theduckofdeath

@Widey85 The rumors were dismissible for some time as they were farfetched, going by Xbox's truly positive (finally) outlook. I was firmly in the camp of "shut up" and no doom & gloom...until Phil's tweet. I don't want anything Xbox going anywhere else. That does not seem likely from his words.

MS/Xbox let this situation devolve and need another week to respond. If there wasn't at least a kernel of truth, a tweet or tweet could dispel the rumors. IMO, they are trying break something negative to the fanbase and do not know how to do it.

@IronMan30 Their behavior is erratic and self-destructive. Nothing should be ported. After the way the rumors got out of control, anything being ported will worsen the bleeding of confidence in the platform. Damage has been done and it can get worse.

I they were going to port a few games, better that they got them out the door in surprise betrayal. Then they could get a backlash, apologize or whatever, and backtrack. The negativity has become insidious at this point and they're like, "Hmmm...Let's give it another week to fester." LOL

@Rmg0731 Even before the deal closed, I had (and still have) strong doubts about new CoD launching into Game Pass. MS will want to recoup that $75 million as soon as possible. Then the real profit starts.

Consider that the previous year CoD maintains strong sales through the release of the subsequent CoD. Top 10 if not Top 5 each month. Got to wonder if MS/Xbox wants to roll the dice on puting that one in GP as well.

@Deityjester Callisto was $17.99 on Steam last week.

Yes. A lot of games came out last year and I don't just blow through games. I've completed one series and I'm about to complete the first Builder's Cup series.

@bpomber Current ABK games were never reported to be going exclusive. We know CoD was remaining multi-plat. We could assume that Diablo and maybe Overwatch would as well. King is mobile and not relevant to this situation. The income from those companies is what justified the price MS paid for ABK (plus a premium). Keeping things the same should recoup the cost in 5-10 years.

New IPs or revivals would be case by case.

@Mephisto2869 Why did MS get into the console market in the first place? The doc said the tipping reason was so Sony would not go unchallenged.

If MS doesn't want to create expensive consoles anymore, Sony sure as hell should want to get out of the business, too. The PS5 is cheaper than the Series X, however, the report is that 3x more have been sold. That is a crazy expense and Sony doesn't have a couple hundred billion cash like MS. The Insomniac leak showed Sony is struggling and bending.

I don't see Sony being OK with Game Pass on PS, regardless. People are assuming they will be all cool with Xbox becoming a PS developer.

@bpomber No. Sony PS and Nintendo don't do this for a reason. Sony is a little too stubborn and releases on PC kicking & screaming. Xbox already goes to PC day & date. That should be enough of a "secondary" market. The PC is the DMZ.

Without console subscribers Game Pass numbers will plummet. MS built a console for a reason. Releasing Xbox games on PS would ultimately be a poor decision.

@Fenbops I don't know...I wouldn't assume that. He was obviously bothered by the Redfall debacle and these rumors are waaaaaaay worse for Xbox than Redfall.

@BANJO Yeah, my GPU is all rewards points now. Good through 7/26 and climbing.

Depending on the severity of the news, it could castrate the console and the basis for customer support. People won't be able to trust them not to go further in the future.

@Fenbops Could be Phil and his crew trying to talk Satya and the pure shirts out of it. Someone(s) may have leaked info as a cry for help; rabble rousing to put the kibosh on it going any further. Phil is trying to talk Satya down like he's Ellis in Diehard.

If this is true, even if it is a few games, it is a misstep that may surpass that on XB1. Almost like movie-level scripted never-happen misstep.

At this point, Phil would have to pull a Wolf of Wall Street speech to turn it around.

@BANJO "Utter madness to let everyone stew over this for another week..."

Better than rumor #47 (2024) "Sarah Bond is going to address this in the Spring."

@MrN0vmbr You should worry about other platforms getting Xbox games, because that will bring about all the other negatives we are trying to avoid.

@Widey85 That is just the thing — rumors could be anything. YTbers and game sites profit from clicks/traffic so they will run away speculating about every negative possibility. You notice how it is never anything positive?

Maybe they will swap Hi-Fi Rush for a Bloodborne remake.

@OrfeasDourvas A company does not keep people on the payroll that it does not have work for. Plain and simple. That would be a bad business move.

Many tech companies staffed up to excess going into the pandemic lockdowns. They don't need as many people anymore. Could be too much money was burned. Regardless, those people had employment that they otherwise would have found, for years. Somehow that is overlooked in all this.

@OldGamer999 Are they really going to send Phil out into the line of fire on this one? LOL.

We will learn to what degree the rumors are true. At this point, just Sea of Thieves or Hi-Fi Rush would be a relief.

@GamingSince84 Well Sony and Nintendo certainly did not get the memo on plastic boxes. Sony pays millions every year to block third party games from plastic Xboxes (look at their 2024 lineup alone). That is a low market share move committed by the market leader. When they don't have 1st party titles, they continue to heavily leverage 3rd party.

When Nintendo jerked Sony around, they created their own plastic box. Exclusives of any origin tip the hand of the consumer. Sony learned that from Nintendo. A console is a trojan horse that the platform holder controls. An installed base can be wielded as a weapon.

Destroying relationships with loyal customers in the hopes of selling a few extra copies on the competition's platform is a fool's journey. They will lose further ground and risk becoming reviled by alienating their fanbase. Why did they make an Xbox in the first place? Satya said, "let us compete." If the rumors are true, he sure has a funny way of going about it.

Game Pass certainly is not everywhere, and consoles are a long way from being irrelevant. Look at how much of the U.S. is still without Gigabit broadband.

"Millions of players will get to access some of Xbox's biggest and best games"

I don't get this argument. Who cares about these people? How is that a benefit to XBox customers in the slightest? Sony doesn't think like this; Nintendo doesn't think like this; both have greater market share than Xbox.

If you want to play Xbox games, buy an Xbox. Or buy the game on PC. Or pay for GP and play on the XCloud. MS already gives potential customers multiple avenues to play games from different publishers.

Sony keeps their 1st party games exclusive to PS. That is fine, console-wise. I would like them (all publishers, really) to release on PC. That would be ideal in my eyes.

The bulk of people don't have massive disposable incomes to spend on games. So, hypothetically putting more and more games on your direct competitor could do more harm than good (profit). Why did MS make a console in the first place? Why did they continue? If third party is the move now, it was always the correct move. More correct. From jump. Something does not add up.

I know these are still just rumors. The idea that Phil and others on the Xbox team are OK with this is tough to swallow. If true, God help the individual who has to announce this.

I'm not conflicted. Don't do it. Ever.

Xbox keep your games. PS keep your 1st party games (have to specify with Sony). Nintendo keep your games.

Well, Xbox and PS, put your games on PC. Otherwise, console games should be exclusive.

These are unsubstantiated rumors backed up by unsubstantiated rumors.

If it is true or being discussed, I wonder if it is Satya driving it. This would be disastrous to the console and Game Pass. That will impact the ecosystem. Why did they make a console in the first place?

@Sakai That depends on the OS. Windows on RoG Ally can't compare to a tailored portable OS like on Steam Deck. An Xbox portable could run a stripped-down version of Windows, or Xbox OS, or both. The Xbox and Xbox Game Pass libraries are different than their PC counterparts.

@CharlieChooChoo I never had a portable (console-type) until Steam Deck and I have to admit, it is pretty cool. There is a utility that it provides. I can freely admit that I am an engineer and into gadgetry. This is not something I use everyday, but something that changes how I play.

@JokerBoy422 Turn on your flashlight.

@JayJ I should not have bought it for reasons 1, and somewhat 2 & 3. In Nov-Dec. MS points knocked $25 off of Inf. Wealth.

I completed Yak6 and Man With No Name. So starting Inf. Wealth is fine for continuity. I completed 1-3 and the first half of 4 over a decade ago.

@evan23 Well the game released in September. The dev team probably took a vacation after years of pressure. Then came the holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's). Word on the internet street is that people are vehemently opposed to AI in development, so human effort is a necessity.

The official word is that in February 2024, patches will start to roll out in a 6-week cadence.

@Kaloudz I've been playing Gotham Knights on GP lately. It is good for rewards points due to predictable Achievements.

During the 360 era, I bought 100+ physical discs. About 15-20 PS3 discs. On XB1, that number drops to 10 or so. For Series X, I've bought 4 discs. Each has wound up on Game Pass. On PC, well, I have hundreds of digital games dating back over a decade.

Virtually all of my physical games are boxed up and stowed away.

@xeofate Be sure to take advantage of XP boost drinks constantly in Like a Dragon.

Tekken 8, Palworld, Gotham Knights, Diablo IV, Starfield.

I will try to fit in some Halo and Baldur's Gate.

I'm also think of redeeming some points and buying Infinite Wealth.

@JokerBoy422 No, but Satya has given Xbox greater support than ever before. The new acquisitions (Bethesda and ABK) are under the Xbox business division, so that profit comes through them first.

@DennisReynolds That is a false equivalency. For every instance of 3rd party exclusivity for Xbox, there are five for PS. Higher frequency and higher profile games. Just start at 2024 (FFVII Rebirth, Rise of Ronin, Stellar Blade, Silent Hill 2 Remake, Foamstars, etc.), then review 2023, and so on.

Xbox 360 launched a year earlier PS2, to its benefit. It was a great system that was able to secure great third party support because of it. Have you forgotten the 3rd party support disparity between PS2 and OG Xbox? No GTA3, Vice City timed exclusivity for PS2, no EA support...the list goes on.

Yes. I would definitely want to check out the new tech. No word on Hall Effect sticks. Fingers-crossed on the battery life. The Elite Series 3 can't be too far behind.

@eire-shabba I think those are going to be released quarterly, in batches.

@JokerBoy422 Microsoft owns Xbox and MS is worth $2.9 trillion dollars at the moment. That's a trillion with a 'T'. I don't think this promotion scratches the surface.

@SodaPop6548 Yes. Palworld has 10 Achievements in the preview.

@Romans12 I played through Redfall in Spring/Summer of last year. Overwhelmingly on PC. Issues at launch were not nearly as bad as reviewers' copies, but still pretty bad. PC performance was surging between 90+ fps to drops into the 40s.

The game certain had an appeal despite the issues. Finding the safehouses, clearing the board, and freeing each neighborhood sucked me in. I put way more in than I expected or would have liked (45-65 hours). The lighting was also pretty cool; multiple distinct sources bouncing off your hands and weapons. IMO, the second map was much better than the first.

There were many issues besides performance and QoL. Playing through it was kind of like an investigation into game design. Some aspects were flawed from inception (not uncommon) and others were as if we got to play the game too early.

I have this game on Steam. I can't play it on Steam Deck because of the speed, difficulty, and control setup.

I've been playing this series for 29 years. How did I get so old? 😅

Bought T8 on Xbox and Steam.

@SacredPYRO JC Denton. That is a great avatar.

I'm going to complete Sea of Stars tonight. It is way longer than I could have imagined. I played the entire game through XCloud on Steam Deck.

@InterceptorAlpha These two could definitely fit the full game on disk.

Xbox has grown significantly in the last few years. If a significant portion of CoD sales are on disc, then maybe we don't abandon it so quickly. Besides, how do we prove we own disc-based games from previous generations?

@Markatron84 Yeah, I doubled checked my Epic Store library and I redeemed that one, too.

@IGN_Commenter It was fun to steer the arrows in Heavenly Sword. I know some people turn it on now to put a band-aid on console controller aiming. I would much rather just use mouse & keyboard. Or have some company develop better analog sticks. No progress since '97.

I would definitely pick one up to check it out. The 1st party devs (at least) know it is coming and can work hooks into their code to take advantage of it.

@Fiendish-Beaver It is still early and what was in the video would have been frozen even earlier for recording. I really don't think the enemies will be that unaggressive even on Normal mode. This was just a demonstration, meant to give us a good look at things.

I don't think that the current game looks so different from the first sequence we saw years ago. Not anymore. Just that the cave was really dark in that first reveal where he drew the magical rune, and now the cave is lit up like a Christmas tree. 😄

The last two bugs under "SHIPS AND SHIP CUSTOMIZATION"

I think these two caused a weird but cool sequence of events for we while stealing ships, repeatedly:

I watched my ship come about and grav jump from the cockpit of a commandeered ship (ordered grav jump from menu without realizing the stolen ship had 0 grav power set).

I then continued the Sarah loyalty mission and got stranded on the same planet she was stranded on before, while doing the loyalty mission about the incident. The stolen ship disappeared, and Vasco stood at the landing site all by his lonesome. The Frontier was shown as the home ship (had not flown it in a long, long time). The ship icon on map started showing out in deep space (tiny and far).

While killing the rocklike aliens (tough) for XP earlier, I helped a wounded guy get back to his ship. There was (what looked like) a ship on a plateau far in the distance. I ended up fast traveling back there, then hoofing it about 2.5km across a canyon. There was a large Ecliptic ship I had to sprint to when the bullets started flying. Killed the remaining crew and earned a ride home.

Oh yeah; the Spacer ship which I deleted to make room for my new 10th ship is somehow still on the landing pad at my outpost.

@Kevw2006 I remember it the other way around; September was the target for all. PC was moved up to August as it was ready. PS stayed set for September. We were warned months out that Xbox would miss September due to Series S dev issues and Xbox launch policy.

@Markatron84 Same here. FFVII was pretty huge when initially released. My roommate played a copy we borrowed from another friend, while I sat there and heckled. 😄

I'm pretty sure I have never played a FF game, even though I own a few. Strange that I bought and completed both Parasite Eve games upon release.

@stinkyx I don't remember that mission title, but I comment your return the fight. 😄 I do remember a few of those Gears 4 missions on Insane were...insanely difficult. One side effect was that became pretty deadly with the magnum in hipfire.