ilyn

@PsBoxSwitchOwner @General-Foley I agree if they try for a hybrid PC Console the price will be high. The price will be to high for the majority of console players who just want a simple box. PC players would not be bothered by the cost, but wouldn't scoff at the idea of a weak PC.

I really think the market for hybrids is a bit like the market for Surface devices, or the old alienware PCs. They might be fancy but hardly anyone is actually willing to pay over the odds for them.

@Ricky-Spanish And the major elephant in the room is that final fantasy just isn't that big a game anymore!

This is just a bad take on every level.

FF14 is a major success and widely considered the second place MMO after WoW.
FF7R has been the game to get on a system for a few years, as shown by the hype of it arriving on Switch 2 / Xbox.
FF9 has had fans clamouring for the long rumoured remake.
FF Tactics was a well received remaster this show season.
MTG have just done a FF collab which has been a big hit.

But sure no one cares about FF anymore.

@Fiendish-Beaver I do agree though that many people will be looking to play FF16 on Game Pass is (when) it finally comes over because, and we see it in these forums all the time, there are many, many people that pretty much only play games on the Game Pass, so yes, people do have different buying habits here.

I think this is really the only answer and goes back to the article the other day about PS+ vs GP and which is better for the health of the industry. There is no doubt that GP is a good deal for the consumer, providing you like the games ofc. However it is a legitimate worry for the industry, especially if devs just decide a platform is not worth targetting. Maybe this is where a Hybrid PC solution will work but that has its own rake of issues to consider.

Its the never ending circle of people saying GP saves them money to spend on more games, but the reality plays out in the comments every single time.

"I will wait till its under £20 or on GP"

@bazchillin SoP imo had the best combat of all the action based final fantasies and was a blast to play. The job system worked so well into the combat and was far more engaging than 15, 16 or the remade 7's.

The main downside to SoP was that some of the areas looked very garish (crystal tower) and the town bit between missions felt like it was thrown together by an intern in 5m. I would love to see a proper title with that more involved combat style tho.

Unlikely for 2027 if for no other reason than you don't drop all your major franchises in the final year of a generation.

@Coletrain people say they want the device, but I think often what they want is the idea of the device without pesky reality getting in the way. They want a handheld with 6h worth of battery playing 1080p at 60 frames that all comes in a nice round £400 price. The reality of what you end up with quickly dampens the hype when you need to part with the cash.

@Kaloudz I also still think we are a far way off an all streaming future. Companies having the tech is one thing, but its all for naught if the user infastructure is not in place to support it (or not cost effective).

This to me is just another sign of Microsoft wanting to get back to focussing on Software and services, which is where they have most expertise. They really do not care about hardware, they never have, software and subscribers is key.

The real concern as others have said is that if Xbox became just another PC, by different makers, then optimisation is going to be a issue.

@Millionski I do agree that the increase in games is to much, I don't however see it pushing more people towards gamepass. The service has been there plenty of time already and sub numbers are stagnant. The value is subjective, but arguably the worth has been there for ages without any major increase.

I worry that as more games appear on the system the service will actually start losing value rather than gaining it. I know this sounds the wrong way round, but with greater content they will continue to increase the price, but you still only have the same amount of usage time. This mixed with the constant increase for constant growth will see the price becoming unsustainable.

For me the future is just waiting 6-12m and picking the games up in sales for $40. There has not been any major generational increases for a decade anyway so even with waiting games are still fresh, and arguably better as complete / patched versions.

@Ricky-Spanish I have no clue what is the big difference between OLED screen and LED screen??

Visual clarity is the main difference due to true blacks and vivid colours, increased brightness, also no light bleed makes the image sharper overall. The problem is you only really notice the difference after using one. When you go back LED panels just seem very flat in comparison.

I had no real issue playing on my old 55" LED panel, but since getting the LG C3 I also wouldn't ever go back.

Unless the Rog gets a price cut then I can't see it coming in less than the current models. I would not be surprised at £650 and £900 in the current climate, and aside from die hards I think the price will put a lot of people off.

The idea of handhelds is great but if you want high end graphics, processing power and semi decent battery life then its not going to come cheap.

@GamingFan4Lyf See i was not a fan of the combat in Remake as I really disliked how the agro always tended to focus on the character you controlled at any given moment. It did however feel much better in Interlude as Yuffie has way more in her toolkit than any of the base characters.

For me the best FF action combat has been Stranger of Paradise and I would love to see a mainline title or remake fully embrace that style of combat. All the characters felt fun and maxing out multiple job trees to unlock advanced classes was pretty fun.

@Lup Ive not played any of the remakes, but did play the originals back in the day. The games themselves are pretty fun and easy to pick up and play at as basic level.

Thhey can get more challenging however as the main issue I found is the terminology used if you are not into skating. It can take ages to learn what moves are what and how many points they are worth.

@Kaloudz Adamantoise in 15 was such a troll by SE, yes it was kinda realistic seeing as you a trying to damage a walking mountain, but my god it was long.

I have not played the pocket edition, I also never got around to trying the Comrades mode either. Its on my list as a game I do want to replay with all the DLC as the world was very enjoyable and looked great.

Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2 are great games but unfortunately they just don't hold up as well as the Infinity Engine CRPG games. They beauty of the older games is that the hand drawn backdrops retain a look and feel which is timeless. Earlier 3D games however always look and feel very much a product of their time. Still a great set of games however and some of the expansions where great.

They need to look at redoing Temple of Elemental Evil as that was a brilliant D&D adventure thats always overlooked due to using a different campaign setting and 3.5 rules. It also feels the most realistic to how D&D should play out where every fight you risk dicing with death.

Of all the games to launch at $80 this one is a very poor choice and bound to get pushback as the original was just mediocre. If it was something like Forza 6 then it would probably slip under the radar, or be generally more acceptable, but OW2 is just not the game to stick the increased price tag on.

Edit: The other issue with $80 games is that GP will also likely increase inline with the retail price increases

@Kaloudz 100%. I loved my time with FF15 and rated it very highly but the story is so jarring, especially if you watched Kingsglaive before it which massively highlights the utter destruction of the kingdom... oh well STAG WEEKEND TIME!

Yeah I am not sure what the plan is for FF9. The rumour was it would be remastered but retain its classic turn based style. I played it recently however and I am not sure how well it would hold up with such a limited remaster.

The game is very linear and the open world map is a clever trick as they just hid the linear paths as linear paths on a map. It certainly lacks the quality of hidden extras that the FF7 / 8 world maps held.

I enjoyed the setting, and it was good, but I think rose tinted glasses really help me remember it as being better than it was.

@Kaloudz Yeah its just another word for summons that Yoshi P seems to like using.

The game is darker than most entries but I personally wouldn't say its to dark. Its just more grounded as a medievil story of warring states in a dying world.

I would say its kind of the polar opposite of the FF15 story where his kingdom is destroyed, the world is at war and yet no one seems stressed and we still have time for cooking quest at the campsite, and every other frivolity imaginable.

@-taco If it helps every single game in the series is its own game and they are not linked in any way at all. Some games do have sequels but they are all marked under the same title like FFX and FFX-2, so just pick one and play away.

The main problem is that everyone has their own opinion on which games are best so its impossible to get a deifinitve list of best to worse. FF12 for example is very highly rated by some and I would rate it as one of the worst, Likewise FF15 is dislike by many but I really enjoyed the Brotrip

@Kaloudz FF16 was a decent enough entry that just lacked some bits that people say make it a FF title. The combat is well done and each eikon brings with it a new style of combat akin to the DMC5 weapon / character styles. The characters are well done and the set piece eikon battles are truly incredible, especially if you have an OLED to really make the colours pop.

The main issues with the game imo are that elements have no real function in the game. Each eikon has its associated element but for all intents and purposes it just a different colour of magic bolt that all do the same thing. Status effects are in the game but they only introduce them one a time and they never overlap, so each zone just has 1 status for that area. In FF mode (NG+) then they are there from the start and all present at once and it feels like how the game should have been from the start. The only other issue is the sidequest pacing towards the end is horrific, but it makes sense. You unlock movesets from beating eikons and obviously the story progresses as you defeats eikons. So in order to get plenty of use out of the later ones the side questss also increase towards the end. The issue being a lot of them are kind of boring, and not worth doing - but also you need to do them imo.

Still worth a play through imo and I actually preferred it to FF7 where the combat in the first one just didn't really work for me at all.

Nothing really got me excited as a lot of the games where already known about, there was a fair amount of DLC and a smattering of MMO / Live service updates. They should have shown the thing in reverse as it started far better than it ended which didn't help the showcase at all.

The most interesting game shown was Dawnwalker but they didn't really show much more than previous, and I am not fully convinced by what they have shown. The premise of proper slavic horror vampires should be good if they manage to make the writing and gameplay decent.

My main concern is there seems to be a lot hanging on the fact this studio has 4 ex Witcher devs so its being hyped up to surpass Witcher 3 quality and I don't think it will.

FF16 is a decent story and one hell of a visual showcase but still has the main problem that you have to finish the game in order to play what feels like the intended version. Had they allowed Final Fantasy mode from day 1 I think it would have been better received.

Probably a C+

Started of well but definitely hit a lull in the middle. Nothing was shown that made me think instant buy so that knocks it down a touch.

I would say it went SOP then Xbox and SGF in last place. Nioh 3 carried it as my game of the weekend, and the demo being Shadow dropped was excellent.

@Ricky-Spanish Voicing opinions is fine, as we all have them and it can lead to healthy discourse. The problem is when people push their opinions as objective facts just to further a console war narrative without offering any proof of said facts other than their feelings.

@Kaloudz In all fairness I don't think MS ever said there was no issue with the SS, they instead made a cover your own arse statement along the lines of "Its not due to issues that have been raised to us". And that can be taken in a few ways... its straight up not an issue, we don't believe it should be an issue, its not an issue thats been reported to us in a specific way.

They have also never put out a firm statement saying "yes we know there is a exclusivity deal and as such it will be 1 year delay." They instead used at leading statement to deflact any criticism back to their rival that instead promoted journalists and fans to turn this issue into a console war conspiracy theory

I have aways said I believe the only deal was Sony allocated resources to assist production and that resulted in their version being ready first. They also likely only did that to keep up a steady pipeline following the gaas push fallout.

@GeeEssEff Thankyou for pointing this out, a voice of reason

@LogicStrikesAgain Steam does utterly dominate the PC space as a central library for games. GoG, Origin, Epic, MS Store all exist but have never posed any real threat at all. Epic came the closest but its main use is the free games, and the others are also mainly used for free games /deals via Prime or Humble. GoG is the only one with a unique feature as they still promote DRM free game, albeit to a lesser extent now.

Battlenet is a bit of an outlier in that it gets a lot of use, but its got maybe 15 games on there and its main feature is that its linked to your blizzard account which links you across all their games. Ie you can talk to you WoW buddies whilst playing Diablo.

Steam is number one and its just just due to it being the oldest, or having great sales. Features like Discovery, Chat, Profiles, Workshop, Reviews, Discussions all contribute to making it far better than any other platform out there currently.

@Kaloudz I would say the best order is to play them in release order, but you do have to accept that there is some wierdness.

@Kaloudz Yeah the whole metal gear series timeline is all over the place, but it almost needs to be that way for it all to make sense. It also doesn't help that the series features clones off the main character to add extra confusion in there.

Great games and well worth a play for any one who likes Rogue Trader or the Pathfinder games. The Bhaal spawn saga is very well written and its really nice that the story flows nicely between the two games. The story does have a link to BG3 also which provides some nice context to the story.

Hopfully they add Icewind Dale 1&2 and Planescape in future for people also as they are all gems.

@Kaloudz Yeah, Its a remake of 3 but also the first in series from a narrative standpoint.

@Kaloudz Thats fair enough man I had the exact same with MGS Delta. I loved the original game but the trailer for that just felt like a downgrade to the original. I am not sure if it was the visual style or the cut but it felt borderline ridiculous in places.

@Kaloudz Out of curiousity who is your Bond?

I think this game will land differently depending on the answer to that question. For me its either late Connery or Moore that I enjoyed the most. Dalton and Craig where good films but they played a more grounded realistic bond.

This game feel like the classic films with ridiculous scenes and cheesy lines, so I am pretty convinced so far that it should be good.

@ScalenePowers I really want them to go back to the style of DS1 as that game was great. DS2 was a good story but the gear upgrades just really didn't mesh with the game. Also the rule of 3 really wound me up in 2, it was like they brought back the worst 2000's game mechanic ever. As for DS3 the combat just felt very slow for a game where your weapon is a whip, but thats because they tried to make the combat soulslike.

I still really want a Strife game tho to fill out the roster so we can see how he plays. I imagine it would be a bit like Vincent from Dirge of Cerberus.

Diablo 4 is also due an expansion in 2026, not sure when its due exactly but if its Q1/2 we could see a teaser

@Fiendish-Beaver I think we will see it a fair amount if they stick to what they said earlier in the year.

Can't see them mentioning the future of consoles this far out, at least anything important, as at I still think late 2027 or 2028. It would just hit sales of series devices even harder if people though there was no point as the new device was coming soon.

These cards where always a terrible idea. I get that they are more user friendly if people are not confident in fitting an M.2 but the price as a result is utterly ridiculous.

Hopefully the next device swaps to standard drives to give customers more choice with better deals.

I've always said the Sony service is better for the industry as a whole as it doesn't take away from initial game sales when they matter the most in the opening weeks, and as mentioned only boosts games down the line.

That said even if GP is damaging its already out there and you can't fault anyone for using it, if they feel its good value for them. My worry is a possible future where Subs replace hardware because at that point Sub prices will rocket as companies chase constant growth.

@Sindayl Bigger screen, better construction, proper controller and most importantly its not tying your phone up and killing its battery whilst its doing it.

@Cornpop76 People love to slate the Portal and I really don't get it as I think its the best way to handle what is really more of an accesory to a main console.

Switch offers a hybrid and that works for Nintendo as people are happy with them offering lower tech. For MS and Sony people want the best they can get and that means a full fat console. Offering a cheaper way to have portable gaming without it costing the price of another full fat console is what we need more off.

@Sindayl I think for Xbox that does apply, but maybe less so for PS. Whilst Sony are releasing games on PC there is no real strategy behind when or if they release, or even how good the port will even be. With Xbox you know the games will be on PC day and date, and if GP is you thing then you can still enjoy it on PC. Of course consoles will always have the ease of use factor that so many prefer.

Its why I have always been PS / PC to cover all the bases.

@Cakefish It most likely will not be subsidised at which point I just can't see how its going to be cheaper than getting a PC like you can now.

On any platform I think I would seriously question paying £80 for any game. Modern games rarely release in an amazing state and get fixed down the line. So you may aswell pay the down the line price.

Also Complete editions with DLC even 12 - 18m later end up saving you over 50% usually rather than paying for it as it releases.

@LogicStrikesAgain The other thing is why would the average joe pay an above the odds premium if the device is just a microsoft badged PC.

To my mind there is no world in which MS make a windows gaming OS mode and limits it to "new console PC" only. So you may as well shop around for a better & cheaper build, but still use their Gaming OS mode and Steam at which point they make even less. I would argue they almost become irrelevant outside of being a publisher.

Rumours are just that, but I won't believe any steam stuff unless they confirm it outright.

@johnK I don't claim to know, nor has it ever been officially confirmed. However I don't think its per user, but rather per game. For BG3 it was leaked that it was a one off upfront payment that was very low for what was GOTY.

It would not make sense to pay per play as GP promotes people trying a game which they would otherswise never pay for. It's why you get high engagement with lower milestone markers as a general trend.

EDIT: Looked up the leak / rumour (whatever it was) and it was reported MS paid / valued the following.
Lego Starwars Saga: $35m
Gotham Knight: $50m
AC:Mirage: $100m.
Baldure Gate 3: They valued that internally as $5m

Nostalgia will be a huge factor here. I imagine plenty of people will have given it a go because its Oblivionand on GP, but then bounced off realising they don't have 100+ hours to sink into a nostalgia trip thats just the same game with some QoL and nicer visuals.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner For the amount that these site (PS & PX) claim to not want console warring. They do manage to put headlines with a sure fire amount of bait.

All that aside good on MS for doing well with games. It was always kind of expected with the vast quantity of IPs they picked up but its good to see that the pivot is paying off on software.

@OldGamer999 The main usp of the switch is that its a portable device first with the ability to play big screen. They will likely do a portable only version later, but a console only version would go against their core goals so I can't see it happening.

Halo Collection would be my guess because it would sell some copies. Starfield and Hellblade will also happen soon but I can't see them doing as well so will be a lower priority.

I think it will be a decent rise, I could see $3-$5 a month on the top end because its in the region where people might grumble but will accept it, more likely on console imo.

PC will be the interesting one as they see that as the growth market but GP on PC has never made a major dent so any increase there will just be another hurdle for them.

@Ricky-Spanish and they still chose to be on gamepass why???

Without picking sides, or even commenting on this game specifically, I think a lot of the reason is that Gamepass has made Gamepass kind of neccessary in order to succeed on the series consoles. More so in the last 18m now that MS have purchased some very large companies and wrapped them up into GP.

Take something like Expedition 33 which by all acounts is a very very good game (not got round to it yet myself). Had that not been on GP you have to question how well it would have done on Series consoles when it was around Oblivion and other games of that ilk which where available on the Sub. At that point it probably makes more sense to take the GP deal for smaller games.

@eduscxbox sure except scalpers rarely buy software, since they mainly scalp hardware. Your point is meaningless for 90% of transactions.