Comments 623

Re: Talking Point: Which Apps Do You Use The Most On Your Xbox?

ralphdibny

Streaming:

  • YouTube
  • Disney+ (until my sub runs out in March, not renewing at the ridiculous new price)
  • iPlayer (currently watching Not Going Out, I also watch Would I Lie to You and Have I Got News For You when their on, sometimes Graham Norton too!)

Non streaming:

  • Rewards
  • Bing and Edge (for Rewards purposes)
  • Store
  • Game Pass
  • Other system apps like Controller, Accessibility etc

Re: Reaction: We're Conflicted About Xbox Exclusives Potentially Going To PS5

ralphdibny

Beyond their inception and the high point of the 360 era, Xbox had a brief resurgence toward the end of the Xbox One and leading into the Series generation. These few "golden years" really worked to re-establish faith and interest in the brand ailing from it's Xbox One launch. At least in my opinion anyway.

But these golden years were too short. They did so much to repair their relationship with customers and generate new custom. Ridiculously cheap Game Pass deals, an unbelievably generous Reward Point system and a fairly extensive customisable system and a feeling that Xbox was a more free platform than it's competitors. And all that on top of the promise of good and exclusive titles to come. Sure they may have bought those titles through industry shaking acquisitions but the console exclusive traditionally valued by brand loyalists in combination with their already rising reputation would have propelled them even further. Especially against a complacent Sony aspiring to be the next Apple.

But they dropped the ball. So many anti consumer decisions, reeling back years of promise and winding down good will and now they have much fewer customers willing to go to bat for them. Not the "Xbox is sooo much better than PS" crowd, just the "you know what? Xbox is much better than it used to be and is actually good value" people. Because it's no longer good value.

Dropping the Gold to Game pass deal and nerfing the reward points devalued it from a consumer perspective. Dropping home screen customisation and forcing adverts into a console already purchased by consumers, after the fact is anti consumer. Also the latest one of remotely disabling a purchased consoles ability to work with 3rd party controllers. All of this means that a reasonable person that saw the good in something, has now been forced into a corner. And reasonable people don't double down and excuse a company they came to like even though functionality and value has been reduced. Reasonable people get the heck out of Dodge.

And it's not like they have anywhere to go, value for the consumer has dropped across the industry. If Xbox had managed to ride it's burgeoning success to the top and become legitimate competition for Sony then prices would have dropped everywhere and both companies would have increased functionality in order to compete for their customers.

As it stands though, Xbox dropped what made them an attractive proposition too early. They just never quite made it back to the top and these rumours make it seem like they are already giving up.

I hope they don't and I hope they can increase competition. It's not about which company "wins", it's about having two or more companies competing for our money so we get better value as consumers.

Re: Another Xbox Console Exclusive Makes Its Way To PS5 Later This Month

ralphdibny

@FraserG just to add some contrarian feedback - this article seems completely fine to me!

Funny tag line, factual and not entirely irrelevant in my opinion. It's just about a timed exclusive expiring. Probably worth highlighting both for the tag line and the review score alone.

I'm normally hyper sensitive to click bait and I have detected none (or very little) here.

Re: The UK's Best Tea Brand Has Created A New Xbox Controller

ralphdibny

Yorkshire Tea is the best brand of tea for it's price, hands down. It's got a decent strength to it.

Tetley and PG Tips are both shockingly weak teas, I will never drink them.

Twinings English Breakfast and Assam Teas are also very good but way over priced.

Stick to Yorkshire for a strong cheap cup of tea. Head to Twinings for your Earl Grey kick.

Re: Xbox Users Left Disappointed As Microsoft Rewards Suffers Another Big Setback

ralphdibny

After I used my 250K points to put toward a Series X ages ago, I had a real lull in my desire to collect points, even though they were still generous at the time.

I'm not sure what it was, maybe I had achieved my goal, maybe I had less time because the pandemic was more or less over or maybe it was something else. I carried on doing it for a couple months after I got the Series X but then I just stopped.

It just became too much of a chore across both Xbox and mobile, especially mobile because my hands would hurt due to smartphones being non-ergonomic. I think the time sink into all the game pass rewards took its toll on me as well, it just wasn't fun and became a chore.

Fast forward to a couple months ago, all the rewards had dropped in both their actual reward but more critically the time requirement had dropped massively too.

I started doing them again, just on the Xbox though across the Bing, Edge, Rewards and Game Pass apps. Overall, the only regular points I am missing out on with this low effort approach is 60/day from the mobile searches.

And this time, it really is just taking a few minutes a day, I do it while I'm having my breakfast and coffee.

I'm also not bothering for the achievement reward unless it happens naturally and I'm definitely avoiding any of the more arduous weekly game pass rewards, stuff like kill 80 zombies in state of decay 2 or whatever. I can stretch to something like die 12 times in Limbo but anything that takes more than 5-10 minutes will just be ignored.

And well? I actually really like this approach. It's low effort and low commitment. I actually like the fact that there are less rewards to earn because I don't get the FOMO from not doing the high effort/commitment ones.

That's just how I feel about it, I totally understand the argument that there should still be better rewards and I should just ignore them but that's just not how my brain works. So for me at least, less reward points available is actually much better for me psychologically.

Re: Review: Robocop: Rogue City - A Slice Of 1980s Nostalgia That Feels Purposefully Old School

ralphdibny

I thought the trailers made it look similar to Die Hard Vendetta which really piqued my interest because that is an awesome game. Will definitely get around to playing this at some point.

Also, I must object to the dismissal of RoboCop 2! It's a brilliant film and on the level of the first one, if not better in some ways.

I will forgive you for dismissing RoboCop 3 because that is dog doo doo.

RoboCop the remake is very underrated too but I understand why people hate it. Personally I loved the 12A adaptation and all the Metal Gear/Raiden influence on it. Pretty horrifying while still being suitable(ish) for kids, along the lines of Jurassic Park or The (Brendan Fraser) Mummy

Re: New Xbox Policy To Block Unauthorised Accessories

ralphdibny

I want this to go the other way. Not only for controllers to be cross compatible between systems but for games to be too. A generic cross system digital store or physical media which means if you buy a game then you can play it on PS, Xbox or PC without having to buy it again. I feel like gaming is the only industry that locks games to platforms. Imagine buying a Sony Blu Ray and not being able to play it on a Philips blu ray player. But we are used to it so it never gets brought up but thinking about it, it's actually super weird.

Re: New Xbox Policy To Block Unauthorised Accessories

ralphdibny

Nope, new update doesn't make this any better. Xbox is only compromising itself rather than controllers compromising the game experience.

Even if money wasn't an issue and people could buy fight sticks, controllers and steering wheels for every platform they own instead of using one set across devices. Normal people don't live in mansions. I live in a flat and I don't have the space to store 3 or more fight sticks. I have one, it lives somewhere specific and that's what I have space for.

Re: New Xbox Policy To Block Unauthorised Accessories

ralphdibny

@mcdreamer hopefully it does! Do you have the Mayflash stick as well then? Mines an f300 elite (I think?)

I'm just hoping that because you connect the Xbox controller to it for authentication that it still overcomes whatever DRM MS decides to install

Re: New Xbox Policy To Block Unauthorised Accessories

ralphdibny

Yep, totally lame. I have an arcade stick that works using an official Xbox controller as a pass through. It's the only reason I have bought certain games on Xbox instead of Switch or PlayStation so I'd be gutted if they somehow blocked it.

On top of the forced UI changes that others have mentioned. Yeah just lame. Can't believe that you can buy a ยฃ450 console and Microsoft can just nerf it remotely a year or two down the line. Totally lame.

Re: Metal Gear Solid 4, 5 & Peace Walker Could Form Another 'Master Collection' On Xbox

ralphdibny

Mind you, I feel like it would make sense if they made two more collections at the very least.

Vol 2 - MGS (game boy), Twin Snakes, Mobile, Portable Ops, MGS4, Ac!d and Ac!d 2

Vol 3 - Rising Revengance, Peace Walker, Ground Zeroes, Phantom Pain and Survive

If they could find a way to emulate Touch! properly then that would be a good get. Social Ops and the various versions of Online are probably a lost cause

Re: Talking Point: Did Your Xbox 360 Ever Get The 'Red Ring Of Death'?

ralphdibny

Yep, it either RRoD'd a month outside of the extended warranty or the particular model I had was too new to be eligible for the extended warranty and it was one month outside the original warranty.

Either way, it soured me off Xbox as a brand and I didn't come back until the Xbox One's golden years and I got a really good deal on the console, game pass and subsequently a Series X.

Re: Random: Seeing This Funky Text On Your Xbox? Here's What It Means

ralphdibny

@ParsnipHero haha I realised as soon as I posted it that the meme is probably very dated and I wondered if anyone would actually get it or just think I had gone doolally ๐Ÿ˜‚. I think it's so far back in my memory that I've conflated two memes as well, the "in yr computer, stealin yr data" and "I can haz cheezburger!?" It's probably because both memes featured cats. Oh dear, I should probably go to bed ๐Ÿคช

Re: Here's What's Included In September 2023's 'Bonus' Xbox Update

ralphdibny

Oh dear, more bloat.

Download all the apps at once just in case you have 8 subscriptions being paid monthly?!

And another unremovable tab/group for the home screen.

And a one stop shop for sports? I hope that's not another tab for the home screen. I hate to say it but all of this is kind of reminding me of the XB1 launch.

The capture thing could be useful potentially, how it works currently is a bit confusing/vague.

I just want control of my home screen returned to me, I didn't agree to all of this new bloat being displayed constantly.

Re: These Six Games Are Coming To Xbox Game Pass (September 19 - October 3)

ralphdibny

Gotham knights is a wicked addition ๐Ÿ‘. One of those games people aren't sure on but it's worth trying. It's one of the few things I like about subscription services is that it gives you a chance to try things you weren't ready to pull the trigger on.

Does GK have any story DLC that won't be included in this release though?

Re: New Borderlands Collection Reaches #2 On Xbox Chart Thanks To Major Discount

ralphdibny

As soon as I saw the headline, I was thinking it would be good if Xbox gave an additional discount if you already owned something in a bundle, like on steam.

Can't believe it actually is a thing!!!

Is this the only bundle that has ever done this?

My additional discount is like ยฃ25 but I only own the first game on xbox :S. Seems like they've discounted the full price of that game?!

I think I will pick it up, even though I don't like the first game very much at all, I did love Tales on ps plus and would like to own it and play the new tales as well.

Shame it doesn't include the Tiny Tina game so it's not a complete collection