I don't expect any subsidized console would be able to play Steam games. Who would then buy overpriced games for consoles if anyone could play huge library of Steam games that are being sold for peanuts (especially older games)?
It's more likely that it will be the other way round: a variant of a standard Wintel PC sold for a full non-subsidized price that would able to play games from the Xbox library. It would be an option for players who own a library of Xbox that would compensate that no new generation of a specialized Xboxes will be released.
The average gamer scenario never favoured Game Pass: why having hundreds of games when the gamer does not have time to play more than a small couple of games per month?
The original concept of Games With Gold (the pre-GP version that offered older AAA games) was much better because the player three new games to play each month and still could play the ones from previous months which made possible to create a big permanent collection overtime. Luckily, Sony still keeps this concept so it's time to move on to PS.
The value of consoles may not be defined by hardware or exclusives anymore, but value of their subscription services. If GamePass Ultimate continues to include day-1 games from all of the MS Game Studios and continues to be able to be legally obtained a little bit cheaper than the current official price, then I think it may be well competitive against Playstation with its PS Plus Premium.
It makes sense because the Xbox HW is being sold with loss and the game development is expensive. Thus it's best for Microsoft if customers play on somebody else's hw sold with loss but pay money for the Xbox Studios games.
It does not make sense to use Xbox for anything else than playing games due to its high power consumption... It is better to use a media center, either a dedicated streaming device or a NUC PC or a NAS for streaming video and/or audio content.
Of course it does. And MS does not even bother bringing an updated version of the console like Sony does with upcoming PS5 Pro that should solve all the issues of quality vs performance modes in 4K games.
I have XBox Series X but I will buy PS5 Pro and will not be forced to performance for quality compromises.
It makes sense from the Microsoft's viewpoint but not that much from the customers' viewpoint. The real-world scenario is that typical users play only couple of new games a month but like to build a collection and occasionally return to old games.
This means, that Sony approach that still keeps the model of giving 2 or 3 older but mostly AAA games a month in PS+ Essential to "keep forever" is better than GamePass Core with slow additions that, moreover, can still be removed anytime, or the GPU approach that gives you half thousand of games, out which only several can be actually installed on your Xbox due to SSD limitations but also lack of time of a typical gamer.
That's why I ask Microsoft to return to the pre-Gamepass Live Gold model giving 2-3 older good quality new games each month plus keeping the already acquired forever!
GamePass Ultimate surely has many pros but it has also its cons. Due to the fact that games disappear after a year from coming to GamePass, people who like to return to older games must buy them anyway....
The old model with 2-3 games to keep forever whenever subscription exists was better for loyal customers.
Forcing game developers optimize their games for the less-powerful-then-old-gen Series S is a mistake because it is difficult for the developers and makes them annoyed.
Also, promoting GamePass Ultimate as the main choice for XBox console owners, supplies players with plenty of games to play and they thus have hardly any time to play non-GPU games. That's why sales of individual games is naturally dramatically falling and developers who intend not to go to GPU don't find Xbox lucrative enough.
But I don't think it is something to worry because the players have wide choice from GPU anyway and simply don't have time to play every game that is released.
What makes me absolutely mad is that even indie games that are not anyhow demanding are not playable from external SSD due to complying to the X/S optimized certification.
There are so many things in current Xbox Series X that need improvement! For example, having only USB 3.0 with 5Gbps speed and USB-A connector is a joke. Considering that every major game for Xbox requires 150GB of free disc space (with updates getting to 200GB), 2TB discs as well as Thunderbolt port for external disc is needed.
Also updating the CPU and the GPU to standards for 2024 would be desirable, considering how many games are not able to achieve 4k/60Hz in full quality mode, not to mention 4k/120Hz and 8k/60Hz resp on current Series X.
Cool! I actually expected that older games from the Diablo franchise will be released first and Diablo 4 will be kept as the diamond as one of the latest Blizzard titles released on GamePass.
Considering Microsoft's history of abandoning projects into which it heavily invested (Windows Mobile, VR, etc.), I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft decided to ditch Xbox platform and develop only software on Playstation
Unfortunately, Ubisoft and other game houses achieve the goal in an opposite way: they simply SHUT DOWN THE GAMES YOU OWN. And despite customers bought it, they have nothing.
For example The Crew is about to be shut down in March and will become totally unplayable even for players who bought it.
So how is it different from the subscription-based service? In both cases they eventually remove the game from you.
It's obviously an idea of some pundit who has never tried to play an Xbox GP cloud game. It is unusable already today. The flying animation urging gamers to wait because there are too many players is already extremely annoying, and I admit that I have never been persistent enough to wait so I haven't finished any cloud gaming session yet. Allowing billions of new free users in the cloud gaming will lead to collapse of the GP cloud gaming completely.
They should put there only their own games in the "day one" mode, while third-party games with a delay, e.g. 6 months. I guess players don't need access the games immediately and the official games pass ultimate price could be more affordable.
It's great that there finally are some Xbox One games. At least, players can install them on the external hard SSD because 800GB internal free disk space for games fits only several games and official external storage cards are so overpriced that most players refuse to buy them.
That's why adding dozens of new X/S games each month to GPU makes little sense because players don't have space where to install them anyway.
The current console generation are now in their 4th year of existence and who wanted to buy them, has already done so. That's why the only way to boost sales is to come with some innovations.
I also like the Plague Tale series. It shows the way to go for non-open-world story-driven games. To get the movie-like feel and almost seamlessly cross between interactive and non-interactive parts unified by a consistent story is a pattern that if followed in future projects brings the success again. The only thing that I hope would change in the future project is increasing variability of tasks in interactive parts (finding ways to make way through rats and soldiers gets repetitive soon).
I do miss the principle that once you get the games, you can keep them for as long as you subscribe the plan. GamePass keeps the games on the list for a limited time only and provides mere 14 days notice of delisting.
There are more games with size over 200GB. Flight Simulator 2020 for example. Microsoft should drop the ban of using external USB SSDs for Series X/S Games. I use it for some older non-X/S (yet still big) games, and I can't see any difference from the scenario when they are installed on the internal storage.
And I hope that next generation of XBox will feature USB4/Thunderbolt in order to enable full speed of external disks.
They should have added a symbolic single game to demonstrate the acquisition. Other than that, the fall season is typically strong and it may be better to wait on spring game draught.
Diablo - although I guess most funs have already purchased games of their favourite series and their inclusion into GPU is thus primarily an attraction for new players.
It would be also great to port their PC-only games to Xbox.
I expect better integration of Activision/Blizzard games to the Xbox console ecosystem, including console-enhanced remakes of old titles, including strategy games like Warcraft and Starcraft.
I admin that I'm quite surprised that Microsoft manages to make quite good standalone sale money even from games included in Game Pass - e.g. by introducing "premium editions" with various perks, by issuing various DlCs/Passes, etc. Last but not least, non-Microsoft game remain in GPU for roughly one year, thus it makes additional money on gamers who haven't finished the game and must purchase it after it leaves (those gamers might not have even considered to play it without GPU, thus GPU servers as "one year demo" or advertisement).
Therefore I wouldn't be afraid that Microsoft won't ever put triple A games like Diablo IV to GPU because it's still worth it, but will not do it as "day one".
Well, the guy forgot one thing: the number of active (paying) players have drastically increased in the recent decades since computer gaming becomes a mainstream entertainment. Not without a reason Netflix considers computer games as the toughest competitor.
And since computer games, due to their digital nature, have virtually zero cost of creating copies, the summary profit of companies participating in computer games business could drastically increase even without making the game price higher!
Is there any prospect of a VR version of Starfield for PC Steam (Xbox, unfortunately does not suppot VR)?
Because Starfield is one of the games where VR could indeed bring a completely different level of immersion. I remember that even the initial scene of Star Wars for PSVR standing near the station with night sky full stars was simply amazing.
If I remember, Microsoft already tried something like that with Xbox One release (banning secondary market of used games) but due to fierce reaction of customers, it revoked this policy.
Now, Microsoft is obviously trying to achieve this result "silently" simply by physically removing the option how to play used games from the secondary market by promoting heavily subsidized Series S and now even remove optical disc reader from Series X
I already commented on the Microsoft's strategy to prioritize casual gamers with Series S plus Game Pass on the previous BG3 delay article..
But I would like to add one more consideration: Microsoft biggest competitor Sony decided to go the other way round and made the cheaper console as powerful as the more full-featured console. And now even decided to introduce even more powerful PS5 Pro (dev kits for PS5 Pro are already being available to developers)...
If Microsoft does not react and will stubbornly insist on "Series S as the first class citizen", the gap between technical quality of titles for PS and Xbox will continue to widen and Microsoft risks losing hardcore gamers regardless how many trillions of dollars it will pump into acqusitions of renownded studios!
I understand that Microsoft aims to attract budget-aware casual gamers and hook them on Game Pass but it definitely should not do it at the expense of hardcore gamers.
That's why it should give developers choice if they want to optimize for "X" or for "S" or try to optimize for both and not to force them optimize for both mandatorily.
Also new less demanding games should drop the requirement to be installed on the internal disk (or the overpriced alternative) but it should allow installation on external SSD via USB3.
I usually try indie games just before they leave GP to have a motivation to play them. Both
Midnight Fight Express and Edge of Eternity are surprisingly good. The former is indeed fun to play - short levels with detailed evaluation of player's performance. The latter - although developed by small European studio - tries to match full-featured AAA JRPG games in script, mechanics and execution, and although it cannot compete fully, it is still very good.
What is next-gen? Even the newly announced shiny PS5 Pro (due in holiday season 2024) is expected to feature a graphics card based on PC midrange of current generation AMD Radeon 7800/7700. The current "next-gen" consoles realeased in 2020 feature the main processor that is already 3 generations old (ZEN2 vs upcoming ZEN5) and graphics that is 1 generation old (RDNA2)... Next-gen is thus midrange PC standard
Moreover, Xbox provides only USB 3.0 (5Gbps) while PS5 provides USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) ports...
Anyway, I hope that next generations of both consoles will support USB 4/Thunderbolt (40Gbps) and all the excuses about "insufficiant bandwidth" will be history.
@kihaennem
1) No, you cannot play all games from external HDD but some with turned off feature. Microsoft BLOCKS ALL games compiled as "Gen9" (i.e. Xbox Series S/X) - which are basically all new games today - from running from external SSD.
2) No, it's not about hundreds of games. Internal drive of Xbox Series X has 1TB out of which cca. 820 GB is available for installing games. Most new games have around 100GB in size (plus free space for updates), some games even more. So for example, when you install Forza Horizon 5 (cca. 200 GB), MS Flight Simulator (cca. 200 GB), Elder Scrolls Online (cca. 130 GB) you are basically out of space... And I don't even mention the tragic Xbox Series S with 400GB internal drive available for games.
3) WD 1TB "expansion card" is extremely overpriced considering current steep drop of prices of flash memory. For example, Western Digital 1TB WD Blue SN570 NVME SSD cost $39.99 while WD_BLACK 1TB C50 Storage Expansion Card for Xbox Series X|S cost $149.99 - i.e. it is almost FOUR TIMES MORE EXPENSIVE!
That's why I insist that hardware-wise, Microsoft's decisions are a disaster!
@CutchuSlow Well, many games are not hyped AAA titles but when you try them, they often prove not to be bad at all. For indie developers its pitty when they work hard to come with something new and often original but players and reviewers dismiss their afford as not comparable to "big" titles made by large software houses.
Game Pass Ultimate is surely the selling point of Xbox because it contains a balanced blend of AAA and indie games updated quite often, that's why everyone can find something new to play. At the same time it is not an exhaustive list and thus still gives opportunity to sell games (and/or their "ultimate versions") separately.
Funny thing is that PS5 allows to play games from external SSD, unlike Xbox, where Microsoft annoyed its customers by blocking running Gen9 games from external SSD unless they purchase extremely overpriced "extension card" that is slower than ordinary NVME SSDs connected via USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 or USB4/Thunderbolt.
It's unbeliavable how someone can mess up hardware so much as Microsoft does! It's not the first time.
Since it is confirmed that Sony will introduce PS5 Pro at the winter season 2024, Microsoft cannot ignore it because it might lose both gamers and developers.
Moreover, the Xbox Series X packaging boast that it has "4K 120FPS". The sad reality is that it cannot handle even 4K@60FPS in most games without decreasing quality ("performance mode"), thus hardware upgrade could at least fulfill the promises.
The best option would be to have the core collection and in addition introduce "pseudo-games-with-gold": Pick two good-enough games out of the Game Pass Console collection every month and add them to Game Pass Core collection. And remove them after a year.
This solution would still give customers two new games to play every month like with Live Gold but they would be subject of removal like with Game Pass.
Comments 41
Re: Next Xbox Console: Everything We Know So Far About Microsoft's Next-Gen System
I don't expect any subsidized console would be able to play Steam games. Who would then buy overpriced games for consoles if anyone could play huge library of Steam games that are being sold for peanuts (especially older games)?
It's more likely that it will be the other way round: a variant of a standard Wintel PC sold for a full non-subsidized price that would able to play games from the Xbox library. It would be an option for players who own a library of Xbox that would compensate that no new generation of a specialized Xboxes will be released.
Re: Xbox Game Pass Is Getting A Major Overhaul With New Names, Games & Price Changes
The average gamer scenario never favoured Game Pass: why having hundreds of games when the gamer does not have time to play more than a small couple of games per month?
The original concept of Games With Gold (the pre-GP version that offered older AAA games) was much better because the player three new games to play each month and still could play the ones from previous months which made possible to create a big permanent collection overtime. Luckily, Sony still keeps this concept so it's time to move on to PS.
Re: Microsoft Announces New Price Increases For Xbox Series X|S In The US
Microsoft has found out that their games are selling well for the Playstation thus they don't care whether they sell subsidized Xbox consoles or not.
Re: Reaction: Xbox's Third-Party Strategy Is Finally Making Sense To Me
The value of consoles may not be defined by hardware or exclusives anymore, but value of their subscription services. If GamePass Ultimate continues to include day-1 games from all of the MS Game Studios and continues to be able to be legally obtained a little bit cheaper than the current official price, then I think it may be well competitive against Playstation with its PS Plus Premium.
Re: Xbox Will Continue To Ship More Games On PlayStation And Nintendo
It makes sense because the Xbox HW is being sold with loss and the game development is expensive. Thus it's best for Microsoft if customers play on somebody else's hw sold with loss but pay money for the Xbox Studios games.
Re: Xbox's Internet Browser Is So Good, It's Changed The Way I Watch TV
It does not make sense to use Xbox for anything else than playing games due to its high power consumption... It is better to use a media center, either a dedicated streaming device or a NUC PC or a NAS for streaming video and/or audio content.
Re: Talking Point: Does Microsoft Have A '30FPS' Problem With Its Xbox Series X|S Output?
Of course it does. And MS does not even bother bringing an updated version of the console like Sony does with upcoming PS5 Pro that should solve all the issues of quality vs performance modes in 4K games.
I have XBox Series X but I will buy PS5 Pro and will not be forced to performance for quality compromises.
Re: Xbox Game Pass Gets Price Increases And New 'Standard' Subscription Tier
It makes sense from the Microsoft's viewpoint but not that much from the customers' viewpoint. The real-world scenario is that typical users play only couple of new games a month but like to build a collection and occasionally return to old games.
This means, that Sony approach that still keeps the model of giving 2 or 3 older but mostly AAA games a month in PS+ Essential to "keep forever" is better than GamePass Core with slow additions that, moreover, can still be removed anytime, or the GPU approach that gives you half thousand of games, out which only several can be actually installed on your Xbox due to SSD limitations but also lack of time of a typical gamer.
That's why I ask Microsoft to return to the pre-Gamepass Live Gold model giving 2-3 older good quality new games each month plus keeping the already acquired forever!
Re: Talking Point: Xbox Fans, How Do You Feel About The Future Of The Brand In 2024?
GamePass Ultimate surely has many pros but it has also its cons. Due to the fact that games disappear after a year from coming to GamePass, people who like to return to older games must buy them anyway....
The old model with 2-3 games to keep forever whenever subscription exists was better for loyal customers.
Re: Major Game Maker Reportedly Questioning Xbox Support Amidst 'Falling Sales'
Forcing game developers optimize their games for the less-powerful-then-old-gen Series S is a mistake because it is difficult for the developers and makes them annoyed.
Also, promoting GamePass Ultimate as the main choice for XBox console owners, supplies players with plenty of games to play and they thus have hardly any time to play non-GPU games. That's why sales of individual games is naturally dramatically falling and developers who intend not to go to GPU don't find Xbox lucrative enough.
But I don't think it is something to worry because the players have wide choice from GPU anyway and simply don't have time to play every game that is released.
Re: Talking Point: Xbox Series X|S Owners, How's Your Storage Looking In 2024?
What makes me absolutely mad is that even indie games that are not anyhow demanding are not playable from external SSD due to complying to the X/S optimized certification.
Re: With A 'PS5 Pro' Now Rumoured For 2024, Where Does That Leave Xbox?
There are so many things in current Xbox Series X that need improvement! For example, having only USB 3.0 with 5Gbps speed and USB-A connector is a joke. Considering that every major game for Xbox requires 150GB of free disc space (with updates getting to 200GB), 2TB discs as well as Thunderbolt port for external disc is needed.
Also updating the CPU and the GPU to standards for 2024 would be desirable, considering how many games are not able to achieve 4k/60Hz in full quality mode, not to mention 4k/120Hz and 8k/60Hz resp on current Series X.
Re: Activision Blizzard's First Game Pass Release Has Been Confirmed By Xbox
Cool! I actually expected that older games from the Diablo franchise will be released first and Diablo 4 will be kept as the diamond as one of the latest Blizzard titles released on GamePass.
Re: Tension Builds As Xbox Prepares For Major 'Business Update Event' This Week
Considering Microsoft's history of abandoning projects into which it heavily invested (Windows Mobile, VR, etc.), I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft decided to ditch Xbox platform and develop only software on Playstation
Re: Xbox Fans Urged To Remain Calm As Emotions Run Wild On Social Media
If the game sales on other platforms allow to keep the games on GPU and keep the GPU price as is, then let it happen.
The point is not whether a game is available on each platform but on which conditions.
Re: Ubisoft Wants Players To 'Feel Comfortable Not Owning Games' In Future
Unfortunately, Ubisoft and other game houses achieve the goal in an opposite way: they simply SHUT DOWN THE GAMES YOU OWN. And despite customers bought it, they have nothing.
For example The Crew is about to be shut down in March and will become totally unplayable even for players who bought it.
So how is it different from the subscription-based service? In both cases they eventually remove the game from you.
Re: Xbox Might Be Experimenting With Ads For Free Access To Game Pass
It's obviously an idea of some pundit who has never tried to play an Xbox GP cloud game. It is unusable already today. The flying animation urging gamers to wait because there are too many players is already extremely annoying, and I admit that I have never been persistent enough to wait so I haven't finished any cloud gaming session yet. Allowing billions of new free users in the cloud gaming will lead to collapse of the GP cloud gaming completely.
Re: Microsoft Spends 'Over A Billion Dollars A Year' Bringing Content To Xbox Game Pass
They should put there only their own games in the "day one" mode, while third-party games with a delay, e.g. 6 months. I guess players don't need access the games immediately and the official games pass ultimate price could be more affordable.
Re: These 10 Games Are Coming To Xbox Game Pass (December 1-14)
It's great that there finally are some Xbox One games. At least, players can install them on the external hard SSD because 800GB internal free disk space for games fits only several games and official external storage cards are so overpriced that most players refuse to buy them.
That's why adding dozens of new X/S games each month to GPU makes little sense because players don't have space where to install them anyway.
Re: October Sales Data Suggests Xbox Series X|S 'Struggled' In Europe, But There's A Catch
The current console generation are now in their 4th year of existence and who wanted to buy them, has already done so.
That's why the only way to boost sales is to come with some innovations.
Re: Plague Tale Publisher Confirms Renewed Collab With Asobo On 'Another Exciting Project'
I also like the Plague Tale series. It shows the way to go for non-open-world story-driven games. To get the movie-like feel and almost seamlessly cross between interactive and non-interactive parts unified by a consistent story is a pattern that if followed in future projects brings the success again. The only thing that I hope would change in the future project is increasing variability of tasks in interactive parts (finding ways to make way through rats and soldiers gets repetitive soon).
Re: Talking Point: Three Months Since It Ended, Are You Missing Xbox Games With Gold?
I do miss the principle that once you get the games, you can keep them for as long as you subscribe the plan. GamePass keeps the games on the list for a limited time only and provides mere 14 days notice of delisting.
Re: Activision Explains Larger File Sizes For Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
There are more games with size over 200GB. Flight Simulator 2020 for example. Microsoft should drop the ban of using external USB SSDs for Series X/S Games. I use it for some older non-X/S (yet still big) games, and I can't see any difference from
the scenario when they are installed on the internal storage.
And I hope that next generation of XBox will feature USB4/Thunderbolt in order to enable full speed of external disks.
Re: Phil Spencer Explains Why ActiBlizz Titles Aren't Expected On Xbox Game Pass Just Yet
They should have added a symbolic single game to demonstrate the acquisition. Other than that, the fall season is typically strong and it may be better to wait on spring game draught.
Re: Talking Point: Which Activision Blizzard Series Do You Want To Play Most On Xbox Game Pass?
Diablo - although I guess most funs have already purchased games of their favourite series and their inclusion into GPU is thus primarily an attraction for new players.
It would be also great to port their PC-only games to Xbox.
Re: Talking Point: What Do You Want To See From Xbox & Activision Blizzard?
I expect better integration of Activision/Blizzard games to the Xbox console ecosystem, including console-enhanced remakes of old titles, including strategy games like Warcraft and Starcraft.
Re: Activision Blizzard Reveals Plans For Bringing Games To Xbox Game Pass
I admin that I'm quite surprised that Microsoft manages to make quite good standalone sale money even from games included in Game Pass - e.g. by introducing "premium editions" with various perks, by issuing various DlCs/Passes, etc. Last but not least, non-Microsoft game remain in GPU for roughly one year, thus it makes additional money on gamers who haven't finished the game and must purchase it after it leaves (those gamers might not have even considered to play it without GPU, thus GPU servers as "one year demo" or advertisement).
Therefore I wouldn't be afraid that Microsoft won't ever put triple A games like Diablo IV to GPU because it's still worth it, but will not do it as "day one".
Re: It Sounds Like Capcom Is Considering Raising Its Game Prices
Well, the guy forgot one thing: the number of active (paying) players have drastically increased in the recent decades since computer gaming becomes a mainstream entertainment. Not without a reason Netflix considers computer games as the toughest competitor.
And since computer games, due to their digital nature, have virtually zero cost of creating copies, the summary profit of companies participating in computer games business could drastically increase even without making the game price higher!
Re: Early Access Players, What Are Your First Impressions Of Starfield?
Is there any prospect of a VR version of Starfield for PC Steam (Xbox, unfortunately does not suppot VR)?
Because Starfield is one of the games where VR could indeed bring a completely different level of immersion. I remember that even the initial scene of Star Wars for PSVR standing near the station with night sky full stars was simply amazing.
Re: Talking Point: Would You Be Interested In A Digital-Only Xbox Series X?
If I remember, Microsoft already tried something like that with Xbox One release (banning secondary market of used games) but due to fierce reaction of customers, it revoked this policy.
Now, Microsoft is obviously trying to achieve this result "silently" simply by physically removing the option how to play used games from the secondary market by promoting heavily subsidized Series S and now even remove optical disc reader from Series X
Re: Remedy Dev Reckons There's 'Nothing Surprising' About Baldur's Gate 3 Xbox Series S Debacle
I already commented on the Microsoft's strategy to prioritize casual gamers with Series S plus Game Pass on the previous BG3 delay article..
But I would like to add one more consideration: Microsoft biggest competitor Sony decided to go the other way round and made the cheaper console as powerful as the more full-featured console. And now even decided to introduce even more powerful PS5 Pro (dev kits for PS5 Pro are already being available to developers)...
If Microsoft does not react and will stubbornly insist on "Series S as the first class citizen", the gap between technical quality of titles for PS and Xbox will continue to widen and Microsoft risks losing hardcore gamers regardless how many trillions of dollars it will pump into acqusitions of renownded studios!
Re: Baldur's Gate 3 Xbox Version Seemingly Pushed To 2024 Due To Series S 'Technical Hurdle'
I understand that Microsoft aims to attract budget-aware casual gamers and hook them on Game Pass but it definitely should not do it at the expense of hardcore gamers.
That's why it should give developers choice if they want to optimize for "X" or for "S" or try to optimize for both and not to force them optimize for both mandatorily.
Also new less demanding games should drop the requirement to be installed on the internal disk (or the overpriced alternative) but it should allow installation on external SSD via USB3.
Re: Another Four Games Will Leave Xbox Game Pass Soon (August 15)
I usually try indie games just before they leave GP to have a motivation to play them. Both
Midnight Fight Express and Edge of Eternity are surprisingly good. The former is indeed fun to play - short levels with detailed evaluation of player's performance. The latter - although developed by small European studio - tries to match full-featured AAA JRPG games in script, mechanics and execution, and although it cannot compete fully, it is still very good.
Re: Talking Point: Do You Feel Like You're Still Waiting For 'Next-Gen' To Arrive?
What is next-gen? Even the newly announced shiny PS5 Pro (due in holiday season 2024) is expected to feature a graphics card based on PC midrange of current generation AMD Radeon 7800/7700. The current "next-gen" consoles realeased in 2020 feature the main processor that is already 3 generations old (ZEN2 vs upcoming ZEN5) and graphics that is 1 generation old (RDNA2)... Next-gen is thus midrange PC standard
Re: Quantum Error Dev: Xbox Version Needs More Time Due To 'Slower SSD'
@ZuneTattooGuy You're right technically but Sony allows you to install your own exchangable SSD inside the PS5 and you can play PS5 games from it. There's even an offical description how to do it: https://www.playstation.com/en-us/support/hardware/ps5-install-m2-ssd/
Moreover, Xbox provides only USB 3.0 (5Gbps) while PS5 provides USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) ports...
Anyway, I hope that next generations of both consoles will support USB 4/Thunderbolt (40Gbps) and all the excuses about "insufficiant bandwidth" will be history.
Re: Quantum Error Dev: Xbox Version Needs More Time Due To 'Slower SSD'
@kihaennem
1) No, you cannot play all games from external HDD but some with turned off feature. Microsoft BLOCKS ALL games compiled as "Gen9" (i.e. Xbox Series S/X) - which are basically all new games today - from running from external SSD.
2) No, it's not about hundreds of games. Internal drive of Xbox Series X has 1TB out of which cca. 820 GB is available for installing games. Most new games have around 100GB in size (plus free space for updates), some games even more. So for example, when you install Forza Horizon 5 (cca. 200 GB), MS Flight Simulator (cca. 200 GB), Elder Scrolls Online (cca. 130 GB) you are basically out of space... And I don't even mention the tragic Xbox Series S with 400GB internal drive available for games.
3) WD 1TB "expansion card" is extremely overpriced considering current steep drop of prices of flash memory. For example, Western Digital 1TB WD Blue SN570 NVME SSD cost $39.99 while WD_BLACK 1TB C50 Storage Expansion Card for Xbox Series X|S cost $149.99 - i.e. it is almost FOUR TIMES MORE EXPENSIVE!
That's why I insist that hardware-wise, Microsoft's decisions are a disaster!
Re: Xbox Game Pass In 2023: The Full List Of Everything Announced So Far
@CutchuSlow Well, many games are not hyped AAA titles but when you try them, they often prove not to be bad at all. For indie developers its pitty when they work hard to come with something new and often original but players and reviewers dismiss their afford as not comparable to "big" titles made by large software houses.
Re: Xbox Game Pass In 2023: The Full List Of Everything Announced So Far
Game Pass Ultimate is surely the selling point of Xbox because it contains a balanced blend of AAA and indie games updated quite often, that's why everyone can find something new to play. At the same time it is not an exhaustive list and thus still gives opportunity to sell games (and/or their "ultimate versions") separately.
Re: Quantum Error Dev: Xbox Version Needs More Time Due To 'Slower SSD'
Funny thing is that PS5 allows to play games from external SSD, unlike Xbox, where Microsoft annoyed its customers by blocking running Gen9 games from external SSD unless they purchase extremely overpriced "extension card" that is slower than ordinary NVME SSDs connected via USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 or USB4/Thunderbolt.
It's unbeliavable how someone can mess up hardware so much as Microsoft does! It's not the first time.
Re: Talking Point: Would You Be Interested In Buying A New Xbox Series X Model?
Since it is confirmed that Sony will introduce PS5 Pro at the winter season 2024, Microsoft cannot ignore it because it might lose both gamers and developers.
Moreover, the Xbox Series X packaging boast that it has "4K 120FPS". The sad reality is that it cannot handle even 4K@60FPS in most games without decreasing quality ("performance mode"), thus hardware upgrade could at least fulfill the promises.
Re: Poll: Xbox Live Gold Members, Are You Excited For Game Pass Core?
The best option would be to have the core collection and in addition introduce "pseudo-games-with-gold": Pick two good-enough games out of the Game Pass Console collection every month and add them to Game Pass Core collection. And remove them after a year.
This solution would still give customers two new games to play every month like with Live Gold but they would be subject of removal like with Game Pass.