@Kaloudz since it isn't currently backwards compatible it can't get achievements. I may even say it is possible it might not get added ever just due to the licencing and both the developer and one of the publishers not being around anymore. Which seems to be the case with a lot of games from that period or before. Don't get me wrong I would love to see it added I just can't see it any time soon.

@Banjo- Yeah the last time I probably done it was when I was in school and managed to be "sick" for longer than I should have. If I am booking time off work now I am not staying home the whole time or at all.

People are still taking time off work for games? I admit I knew someone who took two weeks of when San Andreas came out and even back then I thought it was a strange thing to book time off work for and that was in my early 20's. I wouldn't even consider it at this point in life no matter how excited I got for a game not that I really get that hyped up for game releases these days. I just play them when I can get around to them.

@Rimebreaker I am not saying their is no room for improvement but much of what you are suggesting is more of an artificial way of simply adding more achievements and gamerscore than actual improve anything. Adding more achievements isn't an improvement as much as you think it is.

@Rimebreaker there is very little you can do outside of that really. As it is achievements across all platforms tend to be identical and up to this point it has really only been Sony that has had that extra one on top. Even across various PC stores they are exactly the same ones as eachother. Not really sure what you could do to make this kind of achievement function any differently to how Sony does the Platinum one?

I seen the list you made above and a lot of it seems to come from Retroachievments. That would fundamentally mean they would have to change how the system works from the ground up. Plus I don't think many developers want to be putting that much time into adding huge lists of extra hardcore achievements because as said before they would want them to be the same across all platforms.

A new achievement plus system probably wouldn't work either as that just sounds like an reason to add even more of a gamerscore to even the easiest games to further artificially inflate it.

@Rimebreaker If it's anything like the Playstation trophies the Platinum is earned through getting the rest on the base game while any dlc or even free add-ons later don't need to be done for it. I would imagine part of the reason would be developers can implement them the same way on both platforms then.

Not had this problem myself but all my games seem to be displaying no time played on them and that is from ones I have put a lot of time into as I checked after noticing it with recent ones.

As I am currently not subscribed to Gamepass I don't play any hours but even if I did I would only use it to quickly try a game before downloading it if I wanted to play it more. Even on Playstation I have only ever streamed a small handful of PS3 games on that service simply because it was an easy and quick way to play the game and I didn't have it on that console natively. It has been years such I have even done that too.

Really not a fan of the latency issues and even with a 1000mbs connection and not doing any other tasks that involve that connection I would still get instances where the image would stop updating for a moment and become pixelated that was mainly on the Xbox side of things that Playstation though.

I know it's reportedly only 4% of the user base that apparently plays more than 15 hours or more a month but it really does feel like they are being punished for others not using it. Unless you get something like 400-500 hours a month for the same price as gamepass ultimate and without the need to actually subscribe to that too because then in just becomes awful value. By the sounds of it though if you buy the playtime on it's own you will only have access to any games in your library that are play anywhere titles. I just can't see an upside of having to pay for gamepass and if you want to play it on a TV or smart device that has the Xbox app regularly you have to pay a premium to do so.

This is actually quite crazy. Aren't their cloud based handheld consoles that their main selling point is it has access to Gamepass? Also I wonder how the effects all those TV and firesticks that they heavily promoted as being able to play Xbox games? Well if anything it seems so few people actually bothered playing that way. You would imagine they would have to have a separate steaming plan for such devices.

The fact this also only effects just 4% of the userbase though actually suggests very few people if any use it for any length of time and it will probably mainly have an impact on those Xbox One consoles users that could still play Series games through streaming because I can't imagine there are that many users outside of console and PC.

The worst possible thing that could have happened for this game was a Star Fox game getting announced and not only did that happen but it also managed to get released before it too. If this had been been released first I can imagine it would have sold fairly well especially on Switch 2 and probably would have made people want a Star Fox game but people ended up getting it anyway.

Wasn't it also rumoured that you would also need to keep the disc anyway as it will become tied to your account? If that is the case even the delisted Xbox one and series games that have physical versions floating around will only be a finite amount and if anything further drive their used prices up because they would have no resale value after being linked to an account.

@TDHorizon oh I agree they aren't actively trying to destroy the division especially after how much money they have spent on it in recent years. Having said that they always seem to trying to claw their way back to where they were since around the halfway point of the 360 era and nothing seems to work. So in many ways I can see why they are lower on the overall priority list for Microsoft than it's AI division when it comes to ram.

Their targets seem almost completely unattainable from the position they are in now but then so have many of the ones they have set themselves over the past decade which is why they keep changing their overall focus every 18 months.

One thing that surely won't help the next console is having multiple store fronts on it. If the Steam Machine is anything to go by then there will be no subsidisation of the hardware because Microsoft won't be able to guarantee that people that buy it will ever buy games from their store. Some people seem to want low priced hardware and a completely open system which isn't going to happen with anything resembling modern hardware.

Of course Microsoft are actually one of the main causes of their own ram issues and somehow they didn't even have the foresight to stockpile any ram for their consoles which should be a huge indication of how low priority they see that department.

These kinds of games and I refer to them as games in the loosest possible sense are simply designed to prey on people who want to artificially inflate their gamerscore on a leaderboard. It's no longer about having something to show off about and that you managed to get something difficult in games it's become about how much disposable income you have to spend on as many quick and easy games. Personally I can't imagine some of the people that do this are having that much fun at all.

I do have over 120K in points atm and last year before I cashed out on them I had well over 300K and ended up using it all on gift vouchers for Amazon and Argos that was right after they increased the price of Gamepass and I didn't see any value in using the points on that anymore.

I actually think this new rewards system that is introduced might also be slightly better as last month was the first time in a long time I earned over 15,000 without spending any money or having Gamepass active.

If this is true then it would seem that Xbox and Microsoft above them are simply prioritising the highest yearly earners and everything else is being considered too risky financially which is certainly a bad sign if it turns out to be true.

It seems like both Playstation and Xbox are having a contest this week to see how many people they can anger. It's definitely the strangest game of one upmanship I have ever seen.

I have decided to go back to coping tapes like I did on the C64 might take a little while longer to load modern games but it's clearly the way forward. I'll show them!

Not reducing your overall investment in games while at the same time making huge redundancies and possibly closing entire studios? That means you are reducing your investment in games especially if you do it right after you announce a new games by one of those studios then within days look to get rid of them. It's like whoever makes statements like this doesn't realise their words and actions aren't matching up.

Wait if Ninja Theory is being shut down does that mean Senua that only just got announced and shown off at the showcase is cancelled?

It's not like the series hasn't had a new game in the past several years so resurrected is a strange choice of words. There have been two games featuring Crash in that time Crash 4 and Crash Team Rumble which was released 3 years ago.

You didn't have to be an insider and know the actual numbers to know this would have happened. I am just shocked they never expected it. Or perhaps some did and they voiced that opinion and they went ahead with it anyway. The biggest challenge now will be trying to convince those who left to come back since they have dropped the price.

I will start typing it as Xobx because you will either assume I am dyslexic or spelling it backwards but will never be totally sure which one.

On a serious note though this seems like such a non thing to even care about. Right now all they seem to be doing with their PR is adding a new coat of paint to everything and telling people it's a new exciting time for Xbox and people are buying into the hype and going overboard with it.

I want them to do well and actually deliver but their PR overload over the past month hasn't actually changed anything but cosmeticlly. It will in reality take several months to a year before we start seeing any real changes.

Licenced games are always going to be difficult to ever happening. It's not as simple as just allow the emulator to play the disc anymore and it seems to be the reason why that kind of backwards compatibility doesn't happen anymore. Publishers want to be able to resell the backwards compatible games that do become available and if they no longer have that licence then it would be more likely too expensive to get it for the purpose of backwards compatibility releases or just not going to happen if someone else currently has it in terms of releasing games.

I would imagine a lot of people think just because Activision published the games they still have the rights to them. It wouldn't surprise me if we do get the older Crash and Spyro games though.

If any neither one is in a better position hardware wise going forward with increasing costs and with them seemingly rushing the announcement and changing the direction of Xbox again you can almost guarantee that has had some kind of impact on what they were doing behind the scenes on developing the next console.

If it's single development studios that is fine but they are effectively going to just be replacing the ones they shut down over the past year or so many of which were actually quite far into developing games or had a quite a history of developing decent games. As long as they don't attempt to buy another publisher thinking that will solve all their problems and make everyone want an Xbox because the last two times they have done that it never worked and that is how we got to where we are at now.

Personally I would keep all the original Xbox IPs as exclusive and restart a lot of the dormant ones since they have plenty they can use from the 360 era alone and any IPs they purchased from the Bethesda and Activision Blizzard deals keep them multi platform as that is where their strengths lie in being multi platform games because they usually sold similar amounts on both Playstation and Xbox.

It's like a PR overload in the past few days, they are pretty much telling people what they want to hear too. Not complaining I just hope the stick with it all.

Mines in a couple of weeks so I guess I will see what I will get but seems like quite a few of us commenting have a birthday soon too.

It made sense to remove it as they expected everyone to want to sub to gamepass for just that one game and it didn't happen and all it did was reduce the potential sales they could of had selling it separately.

Wow that was swift. We seem to be hearing rumours or announcements and they are happening quickly. Just checked the PC game pass tier and it is showing as £10.99 so the same price as Premium which makes it far better value if you just play on PC.

It will be much quicker that way. It always confused me why if I purchased the gift card through the console interface I thin had to go and fetch the code from my email to be able to activate it. As long as the prices are the same it will be fine.

A few weeks back I think they accidently switched to the new rewards system by mistake as it came up with a completely new condensed layout of the main page and it was quite confusing to actually find some things at first. I do recall one of the new daily tasks being to use Edge for 15 minutes a day.

Ideally if making Halo, Forza, Fable and Gears is no longer a possibility of being exclusive now they are also on Playstation and they won't really be making any of the Bethesda or ActivisionBlizzard stuff exclusive. Then reviving dormant IPs they own and making them exclusives would be the next logical step.

For the price of a new Xbox controller you would expect them to come with a rechargeable battery as standard these days. I understand why with the Xbox 360 they were an optional add on as wireless controllers were still a pretty new thing at the time and they wanted to keep the cost down. They should have had an internal battery or had the removable one included so they can be easily replaced when they die as standard since the release of the Xbox One.

We have been hearing a lot of conveniently leaked rumours over the past few days suggesting they may be pulling back a bit on some of the changes in the last few years. That's all well and good but they really need to stick to it long term as one thing that has put many of their existing customers off recently is they keep changing their vision and strategies every 18 months because the last one doesn't seem to be working as quickly as they wanted it to.

They are definitely starting to look like they are trying to get everyone to like them leading up to this new consoles release maybe a bit too much. I am not against it if they actually deliver with the next console although I still have my doubts how a console with other store fronts on it that they won't receive any royalties from will help them business wise.

Currently though they are now clearly in full PR mode and trying to do everything they can to get their remaining customers to stay. Although not sure giving free stuff to content creators is always a good move as it always comes across like you want them to say nice things about you if you give them free gifts.

I am going to give her credit she is currently saying all the right things and actually starting to implement them. I think they just have to be careful not to only listen to the loudest voices through one single platform though as sometimes they can be one more in favour of things others aren't.

Only ever got one Nintendo console the day they came out with the Gamecube, although I also did get both the DS and 3DS the day they came out so handhelds too. I did attempt to get both and N64 and Wii the day they came out but N64 pre-orders were very limited near where I lived and Wii pre-orders far outpaced how quickly they produced them at launch. I tend to wait a few months after launch to even consider getting one now and even for the most part back then I did usually until there is a game I really want to play on that particular system.

The only time in the internet age I was briefly fooled by an April fools joke was when IGN did a Legend of Zelda movie trailer because it seemed to come out of nowhere. These days if people try to make viral April fools jokes they often try too hard. If I recall several years back it got really bad because there were far too many stories flooding every sight and it got to the point it was out of hand. It seems to have slowly started to become less and less though as time has went on though or maybe I just don't notice it as much.

Oh man I have been waiting all this time for my toaster to get a software update to become an Xbox. Now I will just have to continue playing Xbox games on my Xbox like some kind of caveman.

Unfortunately this was always bound to happen sooner or later no live service game will go on at it's peak forever when that generation who was into it from a young age eventually grows up and moves on to other things.

If anything it just shows that Epic relies too heavily on just one game and has no other projects that they can potential move a large amount of the people to in order to restructure in some way. I would imagine these kinds of games have created far more jobs in the industry than any other in the past decade so if one as successful as Fortnite starts failing these kinds of layoffs will sadly become inevitable.

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.