swedetrap

How dare these video games be fun!

While I'm no fan of Mattrick's, there's no denying that he was ahead of his time, like it or not. We live in a future without physical media and we're always connected - it's really that simple. Steam is to blame for the former, progress for the latter. All of that said, the messaging behind the Xbox One was abysmal. I didn't even want one at all until I saw a Killer Instinct playable demo at a Microsoft Store in San Francisco. I knew then that I still wanted one.

Having said all of that, I really liked Skype, Kinect, OneGuide, etc. - I watched all of my TV through an Xbox One until they shut those features off. By then, most smart TV software had at least caught up a little bit.

That messaging though? Still makes me cringe. Who shows up to show some new games on a new games console and then doesn't bring games? Don Mattrick. Sap.

I have a life so these Digital Foundry viewpoints on games are pretty much useless.

"OMG! It dropped two frames at the 14m34s mark! What were they thinking releasing this!"

So stupid.

Brilliant. I've played it once. I'm already back for more.

@NEStalgia Absolutely. Infamous SS was my favorite PS4 game behind Days Gone. I felt both were very underrated. I tried to play the first two Infamous games via PS Now (my PS3 died a long time ago) but the streaming latency made it nearly impossible, even on my fiber connection.

@NEStalgia Couldn't agree more about Spider-Man. People LOVE that game. For me, once the traversal mechanics wore off about two hours in, I found it tedious to get around in. What would have been a 10/10 solid 8-10 hour experience for me ended up being a 6 or 7/10 slog. I get that they want people to feel good about spending their $60 but there's a fine line there. I'm down for 8-10 hour campaign that I can come back to and play again at my option to 100%. Despite how many people rag on Far Cry, that's exactly how I play those games. They're really not that long if you just focus on the story missions, and they're a blast to plow through again later for the extras.

Bungee lost me with Destiny 2. It started strong but i don’t have enough hours to dedicate to a game that erases its own paid DLC.

Halo Infinite, FH5 and Chorvs… though I hate spelling it like that

Seeing as how it isn't a small-budget indie title available only on PC and Switch that deals with issues of great societal importance, I'm going to go ahead and guess that the gaming press will score it somewhere in the 30-40 region.

"I played it for 45 hours and now I'm bored!" - maybe mix it up a little bit?

Are people still playing Destiny? All of my friends that played it seem to think Bungie has committed some sort of awful and unforgivable sin in recent months and refuse to go back to it. I stopped playing it well over a year ago. I didn't realize it was on Game Pass until reading this.

I've been playing Halo Infinite to death but I bought a whole bunch of OG Xbox/360 games that just showed up on back compat, and I don't think a single one was on sale for Black Friday.

Whatever. At least now I've got all the Max Paynes. Together at last.

Sick to death of BF but oddly intrigued by Bloodrayne remasters. Maybe I ate too much Halloween candy.

A fresh coat of paint really doesn't cover up how absolutely archaic GTA:SA looks and feels. I'm a huge fan, but some things are best left to fond memories.

The only bigger waste of time than reading gamer tweets is reading about and commenting on gamer tweets.

My favorite rumor so far this month.

Was this delayed outside the US? I’ve had mine for months. Didn’t realize it hadn’t rolled out elsewhere yet. Definitely well worth the money either way.

Wasn't Skatebird a Nintendo Indie showcase title a while back? There have been so many "OMG WE HAVE INDIES!" presentations lately that I've lost track along with most of my ability to care. That said, The Artful Escape is a beautiful not-really-a-game game on Game Pass. Satisfied my "small devs make good stuff" urges for the month already.

Had this come out more toward the beginning of the Non-Stop Remasterathon a few years ago I would probably be excited. Now, after Mass Effect, et al I'm rather bored with playing previous gen games with a fresh coat of paint. Go ahead and have an exclusive, Sony. As much as I love KOTOR I won't be buying for PS5 or Xbox because meh.

@Fenbops Couldn't possibly agree more.

I was looking forward to no other game more than this one and then watched this trailer. What a turd. 100% interested to 0% interested in only 3 minutes. Great job.

Eh. I'm not going to buy it either way. Because Game Pass.

It’s PS4 Spider Man puddlegate all over again. Who cares? Move on.

I can land, I just can't taxi without running into 8 other planes.

I just aimlessly flew around Tokyo for 45 minutes. This is the ultimate post-work, chill out and zen game. I couldn't be happier.

I still have friends waiting to buy Series X consoles. Shame the component problem is still here all these months later.

Just received mine - almost deleted it thinking it was yet another MCC multiplayer update. Stoked!

Already have MSFS on my PC but am excited to play it on my Series X anyway. Can I pick "both?" I pick both.

I've already owned both of these for a long time now but what I'm really hoping is that enough people play Crimson Skies to where it gets some kind of reboot.

@hbkay So, I hear you REALLY like Jedi Fallen Order.

Everyone is so obsessed with being able to play Keith Courage on their TurboGrafx/PC-Engine in the year 2067. I support this, really I do, but I fail to see why the industry needs to cripple itself with outdated technologies to satisfy the collectathon needs of a segment of users. Why can't it be both? Personally, I'd rather more users had more access to more artistic works than a scant few obsessives being able to play Mad Dog McCree on the Sega CD.

(I say the above with peace and love as a recovered game collector that sold off my entire collection of physical games last year, including every known US Vita release, etc.)

Also, why isn't everyone down on Steam for the same things? What's different about Microsoft in this case? I get that Sony and Nintendo have been flat out stupid about back-compat and legacy gaming, but Microsoft feels like the only console manufacturer to care at all. So it's a work in progress - give em some time.

@Magabro Couldn't agree more. Once I cleared about half the PS4 exclusives I had (I play all multiplatform games on Xbox and have for about a decade) I realized I was playing mostly the same game over and over with a different (albeit mostly great) story. Once I got tired of it, I haven't connected my PS since.

Yeah, it was fun (mostly) while it lasted but this sort of thing is an instant turn-off. I don't need more Fortnite, I need less. A lot less.

Sekiro and AC: Odyssey would make my month.

Not worried at all. In fact, I'd be surprised if this isn't the best Fable yet. Playground Games has been nothing short of excellent to date.

Definitely giving A Plague Tale another go. I got about two hours into it at a bad time for spare time due to my work schedule. Happy to see it come to Game Pass in all its enhanced glory.

Wanted to like CrossCode. Didn’t. Not really the games fault so much as the fault of the gaming press for gushing over it so much.

Every few months Digital Foundry has to drag out an old CRT for a shamelessly smug episode because slow news day in the land of gaming graphics. Zzzzzz

Gaming exec lovefest. Zzzzzzzzz.

The one-off stuff like the Halo Experience only work because they're one-offs. They're delightful little surprises in an otherwise incredibly deep and satisfying, albeit extremely arcade-like racing game. While I love the Hot Wheels expansion I hated the LEGO one because most of us come for the cars and all of the ridiculous things the game allows us to do with them that we couldn't do in real life (not to mention in most other games). The absurdity dial has generally always been set to `perfect` in my opinion. Setting it higher risks alienating the superfans, those of us that never stop playing, and we are very very many in number.

Loved it. Bought it. Great game.

Exclusivity sucks either way. I'm just happy MS has made themselves a nice path backward and forward so I can play these things well into the future and still go back and play Panzer Dragoon Orta every now and again. Where exclusivity really burns are those PS3 games i never got around to playing before my console died and now my only choice is to use the godawful PS Now service.

I finally have enough bandwidth to make this worthwhile and have been hoping for this for years. My Steam library makes me realize that "ownership" of physical things is kind of stupid when I can take my library from PC to PC. Being able to simply stream to a low-cost laptop of MS Surface is the dream there. Something similar for my Xbox game library and Game Pass would be amazing. I don't need a big stupid box next to my TV to feel happy. I just need good bandwidth, low latency, and all my games. Consoles are over within 10 years.

If ever there was a game that was announced too early is was Hellblade 2. I'm beginning to think that the initial teaser trailer was made mere minutes before the game was first announced. Kind of like "Hey, what else can we put out?" "How about Hellblade 2?" "Yeah! Great! Let's make a trailer!"

What's strange about all of this is that many (though definitely not all) of the Akihabara stores have a lot of Xbox presence. I've always wondered how they justify the shelf space with so few sales, especially since I was mostly over there from 2014 to 2019, the absolute low of Xbox popularity in Japan. It's so weird to go into all of the used game stores and see all of these great old OG Xbox and 360 games, many of which I'd never seen in the USA, and then the same old XB1 crap over and over - though I did buy a few Japan exclusives. Here's hoping Series S cracks 4 figures...and beyond.

I'd love some Persona but couldn't care less about Final Fantasy at this point. 7 remake and 15 didn't do it for me. What I really want to see are updates from each of the studio acquisitions. I don't need 50 new games tomorrow but it would be cool to see what everyone is up to. Its almost summer so I'm not going to game much until the fall anyway. Still, it'd be nice to have a few things to look forward to.

Game Pass or not, it's a day one for me. I really enjoyed the demo. It would have been cool to get it for free but I'm not butt hurt to have to finally drop money on a game either.

@P3nguinprisM Great game at full price. Fantastic game on a sale.

Already bought the Master Chief shirt but man, I’d jump at the chance to get that controller too.

I am all over Hired Gun. The trailer was amazing.