themightyant

@fbnaulin I can understand that. I used to be an achievement hunter and used True Achievements a lot. Got to around 250k & 60+ Platinums before realising it was more bad than good for me. Tell me if any of this is familiar... I would keep grinding games I wasn't enjoying just to get a trophy or "complete" it. I'd also stop playing games I was enjoying because the last trophy popped.

Frankly life's too short.

Now I just listen to how I feel about a game, keep playing if I like it and don't if I don't. I still complete a few games and check TA for missables but it's MUCH simpler... and was strangely liberating. And with backlogs getting longer would I rather complete 5 games, or play 10? Which would give me more enjoyment? For me the answer to these sort of questions is so obvious now, but I also accept we all like different things.

I don't think the solution is allowing people to doctor their lists, like life we make choices we have to live by, and we can't change the past, only learn to accept it.

As soon as they said Just Cause Devs I knew what to expect.

Bigger isn't better.

It sounds great. But the trouble is who do you listen to? We all like different things and they can’t please everyone.

E.g. If you read pure Xbox or other hardcore gaming sites you might think no one wants live service games, but the most bought or most played games are almost all live services.

Some people love achievements, others hate them. Some like first person cameras others get motion sickness.

Not easy to parse all the information when everyone is asking for different things. Plus a lot of people don’t even know what they want until it’s presented to them.

I still like the idea, and will be interested to see what might come of it. More than anything I like that they SEEM to be listening and willing to change.

@fbnaulin what’s wrong with just hiding them? Then you don’t see them.

There’s plenty of games I tried on Game Pass, have 15/1000 or similar but hiding them is all that’s really needed. Otherwise it opens up too many possible issues imo.

@Coletrain same. If 60fps had been an option at launch I definitely would have picked that… or 40fps - which is actually exactly half way between 30 and 60 in terms of frame time - and acceptable to my eyes while also having improved visuals. It’s a good balance if you have the option. Whatever mode you choose Starfield drops many frames and isn’t that smooth, a VRR display helps quite a bit here.

@Jenkinss I used to use Eneloop pros but my second set of them failed to hold their charge (after around 4 years) much faster than my original Eneloops which lasted all 360 era and half the XBO Era.

Many similar reports online that the Eneloops quality isn’t what it once was… and for what they cost I think most of it is just marketing and branding.

Instead bought high capacity Amazon Basics (pack of 10 cost less than 4 Enleloop Pro’s) and haven’t noticed any difference in terms of length of charge / frequency of battery change. Only time will tell if they have the durability long term.

@IOI yes! Would definitely have liked an achievement for 100% a game and splitting off DLC into separate lists. But it’s still a handy step forward for games we want to hide.

@fbnaulin @Balaam_ Why should they allow you to completely remove games from your history? That would just make the history fake and would be too open to abuse. E.g. it would be easy to maintain a 100% completion rate if we just remove those we didn’t complete. This is a better compromise imo.

Good addition. But glad they aren’t allowing people to alter their history, only hide games, seems like the best balance.

@MaccaMUFC whoa! That’s huge dude. I gave up trophy hunting around 1/4 million - and even more on PS - so know what it takes to get that many. Big milestone. Congrats.

Just wondering where you got the stats from. I wouldn’t mind seeing how many games mine is from.

@ZeD I think it depends on the game and when it happens. E.g. if the frame rate just tanks when things get busy and you die because of it then it’s no fun and a problem.

I had a similar issue with GTAV on X360/PS3 where when you finally got a really fast vehicle, especially a superbike, and lamp posts and other obstructions would just appear in front of you at the last minute - as the steaming tech couldn’t keep up - you’d go careering over the handlebars and die. It made me never want to ride a bike in that version of the game.

But even if you don’t die it can break immersion if the screen starts tearing or game hangs. But small micro stutters don’t bother me. YMMV

@Coletrain always going to come down to personal preference. I played 150+ hours at 30fps as that was the only option. But for the DLC I flip flopped between the 60fps and 40fps modes and settled on the later. YMMV

It’s a good list of games, but also a very old list of games. Many can be had for a few pounds second hand.

XSX. Everything before an SSD feels sluggish to use. I still have my 360 and on the very rare occasions I boot it up it’s almost painful to use.

I liked Call of the Sea well enough. It was quite average in a lot of ways, but I’ve found it sticks with longer than many other games. That makes it very worthwhile.

Only recently, couldn't afford it before:

• Xbox One
• PS4
• PS4 Pro
• Switch
• Xbox Series X
• PS5
• Steam Deck OLED
• PS5 Pro
• Switch 2

All worth it to me. (EDIT: although on thinking about it a bit more I really didn’t use my XBO much around launch, the games I was playing were better on PS4. Still glad I got it but could have waited. Switch 2 is similar, but I have no doubt it will be worthwhile over the course of a generation, and with costs likely to go up it was a sound investment)

PS1 I was quite close to launch, got it for Christmas + birthday 3 months after launch. Gameboy I think I was about 4 months later. Everything earlier I had to save and wait. Might have forgotten something.

Still, why even bother with trailers multiple years before release?

@flighty @Balaam_ I think you have to remember when this showcase was, it was ALL about trying to convince people to buy a new console, that lots of exclusive (at the time) games were on the way to Xbox, especially after last gen's "Xbox has no games".

Unfortunately as @Grumblevolcano showed most of the games they had in that showcase were 3-5+ years away. It was pretty dishonest. While all the platform holders do this a little (e.g. Wolverine or Metroid Prime 4) it's usually one or two games not half the lineup.

Thankfully it's not something Microsoft would need to do much now with so many studios releasing so many games, but it was bad.

There's good and bad aspects but the gameplay is pretty dated, the framerate and resolution is nasty, it's often a blurry mess. Still it's a game I like and would recommend.

Looking forward to playing this in due course, but also very happy to wait, it's clear the devs are still busy optimising it and adding features. I'd rather play it when they're done.

Totally agree Xbox’s curation for indies is wonderful, it’s been my #1 reason to subscribe to game pass for years, not the first party AAA games. Many of my top games every year are found through this.

For the smaller titles Chris Charla head of ID@Xbox and his team deserve a lot of praise for finding and convincing these devs to join the program as does the rest of the Game Pass team. Keep it up.

My only issue is there’s not enough time to play all these wonderful games.

My tin foil hat theory is someone who has control of these wants to repost them briefly so that either they, or friends, can quickly add them to their Xbox account. Stranger things have happened. Lol

Not surprising. Xbox has the better backwards compatibility and this game is still the XBO / PS4 version. It's a very niche case though one of the handful real example of a XBO game being upgraded for XSX like this. But personally very happy as I own this one on Xbox.

@FraserG XSX has VRR that works on all games, on PS5 only works on PS5 games. That may seem like a major omission on PS5, but in reality in 99% of cases this isn't an issue as the added CPU and GPU of PS5 runs virtually every PS4 game at whatever their locked frame rate is 30/60 etc. VRR just isn't needed in these cases. This is one of the handful of games where it would have been nice to have VRR for PS4 games on PS5. Not a huge deal for a 12 year old game.

It has felt like winds of change without them doing very much, that’s positive first steps. Only time will tell if they actually improve public perception of the brand, which wasn’t doing great.

Never got around to Eiyuden Chronicles, just don't have time for a long JRPG right now.

@ZeD It always is!

Does Kinect count

@Globo @fatpunkslim Very unlikely to be free, that doesn't seem realistic, but it could be ad-supported and cheaper much like Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime etc.

As I said i'm not against that, making and ad-supported tier for those who can't afford it otherwise... as long as it doesn't become part of gaming for those who can.

Personally I hate the idea. Not least loading screens are mostly a thing of the past, are they going to make them longer to fit in an ad? But mostly because it's so intrusive.

But I also understand gaming is getting expensive and if there was an ad-supported tier for those who otherwise can't afford it then I wouldn't be against it on those terms. But crucially AS LONG AS it doesn't wheedle it's way into games for the rest of us. Slippery slope.

@ilyn Yes! It just felt like a different game / genre. It wasn't bad but I didn't love it like I did the first game.

And there was so much needless busy work for completionists. I never played D3 as 2 has slightly soured me on the series, it got pretty bad reviews, and it was already clear the series might not be finished. Though I own it through PS+ or something.

Fingers crossed D4 is a return to form and I might play through them all again.

Planet of Lana 2 is the only one I've had time for so far, been stuck in VR this month. Skyrim in VR is transformative. I might just be a belieVR. lol

It’s a fair question and I do understand that it may not seem logical. However, the Pro console is aimed at enthusiasts buying a second PS5 and wouldn’t have been subsidised as much as the base console so the price is elevated. It is priced to sell 10 - 20 million units to hardcore fans who want the best and have some disposable income.

For the PS6 they want to sell 100 million+ units and all their plans and pricing is based around that. £1000 consoles aren’t going to sell 100 million units. They literally would have designed it with a price in mind, and rumours are this was on the lower end.

Of course the final price isn’t completely in their control, market conditions have changed, and they will be having to reevaluate how they can price it to sell 100 million units. The most logical solutions would be:

• ship with a smaller SSD (perhaps 1TB, or 700gb like launch PS5)
• reduce the RAM - if this doesn’t majorly compromise their vision
• possibly subsidise it a bit more than expected, at least initially.
• cut down on other hardware costs, use cheaper build materials
• raise prices on PS5 now to get more funds that can saved on PS6
  Etc.

@betterthings I’m not sure Sony will subsidise it as much as that ($200 - $300+) as I don’t think the math quite works for that - the average player only buys a few games a year. But I agree with all the rest.

I suspect they were aiming for it to be around £500 - £600 but all the price hikes will put it up around £200+ unless things change. Things are changing so quickly so it’s almost silly to put hard numbers down but I think $700 - £750 is more realistic than £1,000+.

I need to replay this, it was a very fun game. Didn't like the change in direction they went with the sequel (almost looter shooter).

@Pigrotto Indeed. I am firmly waiting to see what Helix does now and if it will allow me to do the things I want from both a console (convenience, it just works) AND a PC (mods, VR, other stores, emulation etc.).

Hopefully it ticks a lot of the right boxes, and even if it costs what I think it will i'll happily pay good money day 1.

@Pigrotto I was going to build a mid-high end gaming PC late last year and missed my window. I had budgeted around £2k and today that same build is just under £3k. It's crazy. It's not just RAM, it's SSDs and some high end GPUs as well that are elevated. E.g. An RTX 5090 has an RRP of around £1,900 but they are selling for around £3k

I still don't think PS6 is going to be anywhere near £1,000. The rumours were Sony were specifically focussed on price when developing it, which makes sense as their whole business model revolves around selling 100+ million units and having those players on PSN. That doesn't happen at £1,000.

Of course with all the price hikes I can easily see PS6 being £200+ more than they had hoped to launch it at, but I still think that will be less than PS5 Pro is today. Maybe £750, possbily £800, but it depends on what state the world economy is in, and if tech pricing gets worse

Whereas Microsoft seemed to always be aiming for a high end premium device. If the leaked specs are true it was always going to be expensive, and it could easily be £300+ more than they were expecting making it £1,000+.

Will be interesting to see how it pans out, how much / if they subsidize them.

Too many games not enough time! I like the look of plenty of those.

I almost feel desensitised to it at this point, it's seemingly every day. Almost.

Wishing all affected well.

Solid list. For me campaign hopes:

• Make it feel fresh. Gameplay is feeling tired.
• Push into the slight horror roots of the early series (Kryll, Beserker, Light etc.) ESPECIALLY as this is E-Day and you don't know who or what you are up against.
• Good story. Judgement, 4 & 5 were all backwards steps.
• Semi-open world didn't fully work. Either make it better or return to tighter more scripted gameplay.

Totally agree. I think she realises that the biggest problem Xbox has right now is it's image, how the brand is perceived and is going all out on trying to fix that.

It's only small things so far, but small things matter and add up over time. Wishing her well and looking forward to seeing what directions she takes on the bigger decisions.

Of course she can't majorly change course on a lot of things quickly as they are set up years and years in advance. It's like turning an oil tanker and we will continue seeing many things that were laid out by the previous leadership for years to come. But it will be interesting to see how all this pans out over time.

The beauty of Game Pass is reviews don't matter much when we can try it ourselves at no added risk. We all like different things.

@Gaymer90 The difference is his WHOLE thread is about Game Pass and linking it to those things, whereas there are valid reasons for it all that aren't Game Pass.

And you can easily prove this. If it was only Game Pass why are PlayStation (and others) also affected in the same ways. If it was because of Game Pass this would be happening to Xbox at a different level to others and we just aren't seeing that at all.

I have no problem with people having different views, but they have to make sense. If it's nonsense i'll call it out, and this take is utter nonsense.

@Balaam_ You are right people aren't likely to abandon those games and start playing others, that's unrealistic. And it's isn't just those games you mentioned it's EA sports, it's COD, it's GTA etc.

The other thing no one talks about is the reason Gaming is so badly affected is that during COVID there was record investment, record numbers of games releasing, record projects started. That was NEVER going to last, and as soon as other industries got back on their feet investment was pulled away. Combine that with ALL the other events that have occurred in the last 5 years and it's created the perfect storm for gaming to struggle.

Yet there were STILL more games released last year than any other year. It's like making too much food that no one can consume.

@Boogaloo_Jenkins It isn't an introductory price of $30 though, it's an introductory price of $9.99 for Essential (£6.99 in the UK) or $14.99 / £10.99 for Premium. Only Ultimate is $29.99 / £22.99.

@abe_hikura I agree. That's kinda why I wanted it as it would mean they are almost ready! But i'm happy to let them cook.

Before anyone replies let's first consider mass layoffs, exploding development costs, reduction in disposable income, stagnation in hardware sales & ambition, and then come with an argument.

That has very little to do with Game Pass specifically. Games and studios are failing on ALL platforms not just those with Game Pass. The problem is multi-faceted but the main issues are

• games are costing too much to make versus returns
• there are too many games for them all to succeed (too many fail)
• a few huge games are taking too much of the pie
• rising cost of living has made gaming less essential

His thread just reads as a rant poorly linking lots of disparate things.

Looking forward to this, their showcases are always decent. Though I hoped the featured game was going to be Clockwork Revolution... or Fable. Hopefully E-Day is better than the last Gears.

Love things like this. Finding it for a fiver and selling it for 'only' £800, when it's worth a lot more, was also pretty cool.

The fact it might be Leslie Benzies (Username is: Les_home) is even more hilarious.

It's VERY early days but they've started well mostly saying the right things and showing attention to the smaller details. Only time will tell if they keep it up with the larger decisions.

I would still like to see them do Modern Warfare 3 remastered, they did 1&2 and then left us hanging.

I didn’t know, or forgot, that Aphelion was coming to Game Pass that’s a win. Also hoping Replaced lives up to expectations. I’ll probably try Kiln. Hades 2 i'd rather buy tbh. That’s more than enough.

@Matthewnh FYI PS5 disc drive is £70.

Very sad to see, but not unexpected considering the cost of hardware going through the roof and Sony, like Microsoft, losing about a third of their value in the last 4-5 months.

World economy is in a mess right now. Wars, AI, Nationalism / Tariffs etc. etc. Be well everyone.