theduckofdeath

"No reason has been provided for why it was offline all this time"

There was an orange banner across the top of the page the whole time, saying the service was down due to a switch to a different payment system in the backend. You could build/design a controller during the downtime (as I did), you just could not pay for it.

Shinobi demo
Ninja Gaiden: Rage bound
NRFTW
Tony Hawk 3+4
RoboCop
Grounded
Undisputed
UFC 5
Wuchang

@huroma No, the comparisons are year over year. Sales are down could be down a 1/4 (for example) versus the same quarter during the previous year. It's not a half-life.

The Series consoles will be 5 years old in November, and the next gen is coming 1-2 years from that point.

@MonsterMike I'm pretty sure it was more common about 15 years ago for PC, back when there was still some physical presence in stores.

@Gabrie I wouldn't buy into the rhetoric. The internet has no shortage of negative Nancys, opportunists, and the fearful attempting to disparage Xbox. MS has a vested interest in their own stores and their own platform & services. There is a clear, daily profit motive for many, whether they are PS sites & channels or claim to be Xbox-focused.

@Gabrie Well, the Xbox games (Windows and console) have unified an achievement system. There are a few instances where you could double dip, otherwise, you can trip an achievement from console or app.

As far as the exterior stores, isn't the major plus found in having access to them? The implication being that following this handheld effort, legacy Xbox console games may come to PC and these outside stores may come to the console? Linking outside achievements to the Xbox system seems trivial in comparison.

Exterior store & platform integration is cool (GoG has been doing it for a while). The Windows Xbox app is using the list icons instead of larger tile icons, so they're blown up and as a result, blurry. A cosmetic flaw, but MS needs to fix that soon, regardless.

@Gabrie You want all the stores to have unified achievements? That is of course possible, but a lot of unnecessary coordination. Steam store has their own achievements. I don't play enough games or frequently enough on Epic or GoG to know/remember if they support any form of achievements. UPlay/UbiConnect has something similar. I'm not sure about EA Play.

This is not a realistic scenario. As long as we are fantasizing, make it at least version 5.6 and the entire studio along with the industry are well-versed in it. This would have made development go smoother (and quicker). The bigger issue was an inability to get new maps and content out, along with network issues making some matches frustrating.

@Kraven OK. I get that the "pop" or however you would describe it could feel like an extra reward for finding something, clearing a puzzle, or beating a boss. The in-game and post-game acknowledgements and weapons unlocks in CoD and Battlefield, for example.

In my case, I don't take much stock in achievements/trophies beyond the natural encounters with them. I play every game on the hardest difficulty level (except for permadeath most times) and play through once, with rare exceptions. Some achievements are predictable (10 headshots, 10 stealth kills), and besides, I naturally will search around a map for secret items or encounters.

I don't ever use guides, google solutions, or look up the achievement list. My approach is to just play and whatever happens, happens.

Looking up where to find each item and then taking the time to collect them is just not something I'm going to do. Discovering stuff on my own is fun and more fulfilling. The achievement side of it holds like relevance for me.

I guess that's why I've only found about 5-6 skulls in the entire Halo series.

What kind of question is that? The point is that the advantages of Smart Delivery are transparent.

@Kraven What is it you like about Trophies? Or Achievements, for that matter?

I still buy a ton of games on Xbox, Steam, and other PC stores; new & old. Probably, too many games. Yesterday, it was a few Castlevania games on Xbox. If a game is Play Anywhere and not on Game Pass, then I will buy it from the Xbox store.

Titles like SoM and STALKER 2 were purchased, regardless. Hell, I bought STALKER 2 Ultimate Edition on Steam and Xbox, despite being a member of GP Ultimate.

The only purchase I remember making from the Xbox movie store was the Candyman remake. Maybe I have some movie or TV show that was gifted. All my digital TV & movie purchases/rentals are from Prime and VUDU.

Rumor has it the Everwild team could not lockdown the gameplay loop. The title was given several years to be completed, and a cancellation leads one to believe the game was not just a year out.

Consider how many games either "borrow" or are "inspired" by an existing popular game's mechanics or decide to adopt them during development. Shadow of Mordor with Arkham combat, Uncharted with Gears of War combat (then Uncharted to TLoU), etc. My impression is that the Everwild team couldn't settle on something new or proven that fit their world design and lost time there.

Similarly, Perfect Dark development was painted with rumors of infighting and lack of a cohesive team or direction. Design time ran long and cut into dev time, apparently. Neither game truly materialized, so I'm more inclined to believe some of the hearsay.

@somnambulance They sell electronic products. If it entertains you or provides utility at an affordable price, you buy it. I don't know what the layoffs of $80 billion (earmarked at the start of year by Satya, not spent) for AI has anything to do with a product. A myriad of companies are experiencing layoffs (in and out of tech).

Tony Hawk 3+4 and finishing up Clair Obscur.

I am a fan of the game who stepped away to...play other games. My playtime was about 20 days (game save, little fluff). There are many vocal detractors many of whom never played the game and who are sour, disingenuous people.

Keeping expectations grounded, I would like to see the next update come with game mechanic additions and tweaks. There are some low-hanging fruit that could be tackled. We have grown accustomed to CoD and Destiny head-pop and "reward sounds." Starfield could do with more graphic violence.

Ninja Gaiden Black, Breakdown, SFIII.

I am also playing through Dead to Rights again (don't judge me).

@PsBoxSwitchOwner Well, we don't know their actual goals; this year, last year, whenever. We get rumors and "reports" from alleged journalists and "insider-adjacent" individuals. Too many take these reports for gospel. Those reporting have a clear profit motive, for starters.

The "100 million subs by 2030" thing for example. If I remember correctly, that was a hypothetical from an old, leaked email or slide. Why not 90 million? Or 110 million? 2028 vs. 2030 vs 2032? Sounds like a somewhat arbitrary scenario being tossed out there.

@abe_hikura The message is one of condolences. They didn't need all those people and thus the company was burning excess cash. All of MS is affected.

@Titntin Yes. Games returning to Game Pass is not uncommon. Some are included in standard.

@dreadful MS won't do that because a company makes more money (immediately) selling to as many people as possible. More than any individual, constrained company. If they took everything exclusive now, it would take a lot of time to manufacture and sell consoles to fill the gap.

Not to mention backlash and people not having the money. They would rather sell $50 - $550 worth of games than roll the dice and hope that person has the cash to buy an Xbox (which may still be sold at loss) and some games.

The best chance of what you're describing would have been if they had a similar studio makeup and release cadence as they do now, at the Series launch in 2020. There is still the next gen launch to come, so we will see what they do there. As people love to claim, Microsoft "flip-flops" and "pivots" all the time.

@TheGiraffe Typing that and reading it aloud should be enough for you to realize that is not what they are doing.

@Fiendish-Beaver Just like any portable or VR device?

Fryer is looking for clicks & views. It is possible she is disgruntled. Her video is using detractors talking points and conveniently leans on assumptions, while leaving out pertinent known information.

@Ricky-Spanish Xbox is doing great now, the problem is they abruptly pivoted to porting games to PS (right when game production was picking up). That leads some people to be upset, some happy, some indifferent, some disingenuous, and way too many hyperbolic in their reactions.

Fryer has a YouTube channel to drive clicks for profit. She managed to be more negative and exaggerative than the DF guys. Could be she is actually bitter and wants to see 12-15 games shoved solely through the Xbox console. I doubt that is purely what is driving her.

@RiverGenie The Steam Deck is my first and only handheld. Unless you count those flat, static B&W LCD handhelds that Nintendo released in the early 80's. I never cared for handhelds because the technology just wasn't there. Then I grew older and started to drive, so it seemed there was little utility for one.

@Ilyn Play Anywhere is something I wanted since the 360 launched. I've been playing on PC since the original PS launched. Console always lag behind PC in performance and control. PDZ and Oblivion would have been so much better with Play Anywhere.

Any title that where success lies on aiming & shooting, chances are, I am playing on PC. Poor console performance? Playing on PC. Amazing tech? Playing on PC. The six games you mentioned in your last sentence, I played all of them on PC. RE2Make, RE3Make, and RE4Make look amazing on PC with HDR (wide screen, too).

Play Anywhere grants you flexibility at the same cost. It's an escape hatch when console games are not performant and with Game Pass, well, it's not even Steam vs. Xbox store anymore. Plenty of times I want to chill out on the couch and play something. Usually that is smaller games, sports/racing. fighting, etc. I'll still play some shooting games on console with a controller from time to time.

I do wonder if they pay attention to where and what a user is playing. So, this guy has Steam (and/or Epic, EA, Ubi, etc.) linked to his account and he is on Game Pass. He buys these particular games or genres here and others there. Distribution of play time, etc.

@Romans12 No. Prices don't get set at the dollar-to-pound or dollar to Euro conversion. If something is $499 USD it will likely be 499 pounds in the UK.

@IOI People are apparently dumbfounded by driver updates and mouse-oriented interfaces.

But seriously, people bought the Ally and complained about the desktop user interface and performance overhead of Windows. Now Microsoft addresses it and suddenly there is a problem?

@PsBoxSwitchOwner Are you seriously STILL denying the Sony blocked BMW from Xbox? At this point? BMW is releasing a later year, to the day, on Xbox.

Microsoft's response was "we cannot comment on the business deals made by our partners." Repeatedly. Not "No," not "we are trying to help Game Science with a Series S issue." Microsoft also said, "Game Science did not report any difficulties with Series S to us", after GS tried to use that excuse.

How would you interpret those statements, provided you were not hellbent on denying Sony blocked BMW from Xbox in the 11th hour?

@Jenkinss I still feel kind of guilty for falling for Sony's PS2 phony game trailer campaign and skipping the Dreamcast. At the time, I had just started working professionally, so I was trying to be somewhat financially responsible.

The fake trailers started when I was a still a senior in college. Fake Tekken Tag Tournament videos and other games. Plenty of hyperbolic statements about the "Emotion Engine" and the "Graphics Synthesizer." I never feel for it again, yet others do, incessantly. Sony persists with this approach to this day.

@Kaloudz I have BMW on PC. The game looks great overall (graphics & presentation), with some graphics and performance issues. The level design is kind of old school with very little "climb-ability," you can't really try to explore off the tracks (e.g. climb rocks). No map either, if you rely on those.

BMW is action game with some Souls-like factors. Not really a Souls game in a negative sense. There are a few tougher bosses but not really. Nothing like Souls games in challenge, creativity, the thrill of the battle. This is something Lies of P nailed.

You just kind fight a boss, maybe lose a few times, but generally know what you need to do. You just whack-whack-whack, remember to use your abilities and their cooldowns effectively, and you'll be successful. Not to suggest there are not some combat mechanisms you need to understand, but it is pretty simple.

For me, there was no real feeling of accomplishment after beating a boss, because there was not much of a struggle. Not much you needed to learn and exploit.

You're way too quick and way too generous calling that gameplay.

@Kaloudz If you're parking a lot of games on the drive and desire the portability maybe it would be worth it. For someone in some corner of the games industry, sure. I upgraded from a 1TB to a 2TB, which was worth it.

On PC, I recently built with 2 2TB NVMe drives and a 2TB SATA drive. The previous machine was running out of room at 5 TB total. My backlog a lot of "almost done" games over the years and I was hanging on.

I remember completing this as it was an early gen Game Pass game. Not really within the realms of subject matter that usually interests me, but I figured, "Eh...Why the hell not?" There were things to discover and puzzle to solve.

The story sounds dramatic (traumatic?), though it didn't really have much impact (for me). I just decided to see what to truth is by completing the chapters (which weren't long, kind of like TWD games).

I dug this game. The outer world segments, above ground, could have been more fleshed out. It was easy to get in an extended (to say the least) cycle of smashing those soda can drones. The game had some good boss design and looked great.

I didn't have the issues some people share with the melee combat; you're swinging large iron pipes with weights on the ends, so the last thing it would be is swift. The dungeons posed some good puzzle challenge. There was one key disc I missed and had to move on.

This should be obvious but, play in Russian dialog audio with English subtitles.

Metaphor is fantastic. I'm 140 hours in and fear I've got another 15-20 hours left. Had to put it on the backburner when Oblivion and Clair Obscur released.

I missed this one, it sold out quickly.

@Fiendish-Beaver Looks like the Witcher controller is a "Core" unit — no extra parts. The DOOM Elite was the full kit with case and attachments.

I missed this one — it is showing as sold out now.

@Bmartin001 Looks like they are being added to Standard (Core).

@themightyant Looks like there are actual Xbox controller handles built into the sides/back. That is huge.

No, it won't be cheap. Got to be realistic.

@Fiendish-Beaver Microsoft/Xbox owning Bethesda doesn't change anything from Sony's perspective of a platform dealing with a third-party publisher. Bethesda would continue to be treated as any other third-party publisher and that ad was targeted solely to Sony PlayStation platform at added expense.

That video was the kind of thing that happens when there is some form of a marketing deal in-place. The existing normal commercials and trailers address all platforms. Sony continues to focus on perception. The Ghost of Yotei video was released on the same day as the Oblivion Remake shadow drop as some kind of a proof-of-life.

@LogicStrikesAgain People don't have unlimited time or money, so Xbox putting games on PS does not necessarily mean PS players are buying MORE games. They are certainly buying Xbox games, at the expense of Sony sales and third-party sales. The PS has become more crowded and competitive.

MS, on the other hand, is granted instantaneous access to an additional 60-75 million console units in exchange for 30% of software unit sales. MS did not have to manufacture, store, ship, or sell those units to customers. They did not take a monetary loss on the sale of those consoles.

MS and Sony compete for components to build those consoles, and MS also uses them in XCloud as well. NTM, "the console market isn't growing." If one side sells more, the other has to sell less. Regardless, neither side could ever sell more units than PS and Xbox combined.

@Fiendish-Beaver Sony definitely had a hand in writing that script:

"Hey, Sony-guys!" LOL

No mention of Xbox whatsoever.

Yes, this video will likely boost sales of DOOM, benefiting MS and Sony (developer and platform, as is the norm). The appears more likely to be a paid spot (on Sony's part). They love to do this stuff (Callisto Protocol, CoD, etc.).

@Fiendish-Beaver This is paid advertisement. Sony is still paying to spread the impression that big third-party titles are special or exclusive on PS, even if MS/Xbox owns them, apparently. Some "casuals" may know MS owns Bethesda but be unclear if DOOM is Xbox exclusive. Either way, Bethesda & MS get the ad money and higher sales of DOOM.

So glad to see this realized and I would love to see Morrowind get a similar treatment. One issue I've encountered is when creating my male character, lipstick is permanently enabled. LOL. Eye shadow, however, has an appropriate "off" toggle in the color selector.

@Fiendish-Beaver I am at the 139 hours in Metaphor and have just the Trials and the final mission to complete. I did have to redo the "Day of Calamity" after a major screw up.

@Ricky-Spanish Yes. Somehow people forget this. To rent a game $4-$6 for 2 days (return on the third). You have to travel to the store and back twice. Even with mailers, time is lost in transport.