prevent piracy, it seems Xbox was planning to leverage it at first to further lock in sold copies to devices semi-permanently, and this new project does the opposite: leveraging the Volume ID system to give an extremely powerful pro-consumer service.
Re: Talking Point: Will Xbox's Disc-To-Digital Feature Become Essential For Delisted Games?
@Fiendish-Beaver good and bad news at once is that you won't have to digitize all your 360 games because what has been rumored so far stated that the process would only work with Xbox One and Series X|S games, even then not all (assuming specially printed ones like Limited Run ones won't work).
As far as I understand, this whole thing relies on disk serial numbers that only started being used in the Xbox One generation.
The good news is most backwards compatible 360 and OG games tend to be cheap enough that it would not be a pain to buy the ones one wants most, but it would still be likely prohibitive to try to re-buy something the size of your current disk collection.
Re: Xbox Set To Announce 'Beautiful' New Controller For Gears Of War: E-Day
I would be surprised if they didn't, since even Redfall got special edition controllers (even if they were design lab editions.)
Re: Xbox Boss Teases Platinum Trophy Equivalent For Achievements In 2026
@themightyant Honestly, although I would prefer more granular mastery type of achievements as I described, I think it would be rather cool if we got separate mastery/platinum achievements for DLCs.
Although I have no clue if the achievement DB inside Xbox SDK's even splits DLC achievements though, since they don't on the UI (PlayStation ones do split each DLC's achievement lists).
Re: Xbox Boss Teases Platinum Trophy Equivalent For Achievements In 2026
@Markatron84 are those counted anywhere though? I always thought they were just a decoration on the progress bar.
Re: Xbox Boss Teases Platinum Trophy Equivalent For Achievements In 2026
Said this in Push Square on the topic:
I just hope it is a very different take because I hate the way platinum trophies work. It's universally "get every launch achievement" in a game, and that always annoyed me.
I wish it was smarter, like "you got every single player mode achievement".
I doubt we will get anything too elaborate, but I can hope for them to leverage data that is out there (like from TrueAchievement's db) that flag various type of achievement categories (story/multiplayer/finished the story, etc)
But chances are they will just award a global generically titled Mastery Achievement for getting every achievement.
Re: Xbox Announces Four More Console Features, Including Two Highly-Requested Ones
Multiple versions of cloud saves would be a huge blessing for getting certain achievements that require some branching choices yet offer no manual saves (looking at you, Elden Ring). Such game usually require doing external save backups, not exactly rocket science but way easier to just pull an older cloud save from a drop down menu.
Re: Halo: Campaign Evolved Is Getting Some Surprising Sales Estimates For Xbox, PC & PS5
@Fiendish-Beaver
Were you not one of the ones that was against EDay being canceled from PS5 due to concerns of it hurting the health of the studio? But if I read you right, you now seem to feel not dong the same for Halo and Fable was a mistake?
I for one was all in on the multi-platform strategy at first, and if I read you right, today I agree with you. The low volume of sales these games are bringing on PS5 did not seem to have done much to offset the negatives. I do think Halo Campaign was too close to release to get the PS5 version canceled, but do think they still should cancel both Fable and Horizon 6 for PS5.
Re: Halo: Campaign Evolved Is Getting Some Surprising Sales Estimates For Xbox, PC & PS5
@CallMeDuraSouka I am not sure PS has ever been that big on western rpgs, they always been bigger on PC (and historically on Xbox before Xbox One happened).
But we shall see next year if the PS5 audience does indeed cares enough about Fable to drop the Laufey game, that is way more aligned with the PS audience's taste for third person action/fantasy trends.
Re: Xbox Announces Tokyo Game Show 2026 Broadcast, Following Massive Reveal At Last Year's Event
My favorite part of the Tokyo Game Shows tends to be all the announcements of partnership deals with developers that historically skipped the platform, especially when they embrace Play Anywhere.
Looking forward to seeing what comes off this show under the new management, although I am a bit concerned since Sara used to be the main Japanese dev liaison behind most such partnerships.
Re: Halo: Campaign Evolved Is Getting Some Surprising Sales Estimates For Xbox, PC & PS5
@Mr-Cage I generally dont oppose the concept of multiplat releases, but outside of Forza, PS base has not proven to be all that into the releases.
That said, I will agree with one BIG thing: if Xbox wants to keep up multiplat releases at any level, ALL of them should go to both Switch 2 and PS, not just PS.
I seriously think PS5 would not be as dominant as it is right now if players could actually buy the latest Call of Duty day one on Switch 2. Every time Xbox launches a game on PS but not on Switch, they are giving PS5 an even bigger slice of the market. If they really wanted to level the playing field, they would do all they can to release all their multiplatform titles (service or otherwise) on S2 day one, or delay the PS version as long as it takes so it launches alongside the S2 edition.
Edit to add: Also, I seriously have come to feel that PS5 editions don't boost sales as much as they cannibalize Steam/Xbox PC sales. A huge chunk of the gaming community that does not have an Xbox likely has a PC capable of running most these games at least at minimum settings, and given no other option they would had purchased the games on a PC storefront instead. Again, this just gives PS more market share instead of leveling the playing field and that's the last thing Xbox should want.
Re: Halo: Campaign Evolved Is Getting Some Surprising Sales Estimates For Xbox, PC & PS5
I really expect the PS5 sales to drop fast. This initial burst likely was the "novelty" crowd, while pc and Xbox players are more likely to actually want to play this.
Honestly, PS players these days have proven they are a lot more interested in service games than campaign focused experiences, especially if they are third party or "new" IPs for them.
I seriously would not be shocked if Asha took a huge gambit and canceled the PS5 version of Fable. I am certain that version will flop HARD.
Re: Here's A Breakdown Of The New Prices For Xbox Series X|S Consoles As Of August 2026
I know the Switch 2 has half the storage as the Series S, but still having a higher price than the Switch 2 in some regions is confounding.
A huge benefit of the Series S was that it was the cheapest entry into console gaming for players that don't mind a hit in fidelity, a market that heavily overlaps with Switch player base.
I feel that at least Xbox should try to introduce a new Series S SKU with less storage if that can bring down the entry price to $399. I **think** there might be a market for a 256gb Series S, even if it would restrict most players to a single triple A game or a handful AA ones installed at once.
Side note: Xbox REALLY should consider a revision that at least replaces the storage expansion slot with a microSD EX card slot (similar to the Switch). Sure those are still expensive as hell, but people are more likely to have one around somewhere. Alternatively, just a standard NVME compartment slot.
Re: Gears Of War: E-Day Preload Now Live Ahead Of Multiplayer Beta
I never been interested in this series but suddenly getting an urge to play it and debating if to jump into EDay "first".
I do have an interesting background with this series. Shortly as I married my ex, she went to a GameStop to get me a game. Since I am a big gamer and she knew nothing about games, she asked for recommendations. The store guy recommended their newest Xbox game: Gears of War 2.
I never played the first one, and was never into such gory games (I am cool with violence, just not so much gore and always been more of an RPG girl). I was surprised at the gift because I know my GF also hates seeing gory stuff, she had no clue what she gave me! Anyways I did buy the first game to try it but never got far, so never even got to launch the gifted game.
This release is for some reason now starting to trigger some memories of those days and am tempted to buy this (only a GP Essentials subscriber) just so I can play the campaign, and perhaps then play the Gears 1 remake...
Too big of a backlog, though... Will make up my mind later but kinda hope they eventually give Gears 2 the remake treatment they gave the first one. If they did, it would be a no-brainer for me to venture on the journey.
Re: Xbox Adds Dynamic Background & Gamer Pics To Celebrate 25 Years Of Play
@Sindayl Like it or hate it, it's not unlike Nintendo and Zelda/Mario/Metroid.
And just like Nintendo, especially these days, Xbox has a lot more than just those IP's. Those are just logical to highlight in the context of the anniversary.
Re: Xbox Adds Dynamic Background & Gamer Pics To Celebrate 25 Years Of Play
@Mr-Cage
And according to this article, Halo is getting as weak a reception on PS5 as Gears, so for sure this multi-platform experiment is over.
Re: Xbox Game Pass: All Games Coming Soon In August 2026
Intrigued by Beast of Reincarnation, but my backlog is huge so likely will hold out until I see it on sale since chances are I won't get around to it until it's on deep discount EVEN if I bought it day one.
Re: Poll: One Year Later, What Do You Think Of Xbox's Most Recent Gears Of War Release?
Never played it, I kept feeling if I hopped in I would be very disappointed about hopping into the non-remastered Gears 2.
I might hop into the series if they ever give Gears 3 the remaster treatment too. I still had some eek memories after playing Halo 3 in MCC and it looking so bad relative to Halo 1, 2 and 4.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (August 1-2)
Still playing my way through Black Flag Resynced. Hopefully I'm done with the campaign this weekend and maybe even get 100% achievements.
Feeling cravings to play a Metroidvania next, so passively deciding if to hop on Hollowknight or Ori.
Re: Xbox Cloud Gaming Arrives On Hisense & VIDAA TVs With Dedicated App
Sounds like the only thing people didn’t like about the “this is an Xbox” campaign was the slogan, because they are not showing any signs at slowing down the expansion.
Re: Xbox's Four Priorities Detailed By Asha Sharma After Major 'Reset'
I think a lot of people are taking the focus on consoles wrong. It’s not just about XSX, and not even Helix. It’s about canceling attempts at propping up competitor consoles.
Every Xbox game you buy from either an Xbox or PC Xbox app still fleets you on their ecosystem. Even Steam sales at least keep you playing on Windows.
But a sake of an Xbox game on PS is likely stealing what would had otherwise been a PC Xbox or Steam sale, removing a user from their ecosystem.
To make their whole strategy thrive, they need to focus on console first because those game sales attach users not only to Xbox consoles, but also Windows and Cloud streaming.
Honestly, it sounds the “everything is an xbox” campaign is full steam ahead, just without the pitch line. Just look at news from today about cloud streaming coming to even more TV apps.
So, no. “Console first” does not mean just XSX|S.
Re: Not A Good Look For Xbox As Halo: Campaign Evolved Plays Best On PlayStation
@Lanmanna bit of an editing typo. I have two PCs. One has 48GB DDR5, the other 32.
The 32GB one sits in my desk, the 48GB one on my TV.
Re: Not A Good Look For Xbox As Halo: Campaign Evolved Plays Best On PlayStation
@Millionski this page tends to be better than most at flaming the console warfare (and I admire PureXbox’s resilience seeing how their sister site thrives on console war trolling) but I do get frustrated that most Xbox finished communities ignore what has made Xbox the preferred play to play for so many that have jumped into this ecosystem: the flexibility of PlayAnywhere.
I don’t need an Xbox Series Max because I built my own (48gb ram on my livingroom PC and a 5070ti, 16gb video ram and 32gb DDR5 on my office desk PC) at the same time I can take most my games on the go with my ROG Ally x.
Yea, the PS5Pro might technically be the most powerful console (I own one!), but playing anything on it comes with so many restrictions… if I’m ever dissatisfied with the performance of one of my PlayAnywhere games, I just hop from the console to the PC nearly seamlessly. I can’t do that with PlayStation.
But I guess the bulk of these sites readers are here exclusively for console centric coverage. I do wonder how sites will adapt to a Helix future, though…
Re: Not A Good Look For Xbox As Halo: Campaign Evolved Plays Best On PlayStation
Counter argument: it plays best on Windows PC.
Re: Xbox Owners Get Free PC Copies Of Select Ubisoft Games
@Banjo- I would not say everyone (Capcom is still very hit and miss), but a lot of people are.
Maybe this is a staged thing. They did only started adding Steam achievements retroactively to their games a few years back and that actually got them a sales boost.
Here I’m crossing my fingers. I tend to mostly buy PlayAnywhere games on Xbox but something in Ubisoft games makes me prefer playing them on Xbox over Steam or PS. Would be fantastic to just get the flexibility to hop back and forth between my Xbox and the Rog Ally X instead of being stuck on my couch even if the weather is great outside.
Re: Xbox Owners Get Free PC Copies Of Select Ubisoft Games
@Banjo- that’s the confusing thing, given they just added these games to the Xbox PC Store, I would had imagined that would be the natural next step.
Re: Xbox Owners Get Free PC Copies Of Select Ubisoft Games
@Michael2008ish I will literally buy the same game in multiple platforms to reearn achievements 😅
Not all games, only ones I absolutely love. Mostly AC and FarCry games. I beat Odyssey to 100% on Xbox and Steam and I assure you I’ll someday do the same on PlayStation.
Re: Talking Point: How Much Has The Xbox Outage Affected You?
So, I had a hiccup just at midnight but was able to play for an hour before going to bed. The only game I wanted to play was Black Flag, and was not able to by the time I woke up. It was fixed by late evening but at that point I was just super sleepy and called it a night.
From what I read, this sucked worse than PlayStation’s outage because even physical disks would not work. I do think the outage was shorter than Sony’s though.
It really angered me that most their communication updates were through Twitter. I won’t ever again use that app and they have a Threads account. They should have shared updates there too!!!
Re: Xbox Owners Get Free PC Copies Of Select Ubisoft Games
@Michael2008ish most these should sync save data with consoles if you have that enabled. Ubisoft added their own save cloud syncing a while back and games released post that all sync to all platforms, even competing consoles.
Personally I disable it because I’m a maniac that loves re-earning her achievements 🙃
Re: Xbox Owners Get Free PC Copies Of Select Ubisoft Games
@HelloCraigo this is confusing me so much more now… these games got added to the pc Xbox store but the giveaway is for Ubisoft connect store versions? If I want the Xbox pc store version I still must buy that? Am I reading this right?
And yea, for some reason Ubisoft stop adding achievements to their Ubisoft connect portal. Used to be all their games had native platform AND Ubisoft achievements but no more.