SeaDaVie

Discounted 2 weeks after release is generally a sign that everything is going absolutely swell. I'm pretty sure.

So, the question is not if it beats CoD this year, but by how much it beats CoD. It might do almost double.

I hope CoD changes to biennial releases or better. Maybe a new base game every 3 years and 2 years of expansions.

@johnedwin It peaked at 100k on the Sunday evening. However, that's for the entire CoD launcher on Steam. So, it's MWIII, BO6, BO7 and Warzone.

@themightyant No way it gets cancelled, F1 is a key pillar of Saudi sportswashing

@Fiendish-Beaver https://xbdeals.net/gb-store?_ga=2.12235636.1553915649.1763231950-411506054.1757263832&_gl=1%2A4pkius%2A_ga%2ANDExNTA2MDU0LjE3NTcyNjM4MzI.%2A_ga_17DH1QH3CD%2AczE3NjMyMzE5NTAkbzkkZzAkdDE3NjMyMzE5NTMkajYwJGwwJGgw

So lifetime sales are probably in the region of 1m, which is significantly worse than the Steam Deck. I wonder what they would consider a success.

I thought Avowed was OK, but the Outer Worlds 2 seems a step up. The RPG systems are a lot better and it feels another level or two towards a true immersive sim experience.

I hope Avowed 2 just copies the OW2 RPG system.

The OpenCritic average is wrong btw, just a glitch.

@themightyant apparently this Is what was reported according to another news site:

Xbox gaming revenue decreased by $113 million or two percent year-on-year to $5.51 billion.

It was also stated that they had been predicting a medium to high single figure decline. So sort of a win?

@Kezelpaso I mean, the terminology used by MS is obviously not the clearest either

@themightyant

The numbers are pretty dire for Xbox. Just a 1% overall growth for the whole Xbox division YoY

It’s actually a 2% decline in overall revenue, which the article failed to mention.

That "decline in first-party content" compares to a very strong period during the first half of 2025 - where the likes of Avowed, Oblivion Remastered and DOOM: The Dark Ages all launched, while Forza Horizon 5 also moved over to PS5 with impressive results

This is also wrong. The decline is compared to Q1 2025 Fiscal Year which is July-September 2024 for MS.

@Sol4ris I'm pretty sure no-lifing games is not in anyway a gamepass thing or an xbox thing. People no-life games everywhere. I've been a no-lifer before, but unfortunately I'm a real life adult now.

1000xResist is one of those games that used to be a great add, but now it looks iffy to rent a game for £22.99 when it can be bought for full rrp at £16.75.

Gamepass seems to only be worth it now for £70 games on day one, or if you're a no-lifer playing 100+ hours a month.

So this had been rebooted into some sort of survival craft game? All looks a bit odd. There’s a definitely a market(on pc) for these survival craft games though. A high quality super polished one could do big numbers.

Hopefully 2028 for the PS6

As always with MS, you need to read the statement they’re making in the most literal sense possible and not try to read what appears to be implied. They have a long history of lying by omission or implying something to be true without outright stating it, so when they do the opposite they can say they didn’t actually lie.

They didn’t refute the statement. They said “We are actively investing in our future first-party consoles and devices designed, engineered and built by Xbox”

That can mean a lot of things. They might be actively investing right now, i.e. R&D hasn’t been cancelled yet, but it’s likely to be in the next few weeks for example.

So the statement is basically worthless at this point. They never said a single thing to refute it still being “Up in the air” and in fact quite carefully danced around it, which to me would very much imply it is in fact still up in the air.

Maybe PureXbox can compile a list of every day one game from 2025 so we can get an idea of what the current breakdown is.

This implies there are currently 50 day one games a year, but it didn’t feel like that at all.

I'm going to to go out on a limb and guess there is a tiny crossover of people that play fortnite enough to want the sub, with people that play gamepass enough to make it worth the $30.

EA Play now converts at 6->1 Ratio. Was this just a new thing from today or something that was updated previously?

So in the UK for GPU it will go from 12,000 points to 17,670.

Admittedly, 12,000 was a pretty good deal, but it always sucks when something gets made worse.

if you were even remotely connected in this industry

Yeah, maybe dial it back a bit...

@Ricky-Spanish Jesus Christ, the last time I posted on PureXbox I got called a fanboy for pointing out the series X costs more to produce than the PS5 and today I post a comment about the impact of subscription services on user habits and I’m a massive Xbox hater now.

Y’all need to cool it with the over the top reactions to everything. Sometimes it’s just interesting to analyze information.

So almost twice as many games, but in almost half the total playtime? Not sure that paints a good picture about Xbox users and the effects of subscription services.

@Fiendish-Beaver the community in game is very good, generally all just very casual dudes mucking about having a laugh. You will get the occasional guy that takes it all a bit too serious though.

I always suspected the Series X cost considerably more to manufacture than the PS5, and this price difference now is probably reflective of the actual production cost difference.

I just wonder how much the next gen PCXbox is going to cost…

@Fiendish-Beaver I love Helldivers 2 but you shouldn’t buy it if you are going to play solo. It has no bots or scaling so it’s really not a good idea.

@themightyant

It's a shame as the IDEA of The Initiative was great, to have smaller teams of veteran devs working on smaller faster more agile projects (more like how game dev used to be)

Wasn't the studio conceived from day one as a AAAA mega studio? The problem was their recruitment was not successful and they never got up to critical mass, and then started haemorrhaging employees.

The real question for me is why this recruitment failed so badly. Was that on them, or is that on Microsoft?

The best thing about the game is the ship building, so maybe do something with that? Make it a central focus of the game, add interesting things to do with your ship, improved combat encounters with better balance and scaling and add Qol features for shipbuilding to make it easier, more intuitive and entire inventories are available at any dock once you’ve encountered those items.

On top of that a 2.0 update that overhauls the gaming systems and world design would be great. Addition of lots of handcrafted events through the galaxy. New and interesting Npcs and why not some alien menace with interesting and impenetrable motives and culture as an end game story.

Wait for a sale and use your MS Bucks

I love the fact that the biggest compliment for an UE5 game is that "you almost wouldn't guess it's an UE5 game"

I prefer the PS5 controller because of the ergonomics, I pretty much always prefer whatever controller feels bigger or more substantial(I have long fingers), and I used to prefer the Xbox controller for everything before the DualSense.

However, this is just the Xbox controller in size and shape, with a different paint scheme and stick placement. So it kinda does nothing for me at all. If it looked like an Xbox controller but was shaped exactly like the dualsense I’d be way more interested.

That top 5 is really something…

At least Europe is not as CoD obsessed as the USA.

@OldGamer999 The game was massively overrated at release by critics and generally reviews have trended downwards. It’s at 58% on Steam currently.

The DLC is a 58(62/PC) on Metacritic and that is probably representative of how the game would get received now.

I’d say it is a 7/10. It got overscored at launch and then the DLC got savaged as a slight overcorrection.

Of course they will. Marathon and MLB the Show 26 are coming.

People are trying the napkin maths on gamepass again but it's impossible to know the real costs.

Take for example Disney Plus, which just took in $10.2b in FY 2024 and only made a modest profit in 2 of the quarters, and losses in the other 2. The cost of original programming for Disney Plus is probably only something in the region of $1-2b a year(about 4-5 prestige dramas a year, 3-4 movies and some comedy and documentaries) and most of the stuff is Disney owned movies and content they own through other channels etc. So where do the rest of the $8-9b costs come from?

@pepsilover2008 Sure, but the number one most wishlisted game also happens to be a day one Gamepass game.

Support so far has been atrocious, but I’m still hoping for a big 2.0 update coming. Maybe holding back everything for one big push, along with the PS5 release.

I guess pre-order numbers were abysmal. Looking on Steam it’s the 88th most wishlisted game, which is 16 places below Marathon(a game that many think is going to flop).

Probably playing hardball

@GeorgeKal Ally x to Xbox ally x is the refresh with z2 chip. The original ally is worse in many areas than the ally x but it has the same Z1 chip and the Z1 extreme version for £450 is a pretty good budget deal

@GeorgeKal Current Ally X also has 24gb of Ram

Jez Corden hmm. Anyone pass me the salt?

I'd actually be quite happy if this is true. I'd also love a 2.0 style update.

@nomither6 Bro, I love live service games. I even played the Maratathon alpha and think it's great.

I think this is a clear example of the Live Service effect, in which people always underestimate the amount of resources needed to maintain a high quality live service experience, especially when it launches in a poor state or content light.

@Ernie Full specs have been revealed. It’s the ally X with a refreshed chipset(which is an off the shelf chipset that anyone can use)

@Ernie

the new ROG Xbox Ally X is a much better model than the Ally X.

Unless I’m missing something they’re exactly the same, just with the processor refresh. Same price also, €899 which will be £799.

I’m guessing Xbox Graphics must be the department responsible for the Xbox Stickers(I.e. stamping the Xbox branding onto things). Currently the most thriving department clearly.

@Ernie You can buy the original high end Ally with the Z1 Extreme chipset(same as Ally X) for £450 on Amazon right now.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/ASUS-Handheld-Processor-Touchscreen-Graphics/dp/B0CKJ7WZ6Y

Comment section seems overly negative for the 2023 GoTY(ahead of BG3).

@Kaloudz Targetting 3 years of full production would not be abnormal, actually making it on time would be however.