swedetrap

@Fiendish-Beaver Maybe Tsushima was enough for me? I don't know. I loved the original; played it twice. Yotei felt great for the first few hours but then became a slog for me.

As to whether or not it was better than anything Xbox put out? Eh, probably. I haven't started in on The Outer Worlds 2 yet but I enjoyed the first one (though admittedly not to the degree that I liked Tsushima - not even close). And yeah, I'm a lifelong Doom fan but didn't care for their latest whatsoever.

@TheGameThrifter Not sure you got the memo but Halo is coming to PlayStation.

@OldGamer999 100% agree. While I personally didn't care of DK Bananza, Astro Bot was the best platformer on any system in a decade. Xbox's output this year was strong (I REALLY enjoyed Keeper and South of Midnight) but nothing that deserved to hit over 89 at best. That said, as I look at everyone else's internal studios using the same criteria, I don't see much of anything that deserved to cross the 90 mark - at least not in my opinion. The best games of 2025 were all 3rd party; multi-platform.

Someone is going to say "Ghost of Yotei" and no, sorry, Tsushima was a 98/100 game. Yotei is more like an 82.

@TheGameThrifter Easy. GT7 reached 14 million sales early this year but hasn't even come close to hitting the 15 million mark. That puts is somewhere near GT3 in total sales, despite having a development budget 7-8x higher and a marketing budget 11x higher than that same game. Ultimately it has made its money back but its earning potential has stalled.

MLB The Show went through a similar situation, and while yes, it was MLB that forced Sony's hand a few years back, Sony has seen the financial wisdom of publishing older titles (or franchises like MLB) on other platforms once their sales have stalled significantly.

I can't help but think that all of the extra development work on GT7 is coming at a cost (it has to) and needs to be offset somehow. It's certainly NOT through additional sales of GT7 on PS5.

Don't get me wrong, I already have GT7 on my PS5 and love it, and ultimately I don't care if it goes to Xbox/PC or not, but Sony has gotta be paying attention to the success of Helldivers on Xbox, FH on PS, etc., and GT is a perfect franchise to send over now that it has fulfilled its sales potential within the playstation ecosystem alone.

GT7 takes forever to get into due to Sony's insistence that I've never driven a car (or played a GT game) prior to first launch. That said, once you get into it, it's a truly amazing game, even with the absurdly over-complicated UI.

I'm waiting for GT7 to land on PC and Xbox. I don't even think it's a question of if so much as a question of when.

An Xbox GOTY will happen once Microsoft outbids Sony in the great race to line Geoff's pockets.

Or when a new Xbox-published Kojima game arrives.

Either/or.

Loved Avowed way more than I thought I was going to. Keeper and SoM were also top-notch. Doom didn’t do enough to keep me playing, I guess? I played it a few times and then promptly forgot it ever released.

I do have a feeling that Outer Worlds 2 will probably end up being my favorite 2025 game but there’s no way I get around to playing it until 2026.

This is how Microsoft and Xbox push me to hook my ps5 back up and switch over to GT.

There is literally no demand for this game on Xbox, or so I've heard.

More accurately, there's literally no demand for this game to be on MY Xbox. I already went through this with Wukong, which despite owning both an Xbox and PS5, I refused to buy on PlayStation because this timed exclusivity thing is stupid. Once I did buy it on Xbox, I was fully underwhelmed with the experience and wondered why anyone cared at all in the first place. Not going down that road again.

This served only to remind me that I:
a) didn't love Control as much as other people did
b) will never get the Quantum Break sequel I want
c) need to finish Alan Wakes 1+2

I'll never be even remotely interested in anything that goon has to say. That show literally makes me embarrassed for the industry.

Whatever. I couldn't care less about campaign mode but am 110% loving this year's multiplayer.

@Runex2121 I loved it too.

If it isn't Perfect Dark, I'm not altogether sure that I care.

I loved the campaign - it was everything I had hoped for. The MP started off a bit slow but was top notch within about 6-9 months. Unfortunately, that delay felt like it killed a lot of momentum in the press and on the internet, but I've never had a problem getting into a match quickly to this day.

You'll forgive me for waiting for the cancellation announcement.

I'm 3 hours in and so far it isn't as good as any of the above mentioned games these folks have worked on in the past, but whatever.

Still Wakes the Deep is an absolute classic

Honestly, you guys did more to celebrate it than Microsoft did, so for that, thank you.

Bought it because of the sale. Haven't played it because I don't like scary things.

Gaming awards shows need a category for something like "Best PS2/OG Xbox era-style game on current gen platforms." I feel like South of Midnight and Keeper would both be in contention for that. Honestly, they're 2 of about a dozen highlights for me this year precisely because they remind me of that era. I'm over 8000 sq mile open world slogfests that take 120 hours to complete (except Square RPGs obviously). Give me great, unique, and even quirky stuff that I can spend 6-8 hours in and just enjoy

Good of them to keep the Remnant IP so that they can ruin it down the line and keep it out of the hands of its own studio and creators

It's only NOW in early development? I assume this was due to moving resources to Marathon? It feels like Destiny 2 is almost as old as the Xbox One generation.

Downloading this .... now.

I love these games. Thanks for the heads up. I somehow missed this completely.

Eh, that's fine, but what I really want is the a proper Gushing Geoff reveal of the next Hazelight game, followed up with a expletive-filled speech from Josef Fares, letting me know that his next contrived and mediocre game is better than all of the other games at the show. It's not the Game Awards without him and Hideo getting a proper foot wash.

And yes, I just called It Takes Two et al "Mediocre." I'll stand by it. I halfway enjoyed his prison game a few years back but the rest have done nothing for me.

Love this! There are quite a few games I come back to that I don’t want to install. Now they’ll look even better.

@Blastfemur This is exactly why I haven’t picked it up. Sounds like my experience with every extraction shooter to date.

I have a launch day ROG Ally with a 2TB drive in it, so Play Anywhere games are the lifeblood of my gaming life, Switch 2 aside. I LOVE the program, though I do get a bit confused at how some publishers deal with it - looking at you, Square. Why are they so inconsistent? Either way, I give Play Anywhere credit with my having finished quite a few games in the past year: Keeper, South of Midnight, and several others.

I fully admit that I think twice before buying anything that doesn’t have Play Anywhere.

Funny you should compare this to Ryse. I felt that both were given a bit of a bad wrap when they were released. Maybe it was because there wasn’t a whole lot to play at the time, but man, I sure do love both of them, even all of these years later.

Thanks for celebrating this. It feels like the rest of the world, at least in the gaming press, has more or less given up on the Xbox brand.

For me, one of my fondest memories of the past 20 years is moving to my new home state and falling asleep on my recliner playing UNO multiplayer on Xbox live. It was NEVER boring, I’d just play it that late into the evenings. Add on some of the best experiences and innovations in the history of gaming, and the 360 will always hold a special place in my heart. I no longer own one, but I’ve managed to pick up nearly every BC 360 title available today, if only for the nostalgia of it all.

This was the game I was most excited for after watching the showcase. Can’t wait to try it.

@Banjo- ohhhh. Got it. Thanks!

I can’t seem to buy it in the US store, at least not from the link above. Searching doesn’t turn anything up.

Loved it. One of the best showcases of the year from any platform. Full stop

Remember when we were all sitting around waiting for ANY word on whether or not Alan Wake 2 was even coming? And here it is, discounted.

The pinnacle era of gaming, between 360 and PS3 and Wii. We'll never reach such heights again. In fact, I think we're moving further and further away by the day. That I'm busily playing remastered 360 games more than almost anything else says something (well, it says I'm old but it probably says something else too)

@themightyant You're not wrong. I have a small handful of exceptions in mind, and quite a few AA games, but it's exceedingly difficult to play something like a Starfield or a Diablo IV on a handheld, at least for me.

Strangely enough, this kind of extends to Switch/Switch 2 as well (AAA by Nintendo standards anyway) - Pokemon aside, there's no way I'm playing Metroid in handheld mode if my experience with Metroid Prime Remastered was any indication.

@themightyant yeah that’s my biggest issue. Handhelds are great for a lot of things but competitive FPS isn’t one of them, at least that’s been my experience.

Bought Octopaths 1 and 2 anyway. Worth the price! Such great games.

I’ve enjoyed my time with it enough to go ahead and buy it.

Was completely unaware of Routine. Now I’m stoked for it. WOW.

What do I expect? I except Xbox to share their birthday with Sony and Nintendo, rather than keeping it exclusive to Xbox.

It feels like every 4th or 5th CoD is a complete bust on the campaign side. Advanced Warfare anyone? This is what happens when you put unrealistic expectations on teams to deliver an iterative update to the formulaic on a yearly basis – no one has time to innovate whatsoever.

I enjoyed Black-Ops 6 and am still playing it, even with the new Battlefield sitting on my home screen. That said, I'm not excited about the prospect of moving on just yet either.

And in truth, I haven't played through a CoD campaign in about 4-5 years. They're mostly crap anyway. Sounds like this is more of the same.

Forza is just another in a long line of things that MS didn't have enough patience for.

• Windows Phone
• MS Band (1+2)
• Kinect (whether you love it or hate it)
• Cortana
  The list goes on (and on and on). Thing is, they could learn a good lesson here from Sony - GT7 wasn't a massive hit upon release either, nor was the game before it. Phil can throw the word "hiatus" around all he wants but at the end of the day I think we all know what it means. Forza is dead, just like Perfect Dark, Halo Infinite, and many, many other things that died either before their time or were killed before they really saw the light of day.

Bottom line: for as much an Xbox and MS fan as I've been, they've completely lost my trust.

Do I blame Phil? Nope. I truly (maybe even misguidedly) believe he wants to make great games and wants to do right by the Xbox community. I blame Satya and the shareholders.

Fable in a year? Yeah right

@Kieduss This. 100%.

And yeah, it’s a mediocre game for sure. I bought it day one and regretted it 20 minutes later.

Funny how Phil and Satya can talk about the war for attention and it’s laughed off as “that’s because you lost” while Reggie says the same thing and it’s wise words. We live in completely different times now compared to the last half dozen console generations. Roblox is eating everyone else’s lunch and there’s not a damn thing any exclusives can really do about it. Sure, you’ll see some Metroid sales this fall, but the era of consoles is over, many of us just haven’t accepted it yet.

Eh, kept Ultimate and dropped Disney+. Easy choice.

My kids still use Series S consoles and love them more than any other consoles they have, and we’ve got PS5’s and Switch 1&2. Go figure.

@kmtrain83 and that has what to do with what I said? I mean, at one point Titanic was the biggest film in history. Doesn’t make it good. It definitely didn’t make it a great film before it even came out?

Speaking as someone who couldn’t care less about Xbox’s anniversary