Titntin

Love to stay and play, but I need to go out and pick my wife up gone for 3 hours. You still haven't advised why you think the license for what you have on disc is any better than the license you get with digital. All you own is the bit of plastic. Anyhow, gotta fly or I'll be late.

@NishimaruX Why so angry? Its quite clear we are talking about modern games and your console will check your licences.
You are the only person to mention music and movies, its quite clear we are talking games.

I ain't slurping anything, just reminding you that your recent physical games are no less subject to revocation than a digital licence. That's simply a fact, and acting like you are demonstrates its a not a fact you wish to consider. Insults are the refuge of the intellectually challenged. If you wish to debate in good faith I'm happy to do so, if you simply wish to act like a kid in a playground, then theres no point in discussion. Good day.

@NishimaruX You are not in control at all unless your console stays off line and all the code you want to play is on the disc. I don't see why you are so keen to delude yourself.

@NishimaruX When you buy a physical disc you are also buying a revokable license - its no different.

The ONLY difference is that if the disc contains all the code to play the game and you keep your console offline, you can still play it.

Other than that there no difference. Its astonishing how few people understand that the only thing they own with a disc, is the plastic.

Its been a long time since I cared about fallout, and I liked avowed, so this is just more bad news. I haven't recovered from them gutting ID yet. I just don't think I can support MS any longer, and now XBOX is well and truly under complete MS control, I'm considering if I want the console at all. Once my current GPU expires, maybe its time to mothball it - I have all the other machines so I wont miss anything.

This kind of statement shows they are living in cuckoo land and makes me fear for the future of the platform. Having a target is one thing, but it needs to be an achievable one.

I remember the ABK acquisition numbers that were revealed and MS had planned ,and they wanted 77 million subscribers by July 2026.
They are not even halfway there, by there own metrics this is a disaster. The line up these last couple of months has been just awful. They are clearly not trying to recapture growth by making the service better.
I suspect there will be drastic actions taken to the service in the next few months as right now its a failure. Huge shame as it was undoubtedly the best value in gaming three years back, but now, I wont be renewing and I suspect I'm not the only one.
I cant see any scenario where this is turned around, but certainly staying as is would be ridiculous. If you want to truly reset Xbox, you need to tackle the issues with GP.

@Banjo- Agreed, ubisoft have many issues, but they have consistently made some of my fave games. Thanks for reminding me of Fenyx Rising, probably in my all time top 10 - super title, well crafted.

This is my favourite game in the series by far, though I have only played it once.
I live in Brixham, small fishing town on the south coast of Devon. Look under Google images for 'Brixham Pirate festival' and you will see why pirate legends and culture is important to me!
I bought some discounted PSN credit today (14% off) and I have the game downloading now for a £42.99 outlay.
I shall be singing sea shanties at top voice tomorrow, probably just aimlessly floating on the waves. Happy days.

@awp69 "But if you don’t like the games they put on it, just cancel the service."
Unfortunately, I absolutely will do just that.
The figures have come out today - GP has just 30 million subs as of today, and line ups like these are not going to grow that no matter the rating from invested steam players. Something drastic will happen soon.

All that being said, I do admire your positivity when faced with such lists, but many of us have tastes for bigger better titles and this service costs %50 more than the premium PS service which also carries more games, many of these being smaller titles too. I simply don't think it offeres the best value for money and given Microsoft's trajectory, I expect the quality of GP titles to get further squeezed. Shame as it was undoubtedly the best value in gaming maybe three years ago, its just failing.

Oooh... IMO this is absolutely awful. Premium prices for this ....[edited] is not good...

@Banjo- If you have a switch 2, Fast fusion is excellent, its perfect for anyone who likes wipeout!

@Banjo- Yes Wipeout was a psygnosis title. It was made at the Liverpool studios rather than the Camden studios I used to work at and like you, I still occasionally play it

@Banjo- Loved Wipeout too - I was clubbing back then and my flat was the party pad, so many all nighters with Wipeout are fond memories.

@datamonkey I'd love to lay claim to some of those titles my friend, but I joined them somewhat after most of them ones. Shadow of the Beast and Blood money were faves of mine too - that Amiga time was a good time
So you don't owe me a beer, but if ever we were to meet, I'll buy you one!

@MysticWangForce I'm afraid I worked on the Ill fated unreleased game 'Red Meat'. Dinosaurs with guns! I went up your way a few times for some launch parties - I particularly remember the psx Formula 1 title in about 1996, fun party with lots of 'page 3 models' attending. Colony wars was a blast, I remember it well as we were allowed 10 free games a month and we ended up just getting repeats and selling them to shops, I had a lot of copies of Colony Wars. Back in the days when we had physical PC games

@MysticWangForce Psygnosis Owl ? Good choice sir, I used to work for Psygnosis in the Camden studio and then the Hanger Lane studio. Happy days.

@Fiendish-Beaver For what its worth mate, as I've read it from studying the sources:
1600 job losses right now from XBOX studios.
The four studios being let go are not part of this number as their jobs are simply elsewhere now, they have not been laid off.
1600 more jobs to be laid off across XBOX studios over the next year.

I couldn't say any of these were good for me, and theres no option for 'none'.
I'm pretty certain I wont let fomo make me sub for another year again. For me, its just not worth it.

I believe that, having only announced 1600 of the job losses, the teams still left will be asked to lose 1600 more over the next year, so several of the teams left will find their head count pretty dramatically reduced over the next year too, which is a shame.
There is still a lot of studios left of course, and having invested 70 billion, you'd expect for those flagship studios to be protected. But being a dev working for MS now will not be much fun. If I were in that situation I'd be looking for a way out if there were any chance of finding it.
For us it will make little difference, maybe a few more indies on GP, but if you bought into Xbox because you like running round and shooting people in the head, you are still likely to be well served, and there are still many good games to look forward to. I cant stand Microsoft, but the Devs still under XBOX studios are still some of the most creative in the industry.

@HonestHick Whilst I didn't run the studios I was part off, I worked in AAA game studios for two decades and clearly have a much clearer understanding of how that work flow works and how much Producers from the parent company are involved. Yes I made games directly for Microsoft and and met and socialised with their teams when they sent them. Your Idea that Phil cut them a cheque and then walked away is ridiculous, it simply didn't and doesn't work like that and that is a matter of fact.
Its astonishing that you ask me if I read English when you are so clearly demonstrating that you didn't read or understand anything I wrote. These games were established to fill an identified need in Game passes portfolio and not purely to make a profit. Surely you can understand that concept? Its the same as making Gears E day exclusive and leaving other platforms money off the table - the game is part of a larger strategy and will not simply be measured by money made alone. How that squares up with their accountancy is that they get allocated a 'profit' figure as part of their game pass requirement. Its not as simple as cost vs return for games green lit for this exact purpose. Every game going into the game pass service will be allocated a portion of game pass profits in order to evaluate their overall success. Trying to simplify this to money spent Vs direct income is an incredibly simplistic view and is clearly only offered as a justification for current actions.

So, instead of throwing insults, how about you read and comprehend what's been said. We have discussed games several time over the years and I know you are more intelligent than your last post makes you sound, so how about cutting out the bristle and having an adult conversation instead of repeating the same thing but louder? All this 'I want word for word' nonsense is actually beneath you mate. Your just getting hot as I don't immediately agree with your assessment and that's because I do have a greater knowledge of what's under discussion as it was my living for so long.
For the record, If I had decided game pass was no longer worth those kind of investments, the teams identified would be my first choice to drop too. Not the Devs fault, they made what was agreed, but now Xbox are going into a time where its profit above all else, they are less likely to make the kind of profits that corp now require and investment in GP is no longer able to support those types of games.

I don't have a wish to argue with you, I simply wanted to share with you my insight as I have knowledge in this area, so if this continues to irritate you I will dip out of this conversation as this kind of arguing in forums is beneath both of us.
I hope you have a good day.

@HonestHick

Its clear you don't have any idea of how a studio is managed and how game creation ideas get green lit.

If your producers ask you to produce a game for a certain sector of your portfolio where you want some games (such as quirky unusual titles, or walking Sims), then that's exactly what you produce.
If your holding company then changes their mind and suddenly don't want what they asked for, you cannot blame the studio devs.
I'm not sure you have a handle on how studios work and who is directing what they are doing? They can pitch ideas, its MS who greenlight it. They don't go spend money for 5 years and then come and pitch the game to MS and its in Beta. Its being peer reviewed and held accountable every month and changes get made almost monthly based on feedback and new requirements being added. Microsoft got the games it was paying for and not some last minute suprise.
They are cut cause MS now want to chase high profit only and Game pass didn't work - theres no use in encouraging interesting and diverse titles unless you are broadening your portfolio - they are no longer willing to pay to support GP in this way.

@HonestHick
"MS was nice enough to let them keep the IP and go make those games by themselves."
How easily suckered are you? MS don't want the numbers of all those employees in those studios added to there layoff total of course. They know, as we all do, there is little likelihood of these studios surviving now they've just been cut loose, but they can now say "well we just let them go, those heads are not our responsibility" and those who played easily like your self will just swallow it. Wake up!!

@HonestHick ...and the job of any management team is to set out what it wants and guide the teams to produce it. Its upper management that are responsable for the output of their teams and who should take the fall if they change their mind or don't do an effective job - not the workers doing what they were asked to do.
I'm not surprised to see you running defence for such contemptible mis management.

So when they were buying ABK and stated that there would not be huge layoffs because of their actions it was a complete and utter fabrication. Coming on top of the already huge cuts they have made before this is absolutely disgusting and its clear you can NEVER trust Microsoft.
I can only hope that those affected by these Draconian cuts are OK and they can find new work soon.

In between the F1 I will try and play some Forza Horizon 6 if I can get some Xbox time (my wife is playing a farming game 24/7). I'd started a new game of Zelda link to the past on switch 2, but to be honest I just want to go back to Crimson Dessert. I'll be all over the Black Flag update soon, so I need to concentrate on smaller titles on PS5 and not get to wrapped up in anything!

Whatever you are playing this weekend I hope you have fun!

Ooof. I doubt that looks enticing to anyone...
Not that Costume Quest 2 didn't have its moments, but its often $1.99 in steam sales

I don't know why, but I love it!
I don't play flight Sims and it looks like a katamari that's rolled through an old Tandy store, but I'd actually buy one if it were not so expensive!

@Lanmanna This is true, but the version they contain is the gold version from weeks before release. Byt the time the game comes out there have been several updates, and as we know, several more over the coming weeks to get a stable version.
Even discs with the whole game on are rarely the version of a game anyone would want to actually play...which is a real shame.

A plastic dIsc without the code on it needed to play the game is the most useless item of all. All that wasted plastic and its just a ticket to download the game anyway. All this does is demonstrate why discs are no longer what they were.

@NishimaruX Yeah I hear you. Theres a lot of angry and disappointed people around and they clearly cannot think clearly right now. I've given up trying to actively engage in the conversation for the time being as they don't want to hear sense or an alternate point of view. Indeed, such a point of view appears to be incendiary now, how strange. You have a good day, I'm sure people might be open to constructive discussion again one day, maybe even listen to the point?

I'm pretty sure that in the last round of devastating cut backs by MS one of the departments hit particularly hard was the department responsible for overseeing physical releases. MS have been looking to end physical sales for a long time, especially seeing as they have more sales of series S, an all digital box, than of series X, the box which allows physical.
This was the subject of much discussion 2 years ago and you can still find all the reditt threads discussing it and hoping PS and Nintendo don't follow..

@M20B25 "Yeah so why play games on an inferior console?"

I prefer gaming on my consoles rather than games on PC (I have an expensive gaming PC and three others.)

Your question doesn't seem to have a point, but I answered it.

@M20B25

"The console is dead. PC from here on out."

That's hysterically funny 🤣 The PC platform has been exclusively digital for well over a decade!

@Millionski
You could be correct mate, certainly that MS could do with proper advertising, they have just not showed up this gen at all.
I do believe that your average casual gamer hears news, they just don't dive into it. They will have the current impression that all MS games come to playstation and that MS are closing all their studios. We know differently of course, but if you just absorb a headline now and then, then this is what's happening....

I was hoping that even if they floundered getting a decent hardware base, they would be a superb 3rd party publisher.
Divesting themselves of all the talented studios they bought though seems like an incredibly backwards move. Concentrating only on their historically large IP's is foolish when there own mismanagement has seen the value of these IP's drop significantly. I don't think they have much of a plan at all, simply trim off all the studios they never managed properly and then what? Hows gamepass gonna offer value with a few indies and maybe two tentpole titles a year? Hows that gonna be valued... I'm not seeing the plan.

With the rumour mill in overdrive theres bound to be many over exaggerated reports and jumping to conclusions.
The best thing XBOX can do is to take control by getting bad news out the way ASAP and then laying out its plans and goals after that .

I'm really looking forward to this. I'm getting a bit of 'last guardian' vibe in terms of link with your animal, and that is something to welcome indeed!

Glad this is on Xbox now.
However, I didn't get on with it at all, the characters and designs were copy paste from every other free to play waifu inhabited game and I found the voices and script unbearable.
It has been popular though, so what do I know? At least its free to check out!

Pretty silly to state anything as several people have pointed out. When you are about to close several studios and there are reports you have stopped financing 3rd party games for GP, then I'd suggest they have far more important optics to take care of than this silly story.
I don't understand why people are pre ordering this far out - they are not going to run out of copies?
No doubt I'll order and play it for the ps5 pro - likely best performance and I far prefer the pad, but tbh, it wont make much difference playing on XBOX or PS5.

Not really excited by this selection, but I'm bound to boot up some early Halo for old times sake!

@NishimaruX Yeah lots of builds available and the variety of combat is great if you don't use the same old moves. You can literally tear through crowds like an overcharged WWE star, which is great fun.
I hope you enjoy the game, there's a few broken or difficult systems, but there is so much to enjoy to!

I've finally seen the end credits now on Crimson Desert, but finding it hard not to just carry on playing. I had made a good start on Forza Horizon 6 and I think I should get back into that - if I can get my wife off the Xbox (she's playing some cute mouse game!)
So many choices I'm finding it hard to make a decision!
Whatever you are playing this weekend, I hope you and yours have fun!

@mac_da_man I'm glad you enjoyed the artful escape. Such a great work of whimsy and imagination I wont forget that game in a hurry!

Normally I never buy anything other than a standard edition, but they do seem to be including a lot in the 'ultimate'. I wont buy untill much nearer the time, so I'll get more of an idea if I need/want the additions by then.

@PWR3700 Well they are definitely statements I can agree on! 👍

@PWR3700 "It’s greed from Msft that’s the reason they’re in this position right now".
No, its the availability and prices of the components used to make their consoles. That's absolutely the facts and what this article is about.
If you wish to talk about the state of the Xbox platform, that's a far bigger conversation and nothing to do with these price rises at all - but even then, that's down to total mis management rather than pure greed.

@themightyant Yes mate - the 2TB was always a decent upgrade and appreciated. Its a shame the 2TB Xbox model is gone - I always rather liked its 'cosmic' colour scheme.
See you in the F1 section later in the W/E 👍

@PWR3700 If you are calling this greedy then you clearly have no idea what is happening in the world.
Microsoft are absolutely not without blame, but XBOX (and the other manufacturers) are not increasing the price due to greed. WAKE UP!

The PS5 pro is looking decent value now (in comparison), when you consider its a 2TB machine.

Sad times for everyone into tech, the tech giants have killed it - and that absolutely includes Microsoft.
I guess this is the new 'normal' and if you are priced out theres little you can do other than find a new hobby.