theduckofdeath

The game is live now in the US (Eastern).

Bought the upgrade. Looking forward to this one since the reveal years ago.

Last night I bought this ($39.99 on Xbox store sale). I'm on the last level of the Punisher game. Great edition to Series consoles. I have been playing SF3 on the 360 most recently.

@Juanalf I think MS wants some level of confusion on foreign consoles. You don't want them taking ports for granted. There could be new Xboxes in a couple years. Sony habitually obfuscates the exclusivity period of third-party deals.

@Isolte Yes, the media is digital. Could be if you buy the physical version, it is different. I'm not sure. The Starfield digital artbook was actually pretty large.

The DLC (missions, story, car packs), cosmetics/weapons, and early access are what mainly attracts me. I don't pay for Game Pass and even if I did, the price ($15-30 discounted) of these upgrades is fairly negligible.

@JonBoyJ I understand this sentiment. I'm older now as well, and while I am playing the game (Sniper Elite 5), I can't help thinking about the real-life counterparts. Or any human being shot and the damage that is done. It is the reality of the whole thing.

The entire effect is entertaining (slo-mo, silence except the gunpowder igniting and gas & projectile escaping from the barrel), but it does make me think. There are eye/headshots, livershots, limb-crushing shots, and the unsportsmanlike nut-shots. It can kind of feels like celebrating a bit.

I remember playing the "Soldier of Fortune" series back in the day. Those games were very graphic. While I still play many FPS games, I do wonder about how many times I aimed to shoot some other character, specifically in the head.

@Isolte You get the DLC, pre-order bonuses, artbooks, soundtrack, and additional items. All of which are more tangible than 3-5 access prior to the street date. If anyone wants to focus sole on when the game becomes active, that is on them. We all can buy the DLC early and play early or simply wait a few/several days.

SQUARE's deal killed the (sales) momentum for this game. Maybe they agreed years before Remake was released. Still, I don't know what they were thinking. Could be the projected cost of development was a concern, and they sold out. Take out a loan(s), in that case.

Each title was delayed for PC and in limbo for Xbox. Remake was a year late and Rebirth is a $40 preorder as a result.

@Sol76 That would be the XB1 for me. I've had at least two of every PS/Xbox console I've owned since the PS1.

The sales decline is not surprising, considering a full year of port rumors, made a concrete possibility by the business update early in the year. That was preceded by no exclusives at the Series launch, late Halo, delayed Halo content, and two Bethesda games being excluded from their owners console for a year (eventually turning up unoptimized).

@Major_Player Nintendo games don't compare in complexity to Sony, MS, or PC platform games (3rd, 2nd, or 1st party). There is no comparison. Sony does not have the output in recent years and much of those are cookie-cutter games built on gussied up PS4 skeletons. They don't attempt anything like what MS is publishing; little to no variety. To pretend all their releases are "optimal" would be disingenuous.

I'm not saying it is impossible for more titles to release in better condition. I'm saying it is easy to sit back and play "gamer-chair developer" when a release has bugs day one or is not fully to your particular liking.

@Major_Player These issues persist across the industry, so the causes and the development effort are far more involved than the average customer comprehends. We are pretty much sitting at the table with a bib on, slamming their knife & fork on table. I don't want to normalize every game, either; the development effort and technical complexity of many MS games (let's take FS) are considerable.

I am playing way more of FH5, unlocking all the new Porsches recently. That game is fantastic to this day. My newfound self-control may be in a state to keep me from bouncing off of walls in a return to FM.

Carrion was the first game I completed after switching over to Game Pass in 2020.

@BacklogBrad I'm coming for you! LOL

I was top three (I think) last week but had to travel for the holiday.

@BearFut_1800 I was not hearing much engine/aircraft noise when in the cockpit view. From the outside (3rd-"person") there are engine and air noises. Could be a bug.

I've had some basic performance issues on PC, other than that, I haven't no issues logging in and starting a flight or challenge.

@TeiGekiLord You are going to constrain the acquisitions of a $3 trillion megacorporation to those of a $100 billion corporation? Why don't you spend money like a paperboy, you show off? Microsoft's valuation swells and contracts by the degree of all of Sony from week to week. They bought ABK for 3/4 the valuation of Sony, in cash.

Part of Xbox's issue last gen is that MS would not give them the latitude to buy studios and exclusive publishing deals in the 360 era. Nobody saw Bethesda coming (although that one is a fitting marriage) and certainly not ABK.

However, here's the most pertinent issue this afternoon; you seem to be lost. Maybe you misread the sign on the way in. I'm not sure if there's a pureplaystation.com out there, regardless, please; go find it or something thereabouts.

@TeiGekiLord Or Bungie, Insomniac, Naughty Dog or the Spider-Man and X-Men licenses? MLB?

The NFL and NFLPA licenses? I could not resist tossing in an old EA grievance...

Sony has proven to be a poor custodian of FROM Software IP. Intellectual property not born from their intellect. However, I suppose they paid the price to abuse those properties, as you say.

@Weebleman I don't know which statement you are referring to.

@TeiGekiLord No platform holder should own or control FROM software, ideally. That has been my stance for years. Not that we have any say in the matter.

We have borne witness to what happens when Sony has any control over third-party publishing. Just examine the cases of FROM Demon's Souls being trapped on PS consoles and its cellmate Bloodborne not even get a remake or remaster.

This was a reasonable idea at the time — it was available at launch, portable/hotswappable, and matched NVMe prices. An access port to add NVMe to Series consoles would have been a good failsafe, even with the added cost.

I bought one in December 2020 for $187 total. The utility over time made it worth it. A few months ago, I bought the 2TB version for about the same price. I retained the original 1TB card for the time being.

@GamingFan4Lyf What's baffling suppose the FFVII remakes (and other SE games) sold twice as well on PS under exclusivity, would Square not realize there's far more profit to be had by going multiplatform? That does not change. Maybe they were cash-strapped near the end of last gen and signed their rights away.

@Ilyn Do you mean if MS had the lead in console installed base?

Let's be real — Microsoft's approach makes far more profit either way. Do you really think selling 15 million more consoles would be satisfactory to them? Thirty million? Most people owning those units sold don't buy a ton of games or from a wide variety.

Sony presents the alternate reality case for us. Sixty-five million consoles shipped and that does not bring in sufficient profit. Hundreds of millions spent to hobble the library of Xbox, annually. If Xbox sells more, that means PS sells less --according to the media, who beats us over the head with "the market isn't growing" gospel.

Sony are just psychopaths about exclusivity and the old Nintendo model. If anything, Sony is in a better position (regarding risk to console sales) to port their games to Xbox, Nintendo, and PC.

This has been a looming threat for years. Regulation won't be an issue for them. Needless to say, this would be a horrendous outcome for gaming. We have to wait and see.

My problem is not with Quick Resume, but devs that don't program their games to reconnect to servers after losing connection. Perhaps there is some reasoning that I am not aware of. I don't see why a player needs to go the main menu or title screen (or even quit the game altogether) just to reconnect.

MS/Xbox has a lot of games coming and Game Pass all set up with content. Looks like they're finally making a move.

@Vaako007 If UE is a Camry, there are a lot of Pintos out there. When a dev signs on to use UE, they get access to the C++ source code and dedicated support. They can rewrite sections, tear out and replace whole modules. The devs don't need to use the new GI that may be heavy, they don't necessarily need to use Nanite, either. Using UE gets the team to productivity faster, but that comes with fees and a learning curve.

@Ricky-Spanish They swapped engines because BLAM! had too much tech debt and not enough industry professionals experienced with it. BLAM! could be ported just like any other engine, any other code. t was not worth it when Xbox themselves have teams with UE expertise; why stick to BLAM!? 343 demonstrably could not iterate on Infinite.

Remember when season 2 or 3 was 6 months late and they put out a vidoc saying it takes 5 months to make a single map? That was unacceptable. Additionally, I believe that 343 ultimately revealed that some of the network issues were intrinsic the design and/or engine.

Now they can hire more widely from the industry, get engineers to productivity faster, and when people leave, they do so having gained more versatile skills and experience.

Man...I remember when MCC launched, and the hit detection was horrendous. "Hmmm...shots seem to count more reliably when you aim at the empty space above the player's head..." LOL

That game has come a long way. Halo: Infinite MP was in far, far better shape when it launched.

@Real_game_passion From the PC angle, it is more likely that MS improve the Windows experience for portables. So, ASUS RoG and similar devices would benefit. I'm doubtful that MS wants to make a device that competes with those existing Windows devices.

My only concern for Indy is that it may have dumbed-down easy puzzles to keep people who are...to keep people moving along. As a result, many people (especially reviewers) will knock it for that. Others will complain that you can't shoot everyone. Even in Wolfenstein, it was advisable to use stealth and take out officers first.

@Millionski Well, you have YTbers gassing people up on some fantasies for months now. "Next-gen handheld with Xbox OS for $300 that plays Steam games and native Xbox games!" Any deviation will result in the standard internet bellyaching.

I'm a huge fan of the original. I never completed Clear Sky because of some bugs and other distractions. Bitdefender kept punching holes in Call of Pripyat downloads, and I eventually gave up. Switched to Kaspersky for several years, too.

I'm excited for the dev team and to play STALKER 2 on Xbox and PC.

Ikari Warriors brings back memories.

@RBRTMNZ Ishin and Gaiden are traditional real-time fighting style. Ishin is a samurai theme based in feudal Japan. Plenty of action to be had. Both have a lot of cutscenes (a staple of the franchise), though not as much as LAD or LAD: Infinite Wealth.

Man, I only come to this site maybe a couple times a month now, and it is clear why; this is a misery circle jerk. The page has become some kind of complaint-porn site like some reddits. This site used to be somewhat fun. I'm out.

@Scummbuddy In America, you would lose about 45% to taxes, which would either be extracted before the award, or paid by the winner in the February of the following year.

I used it to watch AMC+ on my C7 a few years ago. There were some issues getting the video to play sometimes, but that always seemed tied to the site itself. I also use it for rewards points at times.

Buy another month of GPU to toss on the pile, or enter this sweepstakes. Hmmm...😄

Sea of Stars is good game, though I didn't really get into it like some others appear to have. I did just about everything (though I did miss a recipe or two). The game was way longer than I expected. I did like the "Wheels" game.

That is impressive. China really supported this game. I have it on PC and am only in the third chapter. There are some performance/graphical issues even on a 4080, though the game is highly playable. There are some old school "gamey" restrictions to the world.

As far as combat/gameplay, I prefer Lies of P. Most of the bosses were "easy" so far. The Wind boss in the desert is a little tough, and that is where I'm at.

@trev666 Just wait 5 seconds and do your next search. You can't honestly expect them to keep it the way it was, where you blaze through 30 fake searches.

Xbox had an Xbox mobile app, an Xbox Game Pass mobile app, and beta versions of each. The console rewards apps were combined so these should follow suit.

I have yet to beat Ishin (shelved it to complete Song of Life and TMWEHN) or Infinite Wealth (I'm close). For that reason, I refrained from voting.

Gaiden was awesome.

IW has some good quality of life improvements (Smackdown on weak enemies, haven't reached a big difficulty/level spike yet). In some ways, it is made easier. Enemies don't trip/hit you anymore when you attack one of their allies in the rear.

@Ilyn Whatever the next Xbox console is, it won't be similar to the PS5 Pro. The machine won't be beholden to the same CPU model and clocks, starters.

@Secryt I'm fine with it (the $30 upgrades). It is a smart way to augment Game Pass which Xbox has been doing for years. For games that I would buy anyway and am eager to play, I buy the premium upgrade for Game Pass.

Yes, there is one for Indy. They've annoyed me a bit with how they've handled Indy and not even trying to hold exclusivity for another year or two, so I don't think I will buy that one. If I like the game and want to play the DLC, I'll buy it went the add-on releases.

@Duck_Farmer I made a concerted effort to finally finish Batman: Arkham Knight this Spring. Better late than never.

"I Am Your Beast", "Bombrush Cyberfunk", AC7, and "Selaco" (Steam PC).
Starfield, Warhammer, Wukong (PC).
LAD: IW, Forza M (Xbox).

Still waiting on news of Transformers or other ABK games.