Zenszulu

It would have got 10's all around if they had gotten Ringo Starr to narrate and would be GOTY without a doubt.

If the last 5 years are anything to go by it's hard to tell as they could change their focus another 3 or 4 times in that period. So I have zero expectations currently.

I think the problem over the years with the rewards system is Microsoft has been far too generous with it especially when it pertains to Xbox as I would hazard a guess that a lot of people were essentially never paying for Gamepass and simply using the points to stack up multiple years for free. I know I did and even last year had hundreds of thousands of points left over when my subscription expired but since they removed the ability to directly purchase a Gamepass subscription and it worked out more expensive to redeem it through gift cards and combined with the price hike it stopped being possible to take advantage of how lucrative it once was. Instead of spending the points I had on Xbox gift cards I chose to spend them on gift cards split between Amazon and Argos and got around £300 out of it.

I actually get why they keep cutting the amount of points given out as they actually want people paying for Gamepass and not getting it for free and my guess is with the next system on the horizon they are going to want to maximise profit especially when they are going to be competing with other storefronts on their own hardware which they more than likely will get no percentage of the sales.

If anything though they done themselves a huge disservice by giving so much out for free for so long as many people have come to expect it.

If they were to do this, they probably won't but if they were it would further lead into them constantly changing direction every several months and not committing to so kind of overall goal.

I also think people are expecting too much of a radical change based on what Asha said in her early messages so far. This isn't the days when Microsoft would just let them get on and do their own thing with all of the high profile acquisitions there is far more pressure on them to turn a higher profit and currently as it stands keeping anything exclusive on Xbox may be financially risky.

I got a about 12 of them in a row although I seen some people got upwards of 60. It was quite amusing for a moment but I can imagine for some it was causing the notifications to be out of control.

This is a dummy message sent via braze... that's the biggest update of the day as I got it multiple times

It seems like a difficult situation to be in as the early days of Xbox and up until last generation whoever was in charge of the division was able to make decisions and act upon them with little interference from above. That has all changed now so even a hypothetical question of what I would do would be dependant on what those above me will allow and want to do themselves.

What does it mean? Time to pivot once again. I know a man named Ross who can instruct them how to do it.

It's not really a confidence filler that she seems to have little to no knowledge or history in gaming. It's just seeming like she was unexpectedly given the job and even though Phil Spencer already told them he was retiring this year I don't think Sarah Bond stepping down at the same time was planned and caught them off guard. I could be wrong but that's how it seems to me as her leaving so suddenly hasn't really been addressed and it may not be for some time. Who knows though maybe having someone from outside the gaming industry step in will give them a fresh perspective but I am not optimistic.

It does come across like she is just trying to make everyone happy by saying random generic things to try and fit it. I have a feeling that she wasn't prepared to even step into this role and it is a suprise to her because this comes across as someone who doesn't really understand the department she is now in charge of.

@HonestHick it's more of a strange take from David Jaffe more than anything. Almost like he is oblivious to the fact they would just as soon do the same thing if they felt necessary.

It's not like Microsoft themselves haven't been shutting down studios in recent years that they see as surplus to requirements. The also created a studio in the initiative and closed then down without them ever finishing their project.

I cashed in around £300 worth of gift cards for various places last year I was originally going to use it to stack a few years of gamepass but they removed that ability with the price hike. I certainly did get my value out of the service over the years when you could really rack up a lot of points though.

All it needs is narration from Ringo Starr and I am sold

As someone who switches between both Xbox and PS5 controllers regularly I have never had an issue with how either controller feels when playing just about any kind of game. The only thing with any modern controllers I can take a minute to adapt to is switching between an Xbox and Nintendo controller and I press the wrong button to an on screen prompt although I quickly adapt. If anything I am more put off that this controller looking like a cheap Chinese knock off that took a PS5 controller shell and made it into an Xbox controller I know it isn't but at first glance that's the impression I get.

@Dm9982 the Switch 2 "physical version" is just a key card so it's physical in name only

I do get where you are coming from but it's more the irony of having to confirm a 20 year old account is in fact owned by an adult. As for people losing their own personal account I didn't suggest they would my main point with that is most people in that situation would probably prefer everything under one account rather than have to switch between ones to access different thing so something like a full transfer would be easier I think I could have worded that better.

@AverageGamer again this isn't really conformation that it's a wide spread thing and it's only a very few cases of it and more people just asking what happens. I am not saying there aren't specific instance of it but it is still speculation that there are any more than a very small handful of people this effects without any numbers to back it up. My overall point being is if this one time ID checks are a thing how would they confirm it is still being used for the adult that used the ID and hasn't essentially been given to a child? Because more than likely most accounts up to this point stay with one person.

If anything there should simply be a way of transferring all of the purchases to a next of kin rather than taking over the account because as I said previously they more than likely have their own account and their own digital purchases and saves that they don't want to lose.

@AverageGamer that would be a very rare thing as a teenager more than likely would have been using their own account anyway. You are also simply just speculating that there are quite a few people if any that pass their accounts down.

I keep randomly have this happen periodically since I don't use the chat features on Xbox I really am not bothered about age verification although my account is now 20 years old and using some common sense would suggest my age is above that.

I can see a situation were even when the next generation stats we are still getting many games still releasing on Xbox One, PS4 and Switch especially ones from smaller developers and third parties releasing older games that will run on anything. We will also be hitting a point when most AAA games will take the whole generation to develop just because they have to be bigger and contain several times more content than the previous generation of games.

I remember when the Rewards used to be fun and actually got you playing specific gamepass games that moth and trying to earn certain achievements. Many times as a result it would get you enjoying the game through to completion long after you did the rewards quests.

I mean you could argue a Switch or Switch 2 is playing anywhere since it is able to be both portable and dock with a TV. You can also make the argument that any Steam capable handheld is the same if you also have a decent PC and then the upcoming Steam Machine and that has cloud saves that you can sync across those devices.

It will be interesting what happens with the next Xbox console and if it will have an optical drive at all and if it doesn't these games would be locked out to those who don't have an older Xbox with a drive.

I got the original Xbox a little after it launched but I already had a Gamecube and PS2 at that point. I wanted an Xbox because each of the systems had exclusive games that generation that made it worth owning each one. I got Halo and Dead or Alive 3 with it and not long after Panzer Dragoon Orta and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I remember my first thoughts on the controller being that despite it's size it was really well suited to shooters but it wasn't so hot with fighting games and general action games. Although I do recall getting it from Woolworths since in the town I grew up in that was the only place that sold anything like that and the next nearest place was several miles away. There is nothing like that left in that town these days not even a CEX surprisingly.

I'd be more curious if the rumours of them being as much as 70% down year on year in the US are true as that is where they sell the bulk of their hardware.

@fatpunkslim the Xbox branded ROG ally isn't even produced by Xbox so they won't be making any kind of profit from it to factor into their sales. It is probably also only a very limited niche market that is buying it so if the sales numbers were in any way significantly both Asus and Xbox would have mentioned it by now.

Games like this even free ones that are designed just to basically give away easy achievements kind of ruined the value of them. Now all kinds of marketplaces are full of easy low cost games just designed to inflate peoples achievement scores not really showing who is the better gamer just who has the most time and money to play them all. Admittedly I went through a period several years back on Playstation of trying to platinum every game I played and in the end it sucked the fun out of the experience as I was no longer enjoying the games I played and it became a case of me choosing what to play next based on how easy it was to get every trophy.

Currently I am not willing to spend a penny on a new Xbox console after this generations confusing marketing from them and not being sure what direction they actually want to take since they tend to change direction every year or so.

This is one reason why I am very wary of having everything I own stored online to one single account across multiple services regardless of it is Microsoft, Google or anyone else as one wrong person gets access to those accounts and you lose it all. Although any personal things like family photos I keep backed up on some kind of physical storage and not on cloud storage.

Not that much this year. One all the Gamepass subscription time I had stored up expired at the end of last year I pretty much started using it less and less and only for older games. I spend the majority of my time on the PS5 when I do play since I have a larger library of games on there. I also probably play my Switch more too.

Just checked this out and it's not showing for me in the UK all of the prices are showing full price.

@Decimateh The two things aren't mutually exclusive a game franchise can have the most people playing and be played for the most amount of time on a service and people can also cancel their subscriptions. It's not evidence that people were lying at all as you seem to think it is.

I mean there are only so many ways you and design a simple cube shape anyway. People are just comparing two things that are the same shape and being surprised they look they same. It's like comparing two round balls used for different sports and then coming to they conclusion they are in fact both round spheres.

Can it really stand shoulder to shoulder with something if a large part of what made it become such a favourite with people at the time is removed? All that tells me is they don't actually know the reason the game was so loved and as much as people remember the campaign the vast majority of people played it for years after because of either split screen multiplayer or lan connected games. That is what elevated the game as the successor to goldeneye in that regard as far as console fps went.

If anything the music in the trailer helped get me interested. Seems to be going for a Doom/Fear hybrid look too.

When I was younger it used to be all the time. Now as I am older I will usually play through a game once and move on usually because of time and the fact I have access to far more games these days.

The reason they have become believable is people have lost any faith in Xbox in general this year. It's almost as if those working there are oblivious to their own words and actions causing people to lose faith with them. You can blame people spreading rumours all you like but when you are also sending mixed messages on what your overall vision is don't expect your existing customers to always be happy as a result.

If this is true would this just not further put off potentially new customers if they hear that people already subscribed will gets lower price than them? It would make it seem they are preferred customers over you. That would pretty much prevent any future growth in those markets if there was going to be any to begin with.

This kind of makes sense for any game with multiple games modes. If you only spend time time playing one mode or want to remove the campaign mode after beating it then more games should do this going forward.

Rewards used to make Gamepass pay for itself as in a 3 month period you used to easily be able to earn enough points to get a 3 month Gamepass Ultimate gift card and still have many points left over. Even though they nerfed it last year it was still possible to do it every 3 months. I wonder how this will effect the amount of subscribers in total too as I am curious how many people actually used the rewards this way.

This is one of the problem Microsoft seemed to have. They were expecting everyone to rush out and buy an Xbox and subscribe to Gamepass because they made all of these third party acquisitions. These games were never system sellers on their own as they usually sold equally across all the platforms they were on. The reason they sold so many is pretty much everyone had the chance to play them. It may shock some people but if all you console is offering as a selling point is the same games you can play on the others but the others offer a huge library of games that you can't then people will go to the ones with more choices.

It is difficult to completely accept this as a definitive answer. They have said one thing multiple times only to do the opposite after. Do I think there will be a console with the name Xbox on it in the future? Yes but I feel it will be a branding only and it will be PC hardware makes like Asus that are making them and it will be essentially just an operating system. In a way kind of like the 3DO model. So definitely this console/pc hybrid that has been rumoured.

It really depends on how much time you spend playing games and how many you get through. If you have the time to play several hours daily and play through multiple games a month it's good value for you. Adding a load of extra games and other perks is all well and good but you have to find the time to take advantage of it. Sometimes too much as part of a subscription isn't great value if you don't really use much of it.

The problem with this is services EA Play and Ubisoft+ and even the Fortnite thing would probably attract fewer customers. All those services agreed deals with Microsoft to be a part of the top tier and probably got paid up front doing so that kind of thing would never work as they would be relying on you essentially subscribing to them separately for them to get any money from it. It's nice in theory sure but it ultimately wouldn't work for those things as they would be no different to a normal subscription model except you are managing the payment through a gamepass account.

This is up there with telling people who don't have an always on connection that they still have a product for you with an Xbox 360. When you're doubling the price of something the value instantly diminishes. You can add as many extras as you like on to the higher tier but if they aren't what the customer wanted to begin with it isn't actually adding value just people paying for extra that they will never use.

Ah the old we wanted to save you money but we decided against it. The only way they would have even considered this though is if it was going to be heavily pushed and advertised as an Xbox console to the mass consumer market. Since it was never going to be that and it was always going to be marketed towards the tech enthusiast as a niche product I can't believe it was ever a serious consideration.

Is it good value for what you get yes very much so. Comparing it's used price to a recently released system that is far more in demand that the Series S has ever been is a bit of a stretch. Value can be very much subjective on what you can get out of any kind of hardware so just simply being a lower price and having access to all those games doesn't always make it the best choice for value for everyone. The other reason why the Series S is so low in price used is because no one seems to want one and you can go into any pawn shop or CEX and see several systems all lined up on display often for months and they don't shift fast even at the prices they are. You could make this exact same argument against any older harder compared to newly released hardware. It's great that you got something you wanted at a low price but it almost sounds like an article that is trying to convince people not to buy a Switch 2 because it is new and costs more than an old used console more than anything.

My Xbox account is about 18 years old at this point nearly 19. My first achievements are dated all the way back to the end of 2006 yet I need to now prove I am over a certain age. In principal I get what they are trying to do but it is going beyond protecting people and starting to dictate what they deem appropriate to view because they don't feel anyone under 18 or their parents can regulate stuff themselves or handle certain topics.

@Kaloudz in that case you may actually get some enjoyment out of the later entries even though they have little connection to the source material and the scripts on some of them were meant for other movies and just had a Hellraiser plot added to them.

@Kaloudz as someone already said the first two movies are worth a watch maybe the third one but even that isn't great but after that they just get really bad.