To be honest this is good news. After moving my xbox from one room the the other I've somehow managed to break my Xbox. Still runs but just black output to screen (tried different screens, different cables). And I have game pass subscription so now own a £450 paper weight and nothing to play my subscription on.
Absolutely gutted. This was my first xbox since a red ring of death and now I get the black screen of nothingness. Was really looking forward to trying Diablo 4 local multiplayer with my son 😢
At least I can play these games on my PS5 now! Silver lining I guess!

Technically isn't the PS the same? As long as there is an app you can remote play on every screen can't you? I've said it before - I don't really enjoy the streaming experience enough for it to take over gaming for me. Reckon that's a young mans game! Still, it is interesting that MS going the streaming route. I've just unsubscribed to Netflix, Prime, Disney, TNT, will be letting my PS Plus sub run out as will my GP sub. It all just drains money and there isn't much left I haven't seen/played that makes me want to keep spending.
But I have learnt I now have a TV without anything to watch on it and I'll have a big square box with nothing to play on it
Damn I wish I'd bought my games now...

Game Pass is the only reason I have an Xbox (and likely the case with a percentage of other owners). If GP ends up on playstation then there is no point me having an Xbox. BUT that doesn't really matter to MS. I'm pretty sure they don't make any money from my Xbox purchase but do from my GP subscription. They'll make pretty much the same amount of money from me either way. This is probably why they will end up ditching hardware to focus on software.

I'm in the camp that can't understand all the uproar. In a perfect world (for me) MS would stop with the Xbox and go mainly into software. There is pretty much zero difference between the PS5 and the Xbox other than petty fanboy comments. They run virtually the same! Next gen would be perfect if there was no Xbox, only a top quality PS. MS then release custom controllers for the PS (so basically those preferring the xbox controller can still use them). Then I only need 1 box. Then all developers can optimise for that one box. Then GP is an option on PS and customer can chose either PS Plus, GP or physical discs (an option going away for future xbox owners).
Then all the energy wasted on fighting over the better fps, resolution, games etc will be used to improve the gaming industry.

Obviously this is a fairy tale scenario for me and will ruin some fanboys dream of one dying out over the other. But imagine is MS only spend their time/effort/money on software. Surely they would massively improve their output and quality of games?

And for those frothing at the mouth over this scenario I also suggest the other way around - no PS and only Xbox. It just doesn't seem as likely a scenario.

I'll happily take a Skyrim with decent story and without game breaking bugs that stopped me completing the game on 3 different platforms. This sounds perfect then!

Most definitely. Personal opinion it needs several improvements:

• Internal battery a must. Yes the Dual Sense runs out quickly but I've never had the problem personally as its always stored on a charging dock (which cost the same price as the Series X controller battery) so is always fully charged each time I use it. But I hate when I have to go searching round the house for spare batteries on my second controller when they've run out.
• The buttons need to be less plasticky and noisy. I basically can't play the Xbox in bed as the controller is too loud for the missus to sleep to and no chance I could get some game time in the morning and wake her up!
• The haptics are excellent on the Dual Sense but not necessarily a must have, but no reason not to include them
• Happy to keep the layout the same. I was getting a lot of hand cramp from the Series X controller and really hated the layout until I played 100+ hours of Starfield and the cramping went away. Then I went back to Dual Sense and hand was cramping until it didn't again. I've learnt your hand just get used to whatever you play with.
• lift to wake sounds a bad idea as its annoying enough on the Dual Sense when you pick up the controller to put on the charge station and accidentally push the pad and it switches the PS5 back on. Infuriating! But I suppose if the option can be turned off then its better to include it than not.

My opinions and obviously from reading others, everyone is different in what hey prefer.

This looked like a death metal music video - or just a mickey take of the genre 🤣🤣
Have to admit the game does look damn good though. Can't wait to give it a try, although will have to try getting back into the first again so I know what the hell is going on with the second one.

@Lup sort of interested in what you mean by cinematic games and why it stops you buying a PS? I googled best cinematic games of 2023 and the results on gamerant are:
Avatar, Assassins Creed, Starfield, FF16, Europa, Wo Long, Zelda:TotK. I don't really understand what cinematic gaming means? Just high quality cuts scenes? Lots of cut scenes?

@GamingSince84 100% agree. There is no incentive for MS to use even 0.01% of that revenue to hire/retain workers who could spend their time testing all of Bethesda games and at least attempting to produce something of quality. I have the same outlook on life. I had a despicable moment yesterday when a homeless man wanted some money to pay for some food!! The cheek of it! I work specifically to make money and NOT hand it out. In fact even worse he then offered to help with any odd jobs around the garden to earn the money!

wonder how they work the 50% players less exposed to 'severe instances of disruptive voice chat'. I wouldn't be surprised if they asked 10 people if they thought they heard less chat and 5 said yes which scientifically means 50% of everybody - OR perhaps they now see 50% more people have muted microphones and instead of saying 50% of people now don't communicate in MW3, they spin it to be 50% people hear less toxic chat?
And according to 'the data'? Is that '12 years old who live on my street who reckon' data or NASA data or just Big Phil tells us?
I tried the link and started looking but to be fair it bored me and is probably a waste of my time.

Haven't bought a COD game since the original MW2 but will give this one a go once it's released on GP. Is it a sequel to MW2 from back in my day, a sequel to a MW2 remake, a sequel to a MW2 remaster or sequel to a MW2 reboot? I just don't know anymore?

The problem here is they are fixing about 0.01% of the bugs in the game that won't make much of a difference overall.
There are so many more things they need to work on, including general frame rate, dialogue, general animations (not broken ones), loading times, traversal options, regular game crashes (to be fair they've mentioned a few in the above, but my game would crash at least once every session), add more things to do/see on planets, allow more interesting traversal across planets or quicker running option (anything to make it less boring). Loads more I can't think off top of my head. Have completed the game a few times and really interested in fully levelling up - but the game is a bit too boring to pull me back in.

It sounds absolutely terrible imo. Not sure why they didn't actually use AI to get it right? Could they use Troy to get it done (so a human still gets the wage) but use AI to make it sound much better? Bit disappointed with the trailer to be honest. Flipping between 1st and 3rd person, combat looked a bit lame. Just get the feeling the trailer did nothing to portray how the actual game will play, which I'm hoping is a good thing.

Really dislike GAME tbh. They charge £4.99 for store pick up if you reserve a game online! Same price as delivery in a world where Smyths, Currys and Argos do it all for free. They also charge more for the game than most competitors and often can have 2nd hand games costing more than new ones. Only CEX charge crazier prices!

@CharlieChooChoo lol sorry. You responded to the "Microsoft are scummy" comment with "thats because they are".
I was adding the response to "This site has the best community of the big 3" with "it has".
Just trying to add some positivity back as I'm sometimes negative in my responses

@CharlieChooChoo and its has

Slightly confused. Own Yakuza 0 to 6 for less than £25 or rent them for 2 months for the same price. Not convinced the Game Pass option is better, unless you are able to complete Yakuza 0-6 in less than 2 months and rent other games and play them within that month as well. So far in the last 12 months on GP I've played Starfield (over 100 hours), Power wash simulator (about 70 hours), Redfall (1 hour) and a couple other games for about an hour (because they were c**p) for somewhere around £150. And once my subscription runs out I'll own nothing.

To be fair comparing to the PS5 in the same period I've paid for GT7 (£40), GoW:R (£35), Hogwarts Legacy (£30). Similar price but I own these games now. Not so sure these services are my cup of tea really!

Its simple. If it offends you then don't buy MS products, if you aren't that bothered then do. No need to bother complaining about it in my book.

Went with a D. Played all those mentioned games and Starfield was the only one I didn't play once then delete and move on after a single play session. And to be honest, in the cold light of day, Starfield is a disgraceful effort by Bethesda and after so many years of development should have been a hell of a lot better, but as a stand alone game I'd give it a C - so went with D over all as was a disappointing 2023 for 1st party games vs a great 2023 for gaming in general.

@GamingFan4Lyf I'm probably missing something but aren't most of those games in the top 10 3rd person action games? Looking at the equivalent PS5 list on metacritic for 2023:
Balders gate 3 - 96
Tetris Effect: Connected - 93
RE4 - 93
SF6 - 92
Rogue Legacy 2 - 90
Spiderman 2 - 90
Moss: Book 2 - 90
Cocoon - 90
Talos Principle 2 - 89
Dead Space - 89

Probably more 3rd person action on Xbox and actually a very similar list to the Xbox, and think only Hi-Fi rush can't be played on PS5 so I do find all the PS negativity very odd following this list being released? General fanboy PS negativity I understand, but following this list I don't.

Back on topic I haven't played any of those games yet and I'm eying 3 of them (once they are on either gamepass of PS Plus) plus another 4 on the PS list. 2024 has potential to be MY best year of gaming!

Easy....
Oblivion
Bioshock
COD: MW
Portal 2
Orange Box

What shocks me is they are mainly first person shooters which I don't really play anymore. Is that an age thing or has the quality of FPS gone seriously downhill?

@BaldBelper78 I think reports like this are there to let people know sales figures. Thats all. Are you suggesting that if the XBox was selling like hot cakes then people wouldn't report sales figures at all?

To be honest sales dropping 15% yoy is fine if the logic was we were on the slow down of the generation, but with the PS5 increased by 65% in the same period suggests these figures are pretty dreadful.
On the plus MS apparently don't care about spending billions on R&D, marketing, sales, manufacturing and all other such costs to sell a machine they built so this all doesn't really matter.

If I'm honest I don't fully understand how MS can outspend all the competition, have more studios and be the more aggressive company yet be so far behind the pack? I really don't get it as the Series X (in my opinion) is by far their best hardware console and probably the first time they have a machine that is arguably better than the competition. They also have a bullish attitude of being the 'big boy in town' and trying to buy every man and his dog to show it. I am completely baffled?

About 140 hours in and just gone to NG+ and have that awful feeling of wasting 140 hours of my life. Think I'm done with it now. Ending was, although probably quite clever - just not what I wanted it to be. Felt pretty flat by the end.

@GamingFan4Lyf I was just reading on the other site that the Xbox consoles were down 26% year on year sales for November across Europe (accodring to GSD sales reports) so not sure if things are so rosy sales wise. Probably why they are dropping the prices in the UK. I thought the general narrative was the sales for Xbox was struggling. To be honest I never see any of these types of articles reported on Pure Xbox, so either they are trying to cover poor sales or the other articles aren't actually true.

@husker42c I'm the exact same. Now on over 110 hours while having the game crash almost every play session and lost large game time over than 110 hours.
I'm desperate to finish the game now and not really enjoying it anymore but can't stop after committing that much time already.
They should have delayed it a year, got it stable, implemented the quality of life improvements and generally improved the game.
Does anyone else get creeped out by Phil Hill. Every time I speak to him he talks facing away from me and slowly moves his head to talk in my general direction. His body remains the same direction.

I think I've played most on Xbox this year, but probably only played 2 games. Powerwash simulator and Starfield, but mainly because they are both massive time sinks. Played much wider range of games on PS5 but for not as long. Switch only managed Zelda time this year. Really ready for the next switch release and really hope they make the games backward compatible.

@Romans12 🤣
If that happens I'll come on here and high five your incredibly optimistic prediction!

@Reptilio Yeah that's my problem too. The potential location of where the computer game character, played first person, is from geographically. Makes the gameplay incredibly different so I too will refuse to play it.

@Tharsman To be honest I think MS trying to buy out the whole industry has severed any relations that might have been there. Like an oil/sugar daddy rich football club just cherry picking all the best players from other smaller clubs then asking to 'be friends' afterwards doesn't always work. Then fans of such club telling the 'smaller' club fans they are being petty and are the problem doesn't endear them either.
But who cares really. Competition raises the bar. As Klopp and Guardiola said, the rivalry has pushed them both to up their game.

@Sol4ris Do something about it like spending £60 billion on the rivals most successful 3rd party developer? I'd say thats an extreme reaction! And the disaster is the fact they may become the way of Sega and no longer make consoles. It would be a disaster to us - the people who like playing on Xbox console. It may not be a disaster for MS, but I don't care about MS profit sheets.

I'm pretty sure that the shareholders of MS are bothered by the stats. They aren't fan boys wanting excuses, they want a return on billions spent on R&D for the next console, plus advertising plus distributions, manufacturing. If its all just game pass then selling 100 million series consoles means 100 million more potential buyers than none.
I also wonder if MS aren't supposedly competing with PS and don't care about console or leave the console business and become a service, will that leave then competing more with Valve?
And if they stop making Xbox's as people here suggest is a win, then all of us as console enthusiasts won't get an MS box to choose from in future. yes we can play GP on the mobile, tablet, fridge but will any of us actually do that? Losing the MS hardware and the choice in future is a disaster. Just accepting it as this article is trying to spin things won't help. Its a disaster and MS need to treat it as such.

@jedinite I meant quantity of games over quality of them. Reducing the development time for what is arguably the biggest of AAA games to 18 month is knowingly reducing quality to get the game out. If they repeat the same process (and why would they change if they are still making so much money) then they could have 2 games out in 3 years instead of the average 5 years taken for high quality AAA games.

The crazy thing is technically the Series generation is doing worse than the Xbox One generation. I have no idea how because the One was a damn awful idea in so many ways, while the Series X specifically is excellent.

It sounds like CoD has gone for quantity over quality (which feels like the current state of GP) but the question is not how well it's supposedly doing now, but if people who blindly bought what was, allegedly, a very poor game - will they make that mistake next year? I hope so as it's the only way to make sure quality matters long term - but who knows.

Makes sense for MS to pick this up if its dead - but I can image the minute they sniffed around the idea then Sony would do something to stop that happening - whether that be to pay to keep the exclusivity going or put the money in to get it completed.

It's not a disappointment seeing the game drop into the mixed reviews section, it's a disappointment Bethesda made a mixed level game. Review scores are meaningless really.
@BAMozzy said it correct IMO. It's an average game because it hasn't evolved in the slightest. It's still enjoyable because Bethesda Open world games generally are, but it's nothing to write home about. I do think they will be under big pressure for next Elder Scrolls. A Skyrim clone won't really cut it anymore.

As positive as this price reduction is its still worse value than PS5. Argos have the PS5 with EA FC + Last of Us Part 1 for under £400.
Best I can find Series X is £390 with Diablo IV at EE store or £410 with MW3 at amazon.
I really feel Series X should under cut PS5 if it wants to improve market share even if they don't care about hardware as people assume on here, more people with Series X the more people with GP.

To be honest I'd happily take a consistent 30fps. I get regular few frames a second, freezes, crashes and other such anomalies. Worst performance for me is when opening up the menu quickly to access the quicksave. System struggles often. Shame because I quicksave every few minutes after losing too many gaming hours to crashes.
Having said that its easily the longest / furthest I've managed to get in a Bethesda game since Oblivion. Games breaking glitches stopped me finishing Skyrim (couple of times) and Fallout 4 but feeling a bit more confident with Starfield.

This is just a salty article designed to push the 'us and them' mentality. None of those games mentioned deserved to be selected for GOTY in my opinion. To beat starfields drum for GOTY in any year, let alone this one is desperation. I am completely addicted to Starfield at the moment but it's a 7/10 game with no innovation from the last 3/4 Bethesda RPGs. But it's all I'm really enjoying on Game Pass ATM. Doesn't make it the best game out there this year.
Ideally having a lack of the best games on the system will hopefully push MS to make better quality games. There's a reason Sony and Nintendo are more associated with high quality. Let's not excuse MS. These things come in cycles and it's about time MS had their moment with the best quality games - which has probably lacked since early 360 days.

I wonder if this affects the performance of the machine. My starfield crashes every time i play it and takes minutes to load sometimes. Does anyone else here open up their Series X to clean it? How easy is it?

It's very odd how exciting the thought of a series X is at that price but then I remember I already have one so means nothing to me 😆
Why do I still want to buy one though?!?

@The-Chosen-one to be honest Starfield is a complete mess. Crashes every play session, glitches everywhere, poor animations, poor graphics, 90% fetch quests, poor ship mechanics, poor scripting, huge amount of time watching load screens. Game feels very last gen.
However, I'm on about 70 hours and completely addicted. Gun play is satisfactory and I'm enjoying the scanning planets missions - basically a poor man's 'no man sky' but still enjoyable part of the game.
How it won game of the year is baffling because objectively it's nothing impressive in the slightest - but although it sounds a rough write up I do like it and may even end up my most played game this year. But if someone told me it was awful I wouldn't argue with them.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner I'm desperate for a Switch 2 so long as its backwards compatible. My switch is really on its last legs. Controllers are unusable due to drift and the fans are just so damn loud now.
Regarding these numbers they really aren't worth the fanfare. They're actually pretty poor no matter what they are compared to.

@IronMan30 true that. I'm finding the loading on Starfield incredibly painful versus the instant loads I'm getting used to on PS5. Am really confused why as Spiderman is huge open world with instant load times and more impressive visuals / FPS while Starfield open world is generally very small with some loading being just a house but taking irritatingly long. Poor development I assume or is it the SSD?

I reckon its time they started something new. Preferably something NOT Gears because it wasn't really my thing. God of War is an excellent example. Its a completely different genre with just the story being taken across. I'd also request whatever The Coalition work on next they use more than just grey and brown. My TV does loads of colours. Please use them

Could possibly be a test market. Series S selling better than X so let's test what happens when we raise its price. If it's received well then rest of the world follows suit?

@Sakai sounds good! I'll carry on with Starfield at my own pace then

And this is my dilemma with Game Pass. Been wanting to play Dead Space for a while but I'm in the middle of Starfield. By the time I finish Starfield then Dead Space will have left GP or worse, I'll get about 10 hours in before it leaves the service.
So do I stop playing Starfield, move onto Dead Space only to forget what I was doing in Starfield and give up with it?
Sometimes too many choices isn't a good thing!!

I've had a lot of crashes, glitches, sound issues but not too bad as I quick save every minute or so. Bit annoying but it's always the case with Bethesda games. I'm experienced enough to know that's how you have to play it.
Also every time I die from being shot I shoot up about 20 feet into the air like a rag doll. Every time?!?
I do hope they make a sequel and I desperately hope they use a new engine. It feels so dated in so many ways. They need to improve character movement, game design, NPC movement and dialogue, loading times.
Positives are the music, the volume of missions and Im finding the FPS mechanics enjoyable.
I'd probably go either 7 or 8/10 at this point so far.

Have only played TotK and Starfield from that list. I'm enjoying Starfield quite a bit but I really don't think it should be on that list. It's a complete reskin of all Bethesdas other games right down to the robotic last gen animations. TotK the gameplay was incredible and the ingenious addition of being able to basically merge and create anything to solve puzzles wins it for me. A game that all my family can play and then argue over whose solution to the problem worked better!
Bit odd Alan Wake in there without being released. It either shows how rigged these awards are or its know to be amazing. Hopefully the latter.
Half want BG3 to win even though I haven't played it and don't think it's my type of game. But also think same with SM2. Just watching the opening 15 minutes had me hooked.
What a year for gaming!

Yep, about 3 months after purchase. That was what moved me onto my first Sony console after owning nes, SNES, game gear, game boy, N64, gamecube without any issues on any of them. Then went PS3, PS4, PS5. Series X has brought me back though. Fingers crossed that survives.