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I have no issue with the idea of games being classed as 1st party if published, providing the rules are applied to all three main players. My biggest issue irk is when fanboi logic is used to make out that Ninja Gaiden 4 counts, but Death Stranding 2 doesn't, or vice versa.

@themightyant Its even worse when you factor in that you can get the PS5 Digital with Fifa for that £285 price. Xbox really need to improve the sales proposition if they want to shift more units.

Never seen the point in it personally as I have been console / PC for years so just buy each game where I feel it plays best. Being able to play the same game using the sub par option just seems pointless.

E for me, main reason being that nothing caught my eye and got me excited or wanting to know more. I was looking forward to Tides but that trailer has wilted my interest somewhat.

Longer Games, Sub Services, Increasing prices, Day 1 jank... all these things play a part. Pick you reason as they can all apply depending on your situation.

Also there is just way more choice now and its not all about the next big AAA game. Palworld, Valhalla, Blue Prince, Vampire Survivors and many other indies have done well over recent years because they provide the same lenght of entertainment for half the price, or less.

@Fiendish-Beaver I have always felt that the "largest technological leap" was just marketting hyperbole that they can spin to mean whatever they like.

4k60 console with RT / Frame gen and AI then they could make the arguement that they have done it from one generation to the next as a "Leap". Compare that to Sony where the Pro is still part of the PS5 generation so the step up to the PS6 will be smaller as its just the second or third iteration of PSSR.

PC box and again its an easy claim to make if they sell the hybrid angle, whilst it could mean nothing at all for traditional technology leaps of resolution / fps.

I agree that its certainly going to be over £1000 as they can't compete in the £500 market and the more i think about it the more I think it will creep up. I can still see it landing around £1200 if current prices remain as they are and its not subsidised.

@Fiendish-Beaver See I think they get around the price increase with the fact that the device will be closer to a PC than a traditional console (if the rumours pan out). That becomes the major selling point as the premium device gives you access to multiple stores and doubles as a windows PC.

I think they could easily make it more powerful, but by the time you factor everything in I think it will be scaled back to keep it at a somewhat realistic price point. When that happens I think it will be like the SX / PS5 again where better on paper never really plays out in any meaningful way.

I get your point that a £1000 console surely can't just be SX+ but when looking at the current prices unless they drastically subsidise the machine then I fear thats exactly what it will be. I do also think that could be fine providing everything plays at 4k60

@Fiendish-Beaver I don't think the PC box will actually be significantly better than the SX either as I could see it needing all the extra overhead to just perform as a hybrid machine. In reality I imagine that once again both devices will end up performing a similar powerlevel with the difference being feature based. (console vs PC)

The device has been mostly positive with just a few issues along the way, and for those issues they probably should have relaxed the parity to get the game on the SX with an SS version later.

It was a decent device for its price back in 2020/21. The device is still an alright machine now, but the 2025 price has lowered its value substantially.

@Decimateh I am surprised they didn't bring Warcaft 1 and 2 to consoles when they remastered recently. Warcraft 3 is also one of the best games of the genre imo as the story was incredible.

I really want them to do a Warcraft 4 but it would likely need a reboot to seperate it from the WoW storylines.

@Dreamcaster-X FF14 Is a completely different game that was built from the ground up with console in mind from the start. The raid encounters / GCD and gameplay in WoW would not suit a console at all.

The only way to create WoW console would be to start again at classic and tweak it as they go to work for consoles, but I doubt the juice would be worth the squeeze.

@Cakefish I would honestly be amazed if the machine comes in at £800. I personally think as a bare minimum it will have to be around the £1000 mark if they want it to be even somewhat competant as a console and Windows machine.

I would suspect MS are even aware of that which is why they are already seeding the idea of High End, Super Premium and Bespoke when talking about it.

It died around 3:50pm as Business Central went down at work with users unable to get past the login. Fortunately I finished at 4:00pm and am hoping its fixed by morning

@Fiendish-Beaver I was mistaken thinking the PC had gone. I was looking at the gamepass website and they hide the PC only tier, whilst Essential, Premium and Ultimate are all clearly visible and specify that they include PC games. I suppose this is another example of just how poor their messaging is as it feels like its almost intended to be difficult or confusing.

I agree with you on everything you say above in regards that it would make no sense and alienate customers. Unfortunately I think its a big enough rake that MS will jump all over as the bean counters will not want to give up that revenue stream.

@Fiendish-Beaver I though the whole point of the recent changes was that Gamepass PC no longer exists, as all three tiers include PC.

As I understood it the tiers now just reflect how many games you have access to, and if you have access to day 1

EDIT: I should add I expect they would keep those tiers the same but remove online play from them and add it as a supplemental for older devices.

Once again the utter twaddle that is the Xbox tax is being rolled out to add imaginary points to a score so people can feel validation in their favorite colored box.

It's not a thing, had never been a thing, and different reviewers will give different scores on their scale.

@GeeEssEff The diehards here will defend anything and bend over backwards to out that MS has actually been playing 6D chess all along. If you don't agree they will write an essay in the hope that you will get bored or just agree.

The Ally X has turned out to be a great little device, if somewhat pricey, but the marketting has been terrible. Xbox is the primarily the console brand... because that is what the consumer associates with Xbox. They don't think its a windows feature, games studios or anything else, its a line of consoles, and console accessories. Six diehard fans defending MS on a forum is not representative of the average consumer and all that matters for brand awareness is what the mass market thinks. MS need to understand that and they need to learn it fast because outside of America the brand is suffering.

I really enjoyed the remakes of 2, 3 and 4 so more of these is always welcome. RE4 was obviously the best of the 3, especially for the inclusion of VR, but I also enjoyed 2 & 3 being brought up to a modern third person over the shoulder style of game. Its a shame they have not remade the original in that style also as the tank controls are meh in 2025 regardless of the remaster or OG version.

@Lrapsody I think it depends where you play it. PC is likely more favorable where as the PlayStation version apparently has awful optimisation. For example they note single figure frame rate drops n the review and clarify that if fixed it could be a 5 or 6 score instead.

Another round of meaningless PR mumbo jumbo because like any business they measure success by profit. I understand that engagement figures have some value as everyone is competing for each players time, but its not the measure of success. Like I said on the rumours thread the other day MS need to stop making these pointless and stupid statements as it always backfires and will lead to even more doubt and rumours.

I replay a fair amount of games when I just get that itch to go back and play the series. Its normally tied to something else like recently I did Rangnarok with the Valhalla DLC so that made me go back and do the entire greek saga of GOW.

I watched Josh Strife Hayes attempting a permadeath Hardcore run of Baldurs Gate the other day so I have booted BG1 back up and am running through that again.

Other games I will replay are classic shooters like Borderlands if something just scratches that itch. Unfortunately modern games can be to long or feature to much bloat / annoying mechanics which can put me off replaying them no matter how good they are.

Firstly I would say I am sceptical of the detail in the leak as I am not sure they would have access to the specs of both chips to give such accurate details. I imagine its a handful of people at AMD who know this level of information so leaks would be less likely. I fell like the leak would be more believeable if they didn't go into as much detail with exact % differences.

As to how powerful it would be I can't see it ending up much more powerful because it would be pointless. Games will target the PS and Switch due to those being the more popular devices so that will be the level developers target.

Also I am still not convinced a hybrid device will set the world alight. If we take the middle figure of $1000 dollars then its to expensive for the console crowd, but to cheap / weak for the PC crowd. That leak just sounds like a PC that can't be upgraded so still has all the downsides of a traditional console generation.

@Jenkinss Ive not got around to playing that yet, but its on my list so will have to check it out at some point.

Incredible games from one of the best periods of CRPGs imo. Baldurs Gate 1&2, Icewind Dale 1&2 and Planescape Torment are all well worth playing even today as the gameplay and story are timeless.

Lots of other games have taken the D&D style and tweaked it for their own universes, and they are decent, but never quite capture the majesty the infinity engine games had.

@Fiendish-Beaver Looks like Silent Hill 2 might be included on PS+ Extra for October. So if you have that it may be worth holding off a week, giving it a play and if you like what you see and still want to buy it you can get it on the platform of your choice.

Personally I could see this Xbox being the last, simply because their actions have been all over the place recently, but it would not be a good thing.

I think the bigger issue however is not if we get a next box, but it's the continued narative around Xbox and their woes as they flip flop from one decision to the next at alarming speed. MS have left themselves wide open with the Xbox brand where no one really trusts or understands the message anymore, and its doing real harm to them.

@Ricky-Spanish You seem to be taking this all very personally, both here and PS, honestly to the point that its probably worth taking a break if you are getting that bothered by it.

For my take I don't see it as people wholesale gleefully calling Xbox users idiots. Outside of obvious trolls, the only comments that come close are people who predicted this coming and feel it was foolish to think otherwise. These same people were also called idiots and doomers for daring to predict anything negative about MS's future plans.

Just try not to get so invested, as its not healthy

@Weebleman 100% spot on about the own goal that is GP pricing. It was clear it was never sustainable and should not have been allowed to go on as long as it did.

I can see game codes going the same way down the line also its another are where they are allowing customers to bypass the correct pricing model.

It was fairly obvious this was coming when various reports where out there questioning how profitable GP was given that they remove most of the costs from the equation.

Sadly they are really circling the drain at the moment for everything except being a publisher, but I think thats ultimately all they really want to be.

If they wanted to do it cheaper they could, they just don't want to do it cheaper, which is fine. For me I am not sure why companies make these nonsense statements in the first place. Its like when your boss says I really wanted to give you that payrise but....

Im not the audience for this device but even if I was that price point is utterly comical and does highlight concerns for Xbox hardware going forward. People long suspected that a badging another companies hardware would push the price up and thats a concern if they look to that route again for future hardware.

Kind of amusing that they announced the price whilst the Steam Desk is on a great offer which makes it looks even worse value.

@Fiendish-Beaver Its meant to be pretty decent but I find APRGs always play better on PC as they are a natural fit for Mouse and Keyboard, especially if you push higher tier content.

@Coletrain I was thinking those are just weekend numbers, hell depending on the game those are 1 day numbers 😂

@Questionable_Duck If that is the case then it really douses any excitement for the game as it sounds more like a series of Experiences. At that point the price will become a major factor as it becomes a much harder sell.

@Banjo- I compared Xbox consoles ("any") with Switch 2 and PS5 Pro

Whilst only counting the Switch 2 is valid as it the next gen machine. If you are allowing for any Xbox Console, assuming you are referring to the Series generation, then you have to expand that to also include any PS5 model. You can't just cherry pick only the most expensive PS5 or it clearly highlights your bias to make one seem better value than the other.

Ignoring any opinions on the console, making an article based on a second hand price is pointless imo as the same can be true of all devices depending on the seller. It should focus on RRP as thats a better indicator of the average price.

I played in on PS and it was a really good experience. The story is good and I though all the charcters were fun and had their own stories which worked into the large narrative, and party chats. The combat and world design was a clear improvement over inquisition, but I do feel the combat could still be improved a bit more past the 3 abilities limit.

8.5 / 10 seems about right and I look forward to seeing where they take the series next. Hopefully with more people getting to play it on a service they will see the game for what it is and not the 20s snippet they where sold on social media

I think they would be best moving on to another project and putting all their resources into that instead. The game did alright but was not the flagship it was expected to be. I would honestly say their is also probably not much point in porting it to PS5 at this point as I don't think it will do much more than it already has.

Honestly they would be better just focussing on ES6 and making that the best it can be.

@RentedPanda Pretty much yeah, free with sub gives less ties to the game so you can bounce off it and move on and don't care as much as you were already paying, or at most threw a single month cost in to trial the game. If you had just paid £70-80 for the same product then a lot of people are more inclined to stick with it due to sunk cost.

The real annoyance is that it shows how silly engagement metrics are compared to traditional sales without knowing what the fall off % is on average. It devs are freely acknowledging it then I imagine its pretty high.

@TrollOfWar I would agree with your points and add the additional one of a single fixed difficulty level for the game. Whilst you can increase it further in NG+ you do have to beat the entire game in the designed difficulty. I know some players try to claim certain specs are the "easy difficulty" in souls games but I don't buy that.

For me games like DMC they remain simply action games because of the fact that you can select difficulty setting and even swap to auto mode so anyone can beat the game with ease.

I do think the explosion of action based RPG games has really muddied the water of the genre unfortunately so this definition will never get easier.

Singing the swan song for a console that is barely out off the gates of a poor look. I fully accept that this generation, and future generations, will be heavily cross gen. That said I feel with everything that accompanied the launch of this current gen then they should still be looking at another two year's instead of writing it off already.

@Coletrain I think so far E33 is the most likely. Blue Prince was excellent but it did start to suffer in the end where to solve the post game puzzles it fell foul of RNG and didn't give you enough ways to stack the deck in your favour.

I think the other contenders so far will be Death Stranding 2 and possibly Mario Kart World. I could also see Yotei being in contention if it launches well, but can't see them beating E33 either.

@Coletrain Yeah the majority were from China but people crowed about it everywhere, tbh you can probably thank Astrobot for a lot of that hype. BMW got a fair portion of the internet talking about it just because they wanted to hate on the idea of a platformer winning GOTY.

@Coletrain I'll never get why it was so lauded in the west, surely this was just a big deal in China

I would say its partly because it was classes as a "Soulslike" which has become the redundant term in gaming now as anything action based is suddenly soulslike.

The other part is the romantic appeal of how different and interesting the culture is, even if its shown through a heavily distorted fantasy lense. I think its a big like most of the UK have little intrerest in UK history, the Royals etc. Other countries lap it up however and are amazed at how much history the UK has. Its just the appeal of something different to what you know.

@WildConcept6 I think Halo as a series or film will always be doomed to fail simply because the character is boring. Master Chief was dull as dish water by design. He is like Doom Guy in that he is just a character you play and originally had no major back story. Some was added in later but the character is just not interesting enough to carry a story outside of a game.

Fallout had more appeal becuase at it heart is always been a story game with lots of lore and humour. Fallout lampooned everything and when you added in that low tech futuristic 50s it all worked to create a universe where its easy to make new characters and story for, because the real main character is the world its set in.

I think it can continue to do well in games but outside of that the story and concept of Halo is just not strong enough to carry it as a wider IP.

@Coletrain I can see the UK price being £550 - £599. They could do it for £499 but I just can't see that being the case as its a niche product thats going to sell very limited numbers regardess of how cheap they make it.

I'm more surprised that the graphic features #playALLyourgames with the Xbox logo. We all know it won't play all games so the claim could easily land them in hot water.

@Ricky-Spanish Ahh fair enough, Ive not played Andromeda myself. It was on my list for a while and then I just kind of missed it and lost interest when they essentially wrote it off and said any future games would return to the main storyline.

I know what you mean about 10years tho. I had not realised that Inquisition was 11y old now. I suppose thats the sad truth about dev cycle times now.

@Fiendish-Beaver The first game actually holds up a lot better than you would expect due to its style. Its more akin to a top down CRPG and that gives it an element of timelessness about it

The second game however is utterly terrible to play now. Its the classic example of those early 3D games which reused the same 5 tilesets for 60 hours and as such it feels very dated. Also the companions are just not very interesting for the most part.

I enjoyed inquisition, but I wold say my main issue was how some of the areas are very bloated and not much fun to explore. The game has some great zones like the forest, but for every good zone it has the Hinterlands and the Wastes which are just painful.

For Veilguard I understand that it could be an issue for some players, but I also get why its a flavours of good story. Giving the player the option to go fully negative would not really make sense for the story they are trying to tell.

Veilguard certainly made me interested for what comes next tho, be it DLC or a full sequel.

@Ricky-Spanish In fairness Veilguard was a very good game so I don't think EA are to blame. I just finished it this weekend after doing a full playthrough of the entire series. I think a lot of the talk about companies who used to be good, and are now poor is due to rose tinted glasses.

That and modern games are heavily slated from the outset by a much more vocal internet base who criticise games based on what some one told them to think rather than an opinion formed after playing the game themselves.

Being playing through D4 recently and its a decent game but suffers from the same issues that most ARPG's suffer from at end game. The main one is meta builds, where most builds use the same 4/5 talents because some are just much better than others.

You also hit a point at Torment 3/4 where its just a gear lottery and there is no way to improve your build futher. Mythics are stupidly rare and only about 4 are used by every build so about 15 of them are pointless. Even on torment 4 the chance of GA Ancestrals is low, but getting anything 2GA or higher is absurdly rare.

The other main issue is having the Glyphs tied solely to the pit which is not an interesting endgame activity. Having to constantly run the pit over and over for lackluster loot just to get your glyphs up is dull.

I enjoy the game and it is good fun to play, but they do need to look at the endgame elements and balancing the loot so you can farm it yourself without making it all about 3rd party Auction Sites.