With the release of QSSR for base PS5 it’s looking like they will try and squeeze more life out of the current gen 9 machines, even if gen 10 will not be held back. There’s talk of an FSR4 variant for RDNA2 chips coming in the front end of 2027, so it may make sense for Xbox to try and capitalise on current machines a little longer. The down side of that would be slower adoption of any new hardware released, but the plus side would be a fairly sizeable market continuing to see their investment be improved upon, which like the disc to digital program could see a continued positive mindset bump for team green

I mean fair play to The Coalition, looks like they’ve done great work, but I’m pretty sure there was a similar concept back in the late 90s/early 00s. Using Photoshop and running out of memory used to pop up an option to use the hard drive as a ‘scratch disk’ (I think) - memories of it are like fingerprints on an abandoned hand rail now…

What about… first party exclusives are day one on GP, multiplat first party launch paid first, then come to GP in 6 months or so? This dual strategy could lead to folks subbing for the exclusives and letting the sub ride until the multiplat game drops in. Kind of how the likes of AppleTV etc have one big show on the go, with another coming just as the first series is finishing up

@DonkeyKongBigBoy Oh I’m all digital as it is mate, but I’m just thinking of the massive opportunity for good PR right now available for Asha to capitalise on. Make an add on disc drive, offer it through the Xbox store so you don’t need masses of inventory to send out to stores etc, keep your long time customer base happy, potentially attract a few strays from the other side who are currently displeased with Sony’s direction.
Seems an absolute no brainer, so expect them to do the complete opposite and find yet another rake to step on.

I can’t imagine a disc drive ad-on would be hard or expensive to manufacture. Xbox could secure themselves a nice little extra revenue stream and massive customer goodwill by having one for Helix. Hell, I’m imagining the possibilities of the D2D program going forward with this - if titles are becoming more and more play anywhere, what would stop someone buying a physical PC version and installing that on Helix. The possibilities…

Aaaand it’s out of stock… should have guessed lol

@Cakefish @Enigk Been a while since I picked mine up, but I got it from Smyths Toys, who as of writing have the Seagate 1TB at £142.99 which is a stark difference to what you’ve seen

They really should add some sort of disclaimer on games in sales if they’re due on GP shortly after. Literally just pounced on Hell Is Us when the special edition dropped to £12 and now it’s dropping onto the service. Not the first time this has happened either, looking at you Evil West…

How about they do something nobody has considered, like eliminating the 1 month GP sub and making the minimum you can subscribe 3 months instead? People jumping into the ecosystem for the brand new day one addition would then better off set that game’s loss of purchase with a 3 month sub price. Early finishers may then have to look at the rest of the catalogue to make the most of their sub length and end up boosting other games etc