carlos82

I do rather like that new Xbox logo and its good to see them showing some love to the console

Issues? Yeah, performance in the open world is atrocious and magnified due to dumping the game into the waste of resources that is UE5. Bethesda should be ashamed of themselves for making no effort whatsoever to fix it

Having recently tried Xcloud again and it working rather well, I'm just going to play it that way, or through Geforce Now

This device has come onto my radar recently, as this year I've sold my PC dues to needing the space my desk occupied and I really don't have much time to play on the TV these days, so this looks like an ideal solution

@themightyant about to say exactly this, if you play COD the cost is basically the same and if you don't, it's now cheaper.

The only issue is those like @StylesT who have already paid the higher price for a years sub (or more) and now won't get COD and will they get reimbursed in any way?

A smart move, if you want to play COD then the price is effectively the same and for the many who have no interest, Gamepass is back to a reasonable price

I'd leave it as it is, we're long since passed the point of no return regarding exclusives and as they're on PC, they wouldn't even be exclusive anyway. With the best will in the world, it's 20 years since Xbox was a genuine sales competitor to PlayStation and Xbox consoles are never going to sell in huge numbers again, with or without exclusives

There is no chance they return to full exclusivity, not least because everything points to Helix games just being Xbox PC games, so you immediately hit that dead end, then you have the issue of how many units will Helix sell and woth Steam on it, you can't guarantee people even buying games from Xbox directly.

But even without such issues and pretending that the next gen box is a fully fledged console, their user base simply isn’t big enough to sustain these big games anymore, hence why they changed in the first place.

At best, I could see their exclusivity, just meaning not on Playstation for the first 6 to 12 months on some.games but that's it

Rare Replay
Halo Master Chief Collection
Panzer Dragoon Orta
Forza Horizon 4 (can you still buy that?)
Indiana Jones
Sea of Thieves
Definitely some of the back compat stuff, I'm just not sure which you can still buy but the Dead or Alive games, Daytona USA, Radiant Silvergun, Hydro Thunder, Streets of Rage Collection etc, Half-Life 2 The Orange Box.
The many Doom games.

To be fair the first thing I'd say is subscribe to Gamepass for a month. Whilst its a service that is of no use to me, this is a situation where its perfect for a newcomer to test out many games and see what direction they want to go in

Really looking forward to this game, though it might be one of those rare instances where I pick it up for Switch 2 to play it on the go

Let's see, the first console I bought with my own money at launch would have been the Dreamcast, I also got the GBA, Gamecube, NDS, Wii, Xbox 360, 3DS, Wii U, PS4, PS4 Pro, Xbox Series X, PS5, PS5 Pro and Switch 2 at launch and got the N64 close to launch for my birthday. The Wii was an accident (for launch), my local Gamestation had 49 units in stock for a midnight opening and all had been reserved, I went with a friend just to experience it but one person didn't show, so I was allowed to buy theirs.

All of them were worth it and I have loved playing on them all, I even still have Dreamcast under my main TV today

If by Xbox One, you mean the One X then I could certainly see the argument but the standard Xbox One aged badly very quickly. Whilst I'd still be happy to play the og Xbox or 360 today, for Xbox One I'd rather play it's games elsewhere

This is why I've long since hated cgi trailers, not only do they often give you little idea how a game will actually look and play but you also get this nonsense. If you want to reveal your game, then do so with gameplay and if you haven't even started making the thing, don't bother at all

I've had Gamepass in the past and PS Plus but neither have any real value for me. This year I've been playing Resident Evil Requiem and Crimson Desert and I'm looking forward to Pragmata and Mouse P.I. For Hire, none of which are on any subscription.

I'm sure many still enjoy these services but they're not for me anymore

@FraserG basically on PS5 VRR doesn't work on PS4 games and also they don't fully utilise the full power of the console, so this patch doesn't even acknowledge the Pro's existence. Outside of probably only this game, the lack of VRR for back compat titles isn't even an issue.

Ultimately, Series X has always had an advantage for backwards compatibility, owing to the One X often having better versions of games than the PS4 Pro did

This is a good move, I get the idea of why someone would come up with such a marketing campaign but it was never going to go down well, whilst also diluting the brand and removing much of it's identity

When the bargain is £50 more than it was 6 years ago, that tells you everyone is in a rough spot, no matter where you play

100% it will not have a disc drive included and I'm leaning against it having an optional one as well. It's just not a big part of their business anymore and not really the target audience of this device either

@jedinite what is? Everything points to Xbox becoming one unified platform and that being PC, Helix just one avenue to access that. None of that is a bad thing, in fact it could be the best value gaming PC on the market

@Questionable_Duck so basically what I said then 😆 and by the time this comes out, GTA6 may well be on PC anyway.

@Questionable_Duck so what else will it be? I already said it'll have backwards compatibility for Xbox console games. Their own slide says they have a unified GDK for Windows PC's/Handhelds and this, which basically says new games will be the PC versions

It sounds like they're making them available to play on PC. Speaking of which, looking at some of their slides, it looks like games made for Helix will simply be PC games and the console part is just for backwards compatibility

@betterthings its simply that DLSS is a significantly better upscaler than the software solution. Thing is whilst image quality maybe better on Switch 2, performance is largely a locked 60 on Series S but unstable on Switch 2

I think without the direction Phil went, Xbox may not even be around now.

Realistically, what else could they have done? Xbox One lagged hugely behind PS4 due to decisions of the previous regime and Xbox's lack of first party unfortunately coincided with Playstation's purple patch on PS4.

Coming into this generation and people already having digital libraries elsewhere, Xbox were in no mans land and nobody would bankroll many billions of acquisitions just to sell those games on a console selling 30 to 40 million.

At this point I don't see how it would be possible to make games exclusive again, especially in the current hardware market

I'll wait until I see what actions she actually takes and not judge her on getting some Mick Foley style cheap pops from the fanboy Twitter nation

I'll be getting it on the PS5 Pro and maybe day on, depending on what else releases around the same time.

Ultimately its Resident Evil that I'm most excited for this year

I've said repeatedly that the concept of generations is over and with the push towards handheld PC's, along with Switch 2 being in its infancy will keep Xbox Series and PS5 relevant for a very long time

It's a brilliant collection that is presented beautifully, with each game showing the physical box, cartridge and manual should you so wish and has a music player.

My only hope is that we get another collection with the Turbografx games, the excellent Saturn Bomberman and others such as N64

@Fiendish-Beaver I still expect to see this next Xbox because I don't feel they were ever likely to make it in big numbers anyway. Xbox Series seems to be the end of the line for true Xbox consoles with future hardware and games simply being PC versions. With Microsoft seeing their future as a publisher, with Gamepass in the cloud as much as (if not more so) PC

@themightyant I wouldn't mind but we used to have more customisation with the pinned groups and I really liked the UI at that point. Shame they had to spoil it

I'm not fan of the PC Xbox App but I dont think this is an improvement and it always makes me laugh how they manage to show so few games on the panel on the left, and what's with the play with friends nonsense taking up so much space?

The Xbox Series dashboard of a couple of years ago was the best, when I could organise my games how I wished its before they ruined it somewhat by removing customisation

"the port is a good one" In what world is that true? It's garbage, not the game itself but the Xbox port is awful with a laundry list of issues from enemies getting stuck in geometry to sound issues and the fact that you can't even move at full speed with the default control scheme. It is easily the worst way to experience Goldeneye, which is a shame as the leaked cancelled port is great

Not a game I'd play but looking around its clear that on PC at least, its CPU optimisation is abysmal and you can be CPU limited running around an empty map. Also a setting is either broken or deliberately lies, "post processing quality" changes your internal and output rendering resolution when it shouldn't.

@FraserG RDR2 didn't win GOTY, so I don't think its a forgone conclusion that GTA will.

Thing is, I feel far too much emphasis is placed upon Geoffs GOTY and it has no real correlation with the games I enjoy

@FraserG this is exactly how I've felt about open world games for a long time. I'd much rather have a smaller world that is fully interactive, than a huge one like AC Valhalla where nothing feels remotely important.

Games like Yakuza and Shenmue were great at this and Skyrim was such a hit as even with its big world (for the time), the cities felt alive and there was adventure to be found everywhere.

So this coupled with that noc system they have and your actions being reflected by everyone, makes this a must play for me

If they pull it off, then Fable could be a GOTY contender. One of my biggest gripes with open world games, is the world and it's people not feeling important and this looks to make them the star of the show

It was only Forza and Fable that I was interested in but the presentation style is great, probably a B for me

@DaPrince what are you babbling on about? Who said everything is about mods? I've long since played through Starfield without mods but they're a great way of extending the replayability of a game

"or the Xbox PC app"

One of the reasons I still buy the games I want to keep on Steam, even if I have Gamepass. Modding support amongst other things is poor making the Xbox app worthless for buying games on.

As for this mod, I was going to download it recently but their site says it has another big update coming at the end of the month, so I'll get it then

Perhaps the One X if you can get it cheap enough as its really good for the select back compat games. But I wouldn't go anywhere near the standard Xbox One, which regularly had poor looking versions of games, which ironically became the Series S's biggest weakness, not being able to run One X versions

This is the big Xbox release for me this year (assuming it is this year), so I can't wait for the direct

It certainly needs changing, its so poorly designed at the moment compared to Steam and I certainly wouldn't mind having it replaced with something that looks like the Xbox Series UI

I don't see it being open world, more likely that's a cutscene or linear scripted section.

In either case, this is easily my most anticipated game

@Fiendish-Beaver I'm certain they'll make new hardware but it won't be a console, in the sense that it'll essentially be a PC in a box and new games running on it will simply be the PC versions and they'll have some form of backwards compatibility layer.

I've really enjoyed playing on Xbox consoles over the years but sadly those days have gone, as console gaming isn't what it used to be in general. I'll still be playing "Xbox" games as Microsoft have bought a few of my favourite IP and developers but this will be on PC

PC (mainly Steam) is my main platform these days with a bit of PS5 and Dreamcast in the mix and I no longer have an Xbox console. That said I have played Xbox releases such as Indiana Jones, Doom and Oblivion Remastered this year

If this was a native app I'd play it regularly but streaming adds too much latency, especially for these kinds of games. Which is a shame as there are many great games here and some great ideas with the challenges

The campaign was good but didn't live up to the expectations that come with the Halo name, or even just a big PS/Xbox 1st party games in general and in a way the game was effectively Xbox's last hurrah as a traditional console platform

None of them, I'm already sick and tired of AI nonsense being pushed into everything and none of it ever ever useful anyway.

More to the point, didn't all this stuff exist before AI?

It'd be nice if I could actually install it on my PC instead of it just showing up as play on cloud, and people wonder why most just use Steam instead

I'll be playing Marvel Cosmic Invasion but I'm busy replaying many of the Resident Evil games at the moment and some Doom and Duke 3D mods