shiny-enzo

@IOI On the topic of exclusives, we’re not completely aligned. We agree that this strategy needs to be strengthened — that part is clear — but going back to permanent exclusives seems unrealistic.

Also, I don’t agree with you when you say games don’t sell one or two years later. Just look at Forza Horizon 5 on PlayStation: it sold extremely well even though it came out 4–5 years later, same thing for sea of thieves. Same for Starfield — pre‑orders are already very high even though the game launched almost three years ago.

What really matters is keeping the games updated, and Xbox is very good at that. They know how to support their titles over time.

Where we do agree is that whatever they choose to do, they need clarity, to avoid speculation and rumors that damage the brand

@Balaam_ It’s simply a matter of cost. That said, it doesn’t only affect very small studios , it also concerns larger ones . Every year, there are more games released on PC, and therefore more PC exclusives, than exclusive games on PlayStation or Xbox consoles.

I’m thinking for example of Kingmakers, Samson: A Tyndalston Story, Heroes of Might and Magic, Light No Fire, Deadlock, Blight Survival, etc. Some of these are well‑known PC franchises or genres designed specifically for PC. But among them, there are real gems that are missing on consoles — for example the upcoming Blight Survival or Light No Fire (from Hello Games), which are currently announced only for PC.

The PC game catalog is roughly 30–40% larger than on consoles. Sure, a lot of that is small indie titles (and some gems), but not only — there are also big, ambitious games, even if some of them might eventually get ported to consoles later.

In any case, this is a trend that’s only going to grow, and we already see it in many gaming showcases: lots of Steam‑only titles. Fortunately, the next Xbox console will allow players to access them through the Steam store, but also through the Xbox Store, since porting will be much easier and almost cost‑free for developers.

@Fiendish-Beaver Alright, no worries bro. I just found the coincidence a bit strange, along with some of your other comments that tend to be on the negative side. But hey, I haven’t been here for long, so it’s probably just a misunderstanding on my part.

@Fiendish-Beaver I see we can always count on you to nitpick! We could do the same with other publishers, you know… But between this and your damage control by bringing up Concord to excuse PlayStation’s bad Metacritic score in 2025 (concord didn’t even come out in 2025), I find it pretty surprising. Though I’m sure it’s just a coincidence, right?

@Banjo- Yes, I think the core issue behind the Game Pass price increase is all the extra perks players never asked for and end up paying for even though they don’t use them.

@FraserG : I don’t know if it’s been done already, but an article comparing the different possible Game Pass subscription models, with a small poll, would actually be really interesting.

And then you could send the results to your friend Asha — she is your friend, right?

@SMJ But I hadn’t thought about structuring the offer that way — it’s a good idea, because the challenge is to keep things both simple and customizable, and your approach really ticks all the boxes.

That said, if I understand correctly, your idea implies a fixed price for each subscription tier, which means every perk would need to have the same value. And that seems complicated to implement.

Another option would be to keep the same subscriptions we have now, and simply add a fully customizable tier, with a progressive pricing system based on the number of perks selected:

Essential

Premium

PC Game Pass (need to be rebranded)

Ultimate – full list of perks

Custom – build your own Game Pass

@fatpunkslim Yes absolutely ! Another idea would be to create a pick‑and‑choose subscription, where the player selects exactly what they want, resulting in a fully customized plan.

This is definitely a game I’ve been keeping an eye on!

@Questionable_Duck To be fair, PlayStation doesn’t really have that many more exclusives either — in fact, it’s almost the opposite when you look at how many former PlayStation exclusives are now coming to Xbox and PC, especially with Square Enix titles and others.

We’ll see what Asha decides regarding exclusivity policy, but for now, we still have a decent number of exclusive games that are still coming out, funnily enough. Among the recent or upcoming ones: Albion, Replaced, Forza Horizon 6, Subnautica 2, Nova Roma, Bravely Default, Ark 2, and more. Yes, some are early access and/or timed exclusives — but that’s also the case for many PlayStation exclusives.

I don’t want to restart the debate you start about exclusives, but honestly, it’s a bit of a relic of the past. Nintendo is really the only one still fully committed to that model today. Whether it’s Xbox or PlayStation, most exclusives are temporary anyway, with Xbox possibly leaning even more into timed exclusivity depending on what Asha decides.

In my view, the real battleground today is the ecosystem: being able to play on multiple devices with a single game purchase, having access to a library that’s much larger than the console‑only catalog, and so on.

And on that last point, there are far more PC‑exclusive games today than PlayStation or Xbox exclusives. Every year, tons of games release only on PC — for example, future titles like Longevity Yin and Yang, Samson, Heroes of Might and Magic, Windrose, Kingmakers, Blight Survival, Light No Fire, Deadlock, and many others.

PC is the platform of choice for developers, and we’ll see more and more games launching exclusively on PC and not on PlayStation — but still playable on the next Xbox console...

Another very useful addition. Being able to switch from a cloud‑played game to another device, or from PC to console, is something I really appreciate in the Xbox ecosystem. I’ve personally never had a single sync issue, even though I switch back and forth between PC and console all the time. But I guess it can happen more often depending on the situation, and this indicator makes it easy to be sure you’re actually using the latest save.

Since ASHA took over, it really feels like things are moving faster on the console‑update side. So far, she seems to be keeping her promise to put Xbox consoles back at the center of the experience.

@IOI What you’re saying is simply not true — the game clearly has issues on Steam and on consoles as well, so it has nothing to do with the Xbox PC version. You can check Reddit yourself if you need proof:
<https://www.reddit.com/r/CrimsonDesert/comments/1rz0z3h/crimson_desert_crashes_right_after_launch_steam/>

As for the supposedly slower updates, I really don’t see what you mean. The game launched on March 19, it’s now the 23rd, and this patch was released at the same time on all platforms…

That said, it’s possible that sometimes developers are a bit slower to react on Xbox PC compared to Steam, simply because Steam is more popular. But I’ve personally bought several games on the Xbox Store for PC and I’ve very rarely had issues , and when I did, they were very temporary.

Logically, with Project Helix , which precisely unifies and simplifies the development tools , we should see fewer and fewer differences between Steam versions and Xbox versions.

What used to take a month of porting will take just a day to make a game compatible everywhere: PC, cloud, handheld console, Xbox console, and even older Xbox consoles. That’s an absolutely massive hardware ecosystem for a really minimal gain‑to‑effort ratio.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner Sorry, but I agree with fatpunk! This is just one example among others, and even for Hellblade 2, a 3‑point difference is huge when it comes to an average across multiple sites , it clearly shows a trend.

Your example, and I quote: ‘61 and one 84’, makes no sense. It’s pure exaggeration meant to discredit someone’s point, and it’s really bad faith. Of course we would never see such a massive gap , we’re not talking about a scam or a completely broken game. At some point, the scores still need to be at least somewhat realistic and credible.

Logically, when you rate the same game on different platforms, the average should be the same, period , maybe with a 1‑point margin at most, especially when the same outlet reviews the same game.

What I find surprising is how some people show zero tolerance and can’t listen to others’ opinions without becoming insulting

@Gemini53 Yeah, We'll find out soon enough

@fatpunkslim Yes, I feel the same way. It may seem strange to some commentators who easily fall into media drama, but for many reasons, I’m very optimistic as well !

Anyway, with Xbox it’s always a roller coaster in the media.
Xbox Developer Direct: “Xbox is back!”
Leadership change: “Xbox is dead!”
Forza Horizon 6 topping the charts on Xbox and PC: “Xbox is back!”
Xbox cancels one game: “Xbox is dead!”
Xbox Games Showcase: “Xbox is back!”

According to some media outlets and influencers, Xbox has died 30 times and come back to life 30 times.

Yet Xbox is still here, and the only metric some people seem to care about is console sales, even though Xbox is the publisher that sells the most games, and leads in content, services, cloud, backward compatibility, cross‑play, and more.

Honestly, the lack of perspective from some people is pretty depressing.

@Kezelpaso Minecraft "multiple video game publishers" ?? “Mojang Studios, is a subsidiary of Xbox Game Studios, so Microsoft ... which means 5 microsoft games in TOP 20.

For Call of Duty black ops 7, it shows how strong the franchise still is despite the criticism. Most of the criticism is about the campaign anyway, because the multiplayer is actually very good.

Yeah, really a shame. I did a bit of research and I’m pretty surprised to see that since 2022 they’ve cut more than 1,200 jobs , even at Insomniac, Naughty Dog, and Guerrilla , which is nearly 12% of their entire workforce. That’s pretty wild.
And for the studios that were shut down, I counted PlayStation London Studio, Firewalk Studios, Neon Koi, and probably others I’m forgetting.

It’s almost as many job cuts as Xbox in terms of raw numbers, but as a percentage of total staff, since PlayStation is about three times smaller, it’s actually much worse. I didn’t expect it to be that bad. It really shows that behind the console sales numbers, there’s a very different reality.
No wonder they’re pushing so hard toward live‑service games and remasters , quick ways to bring in cash.

And yeah, I think Xbox would have a lot to gain by buying them. So many franchises that deserve a second life.

Not really my cup of tea, but I’m still curious, and I’ll buy it on Series X anyway, knowing it will run in better conditions with the next Xbox console. I hope it will be Xbox Play Anywhere when it comes to PC, but I’m not sure Rockstar will play along, unfortunately. I really hope I’m wrong.

@Elbow Thanks, I just bought it based on your recommendation — good co‑op games are so rare

I enjoyed a lot of the game at first, but over time I developed a real frustration with how often the same points of interest kept repeating. I think that’s why many players started out liking it, but after 50 or even 100 hours, ended up turning against it. For me, it’s the opposite of a game designed for hundreds of hours — it works for a while, then steadily wears down as the repetition sets in.

That was really the only aspect I strongly disliked. Sure, there are other areas that could be improved, but the constant repetition was the only thing that truly broke the experience for me

@AverageGamer Regarding player profiles by console, when you look at the most played and most purchased games on each platform, there really isn’t much difference. I still tend to believe that the PlayStation audience is more on the casual side compared to Xbox, and that Xbox players are generally more mature — but I don’t have any data to back that up.

As for choosing consoles, I own both, and I mainly play on my Xbox Series X and on my PC, especially with Xbox Play Anywhere titles. I barely use my PS5 because I spend a lot of time on Game Pass games, and I often switch between PC and console — plus the living-room console is frequently taken by my kids.

And for my next console, it will definitely be the next Xbox, no question about it. Being able to bring together my Xbox and PC library in one place, while still enjoying PlayStation games on Steam, is the perfect combo.

@OldGamer999 Yeah, totally. After all, the PS5 Pro only represents a small share of the overall PS5 install base — around 10%, I think. So it makes sense that they wouldn’t bother implementing PSSR or other enhancements. Very few publishers actually do it anyway.

Great game, and honestly I’m not very surprised to see no real improvements on PS5 Pro compared to the Series X. Overall, from what I’ve seen, very few games actually take advantage of meaningful visual differences between the standard consoles and this mid‑gen refresh.

As for the game itself, I’m not sure this kind of RPG is really PlayStation players’ cup of tea, but who knows? Is there really a specific player profile tied to each console?

It’s fine : a few more weeks to give this future gem a final polish isn’t too much to ask for this Xbox/Steam exclusive.