electrolite77

@Spiders

“ The argument against “Easy Mode” is that the game itself is now no longer what people are enjoying. You’re not beating Dark Souls on Easy Mode and having shared my journey.”

I don’t want to share your journey. I want to play the game.

“ We want EVERYONE to climb that mountain and join us. ‘Easy Mode’ is you wanting to take a lift, and that’s how you get there, you’re not welcome!”

I don’t want to join you. You can still have a mountain for games called ‘completed it on Hard mode’ if you want.

“ It’s not elitism, it’s not “gatekeeping”

You just told others they aren’t welcome if they choose a different experience. That is elitism and gate keeping.

“ why can’t you just enjoy it by watching someone else play a game on YouTube”

Because watching a video isn’t the same. I shouldn’t have to say that but here we are.

@LtSarge

“ Everyone should be able to play whichever games they want however they want without feeling demoralised by the community. People who do that take gaming a bit too seriously if you ask me.”

Bingo. It’s the same mentality that gets hung up on games being ‘exclusive.’ If an individual can’t enjoy a game because others can enjoy it or enjoy it in a different way to that individual, that’s their issue to deal with.

Good call by Xbox. Options are always good. If you want to play a game on the highest level of difficulty, do so. If you want to play it on an easier level, do so. It’s a form of entertainment where we have the capacity, technology and skills to make things accessible, so let’s do so.

Anything else is nonsense.

Big fan of the Steamworld games so really looking forward to this. Still don’t think we’ve seen much for a December release though.

@uptownsoul @AFCC

To be fair to the author…

“ It's also worth crediting the PlayStation 5, which shows impressive speeds despite not running a native next-gen version.”

Really looking forward to this. Finally accepted I won’t finish the first in time because I have too much to play, so bring it on.

Also I have a Series X and PS5 and the short loading times are a massive plus of the new gen machines. Fantastic stuff.

One day they’ll put Castle of Illusion on sale.

One day….

@carlos82

Emulation is exactly what I’m contemplating getting one for. I’m watching this with interest.

@Nightcrawler71

Unfortunately not. Not even as an option. They should have included it as a nostalgia thing. Drop the draw distance back and lose 40fps off it.

@PhhhCough

Certainly is. It was One X Enhanced too and looks great.

So I killed a deer in Hunter COTW, got an Achievement for it but it hasn’t given me the Reward points. Anyone else had any issues?

It’s fruit.

Modern gaming is generally great, there’s just a problem with some of the people playing games/arguing about them online.

As it stands this is a mistake by Sony. If it’s causing people comfortable with the tech to struggle it’s a nightmare for the mass market.

It just looks like price gouging when you see the price of the official solution. Very grubby.

There’s a chance the wider options available to PS5 owners could result in lower prices at some point in the future but it isn’t guaranteed. MS could drive prices of their Expansion Card down too especially if they facilitate competition.

Had a quick flick through to get a feel while hopefully not hitting too many spoilers.

This looks seriously good.

@John117

It’s not about just ‘playing a match.’ PES has always been great in both Master League mode and playing full League seasons. That won’t be possible now by the sounds of it.

Another recommendation for The Touryst here. Really enjoyed it.

They should do 2.

1. A dedicated Xcloud device with the same buttons/Sticks as a proper Xbox controller.

2. One that plays game natively. Essentially an Xbox One in portable form, with games either converting straight over or very easy to convert. Should be doable now at a reasonable price and tie into users existing libraries and Game Pass, with Cloud Saves. Make a Dock for it too.

The idea is the Xbox ecosystem so the more devices they merrier.

@gollumb82

I’m the same vintage as you. In the U.K. it was C64 v Spectrum owners (I had an Amstrad CPC and was stuck in the middle), then Amiga vs ST, Megadrive v SNES. IMO 360 v PS3 was pretty bad (have a look at the Eurogamer ‘Face Off’ articles from that generation and read the comments-urgh) and it carried on from there. Unfortunately there’s a set of people attached to Gaming who either need to validate their choices by belittling others choices, or simply get weirdly patriotic about a plastic box sold by a money-chasing multinational corporation.

@Royalblues

I understand that side of it. I’d lay the blame for that with that very small set of adults that represents a tiny portion of the fan base more than Nintendo personally, but then I have no issue with you choosing not to play their games. It’s the labelling of (and I quote) “adult Nintendo fans” that’s extremely misguided. That is actually a very large number of people. If others like something different to you, that’s all it is. It’s not that they are “unwilling to accept the fact that they are growing up and have responsibilities.”

@Royalblues

“ Please, let's not let this devolve into a fanboy war.”

I totally agree with you here but it’s difficult to square it with this comment…

“adult Nintendo fans are just people who are unwilling to accept the fact that they are growing up and have responsibilities.”

That is harsh to say the least and exactly the kind of wild generation that stokes the fanboy wars. There’s nothing more adult than playing what you want to play and we really should have left all that ‘those games are for kids’ stuff in the early 90s. All fan bases have their zealots and idiots cheering for the multinational corporation that just sees them as walking money.

@UltimateOtaku91

“ as someone who owns all three consoles I'd say each fan base is the same”

I’m in the same position and I totally agree. In every fan base it’s the scum that rises to the top. It’s maybe more noticeable as PlayStation and Nintendo are more popular which unfortunately seems to attract more idiots (see also-film, music, sports). But I struggle to see one fan base as worse than the other.

EDIT-“All three systems bring things to the table and I feel sorry for those who just settle for the one as they are seriously missing out.”

Also, 100% agree with this.

I really don’t see Game Pass as an issue.

The DRM OTOH really needs fixing. That isn’t acceptable. And while Xbox is currently doing well regards BC we need some kind of commitment that this will always be the case. They’re doing more than Sony or Nintendo on this front though.

He’s a Gamer, I'd expect him to have a Switch. It’s a great system that’s massively convenient to use and has a boat load of great games. Why wouldn’t he have one?

@Residentsteve01

That isn’t a good thing. ‘Bad for the environment’ is a negative in many eyes. They were wrong to put a Battery in the Elite, that was a retrograde step they corrected

Good to see Spencer again being very sensible about the competition and looking to see where they can learn (and steal things) rather than getting defensive.

Series X Controllers are great, there’s a reason they refined rather than innovated and that’s because they already had so much right. Dualsense is a big step forward for Sony though, in two ways. The extra features are really interesting and worthwhile, and it’s also a big improvement in shape and feel over the dire DS4.

@Residentsteve01

“ If you just remove the need for batteries that would be a start 👍🏻.”

That would be a huge backward step. With the Xbox pads you can just buy a charger and some decent AAs (preferably Eneloop, though JBL/Amazon/IKEA do good ones too). You have a constant charging solution without need for Charging Stations, having to play attached to a USB Wire, leaving Consoles on etc. Then the bonus is they can be used on loss of other devices.

Proprietary batteries are bad for the Consumer, bad for the Environment and, frankly, backward. It’s MS who are right on this and Sony/Nintendo who are wrong.

The main thing I remember from the Xbox One launch is not buying one

@endlessleep

I bought them at full price on PS1 and PS2 because I was convinced I should like them but no. I tried again with the Vita rerelease and then when MGSV went on PS Plus but never got into them. Just one of them things.

Exciting news for fans of Kojima and Xbox. That list doesn’t include me as I’ve never liked a single game of his, but I’m pleased for those who are pleased. And it’s another string to the Xbox bow.

@NEStalgia

Been thinking about it and yeah, you’re both absolutely right. E3 has its place it just maybe needs to adapt a little bit. A long time ago it was for excited magazine journalists to play the latest games and breathlessly relay what they found to their readership. The conferences were very sales focussed, with the likes of Nintendo and Sega pitching to marketeers and buyers as much as the public. Sony we’re still doing the sales stat attacks in the late 00’s. Maybe next year when that face to face interaction returns and people can actually play games in the show floor it will make a lot more sense.

Or perhaps Nintendo in fact were absolutely right. By ditching cringeworthy press conferences in favour of the Direct and Treehouse formats (copied very successfully by MS this year, to a degree at least) they’ve shown the way forward. But even if everyone goes down the same road there’s still a need for that focal point where everyone has something to show. Maybe they can précis their digital broadcasts better by warning viewers beforehand that there will be no new announcements, just deeper dives into already announced games. Maybe there could be a show-wide Treehouse type setup with companies getting different slots to show individual games, dev interviews etc.

As for leaks, I pretty much avoided any by staying away from most Gaming sites for the fortnight before the show and it pretty much worked. It’s tricky but I highly recommend it.

@carlos82

Thanks, I just wish I’d noticed that-or read this page properly-before downloading the XSX version and trying to complete the quest on there 🤦‍♂️ 😉

@Krzzystuff

The Ascent looks great. Really got my fingers crossed for that one.

The Devs of The Gunk have a really impressive track record, give the Steamworld games a try if you can.

I’d love to see more of The Gunk. Great developers behind it.

The Xbox and Nintendo shows were certainly good, with plenty to announce and lots to play later this year. After that it was a struggle.

I wonder if E3 has run its course. They can all have digital presentations at a time to suit. The other issue is some gamers expectations are getting ridiculous, they’re expecting more than they would get even in a non-Pandemic year. Between that and all the leaks it may have run its course.

This game looks really really promising

No surprise there. Only Xbox and Nintendo had good shows, with Xbox the best of them two.

The FIFA one doesn’t work on the Series X version?! Ahhhh!

It looms great but too expensive for me at this stage. Do we know if it supports keyboard and mouse?

@Snake_V5

I’m still baffled. I’m not sure why you’ve assumed a Series X purchase is made for ‘exclusives.’ I’m also not understanding why giving others the option to stream these games to XB1 is a bad thing. Playing them on Series X will be better. However it encourages brand loyalty, grows the ecosystem and because games don’t have to be natively developed for XB1, doesn’t hold back development of Series X games. I can’t see a downside.

@Snake_V5

Why on Earth would Series X owners be ‘fuming’ about cloud support for older Xbox systems? The more people in the ecosystem the better.

Game Pass is amazing. Already something like 300 games on there and then this year alone-
Flight Sim
The Ascent
Twelve Minutes
Halo Infinite
Forza Horizon 5
Psychonauts 2
Shredders

All day 1

Mildly disappointing but totally expected. This is a PC killer.

I think we already knew that would be the case. The bonus is they’ve managed to bolt together a very convincing schedule for the rest of 2021 and also for 2022.

@thenewguy

Yeah I like them and it’s be a shame to see E3 go but I wonder if it’s becoming dated. The hype is probably a positive for the industry but it also creates unmeetable expectations. In this hyper-connected day and age would it be better to go with a format of more regular updates. Like Nintendo Directs but-unlike Nintendo-actually doing them regularly.

@Chaudy

“ Are people just difficult to please or did people just have very high expectations”

Both. I think some people have just lost all sense of scale now.

@thenewguy

“ If this is not an A then I don't know what is.”

I wonder if the whole concept of E3 is done. The Xbox show had 30 games crammed into 90 minutes. There was so much in it they’re doing a separate presentation for their biggest game and another for developer chats. Yet that isn’t seen by some as a good show, so what else can companies do at E3?. I wonder if the concept has run its course now and it would be best to move to shadow drops and smaller bursts of info.

Meanwhile other shows like Ubisoft and Square Enid have been genuinely poor to the point of almost being pointless.

A from me.

Of course there’s stuff I’d have liked to see that wasn’t there but I judge these conferences on what is there rather than my imaginary want list.

My 2021 wanted list is now Flight Sim, The Ascent, Hades, Twelve Minutes, Psychonauts 2, Forza Horizon 5, Halo, Shredders, Moonglow Bay, Exo One, Soup Pot, Nobody Saves the World, We are the Caretakers),

Beyond that there must be something like 50 games I’m potentially interested in, some of which are 2022 (Redfall, Starfield, Stalker 2, Party Animals) and some of which I also think won’t be far off (Crossfire X, Scorn, The Gunk).

Needs a massive spoiler alert! Come on!

Thing is, take away the hype and the rumours and-especially if a lot of those games are coming soon, which they should be-that’s a really strong list.

(I’m referring to the ‘guess’ by @Friedmelon)

Some real leaps of faith here from ‘3 games rumoured to be coming to Game Pass’ to ‘well this means the XBOX presentation at E3 is going to be a disaster’

This looks lovely