asdfghjklz

Asha is an expert at cutting things because it gets her huge bonuses, so no.

@PyroMessiah86 “With this change, we buy the games, we pay to play online/ultimate, and buy our games to stream from our library and then have to pay again to stream them? That's nonsense.”

That’s why I buy my games outright and don’t bother with all this subscription garbage. You can’t charge me to play a game I’ve already bought and downloaded.

That’s pathetic. The only thing Asha has done is cut jobs, destroy studios, and introduce new headaches to make Xbox even less convenient to play on.

@cronogold If you give a goldfish thousands of hours the movements can be translated into button presses used to beat many games by sheer random chance. The same can be said for the movements of clouds in the sky or the results of a random number generator.

That doesn’t mean the game was well-designed.

If only FromSoft enabled this instead of actively hating their players.

That’s too bad that it’s not as well-reviewed as the original. I gave the first game a brief try but didn’t get into it. I guess I’ll just pick this one up on a heavy discount and see if it clicks any better for me.

@Mr-Cage Starfield is definitely one of the purchases I regret the most! I paid like $40 for it on sale and played it for maybe 4 hours before I couldn’t stand it anymore. It really shows you why game publishers these days try to avoid offering demos.

Game Pass is a great value if you have a mind to power through all the content. I was finding that with Game Pass I wasn’t using it consistently every month so I ended up just buying games on sale rather than silently see that money withdrawn every month.

It’s interesting to compare this to the 80 hours for the main story plus story-related side content that’s been reported for GTA VI.

It reminds me of what the Take-Two guy said that their games offer exceptionally cheap entertainment per hour. Helps explain why that (give or take) $1 per hour game will sell so much better than this $1.75 to $4.67 per hour game (assuming it’s $70).

@RadioHedgeFund Copyright law already allows you make backups of your games for personal use. What it doesn’t allow is sharing those backups online or with your friends.

If you are sufficiently determined, you can crack the DRM on your games, but publishers aren’t exactly eager to open the door to even more widespread piracy.

If you were able to seamlessly rip your games without DRM it would be trivial to share them with millions for free.

Discs also have DRM, just like downloads.

If you’re asking for copyright law to prohibit DRM, well, copyright law is designed to protect the rights of the work’s creator. That’s like saying Target should be prohibited from locking up game consoles.

Why anyone thinks Helix will have a disc drive is just beyond me. Users have overwhelmingly expressed their preference for digital and Microsoft, like it or not, is neither a museum nor a charity.

Asha can’t guarantee that Xbox Live, Xbox, or Microsoft itself will be around in 2042 so that question is nonsense. Companies that were once dominant go out of business every year.

@betterthings Sony don’t make decisions like ending physical disc production with only the US in mind. C’mon now, they’re a Japanese company. They obviously consider sales trends across all territories.

And if you look at weekly sales charts out of Japan, the only company still pulling meaningful physical sales is Nintendo.

@slimyeel That’s simply not true. 85% of US PlayStation game sales are digital. The only company that is roughly 50-50 is Nintendo (globally).

@ZombiesEveryWhere People will also claim this is about preserving games, but it’s so much easier to preserve a game download than to rip a disc (how many people still own optical drives)? Both require DRM cracking anyways, so there’s no advantage to discs. Oh, and discs degrade over time.

Sony and Microsoft would be foolish to build disc drives into their next-gen consoles. It’s much lower margin and the audience moved on years ago. Plus, many Xbox players don’t really buy games outright anymore.

@oopsiezz What evidence do you have that games are actually cheaper on Steam? I see 80 to 90% off sales on the Xbox Store all the time on this very website.

Play Anywhere is such a great program and I’m surprised more people don’t take advantage of it. I guess people really can’t be bothered to switch from Steam.

What’s the point of posting such a vague rumor? Anyone can predict that something “neat” will be announced, and they will of course never be wrong.

It’s awesome that Xbox engineering is doing such a great job, even if it’s the only thing Xbox is doing well. Good on them.

@HonestHick She’s doing great by laying off thousands and taking a huge bonus for herself? Yeah sure 🤣

These are all great changes. Engineering is the only thing Xbox is doing right these days.

I have a feeling Todd set this preview up so Asha wouldn’t can even more staff. It’s sad when people have to constantly beg for their jobs because of how long games take to make

But more layoffs will come anyways, because executive compensation is tied to reducing headcount. Xbox will continue its slow decline that has recently greatly accelerated.

I haven’t played any of the Toy Story games and can’t clearly recall watching any of the movies despite being a huge Disney fan, but I’m still tempted to pick up Toy Story 3. Remasters of licensed games tend to dull the edges of the original.

Edit: Turns out I already have it on PS Plus! (PSP version, rendered at a higher resolution.) I wonder if it will be removed from there too.

For a second I thought a Warframe spinoff was getting delisted and I thought I needed to binge it. But nope, still gonna keep procrastinating on playing Warframe.

@Vaako007 $300 in January 2000 was worth $593.52 in June 2026, but this site just likes to act like console gaming is more expensive than it’s ever been. Not really true when you factor in the 80 to 90% off sales on many digital games.

There is no reason to buy an Xbox unless you’re a millionaire. Just get a PS5 Digital and call it a day.

“Every hunt is a risk. Every extraction is earned.”

Yeah they got that tagline straight from an AI chatbot.

@shiningpikablu252 Pretty sure no one is switching time zones for… these… games.

@Matthewnh Except Microsoft-published games now require the download of the game files and the disc is just a license to play the game. Eventually those servers will be shut down.

Why not just include the link instead of making everyone scan the QR code?

https://www.coca-cola.com/us/en/offerings/fanta/wanta-fanta/come-get-it

@ILuvGames I’ve found that PlayStation and Xbox offer extremely competitive sales of 80 to 90% off many games that are a few years old. They will continue to compete with Steam so it’s not as if they can just pull random prices out of a hat and expect people to pay them.

It’s only depressing if you are fixated on doing things exactly as you did in 2006. Pretty sure most people aren’t using flip phones anymore.

More communication is usually better but I feel Xbox is putting out way too many mixed messages about their multi-platform strategy. It would be better just to release one short, simple statement stating that they will evaluate exclusivity on a case-by-case basis, based on market trends, consumer behavior, and business needs. Easy, done.

@InfamousOrange I really don’t see the point of a PlayStation gamer switching to Xbox over this when first-party Xbox games are now merely licenses on a disc and require a download of the actual game files. Once the Xbox servers are shut down in 20XX, the disc will be entirely useless unless you already have the game downloaded.

Fact: Approximately 85% of PlayStation game sales are digital now and this is increasing every year.

(On Xbox, the number is likely even more lopsided when you factor in Game Pass.)

Fact: Microsoft no longer includes games on the disc and the disc is simply a license for a download.

Fact: Discs reduce Xbox’s already meager 3% profit margin due to manufacturing, shipping, and the retailer cut.

It’s safe to say there is no realistic chance that Helix will have a disc drive.