Weebleman

@fatpunkslim there is zero evidence playstation paid for IGN's post. They are using their own metrics to provide the info they hold, regardless of how irrelevant that info is in the grand scheme of things. Making stuff up is just stupid though.

@Fiendish-Beaver The hardest part of rebuilding that eco system is that all the time this flip flopping has been going on, more and more are buying into a competitors ecosystem. They simply aren't going to drop it and sink nigh on a grand to start again.

There are millions still playing PS4 amd xbox ones out there, likely more on the PS side as we know the PS4 had the bigger userbase. If they do choose to upgrade at these silly prices of consoles today, they will go where they keep their collection.

Then you have word of mouth. I have 3 kids aged 9, 13 and 18. They all play games. We are lucky to have all of the consoles yet all they play on is PS and switch. Why? Because thats what all their friends play on. My eldests boyfriend just picked up a PS so he could borrow games, chat and game with the others. The irony being they mainly play fortnite and he could have got a series x cheaper and still play/chat with them. I asked him why he went for a PS when its more expensive (for now). His answer was simply 'thats what they have'. The more folks play on PS, the wider the circle of people doing the same. Xbox have an absolute mountain to climb and even though PS sales have plummeted, it still outsells xbox. That mountain is only gonna get bigger unfortunately.

@Banjo- what do Sony and Nintendo have to do with xbox's review system?

@SpecialT man i loved my game and watch. I also miss the days of demo discs on magazines, although I imagine they would probably cost a fortune as well these days!

Hope life is well down under my friend. Any tips on dealing with heat! 😂

@fatpunkslim but the Pro will be the one for GTA. PSSR 2 is making a big difference on recent games and Sony probably won't be looking to move people from a series X to a Pro, its the ones still yet to upgrade they want.

Pound for pound, the Pro is by far the best option out there at the minute.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner Sony CEO said around that time they had enough infantry supply to last to the end of the year. Where as Chris Bell for xbox said the other month they were struggling to get enough parts to get them on the shelves. The irony being MS own a load of ram for AI use.

This will likely be to cover the fact they're still buying now and Sony did a huge increase so the noise was out of the way and they were covered through the year.

Its all just guesswork obviously but I think Sony will go again either the end of the year or try to hang on until after Christmas.

@fatpunkslim if you look back to March, analysts stated that the reason Sony increased so much was to cover this next inevitable round of increases and take the bad news hit then instead. I imagine they will hold out now until after GTA releases.

Increases will be inevitable though after that. Truly is a grim list of prices up there.

@NishimaruX you very likely assume correctly sir. Atari 2600 was where I started. Simpler times.

@NishimaruX 100%. Everything is 'well they sacked x amount' or 'your price was this much'. Absolutely grim times. I never thought id miss the digital foundry wars of the ps4 , 360 generation so much. At least it was only miniscule resolution differences back then and not livelihoods and gamers wallets taking the hit.

@shiny-enzo and your short memory forgets that before that, xbox raised their prices.

Its a spiral of doom, not a competition mate.

@Dar3dev I live in the UK as my parents came over when I was young. Born and raised in otahuhu though and I still have my citizenship. One day im coming home and very much looking forward to it.

@Fishysensei I wouldnt be surprised if theres a logistics element to it as well. The amount of copies this is going to sell is ridiculous. The easiest way to make sure everyone gets a copy at launch is to dish out digital copies.

I do hope they release an actual physical edition down the line once the initial rush has gone though.

I think what hurt xbox more than gamepass is MS's decision to go all in on gamepass with no plan B. Every studio and publisher they purchased was done pretty much with the intention of bringing in huge numbers of subs. It just didnt happen. Everything that happened after was a result of this.

Gamepass is a good service and they should have just carried it going the way it was. 79 billion was spent to get cod on there as they thought it would get subs towards their 100 million goal. When it didnt, that money, among other purchase costs, needed to be recouped. Be it increases in monthly costs, games on other platforms, it didnt matter. Books have to balance.

Had they just been happy with how it was, the benefits it gave and then third party deals to release on it I imagine the landscape woukd be different.

But yeah, Gamepass is good value and a good service, MS just went in to hard and now while gamepass gets the blame, the real problem has been there from the start calling the shots.

@Balaam_ just reading about this on Eurogamer. I just dont see who its for at all. Worse performance than a base PS5/SX and steamrolled by a PS5 Pro which comes with 2TB of storage at a lower price than the base model steam machine.

Absolutely wild. One thing we can learn though is PS6, and more so Helix, will be expensive as hell.

Best of luck fella, thanks for the memories.

@Banjo- its been clarified as an error by halo studios.

@tigersden98 the requirement to have two MS accounts on all platforms is also part of the issue.

I have a feeling its unintentionally a bit of both sides. MS likes users to have a MS account (both players need one on xbox consoles as well as PS in local co-op). PS requires plus to be able to connect online.

Its likely the needing a MS account to be verified and the plus requirement to do so clashing and making it ridiculous.

It would be silly of MS to require it as im pretty sure they wouldn't intentionally try and give sony more subs, yet PS wouldn't intentionally cut themselves out of a 30% cut of a game that cost them nothing to make.

Whatever it is its stupid.

If NBA the Run had local multiplayer id have snapped it up. Feels like they missed a trick.

@themightyant enjoy the football my man!

@Banjo- got a link to where they say they are making a fortune? Just interested to see how it fits with the CEO saying its unsustainable.

Company posts an emoji that's literally called nervous laugh and folks in here state that they found common ground.

Says all you need to know about folks blinkered views.

Its only 4 games and every other statement they U turned on leaves my faith at a minimum.

Jez Corden who also repeatedly confirmed indiana jones, starfield and others would not be on Playstation.

Again, why do we take these folks as gospel when history shows they will pivot in a second.

Sounds like sony will be at it as well. ID, Bethesda and Bioware in the mix elsewhere. Whole thing is an utter sh*t show.

@Millionski I said a long time ago that I fully expect xbox to basically move to basically being an app with a full screen overlay like it is on the ally x. That reality seems closer an closer every time another headline comes out.

@HonestHick fair points i can't disagree with. Except the Hellblade. The first one at least. Im a big audio fan and that had some of the best game audio I've heard, especially through headphones. The second one also but the lack of gameplay improvements wore me down.

@HonestHick so you are blaming the devs and not the company that managed them?

@Elbow the report from Jason Schreier actually says several studios including these ones. There could be even more than we know of to follow.

@TheGameThrifter the odd thing about this is they were doing alright before MS got involved. Then its years before anything. It all boils down to management.

@Sol4ris there was no point buying any of these studios in the first place. They have put out exactly the type of games they always have but MS's determination to buy up the industry saw no reason or rhyme beyond bringing in subs.

And the folks who cheered these buy outs on are still doing so while trying to justify these closures. Ridiculous.

@FraserG That crossed my mind as well. It seemed a really odd answer at the time but in hindsight, it sadly makes sense.

After watching this, who on earth would agree to being sold to MS. All companies have closed studios but this is another level. The mismanagement at xbox is utterly, utterly astounding.

Jason Schreier has come out and said compulsion, ninja theory and double fine are in discussions to request spinning off to prevent closure. No mention of arkane.

@Fiendish-Beaver sad to say but I agree, this is likely just the start. Best wishes to all affected. Hopefully they can go independent rather than shuttered completley.

@Froggyman1 I never said it was THE problem, or that it was not the problem. I said that changes need to take place and asked why you didnt think it would not be in the mix from what we know. Which you didnt answer and instead had a little rant. The only reason I chipped in is because you completely dismiss everyone else while stating you are right, despite knowing the same as the rest of us. They spent 20 billion, likely including third party gamepass deals in that, and came in half a billion under what they spent. Something has to give.

As for announcements about gamepass, payments and agreements for those games were likely in place long before they were announced as such. The rest are studios they own and, as we stand now, they are included. It would be a bit odd if it wasn't without any kind of announcement. It still doesnt mean they won't draw a line at some point moving forward if they dont pull in new subscribers that results in recurring subs. As it stands, folks can play E Day for the cost of one month and cancel. That doesnt fix the problem when the same folks may otherwise pay 70 quid to play it instead of 23.

My point is you are dismissing everybody who differs in opinions to you, when you are assuming as much as anybody else. Gamepass is in the mix with everything else in that it isn't bringing money in as much as they need it to. The problem microsoft/xbox has is that if it removes games from it people will be up in arms and they have to rely on people picking up a new console to play the games at a time the bulk of people simply dont have spare cash to do so. If it moves games elsewhere, they likely won't make enough back from them (with the odd exception) and are still in the same hole.

They are in a spot and they will need to make tough calls whatever they decide to do. I wouldnt be surprised if they port all exclusives to PS5 and create a PS version of gamepass for xbox studios. That would be one way of bringing in new subs.

@Froggyman1 bit arrogant considering all your counter points are assumptions also.

They finished half a billion dollars down for the financial year. Yet all those platforms you mention where there previously.

Exclusives where there also for the majority of games (and still are for far more than ones that went to other consoles).

Gamepass lost millions of subs.

Satella says that the division isn't operating sustainably.

Asha confirmed they need to bring in profit.

Games are underperforming in sales and in terms of gamepass interactions.

We know they are reviewing data to make future decisions.

These are all facts.

What makes you certain that, despite already being there, everything will suddenly change by continuing on this path and the company won't pull games from gamepass?

We already know its burning money, as has been confirmed, surely logic is to change what is causing that.

@kmtrain83 essentially xbox would be its own company that could either stand alone or partner with MS. This would mean its responsible for its own deals and finances. It would need to fund itself rather than dipping into MS's pool of money to operate.

The main concern is that we know from info released by Asha of late, its finances are not in a good place at all, so this would make things like signing games for gamepass, funding development and managing studios very difficult. Which then impacts us.

@AI-Generation From what Asha said about costings expected to rise again, I imagine they thought they would just whack it up high enough to cover the next increase as well so they can look the lesser evil when everyone inevitably raises their prices again. Until the price goes up again after that with the state of the world.

Although if you shop around you can find both xbox and playstations at a much better price.

Grim times though.

@AI-Generation @Fiendish-Beaver its worth highlighting that the 400 sales behind Sony was just for the month of May, not for the quarter or in total sales. Just for that one month period. Also, PS5 sales fell 50% for that month and still ended up in front. Which gives you an idea of the mountain they faced in previous months and in overall numbers.

@somnambulance it would not be a sign of success unfortunately. It would be Microsoft washing its hands of it. At the moment it funds a lot of its ventures, such as gamepass. If it is spun off it will need to stand on its own two feet and recent financials show it would literally fall over in a blink.

While linkedin is doing well, its a social media site that isn't spending millions to develop games. Xbox on its own does not have the finance to do that unfortunately at the minute. Its an apples and oranges comparison.

@Banjo- making a fortune? It literally says they lost half a billion