XxEvilAshxX

Finally... though I really don't understand why they insist on having these things in the middle of the day during the work week. It's all pre-recorded anyway, so why not Prime Time?

It's a whole different ballgame when you don't have MS paying the bills.

MS has to be aware of the rumors circulating regarding this "showcase event." If they didn't have anything planned, you'd think they would say so. If this month comes and goes without a peep from them neither confirming nor denying, I think it would look worse than just saying they don't have anything planned.

@Justifier It's one of the games in my backlog. It's not bad, but it's not amazing either. I do think it was a victim of being one of the first "next gen" games that released. I think a lot of reviewers were expecting it to be some innovative game-changing revelation, when in fact it's just a basic shooter. If that's what you're in the mood for, you could do worse.

I have a wish list of games that never get a sale. But hey, Assassin's Creed for the 10th week in a row!

This won't affect EA or Criterion in the slightest. These individuals weren't being allowed to do what they wanted anyway. I can't help but wonder if EA kept telling them behind the scenes that if they just did "one more NFS" they'd be allowed to work on a new Burnout or something, but of course it was always "one more" and they finally got tired of it.

I personally hope they left to create their own independent studio and will take some of the talent from Codemasters with them. EA will never let them make anything other than Need For Speed. That's never really been a secret, and the fact that EA now owns almost all of the third party racing developers has always kinda bummed me out.

FF7 has a heavy nostalgia factor going for it. It was the first FF with 3D characters. It was the first with cutscenes, orchestrated soundtrack, etc. It held many "wow" moments back in the day because nothing like it had been done before.

But FF6 is still the better rpg. But it's not on Xbox. So FF7 wins by default.

I wasn't as big a fan of the muppet baby storyline of FF8 and (hot take) I hated FF9's characters.

Well now that that argument is being made, I guess we won't be seeing a huge number of exclusives coming in the next year or so. Wouldn't want to deflate their own argument.

We have to keep in mind that this is the same FTC that is supposed to protect consumers against a monopoly, while also letting Ticketmaster unabashedly abuse its monopoly.

The VGA's themselves: B

Microsoft: Incomplete (you don't get a grade if you don't turn something in)

Let's gooooooooooo!

A price increase on anything is never fun, but it was inevitable. At least we do have Game Pass to soften the blow; The price increase on Playstation has removed a bit of the urgency for me to get a PS5. Perhaps by the time I do, they'll have some of their newer releases on PS Premium Plus Plus.

*Waits for those devs to explain to me why the series s is holding gaming back

Somebody probably read the dates wrong and jumped the gun on a licensing deal. They probably have to wait until a previous agreement or promotion is over. Or maybe the publisher wants to wait until after the holiday shopping season. Who knows.

What about the part of the game where I sit in a lobby by myself for 10 minutes before turning the game off? Even with cross play enabled?

Skywalker Saga would be a pretty good get for the holidays, especially with all the kiddos getting a Series S for Christmas.

@prestoadam It was one of my favorites, but man them aiming controls did not age well.

Too bad EA is too stubborn to admit that a new Burnout would absolutely bury their beloved NFS. They have a weird dedication to that series even though it's been more miss than hit for a long time.

On top of that they just killed off Dirt and Project CARS. Its like they want to force NFS to be popular by making it the only game in town (coughmadden).

Fortunately for us, Turn 10 and Playground can keep that from happening. And Polyphony, well they... exist.. also.

@BBB I wish I could say the same. But I don't want to just play the same map over and over, so I've been trying regular Conquest and it's been a bust so far.

Considering I refuse to enable cross play so Conquest is essentially useless... 1/10.

The 1 is because I can play against bots.

Hey Google, remember that time MS tried to have a phone?

Considering how anti-consumer Sony has been lately, I'd say they're already like Nintendo.

Here's the thing about stats; they can be skewed to make your point.

Sony continuing their "woe is me" strategy. Anything to make them look weaker than they really are. Weren't they the ones saying that MS's Game Pass model wasn't a viable strategy for them?

Need for Speed is forever stuck in the underground street racing aesthetic, which is fine I guess... but its always so cringe. The character art looks awful, but if they can avoid the cringy dialogue I at least might be able to enjoy the racing. So glad this will have a trial on EA Play.

Ya'll say the Series controllers are superior, but I have an o.g. 360 controller that still works like a beast, while all three of my year old Series controllers have stick drift.

I honestly hope it's ESO2. I love the first game but it's almost a decade old now and there's so much more they could be doing with it.

I have the 360 and PC version. The game is almost great. The main thing that holds it back imo is the wonky character progression and atrocious UI (on 360). If they clean both of those up I might take another look. I think I've spent maybe $10 total on both versions so it's not like I've invested much $$ on them.

I'm always willing to give battlefield another chance. The problem is, if nobody else is willing to give it a chance, it's pointless.

Graphics will be great but I don't know if I trust them to design intricate levels like they used to.

It didn't leave the fan base "partially polarized," it left the fan base completely

Fans of Saints Row were pretty unanimous in their feelings, which is why you're in the pickle you're in.

I would buy one just to watch TV. Right now I have my old One X in the living room so we can stream tv and play the odd game or two. But I would love to replace that with Keystone so I could put my One X back in my game room.

I've almost bought Insurgency a few times on sale, but since it's a MP game it's always been a bit of a crapshoot I'm not willing to risk, especially since I'd be playing it without any friends. Now I at least get to not only try it out, but play it with a buddy since there's no entry fee for either of us. Looking forward to it.

GDmit I'm gonna have to play thru this game a third time aren't I...

I don't know how to work the word "broke" into February, but good lord my wallet is already crying in the shower.

I mean, didn't we all know this was coming the moment EA bought Codemasters? I personally poured one out for the studio the second I heard the news.

It's a damn good thing that Microsoft has the Forza franchise and that Sony has.... Gran Turismo..... because if not EA would essentially own a racing monopoly on consoles.

Need For Speed, Dirt, F1, GRID, Burnout, Project CARS.. all under one roof, and we know EA isn't about comeptition, they buy up competing franchises just to kill them off. We all know we'll never see another Burnout, and we just saw whatever the **** they turned NFS into.

I don't think they'll outright "kill" Grid, but I'm not holding my breath on seeing anything else from that series any time soon.

One day these publishers will realize that these basic remasters will sell faaaaar better at $20.

My "impulse purchase" limit stops at $20. At 30, I start to question if I really want it, and the answer to that most of the time is No.

Even if they don't own ActivBlizz by that time, there's still nothing to stop them from working out a Game Pass deal. Especially if they fully expect to have them acquired eventually.

It still looks like they used one texture for every object in the game.

"10-15 hours" = about two months.

For me.

It was there one time. The next time I booted up it was gone.

Sucks for Japan but kudos to Glen Schofield and the dev team for sticking to their vision and not giving in to the almighty dollar.

This looks like they have the engineers doing the design. Engineers are not designers. They take the designs and make them work. MS needs to get an actual graphic designer in there and stop letting the engineers make the UI decisions, because they're obviously terrible at it.

This is why MS needs to get ActivLizzard. Toys for Bob should be working on anything but Call of Duty.

@Titntin MS isn't making these public statements for the CMA, they're making them for all the other governing bodies that are following this closely, like the FTC. They're making the points the CMA should be making so that when this is done and they move on to the next phase, those points are already inserted into the minds of the other committees they have to go through. The last thing MS wants is to deliberate with the CMA in private, so that the CMA can decide whatever they want. IF the CMA tries to block this, they're going to look like biased and "corrupt" (i say corrupt in the sense that they're not being objective like they're supposed to) to all the other governing bodies in the world. Essentially, MS is trying to make the CMA look bad by doing their job for them. This is obviously just speculation by me, but it's the way I'm seeing it.

The stuttering got noticeably worse on the PC as well, but I just thought it was something else on my machine that may have been causing it.

MS could shut a lot of these people up if they'd start cranking out first party games that look and run incredible on Series S.

Horizon 5 looks amazing and runs fine.
Gears 5 looks amazing and runs fine.

I'd be willing to bet that Modern Warfare 2 will look incredible and run at 60 and it's not even first party (yet?).

The key word here is "redundancies." They're not downsizing due to closing departments or dissolving positions. But when you have 100 people doing work that can effectively be done by 75, that's bad news for 25 of them. It's unfortunate but it happens. Also, "less than 1000" in a company as gigantic as MS is very little.

Looking forward to this. I still need to get through the Amnesia Collection. Scrounging for matches though.. ugh..

I'm also kinda curious how the introduction of new characters is gonna go. It's gonna get real crowded real quick unless they add additional biomes.

Your move, Sony. Imagine how many sodas we could fit in a PS5 minifridge! Even if it was at scale!