themightyant

Make it Spyro!

Glad to see more multi-plat releases on Xbox. Win.

@Coletrain The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales does look fantastic... but that name... even by Sqaure-Enix standards is horrendous.

Gameplay is pretty good. Story is average at best, but worse - like every 343 story - they don't finish it in game and finished it in other media. This has to stop.

All in all not a bad game, but not a great Halo.

@TrollOfWar Sony's response to shareholders would more likely be about protecting brand and future profits from within PSN - where they make most of the money.

PlayStation and Xbox are in quite different positions now.

• Sony only make a small fraction of their revenue and profit from first party games (on PC or PlayStation) they make most of their money through other developers games on PSN. This is their golden goose that they need to protect, and to do that they need to keep people playing on PSN. Losing out on some multi-plaftform revenue is likely far less important to Sony that keeping players playing and purchasing on PSN.
• Whereas Microsoft since ABK and Zenimax now make a significant portion of their revenue and profit from their own games across ALL platforms. They are a much larger publisher now and publishing on as many platforms as possible is now more important to their bottom line.

Therefore what works well for one, may not work for the other. Either way I don't see Sony cutting off Steam.

@TrollOfWar THIS. 👏👏👏

Also the cross-buy functionality likely won't work on Steam, only PlayStation and their own PC store, just like Xbox.

@VeganH while I think it’s possible Sony stops selling on Steam and blocks NeXtBox from accessing their own store… I think this would likely just play into Microsoft’s hands. Sony would get less revenue from their games and Sony would be perceived poorly. It would likely be a win for Xbox.

It's clearly had a great launch, it will be interesting to see if players stick long term or if it's more a flash in the pan success.

@Tomato_Goose Good to hear, thanks. Looking forward to getting to it in due course.

Caveat: I haven't played OW2 yet so perhaps they have already done this. But New Vegas was just so good in spite of the rushed dev cycle that I'd love to see them build something similar in depth and scope. OW1 was tonally great, but a bit shallow in terms of gameplay for my tastes.

I didn't love the first game as much as others, but seeing everyone's gushing praise for the sequel makes me more likely to get to it sooner. Still plenty of games i'd rather play first.

@ElectricWizard Agreed. 1000xResist is a great game for Game Pass as it’s well regarded but also very niche. A lot of low budget sensibilities but outstanding story if you are willing to look past the superficial presentation.

I really enjoyed it 8/10. Greater than the sum of its parts.

Expedition 33, Silksong, Blue Prince for me.

But Indiana Jones is JUST off that top 3. Great game but strong year.

Great to hear. It's what made GoW 1 stand out so much. It wasn't JUST a cover shooter there were interesting levels avoiding enemies and doing different things.

Nice to see Stan Lee got a cameo in the penultimate pic!

@bLiNdSiDe82 Really great specs, enjoy the PCs.

But while these terms are subjective I’d never call that PC mid-range at this point in time. Gotta agree with @InterceptorAlpha diefinitely high-end, albeit the lower end of that segment.

A mid-range CPU is usually an i5 or similar.
A mid-range GPU is usually a 4070 Super or 7800 XT or similar. In both specs yours is significantly more powerful.

But as I said great specs, enjoy.

Was waiting for the patches. Oh well. Win some, lose some, I’ve got better games to play right now.

Day 1 was a complete mess, started it and experienced so many bugs in the opening hours I quit.

@Gabrie I disagree. On a handheld compiling shaders can take up to 5 minutes depending on the game. Worse after a major update you may have to compile shaders again. When we want to game many of us just want to play, not wait for bars to go up constantly.

It’s small conveniences like this, Instant resume and other QoL features that make console gaming a much smoother user experience than PC. Personally it’s these things that pushed me back to consoles having prioritised PC in the past.

Lastly for the ROG Ally specifically their top competitor, the Steam Deck, does this for most titles. It’s an important feature and will be next gen too.

@MrStark Oh I see, that was very vague from Phil. I thought you might mean something more specific they had said. Perhaps they will update it with next gen, but it could also have been another plan that was started and changed..

Makes sense to have them all at high res UE5. But I hope they price these right. They are remakes, only the campaigns which are quite short, and no multiplayer. Hopefully that means they are priced appropriately.

@MrStark I haven't heard about that. What is rumoured to being overhauled?

@Kezelpaso Absolutely, especially that last part. It's easy to say we won't use AI when money and time is comparatively infinite.

I guarantee GTA6 WILL have been made with AI somewhere in the pipeline as some of the tools they use will use it. That doesn't mean they are using Gen-AI to build art assets, but they might be using it for code, animation, sampling or other areas.

His statement is very vague and reads more like the thing he feels people want to hear, rather than anything specific. E.g. It isn't "game entirely made with AI" vs "Handcrafted GTA6", the honest discussion is a lot more nuanced than that, but his response feels performative.

@TrollOfWar I know gamers like to say Phil et al aren't in charge anymore but I don't entirely believe it. I do believe SOME major decisions are over their heads, e.g. ABK acquisition, having to hit certain profit margins, or hit certain budgets... but that is all quite normal in business.

The day to day will still all be Phil, Sarah and Co. They may be told they have to hit this target, but HOW they hit that target, what projects get cut, which studios receive less funding, what their general strategy is to hit those targets is all on them and their subordinates. Satya, Amy and Co. aren't making these decisions, Xbox leadership is.

@Kaloudz In recent years Romero, and his studio, have worked on AA games so $100 million is still pretty large.

@OldGamer999 Rich (from DFs) experience with ROG Ally (a device he generally likes) is both horrific and couldn't happen to a worse person for Xbox/Asus.

The fact it wouldn't allow him to select English so he had to select another language (French), hoping to change back later, but since then his whole Windows experience across devices is trying to push him content in French. It's laughably bad.

The Windows onboarding is already a terrible User Experience but this just takes the biscuit! A LOT of work needed before next gen.

This just reads like a plea for funding tbh. We'll see if the investors actually bite and were lining up as he says. I wouldn't bet on it.

@Cakefish I do have some sympathy for Phil & Xbox leadership in that they are clearly TRYING to make things work to increase their market share. But as each of their strategies hasn't worked instead we get this constant flip-flopping or policies which is likely to make their statements age like milk.

That is entirely fair to criticise, people rightly want to know where they stand, but what else are they going to do? Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

@SeaDaVie you are right that low 1% was just from the content and services division, not all of Xbox… that’s what I get for posting at 1:30am.

Though I took my figures straight from Microsoft’s spreadsheet and there are multiple accounting methods (e.g. GAAP or constant currency, I used GAAP) but they don’t seem to have reported the 2% loss on that document in either format, where are you getting that figure from.

Either way whether it’s a 1% gain or a 2% loss YoY the point still stands it’s still dire for Xbox and sadly I’d expect more job losses.

@Astravaris Enjoy! Series X is a great machine.

@ILuvGames it’s an interesting thought experiment.

But the first thing I’d say is that if they were exclusive to Xbox many of those games would need to have much smaller budgets. If you are only catering to a much smaller market you can’t spend as much or you will never see a return on investment. It’s the same reason most AAA games have been cross-gen. So they wouldn’t be the same games.

But if we ignore that I don’t think m/any of those are going to move the needle much, especially 5 years into a generation, people have mostly already decided on their platforms. But they likely would have sold a few more consoles.

Yet I’m certain as a company they would have made less revenue & profit overall. Which would likely mean more job losses and maybe even studio closures.

The numbers are pretty dire for Xbox. Just a 1% overall growth for the whole Xbox division (thanks @SeaDaVie) YoY, compared to other Microsoft divisions which are all 10% - 51% except Windows (6%). When the next round of layoffs happens, which is heavily rumoured to be early next year, which division do you think will be most in the firing line.

Not good news for Xbox or gamers at all.

@Cakefish the thing about the Phil Spencer quote is he didn’t say Xbox wouldn’t sell $1,000 consoles he specially said “We’re not going to grow the market with $1,000 consoles”. But a lot of their recent decision making doesn’t look like they are trying to grow their market (in terms of units sold) it looks more like they are instead trying to target the high end big spenders instead and make more profit per user.

The other thing is that he said this a year ago, that was before US tariffs, and possibly before their next gen plans were fully decided. Plans change. Additionally the one thing we can say for certain is we can’t really trust a lot of what xbox leadership says recently, as over the past few years they have done exactly what they said they wouldn’t on many occasions.

We have to take every rumour with a giant piece of sale but 3 main things suggest to me the price willl be very high:

• KeplerL2 and Moore’s law is Dead have been very accurate with AMD leaks over the years. The specs they leaked are super high, that won’t come cheap.
• Sarah Bond calling the next Xbox “very premium, very high-end, bespoke” etc.
• If it plays Steam and other PC games as well then they can’t subsidise it in the same way as there is no guarantee anyone will buy something off the Xbox store which is where they make a lot of revenue and profit.

But I guess only time will tell

Store and downloads not working for me but games are playable. Achievements also seem to be locked though.

@Kaloudz If £600 is your max I think you might be out of luck on Xbox, even in a sale or refurbished if all the specs leaks are true. PS6 is apparently designed to be cheaper. But it's all rumour, so we will have to wait and see.

Always had an eye on Dome Keeper on PC... by only reservation is I know how many hours I put into Terraria back in the day... do I want to do that again?

@Kaloudz You're not the only one. I am excited by what the next Xbox COULD be... but I am ALSO worried if they don't quite get it right.

@TrollOfWar @Weebleman Totally agree they will have to find a way to make this work, I'm just not sure of the HOW part.

Re: using the XBox One BC solution... I sincerely hope NOT. That only accounts for a small proportion of the Xbox 360 & OG Xbox libraries. From memory this is about 25% for 360 and 6% for OG Xbox. That is not a decent solution. Imagine not being able to play 75% of your series X games on neXtbox... not going to happen.

I imagine (/hope) they will have something far more robust in mind that will cover almost all the games barring a few outliers.

@TrollOfWar Emulation is a pretty flawed solution. i.e. Even on the highest-end PCs you can only emulate up to two generations ago (PS3/X360) and even then most games don't work. Xbox One and newer emulation basically doesn't work yet.

@Weebleman My guess is they do one of three things

• Build in a translation layer (this isn't the same as emulation) but it could convert Xbox code into compatible Windows code. This is the same as what Steam Deck uses (Proton) translating Windows to Linux .
• Some sort of dual boot where they have Windows and Xbox OSs and silently boot into one or the other depending on what game needs to be played. They could in theory do something similar to Quick Resume but rather than restoring games into parts of memory they restore an OS.
• They entirely merge the Xbox and Windows OS for Xbox. They already share a lot of similarities.

The neXtbox's success is going to hinge on a lot of factors. e.g.

How well they merge console and PC.
Will it play with the convenience of a console i.e.

• "it just works" as an Xbox with PC games too.
• pre-compiled shaders
• pre-optimised settings
• all updates/UI/settings handled in a unified way not via Windows
• remove Windows bloat and improve performance

Games

• Can they get all their studios in line and output top quality games frequently including a handful of generation defining ones.
• Will ANY of them be exclusive? If they ALL appear elsewhere then it's a FAR less enticing proposition. Why did I buy a Switch 2 Day 1? It certainly wasn't for the hardware... exclusives still matter to consumers, even if they don't to their business model.
• Will ALL our Xbox games play on it. (within reason)
• Will ALL the other PC libraries play on it (within reason)

Price

• Is it going to cost $1000+? If so what other options are there?
• Will Game Pass increase again before then?

If they can tick most of those boxes then they are in a good position.

Just caught up. B- / C+. Lots of games but not many new ones I’m personally interested in.

@MrStark I was literally discussing this with a mate last weekend at the pub. I'm not sure it's as simple as just writing better stories, though it would help. Gameplay trumps story in most gamers book.

But when I look at the best Xbox Game Studios games vs the best PS Studios (or Nintendo) games I think Xbox are not far off... but PS Studios are often just a few percentage points better in most areas which adds up overall. For example their games are usually highly polished, less buggy and feature complete at launch. They usually push tech boundaries more than most Xbox games.

While they focus on presentation I think people also usually underestimate how good the gameplay is in games like Spider-man, God of War, TLOU2, Astro Bot, Horizon, Ratchet & Clank, GT7 etc. How good it FEELS to: swing the city as Spider-man; how it never gets old to recall Kratos' axe or swing it; pick up a million bits in Rachet; or feel the joy in Astro. It's the little details that elevate the whole experience. This is what Nintendo has perfected. It's what elevates games like Silksong or Expedition 33. If I had to put my money on one thing it is this more than good stories.

I think Xbox Studios aren't far off at all, but they likely just need to be given another 6 months to polish the hell out of their games, trim any unnecessary fat, launch feature complete, and make the whole experience just a little bit better in all areas. They are often so close, but just lacking a little something extra.

But yes better stories might help too.

Wishing him well with it. For all the BS he has spouted I still have a soft spot for Peter, too many great experiences I played for decades - Populous, Fable, Dungeon Keeper, Syndicate, Black & White, Theme Park and more. He may have sullied his own reputation with his antics, but he will always be a gaming legend, few gaming leaders have such a strong CV.

@Banjo- obviously all this has to be taken with a large pinch of salt. But while I’m excited about this reported news it also sounds a long way off. The report says their own handheld will come “eventually” as Microsoft had “sidelined their own Xbox handheld plans” initially.

If true it’s unlikely to launch as a cornerstone of next gen, releasing at launch like the series s, and will be a device that comes out later instead. That’s a different proposition to what was previously reported and discussed.

I think this matters as Xbox is trying to sell this unified, play anywhere experience and a handheld at launch playing all the same games, like Switch / 2, would help to sell that ideal. But they can’t seem to make their mind up on a clear strategy and continue to flip-flop in their decision making. This is an ongoing perception problem for Xbox that they need to fix as people like to know where they stand.

If true this is great news as it was the more console like handheld I was more interested in.

But it also doesn’t sound imminent and if delayed as stated it’s unlikely to launch alongside the next gen console which was reportedly the initial plan, so it sounds like a long way away. Time will tell.

@BacklogBrad Emulation is never perfect, and requires plenty of computational overhead, it's highly unlikely they will be able to emulate XSX on Xbox Next and get smooth results... even emulating Xbox One may be a struggle.

Bear in mind even on highest end PCs we are more than a generation behind on decent emulation. E.g. The best PS4 emulators only play a few hundred games, most with issues, and it's not really AAA releases it's indie and 2D titles. (See MVG video here for more info).

So no, I don't believe Microsoft will be EMULATING all our libraries from previous consoles on Xbox Next. But what they MAY be doing is using a compatibility / translation layer (like Proton/Steam Deck) or some form of dual booting in the background where they effectively run the Xbox codebase and the XBO and XSX games will run through that. That makes a lot more sense, but not emulation.

@Questionable_Duck While anything is possible, it would only complicate it even further to have one set of rules for console users and another for next-gen console/pc users. Hence it would make a LOT more sense to have the same structure everywhere. Either online play will be free for everyone or it won't.

I agree with you PC Game Pass will probably disappear, they need to simplify their offering.

Making online free again is a logical step if they are uniting console and PC, as online play is free on PC. (Although it also comes with a lot more issues. E.g. Cheaters, modders etc.)

But they will lose a lot of "Game Pass" subscribers from the bottom tier if online is they make online free, as multiplayer is all a lot want.

@BacklogBrad I agree it’s great, when it works. But it’s hard to make a requirement for third parties, you are effectively saying give multiple key codes for different platforms with one purchase, it would be entirely reasonable for them to want more money for that.

The trouble is right now play anywhere only covers a small portion of our libraries, you can’t just continue playing ALL your titles on the go, unlike something like the Switch. Until it’s that easy and we don’t have to think about it, until “it just works”, then it’s a nice to have bonus but not the killer feature imo.

@RiverGenie that’s good to know, thanks. But I’ll still wait for patches, I’d rather play games at their best and there’s plenty else to play in the meantime,

I’ll probably wait for some major patches, that grass pop-in just metres in front of the camera is highly distracting in performance mode. Breaks immersion. Hopefully that will be patched once they have optimised the game better.