abe_hikura

I get why Rockstar would do this, money but why is Netflix do they think people will sub to see a trailer and just stick around? you'd think the pandemic would have taught them that lesson.

@InterceptorAlpha The Gears 1 remaster of the remake also didn't do great either. As much as I enjoyed playing this Halo remake, it does smack of the old "definition of insanity".

The score is low on the Xbox Store because, apparently, Cortana isn't as endowed (and other such concerns), not that there aren't legitimate complaints outside of that stuff.

Don't get me wrong, awesome! But this does seem to be the same thing as the X1/XS BC (which was also awesome) and still relies on the games being okayed for inclusion and not just throwing in any Xbox disc into the machine.

EDIT: Now I might be reading a bit too much into this, but since this seems to be fresh discussions with devs/pubs theres a chance we might see more Backwards comaptibilty games on Xbox

For me, as a Xbox gamer, I think "unnecessary" best sums it up. I get they wanted to sell this as a "new thing" so PS players don't see it as a last gen port and eant to buy E-day (that worked out well) but it is just Ultimate with a next gen update.

I would have loved to see a group up remake or an even more expanded edition but slightly better Ultimate via BC just wasnt enough.

Normally I have a lot of sympathy for hardware manufacturers because this is all outside of their control. You want to make a reasonably priced device and your forced to jack up the price to something silly.

but its hard to do that with Xbox, because after all, business daddy Microsoft is one of the biggest players in this AI push thats causing it this, and with them earning 80-something billion this year, they could easily take the hit on Series consoles

I kinda hope these "retro" achievements are a little more scaled back than usual games, I don't like the idea of having to do some counterintuitive thing to unlock the last one.

I suspect these are going to trickle out, as a few people here noted they would drop their X/S if enough of them come to PC.

I would enjoy this but there's a 0% chance I would buy it.

The only reason I've ever paid for playing early is out of fear for spoilers... that... that's not a concern here.

It really was one of those games where you finished and you thought, "man, the sequels are going to be amazing"

As a heads up, with the new poster style boxarts 360/OG games a black bar at the bottom

I get that there might be licensing issues but if that's the case, why even announce it for GP in the first place.

I enjoyed Quarantine Zone when it came out on PC gamepass, don't think I'll play it on console.

@Netbean it is an interesting problem.
There are two types of users who "need" this feature more. Series S owners and Xbox on PC users (since Play Anywhere applies), but neither of them will have a disc drive (most 'gaming PCs' don't, handhelds like the Xbox Ally don't).

I suspect when this hits my Series S-owning buddies will want to use my Xbox to convert their games.

@Tonmoy I do feel worried that this would be a ground up Obsidian game, not built on top of a existing Fallout game. They do great work when it comes to the writing but the actual game part has been weak for multiple games in a row, having someone else done the ground work might be best for them.

I do really hop inexile gets to take a crack at a Fallout spin-off pitch it as a "classic fallout revival" and use a wasteland 3 as a base (loved that game obviously this would need an actual player character)

I'm not sure I buy this. Until now all previous reports had Avowed sales meant it as a series was ending but the Pillars universe continuing via the original series.

Though it dose feel very Xbox right now, they force Obsidian to make an Fallout game AND fire a while bunch of Obsidian writers... you know the reason why people want Obsidian to make a Fallout game.

There's also a certain symmetry. Obsidian hated being given a strict deadline and being "limited to consoles" for New Vegas and now they are being forced to work on a new Fallout, as a Xbox console exclusive, and as part of the new leaderships "more games, faster" plan

I love Black Flag but I just don't have any desire to spend money on this, and to be clear it dose seem to be the money angle as I'm sure I will play the heck out of this when it comes to gamepass in 2 years time (or the next time ubi+ has a decent offer)

External drive, sell it as some legacy feature. "Use it to play your Xbox discs and even install PC games if you happen to have one of those ancient relics" make sure its also compatible with Series S and digital X

360.

I had my own money so I bought more than OG
My local game stores basically stop stocking Xbox One games instore outside of major releases, so I had to order them and with postage they ended up being slightly more expensive than digital.

I supposed partial game disc is better than no game disc.

I did chuckle when they was boasting about upgrading Oblivion Remaster from Code in a Box to full game card on Switch 2 (which credit where credits due, well played) when the same game requires download on Xbox and PS.

How much should we read into the fact we've heard about a bunch of studios being closed and none of them had this kind of instant "um actually"ed?

More than happy to wait until next year to play the campaign and then the MP for 2 weeks with a buddy and then never touch it again.

My bet is they wont close it but gut it to a small team they can attach to other games, even when it doesn't make sense "from the makers of Fallout New Vegas, comes Halo ODST 2"

Now I'm sure its X1/XS games because the X1 was basically supposed to do this with its always on DRM and so the discs have some sort of tag/code that the 360 and OG Xbox discs wouldn't have but I did get instantly worried that Xbox was giving up on OG/360 BC for a moment there.

Certainly. They've already got spotty track record on this and if the Helix has a disc drive it's almost certainly going to be for backwards compatibility not new releases

@DesertRanger I wouldn't put it past Rockstar for there be a dedicated Helix version that's probably running via the "Xbox" part but utilising the new hardware before the actual PC version launches.

Some 2k exec somewhere "triple dip baby"

It really dose seem they are withdrawing from everything that's not a core IP, taking that money and consolidating it on those core IP.

@oopsiezz It lines up with a former Bethesda dev saying if a Beth worker isn't doing anything tied to ES or Fallout they probably wont have a job soon.

@FraserG It'd be cool if it has a "unlocked" FPS mode that isn't actually for Series X, but when Helix rolls around it can use the extra power to hit 60FPS (or whatever the Helix can do) via BC. Kinda like the Bethesda games giving us seperate frame targets and graphics mode options, kinda pointless now but handy later.

Obviously, they won't, because they can't sell us GTA6 Helix edition then.

Man, Xbox really does go in cycles; here we are back at the early X1 generation. Close everything and focus on the "core" AAA franchises only for them to struggle, or stumble in development and cause delays and get huge gaps, creating the perception "Xbox has no games".

Stepping up an actually managing these studios would be far more helpful than gutting Xbox and then complaining they aren't making their money back on 400m budgets

It really needs back filling. I have about 600 Xbox digital games and over on the PC app I have like 12.

Pure genius. Commit to the return of exclusives 6 years after launch at almost double the price.

(I am aware it's not greed but since MS is one of the biggest AI companies, it is their fault.)

Does anyone else get a weird "this probably how Senua would be previewed" feeling from these?

3rd entry, check
massive combat overhaul, check
retained vibe, check.

Doomed Ninja Theory-ing aside, I am so exicted for this game.

I think short of Steam failing to sell any of them, this will let Xbox charge what they like for Helix. Before they was scared of breaching that 1000 mark and being seen as crazy. Now they can show the Steam Machine specs next to Helix's and go "look Helix is X times more powerful and not even 2x more expensive and it comes with a controller"

If I was MS I would make sure the Helix is packed with as much digital extras as possible. They cost the company nothing and makes the price seem more justified.

I did think OD was going to be safe, there's just no way to recover from "we cancelled a kojima title to save some pennies", it's a PR nuke.

@ShiroKitten I suppose "Exclusive... but you can also get it on Steam... and possibly other PC platforms" takes up a little too much space.

I think I might have to buy the Godzilla remaster first, just so that it exists on my record.

@MrStark I would love to see some evidence of that, truly, because a small collection of studios made up from the best and brightest across XGS would be amazing. Still, at the moment with all we're hearing right now, the question isn't "how best to extract the talent from these studios" it's staff-wide notices of closures (Ninja Theory) and "will the studio be saved by investors (ala Tango) or just disappear (ala Arkane Austin)?"

@Fiendish-Beaver I doubt they'll kill Gears of War off for poor E-Day sales, killing the studio and then licensing out the IP to external studios, on the other hand...

I also want to note for my group and me, the gamepass MTX/DLC relationship is the exact opposite of what you described. We've bought DLCs for games we probably wouldn't have if we paid "upfront" for the game, and the only MTX's I've ever touched have been in GP titles as a way of supporting the devs.

Though I will say GP is certainly a double-edged sword for Xbox with us because we're just as likely to go "I really liked this GP title, oh look the complete edition is on sale on Y platform, best grab that. so beyond our sub, MS got nothing)

I'm not expecting these games to be multi-format for this gen, later when it turns out people aren't going to pay the inflated "today" prices of a 6-year-old console for Gears and Clockwork (After all, it sure seems like Xbox is about to have a whole lot fewer games after the coming closures.) and Helix is very expensive and most sales on it are through third party stores? Then maybe.

Look I want to be optimistic, My series X is my favourite console of this gen, its where I want to game, and I'm sure taking a hatchet to the studios makes fiscal sense but I really don't see how gutting XGS is going to lead to "more games, faster*" and it just feels like we're taking a weird detour to the early Xbox One era when we're sitting here being told the next Halo/Gears/Forza are going turn things around for team green and turns out those folks who'll buy an Xbox for those games, have an Xbox already.

*Anyone else chuckle at the idea of rushing the next Fallout and Elder Scrolls out the door, because if there's a couple of games that really don't need to be more buggy its them.

@Cakefish "Microsoft wanted niche, highly rated games to add variety and prestige to Game Pass. " exactly, it was also to counter the narrative that Xbox only had "three games" that they milked to death. It's why all this has me worried, it seems they want to go back to the days where its just these big franchises again. Ever-increasing budgets and decreasing "risk" (innovation)

So disrespectful to let NT announce their new game, delivering on what people wanted to improve from their games, then turn around a week later and take them behind the shed.

Considering that Xbox wasn't actually losing money, they could have afforded to give these studios a chance; whatever project they are working on will decide if the studio stays open or not.

Man really not a good sign it's the non-franchise studios

Probably shouldn't be concerned Xbox talked about how it has all these great IP and the first blood was an AA studio.

I don't expect Xbox to do well if it's going to cut everything that isn't big AAA franchise bait.

I mean it was such a success when Xbox banked entirely on Halo, GoW, and Forza.

Here my dumb proposal, drop AAA for a while, each studio gets 1 AAA slot

We just don't need "Marcus's eyelash uses more polygons that entire previous Marcus model..." thats just burning money.

Release more AA games. That gets them more games, more often, with much lower budgets to break Even.

Or at least use the RGS/upcoming CD Red model, release a game, use that as a base for two more games releasing way faster than "real sequels" give us more stuff like Fallout New Vegas, AC Brotherhood, Pirate Yakuza, FC Blood Dragon, Halo ODST and such.

@Banjo- don't get me wrong you're right, though it should be noted it was saved. Xbox was going to close it. If a decades long hunt didn't protect Tango, then Obsidian's legacy won't protect them from their "metrics" on the corporate cuts machine.

It dose make me... let's go with chuckle, that the former AI exec, now Xbox boss complaining about hardware costs driven by AI

@PsBoxSwitchOwner

I'd love to see this put to a vote on the feedback site.

Save jobs or return to exclusivity

because it certainly doesn't seem like Xbox can afford both (even more so if Helix has other storefronts).

I wouldn't be surprised if Obsidian gets hit. Outer Worlds 2 and Avowed reportedly didn't do well and in a era where making a good game that sells decently can get a studio killed, two "good games that failed to find an audience" in a row seems risky.

I would have assumed they was safe because of their prestige but Xbox killed Tango after decades of trying to get a Japanese studio.

Xbox has a good showcase.

Xbox: oh look a rake.