Weebleman

This is a brilliant game. Hope all the folks that havent/couldn't play it enjoy it !

@Banjo- this is the second time we've agreed with each other 😂. I think we are friends now!

Really good points though man, and really well put across. Agree with everything you said.

MS basically put themselves in a corner where there is no way out that doesn't result in a backlash.

@Mincey0 well, youre assuming I want to play those games. I dont. I spend far less grabbing a game in a sale or on physical. For example, I just traded some games im done with to pick up death stranding 2. It cost me £6. The games I swapped cost me less than the month of gamepass you quoted when I bought/traded for them.

Not everyone wants what Gamepass offers.

@Questionable_Duck excellent point, well made if accurate.

Point still stands in terms of one month GP to buying the game outright. While less, its still a loss.

@Fiendish-Beaver thats exactly it. How many folks signed up for a £1 trial, played arguably one of the biggest releases of the year, cancelled and moved on.

This focus on sub numbers is ridiculous. The whole 'heavy surge' in subs means nothing when financials actually showed the number shrank over all (@themightyant did a good number breakdown at the time). They also dont release actual sub numbers so who knows what they increased by.

Everything just feels like smoke and mirrors at the moment, all with the bitter taste of a 50% price increase lingering.

@Ricky-Spanish it probably wont happen. I think its more just this big wall of doubt they've made for themselves that makes it a story.

@Ricky-Spanish I think what really kick started it all was that Tom Warren commented on the sneaker chap saying they have knowledge inside MS or something.

Hes a pretty well respected chap is Tom and for him to comment on the chaps validity may carry some weight.

@AverageJoseph you are very probably right. I was on the edge of delirium. It will likely just boil down to 'want more money' 😂.

@AverageJoseph you could be entirely right. I will add that instead of thinking like they were playing 4d chess, I was simply trying to kill time sat outside home bargains for an hour waiting for my mrs and daughter 😂.

I would say though that day one games could be any game. It could be 74, one man studio, 2.99 on release games for all we know.

It wont be, but dont be assuming that they are all hundreds of thousands, millions even, pounds of development cost games.

They will also make money off day one sales again.

I was thinking about the whole situation and I had a thought. Bare with me here.

• Including all releases day one isnt sustainable.
• You double the cost to access the tier that has them.
• Folks cancel in outrage.
• You make a cheaper tier that let's you access them 12 months later.
• People join that and start to buy games on release again.
• You get what you want without having to admit you were wrong about including them.

Its almost like MS have purposely caused outrage to force people into the gamepass equivalent of the PS Plus model. You get AAA games later, you get Ubisoft+, you get online play.

Its not like for like but its damn close.

@Titntin Yeah, I think 33 will win it. Which isnt a bad thing of course. I just loved the mood of South of Midnight, and that is pretty much 100% down to the audio for me. It was a steady enough game, or as some say, a good gamepass game, but I just wanted it to have a little more meat on the bones if you get me.

Boss battles are the exception as you say. Some lovely little bits in there.

@Ricky-Spanish Reading this comment in hindsight of the news that came after it, it would probably work out better for them if they gave you the case free when you buy 2 months of game pass 😂

@Gabrie you can only play games you own or the retro ones. I imagine most folks will boot it up, realise they have to pay for what they want to play and move on. I dont see it being a gateway at all.

South of Midnight would get my vote for soundtrack. The rest of the game was not for me unfortunately.

Id like to see Blue Prince do well.

Gamepass was brilliant but surely we all knew this couldn't go on. There are people in comments saying they have used rewards to pay the full cost of it FOR YEARS. Zero money for the service. That just isnt sustainable. At all.

Now, thats not the fault of the people that used rewards to cover it, or loopholes to upgrade for pocket change. Its just an absolutely atrocious business decision. I get it, bring people into the eco system, hook them and then charge them. That's business. But this is madness. These loopholes should have been closed a long time ago and folks would possibly be paying a lower price now.

Its gone on that long that they need a massive increase in cost to fill the hole they created themselves.

@somnambulance I had to triple take at the EA buyout. Its like they sat laughing about how they can make a bigger surprise mechanic and one guy said 'let's sell out to the saudis' and then someone immediately screamed 'AND THEN THROW TRUMPS SON IN LAW IN AS WELL!!!'.

Who in the hell saw that gaggle of doom popping up in a headline. We are gonna be getting Ronaldo in a MAGA hat in every EA franchise from now on.

@somnambulance Its just sad to witness it all. I wish they would just come out and lay it all as it is, whatever it may be. Ive had many good memories on xbox, but its just getting harder to feel like the ecosystem is worth the investment any more.

And im pretty sure somewhere in Sony there is someone sat rubbing their hands, just waiting for the moment to increase there prices as well.

Grim time for this hobby of ours mate.

The thing that blows my mind most about this is that they recently just made a whole song and dance about how Gamepass is profitable (which we know is debatable depending who you ask). Literally rolling top level folks out saying 5 billion revenue, etc...

So if thats the case, the only reason for this price bump is just pure and simple greed. To milk folks for everything they can.

I just dont get how someone in MS didnt look at it and see how this comes across. Its pretty abysmal.

Its currently on plus. Wouldn't be surprised if it pops up here also.

MS sure seem to be on damage control at the moment. They are wheeling someone out every five minutes to justify this hike.

This massive new perk has already been included in PS Plus for years now and it costs far less than GPU.

@yeaman a quick Google also shows multiple people reporting issues with things like the global illumination that requires files to be replaced to fix.

Im not saying you didnt have a good run but to write off the multitude of issues it has on a handheld is pointless.

@yeaman im specifically on about the new xbox rog ally x with AI learning being the issue.

@yeaman Clair Obscura is a prime example of the issues folks will face with this thing. There are lots of headlines about Doom the Dark Ages playing well with AI upscaling, but one of the years biggest releases is struggling to hold 30fps on it.

My biggest concern with this is Yes, its clearly a very good handheld PC device, but there are folks paying huge amounts of cash for something they think is gonna be something its not.

The xbox overlay is nice but its still ASUS Armour running through windows that powers it. They better get ready for the faffing that comes with that.

Plus, its coming to most other devices next year and will essentially do the same thing for less. Even power wise it isnt a massive jump. The lower spec one essentially has the same chips set as one of the older Steam Decks.

I just feel like folks who dont read sites like this, and maybe some who do think they are buying an xbox. Heck, even this site at one point had headlines about it being an xbox handheld (which they changed) because thats what folks were being led to believe. It absolutely is not, so it will be interesting to see how many come to realise that next month.

@JumpingJackson its a handheld pc with an xbox logo on the case.

In a nutshell - Yes you can play settlers on your couch.
-Its not an xbox at all.
-You can stream your xbox console games or play any that are on the PC gamepass app natively.
-You can use other store fronts.

Theres a few folks in here (not all) defending the price of this that were absolutely slamming the PS5 Pro price when that was announced. Yet, here we are. Its a fickle, fickle world isnt it.

I hope all who do plunge enjoy it.

Its seems to be still available everywhere in the UK (except the xbox store that is).

Curious on numbers available. That's gonna be the real gauge for interest and, as its not up to Microsoft, we should actually get some with this.

I do hope all of those folks picking one up enjoy it though, happy gaming to you.

@yeaman yeah, ive seen some folks acting like they are watching the wheel be invented before their eyes when, as you say, its literally there to go pick up today if you want it.

If anything, im more tempted to pick up the 'old' model once this launches as it will likely be discounted and, even without the xbox app update, theres plenty others that do the same. The only thing that puts me off are the issues you hear about windows gaming on a handheld. I much prefer to just plug and play if that makes sense and there seems to be a lot of faff with updates, settings, etc... same reasons I havent got a steamdeck.

@GeeEssEff yeah the marketing at first was very misleading. The amount of 'Xbox handheld' headlines across a lot of sites was quite shocking when you actually know what it is.

@yeaman we will just have to wait and see how it goes. Steamdeck is the biggest seller (not including Switch 1/2) and thats hardly selling gangbusters. I just dont see this suddenly putting nu.bers through the roof. Especially as I have a feeling that the price will instantly turn folks off. Well, whenever they actually tell us anyway.

@WildConcept6 you make some good points my man; However, I am not certain 'a lot of people' want to jump into this market. We live in a bit of a bubble on sites like these, so it will be interesting to see how it sells.

Ive said all along, you may as well just buy the existing, cheaper rog and it will pretty much do the same thing. There are already a number of apps that pull the storefronts together. Just disable all the startup stuff and you get the same results, which windows central confirm. Folks are gonna pay a huge whack of cash simply because it comes in black and green with handles.

@Millionski Yep, I agree. Ive said all along this is just gonna be an app that comes to everything. Like you say, its probably gonna happen to desktops also.

It is good that windows gaming is getting better, lord knows it needed it, but in my opinion we are basically seeing the 1st steps of xbox becoming an app rather than a device.

The whole thing just feels odd. No price a month before launch is a bit nuts.

@DonnieTACO nevermind its since been revealed that most of the trailer wasnt even actual gameplay.

Best of luck to the guy but theres probably lessons learned from this one.

I loved my Series S when I had it. Great little box for someone that travels a bit for work. Throw it in the overnight bag and it makes staying in a hotel somewhere that little better.

And then the power pack burnt out.

1 month after my warranty expired.

MS wanted almost the price of a new one to fix it.

And there lies the end of my little travel buddy as I just cant bring myself to grab another. I know it was likely just pure bad luck, but it left a bitter taste.

I will say that I have seen them for as little as £75 on resale sites. So theres always a temptation.

@Banjo- dude. DUDE.

Day. One.

@Ricky-Spanish all boils down to money my man. If someone can make money from something, they will licence it up to teeth to keep it coming in.

@Ricky-Spanish this is my plan. Once the xbox FSE drops for other handsets, I'll probably be able to pick up an older ROG ally on the cheap. The games I'd be looking to play on it will likely run without issue.

@Millionski yeah, I think Sony are chasing the Switch market a bit. I have a Vita and its a great little handheld. The problem as always is Sony will drop anything like a rock in the blink of an eye. I dont see a handheld for playing old games as something I would want. I certainly dont want one that streams new games either.

No doubt both companies will go all in on something nobody really wants though I imagine.

@Millionski its definitely the best windows hanhelf device to go for if you are in the market for one. Ive said a few times before that I would be curious to see how it would run if you strip out all the full screen overlay stuff and any other bloat, as I suspect it will run even better once they do.

Sadly, its just annoying that we arent getting an actual xbox handheld. I agree with you that even straight up consoles will essentially be a larger version of this eventually.

@Millionski do you see the point i was trying to make a few weeks back now? I genuinely wasn't hating on this, I just think a lot of folks think its going to be something it isnt. Its great hardware, dont get me wrong, it just isnt what it was initially (and still is in some places) pushed as being. The full screen xbox yada yada is not going to cut it

@Banjo- this could well be! I think we just became pals ha ha ha. I love all of the fatal frame series. I know they tend to get a bad rap of late but I dont care. I really hope we get more.

@Banjo- I do love me some Fatal Frame!

@ElectricWizard very true. On the flip side, it must have been a right state on xbox at that point when they've managed to shove it out without lumin working after a year extra development time.

@ElectricWizard this wouldnt surprise me at all. Focus on the biggest userbase and go from there

@Millionski I think you are on the money in that the next xbox will essentially be the app overlay we see on the rog running on a box.

@Questionable_Duck they literally came out and said they were having trouble getting it running on xbox. Why would they need to explain anything else?

I do agree on the second part though.

@ButterySmooth30FPS dont even bother trying to convince folks bent out of shape with conspiracy theories. We'll be told that Sony paid for lumin exclusivity in the game next.

It all just demonstrates that its an inexperienced developer who clearly struggled with getting the game to run on xbox, as they said the whole time. Shown by what we have now its released.

@BaldB3lper78 just keep in mind that usually 899 dollars will mean 899 pound and wont reduce for exchange rates.

Grim but the way its always been.