To be honest every month is busy nowadays, but some are less stacked, it's a minefield. I think I agree with @BacklogBrad to release when ready and polished and the rest should hopefully follow.
@fatpunkslim I followed the thread fine thanks. I’m aware you were trying to use @Weebleman’s words back against him, but use them you did regardless. But as usual you are being highly selective and ignoring the part where you called others biased and accused them of trying to influence things while doing exactly that yourself.
As for nuance… so far no one you’ve replied to has said it was a bad year for Xbox @Fiendish-Beaver and I mentioned positives and negatives, as did @Coletrain and others, @Weebleman said you had to be “blinkered or just a pure fanboy to think this has been a good year for them” because there were ups and downs, he didn’t in fact say it was all bad as you keep claiming. In fact, the only person seemingly not weighing both pros and cons, despite constantly preaching otherwise… is you.
Who is the one actually dealing in black and white? Ignoring the pros and cons, or any nuance? Not us. Look… if you genuinely feel it’s been a very good year for Xbox good for you, you are of course entitled to your own opinion, but trying to tell everyone YOUR subjective opinion is objective fact is always going to rub everyone up the wrong way.
Lastly, seeing as you like undeniable objective facts and analytics so much perhaps consider this. So far you have written 6 comments on this thread, and as of time of writing no one has agreed with you or even given your comments a single like, zero, zip, zilch… now look at the replies… I’ll let you do the math! Or perhaps we’re all struggling with that too!
Mixed year for Xbox. They’ve released a lot of good games, though I’d personally argue few great ones, and Game Pass has been strong. But they’ve also had dozens of awful decisions too that have garnered a lot of bad press from multiple price hikes on everything from consoles to game pass, multiple rounds of lay offs, multiple games cancelled, studio closures, a $1000 console, etc. etc. A very up and down year, but highly newsworthy.
@fatpunkslim The irony in calling others views blinkered, biased or trying to influence, and then claiming subjective things as “facts” while pushing your own blinkered narrative and trying to influence. Pot calling kettle black.
@Fiendish-Beaver Totally agree. Hopefully Microsoft have gotten most of their massive bad news events out of the way in 2025 and 2026/27 is better. But sadly I wouldn’t count on it, rumours are Microsoft are having another large round of layoffs imminently.
@TheGameThrifter @Naughtyottsel92 VG Charts isn’t reliable for game sales numbers, but their console unit sales are typically within a couple of million of actual numbers whenever they are released so it’s highly likely it’s within the 32-36 million range.
@Cakefish THIS is the important point many don’t understand, delaying it would mean that next gen arrives later with older technology, that isn’t good. At the same time RAM prices are crazy the cost is 4-6x more than it was at the start of the year and still rising. There are no good options. Will be interesting to see what happens.
@smoreon Personally I’ve loved all of Naughty Dogs other outings I’ve played from Jak & Daxter to Uncharted to The Last of Us, so perhaps I should try Crash 2. Yes I quit halfway (ish) through the first one. There was a bridge level that just had HORRIBLE game design and I quit.
I never played Crash or Spyro back in the day, so I have no rose-tinted goggles, but I tried both remasters and Spyro was wonderful, Crash was… errr… not good. I can’t understand what the fuss is all about, gave up half way through and I finish most things I start. Would welcome a new Spyro though.
Thanks for this @FraserG as this is mostly a popularity contest, I always prefer the stats behind them, and the outliers more than the actual ranking. Loads of great games this year.
I’m away for Christmas and don’t have my list on me but off the top of my head across platforms I finished 30+ games, including many on Game Pass. This includes Expedition 33, Silksong, Blue Prince, Doom TDA, Metroid Prime 4, Keeper, Alan Wake 1, 2 and American Nightmare, Control, Ninja Gaiden Black & 2 Black, Sword of the Sea, Viewfinder, Rollerdrome, Days Gone, Sonic Frontiers, Vampire Survivors, Sayonara Wildhearts, F.I.S.T., Metroid Dread, Ghost of Tsushima, Immortals Fenyx Rising, RE2 & RE3 remakes. Maybe a third were on Xbox.
Just one... Anthem for £1 physical from CEX (FOMO purchase to play before the Jan 10th cutoff). Tend to just use Xbox as a Game Pass machines everything else has been PS5, Steam or Switch.
Looking forward to Mio, and fingers crossed for Replaced after all this time. Not convinced by the others, but the beauty of game pass is we can try ourselves risk free.
@Sol4ris totally agree on Dishonored (and Prey for that matter) wonderful ImSim games, so replayable, some of my all time favourites. Looking forward to this from Arkane, hopefully of a similar type and calibre. Also voted 2027 🤞
A live service is a game that is designed to make you pay money.
@Allenspurs why do you think the in game economy is stingier than past GT titles and they have an in game store to allow you to buy cars? It may not be as severe as some live service games, but that’s because it’s also a full priced game, it’s live service-lite, but still live service.
The reality with most live services, even F2P is that the vast majority of players will pay nothing (does that make them not a live service? Of course not) but a few will spend a LOT. It’s about additional monetisation through MTX beyond point of sale.
@GamingGod it’s got an online store, it’s has live events and they update it with content frequently over time, that makes it a live service. Yes it’s live service lite compared to some, but still a live service. Just like FIFA, Madden etc. theres more than one live service business model.
@swedetrap you are forgetting that GT7 is live service, unlike GT3, game sales aren’t everything when you have an in game store. They will make a lot of additional money there.
What bizarre timing to come out and refute this MONTHS after it leaked. But their carefully worded statement ONLY really says it’s wasn’t exactly 30%, little else.
@BacklogBrad @SalaciousCrumb The thing is this wasn’t initially reported by some randoms on the internet, the story was broken by proper journalists at Bloomberg who will do due diligence to have multiple sources before reporting on a story.
This is always going to be subjective based on what you like. Personally I thought Xbox had a brilliant year in terms of the number of GOOD games, but of the ones I played I don't think any were near GOTY. But i'd happily take more years like this on Game Pass, not every games needs to be GOTY and what they gave was more than good enough.
Probably not a lot. I play less over Christmas as it’s mostly family time. So maybe a bit of Mario Kart World or similar.
But I am already looking forward to my January where I think I will have time to start a big game either CyberPunk or Elden Ring I think.
But first FOMO got the better of me and I picked up Anthem for the princely sum of £1 and I’m looking forward to giving that a go and judging for myself before the servers shut down on Jan 10th.
@Balaam_ I get the impression Phil won’t be a “spill the beans” kinda guy. Long time company man, not a pot stirrer, class act. But I agree he HAS to have a LOT of great behind the scenes stories.
Well deserved! He's been at Microsoft for over 35 years and at Xbox since it started. While I haven't liked all Microsoft's recent decision making, basically since ABK, he's proven to be an asset to the gaming industry and Xbox. Congratulations.
Fingers crossed for Fable and Clockwork revolution, two of my most anticipated games. I doubt Forza Horizon 6 or Gears E-Day / 7 will have a chance unless they significantly reinvent themselves as GOTY usually goes to something that feels new. And a remake? no chance, though I’m looking forward to it.
@Sol4ris yes that statement by Druckmann was stupid too, as it would be from anyone.
But why do you always want to turn everything into a console war? No one ever mentioned Sony, but you always bring them up.
And no it’s not just Microsoft that draw ire, but Xbox has been making a lot of decisions I disagree with lately, from MULTIPLE price hikes, to gutting rewards, to $1000 handhelds. Do you think these things aren’t worthy of criticism? Or does Xbox get a pass? It’s been attritional with Xbox lately. When Sony start pissing me off in the same way I’ll complain about them too. These companies aren’t our friends.
As for crunch at Naughty Dog I have said we don’t have all the facts, and perhaps it will turn out to be worse than reported. But based on what was actually reported I don’t see doing 8 hours a week more for a month or two as “crunch”, which is historically a lot worse. It’s simply working harder for a limited period to get a deliverable over the line, that is common in most industries around key moments. I’ve been doing exactly the same this month to deliver a project and still has plenty of time for life and games. Is it a little inconvenient? Yes. Is it the end of the world and we should all be up in arms? No. You you feel differently, that’s fine.
Not everything is an attack on Xbox dude. People are allowed to have differing opinions.
@Questionable_Duck OK, that's fair, there are exceptions, but it's the exception not the rule. Still a largely meaningless thing to say, like when console makers say "it's our most powerful console ever..."
Thanks for the update. But if they want to keep costs low, why not just roll out last years wrap script with a few minor changes? Could easily be done on a comparatively low budget, we do this every year on many projects to deliver clients metrics. Not buying this as a reasonable excuse frankly.
@beltmenot So did I. Do you think the last games have been as good as Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim or Fallout 3? I don't. Still good, but not as good as those.
@Fiendish-Beaver My point with aggregates is that they DON'T always tell the whole story, especially for the 7ish/10s that are the ones that really need the uplift, the 9/10s will be fine.
As for Amazon I am dubious of BOTH very few reviews AND when there are thousands of reviews on a basic product. There are several unethical ways of doing this but it seems to happen a lot. Constant vigilance! lol
Steam is the ONLY user review system I put much merit on. Most other like Metacritic, Sony or Xbox are all pretty useless for different reasons. Metacritic in particular is useless with most either glazing or grinding an axe, with little nuance. The 0 OR 10 Metacritic with little in between is a meme but also often true.
But I think there is a problem with ALL score aggregators whether that is Steam or Metacritic. The problem is that a well made but safe/boring game will often score better than something that is daring that is far more niche, or buggy. These polarising games that some might give 5/10 but others 9 or 10/10 don't aggregate well. Not all 7/10s are equal, and aggregators do a bad job of highlighting the difference!
Hence I think it's more important to find reviewers that like the same things as you, whether that is a friend or a specific reviewer and I will often put FAR more weight on their opinion than the group ones. If they said it's a 7/10 because it's a flawed game, but it's memorable (e.g. Scorn) I will usually play that when I might skip a lot of other games getting 69 on Metacritic. Opinions eh?
@Fiendish-Beaver If you hover over the "overwhelmingly positive" or whatever the title is it comes up with additional info e.g. "85% of the 16,642 user reviews in your language were positive".
@GeeEssEff @Fiendish-Beaver @FraserG personally I don’t find the number of reviews all that useful on Steam as unless it’s a really small number it doesn’t affect the score much. Similar to how once there are 20-30 reviews on Metacritic it’s rare for a game to change more than a few percentage points.
What I find far more useful is the percentage positive e.g. 85% positive because there can be quite a range between some of the ranges e.g. 80% - 100% could all be “very positive” if it has 50-499 reviews or 80% - 94% if more than 500.
Similarly “mixed” can be 40% - 69% positive reviews which is a really wide range!
Not played OW2 or Avowed yet but tried most of the rest I wanted to. Keeper is probably my favourite. Doom TDA while good was also a bit of a let down imo.
Comments 7,976
Re: Talking Point: If You Were Releasing A Game, Which Month Of The Year Would You Pick?
Whichever one GTA6n isn't releasing in!
To be honest every month is busy nowadays, but some are less stacked, it's a minefield. I think I agree with @BacklogBrad to release when ready and polished and the rest should hopefully follow.
Re: Xbox & Microsoft Dominate The List Of 'Most Covered' Gaming Companies In 2025
@fatpunkslim I followed the thread fine thanks. I’m aware you were trying to use @Weebleman’s words back against him, but use them you did regardless. But as usual you are being highly selective and ignoring the part where you called others biased and accused them of trying to influence things while doing exactly that yourself.
As for nuance… so far no one you’ve replied to has said it was a bad year for Xbox @Fiendish-Beaver and I mentioned positives and negatives, as did @Coletrain and others, @Weebleman said you had to be “blinkered or just a pure fanboy to think this has been a good year for them” because there were ups and downs, he didn’t in fact say it was all bad as you keep claiming. In fact, the only person seemingly not weighing both pros and cons, despite constantly preaching otherwise… is you.
fatpunkslim wrote:
Who is the one actually dealing in black and white? Ignoring the pros and cons, or any nuance? Not us. Look… if you genuinely feel it’s been a very good year for Xbox good for you, you are of course entitled to your own opinion, but trying to tell everyone YOUR subjective opinion is objective fact is always going to rub everyone up the wrong way.
Lastly, seeing as you like undeniable objective facts and analytics so much perhaps consider this. So far you have written 6 comments on this thread, and as of time of writing no one has agreed with you or even given your comments a single like, zero, zip, zilch… now look at the replies… I’ll let you do the math! Or perhaps we’re all struggling with that too!
Re: Xbox Is Sending Out Forza Horizon 6 Gift Packages Ahead Of Its 2026 Release
I assume if they are sending influencers PR packages then it is arriving sooner rather than later in the year. I had expected Fable first tbh.
Re: Xbox & Microsoft Dominate The List Of 'Most Covered' Gaming Companies In 2025
Mixed year for Xbox. They’ve released a lot of good games, though I’d personally argue few great ones, and Game Pass has been strong. But they’ve also had dozens of awful decisions too that have garnered a lot of bad press from multiple price hikes on everything from consoles to game pass, multiple rounds of lay offs, multiple games cancelled, studio closures, a $1000 console, etc. etc. A very up and down year, but highly newsworthy.
@fatpunkslim The irony in calling others views blinkered, biased or trying to influence, and then claiming subjective things as “facts” while pushing your own blinkered narrative and trying to influence. Pot calling kettle black.
Re: Xbox & Microsoft Dominate The List Of 'Most Covered' Gaming Companies In 2025
@Fiendish-Beaver Totally agree. Hopefully Microsoft have gotten most of their massive bad news events out of the way in 2025 and 2026/27 is better. But sadly I wouldn’t count on it, rumours are Microsoft are having another large round of layoffs imminently.
Re: Xbox Owner Thinks They've Found A 'Major Design Flaw' That Impacts Game Performance
Never been happier to play almost exclusively solo with all the sharing and social features hidden or unused.
Re: Latest Sales Estimates Suggest Xbox Sold Over Two Million Series X|S Consoles In 2025
@TheGameThrifter do you have a link to that? Not doubting, just haven’t seen it. I have seen others saying 30 million+ in recent years.
Either way whether it’s 28 million or 34+ million it’s all in the same sort of ballpark.
Re: Latest Sales Estimates Suggest Xbox Sold Over Two Million Series X|S Consoles In 2025
@TheGameThrifter @Naughtyottsel92 VG Charts isn’t reliable for game sales numbers, but their console unit sales are typically within a couple of million of actual numbers whenever they are released so it’s highly likely it’s within the 32-36 million range.
Re: Report: Xbox & PlayStation Could Delay Next-Gen Consoles Due To RAM Price Increases
@Cakefish THIS is the important point many don’t understand, delaying it would mean that next gen arrives later with older technology, that isn’t good. At the same time RAM prices are crazy the cost is 4-6x more than it was at the start of the year and still rising. There are no good options. Will be interesting to see what happens.
Re: YouTuber Thinks They've Found More Evidence Of Xbox Making A New Spyro Game
@smoreon Personally I’ve loved all of Naughty Dogs other outings I’ve played from Jak & Daxter to Uncharted to The Last of Us, so perhaps I should try Crash 2. Yes I quit halfway (ish) through the first one. There was a bridge level that just had HORRIBLE game design and I quit.
Re: Poll: What Were The Best Xbox Game Pass Additions In 2025?
Expedition 33, Silksong, Blue Prince, Metaphor ReFantasio, Doom TDA are my 5, but there’s dozens of great games added this year. Strong.
Re: YouTuber Thinks They've Found More Evidence Of Xbox Making A New Spyro Game
I never played Crash or Spyro back in the day, so I have no rose-tinted goggles, but I tried both remasters and Spyro was wonderful, Crash was… errr… not good. I can’t understand what the fuss is all about, gave up half way through and I finish most things I start. Would welcome a new Spyro though.
Re: Pure Xbox's Game Of The Year 2025: The Results You Didn't See
Thanks for this @FraserG as this is mostly a popularity contest, I always prefer the stats behind them, and the outliers more than the actual ranking. Loads of great games this year.
Re: Talking Point: Which Xbox Games Have You Managed To Finish In 2025?
I’m away for Christmas and don’t have my list on me but off the top of my head across platforms I finished 30+ games, including many on Game Pass. This includes Expedition 33, Silksong, Blue Prince, Doom TDA, Metroid Prime 4, Keeper, Alan Wake 1, 2 and American Nightmare, Control, Ninja Gaiden Black & 2 Black, Sword of the Sea, Viewfinder, Rollerdrome, Days Gone, Sonic Frontiers, Vampire Survivors, Sayonara Wildhearts, F.I.S.T., Metroid Dread, Ghost of Tsushima, Immortals Fenyx Rising, RE2 & RE3 remakes. Maybe a third were on Xbox.
Re: Pure Xbox's Game Of The Year 2025
Been a great year.
Expedition 33, Silksong and Blue Prince for me. All on Game Pass ftw.
Re: Merry Christmas And Happy Holidays From The Pure Xbox Team!
Merry Christmas one and all. May you find games under the tree and the time to play them!
Re: Poll: How Many Xbox Games Have You Actually Bought In 2025?
Just one... Anthem for £1 physical from CEX (FOMO purchase to play before the Jan 10th cutoff). Tend to just use Xbox as a Game Pass machines everything else has been PS5, Steam or Switch.
Re: Xbox Game Pass Is Looking Great For 2026, But Only Six Games Have Release Dates So Far
Looking forward to Mio, and fingers crossed for Replaced after all this time. Not convinced by the others, but the beauty of game pass is we can try ourselves risk free.
Re: Marvel's Blade Director Shares Brief End Of 2025 Update On The Game's Progress
@Sol4ris totally agree on Dishonored (and Prey for that matter) wonderful ImSim games, so replayable, some of my all time favourites. Looking forward to this from Arkane, hopefully of a similar type and calibre. Also voted 2027 🤞
Re: Marvel's Blade Director Shares Brief End Of 2025 Update On The Game's Progress
Looking forward to this and praying it’s great from Arkane.
Re: As Forza Motorsport Winds Down, Gran Turismo Is Experiencing A 'Phenomenon' At PlayStation
@Allenspurs why do you think the in game economy is stingier than past GT titles and they have an in game store to allow you to buy cars? It may not be as severe as some live service games, but that’s because it’s also a full priced game, it’s live service-lite, but still live service.
The reality with most live services, even F2P is that the vast majority of players will pay nothing (does that make them not a live service? Of course not) but a few will spend a LOT. It’s about additional monetisation through MTX beyond point of sale.
Re: Xbox Exec Pays Respects To Beloved Influencer And 'Incredible Human', Lamarr Wilson
@Fiendish-Beaver same. That is absolutely no age. RIP Lamarr
Re: Opinion: This Xbox Game Studios Gem Is My Game Of The Year For 2025
I need to give this another go. I found the animation and gameplay pretty jarring when I tried it briefly.
Re: As Forza Motorsport Winds Down, Gran Turismo Is Experiencing A 'Phenomenon' At PlayStation
@GamingGod it’s got an online store, it’s has live events and they update it with content frequently over time, that makes it a live service. Yes it’s live service lite compared to some, but still a live service. Just like FIFA, Madden etc. theres more than one live service business model.
Re: As Forza Motorsport Winds Down, Gran Turismo Is Experiencing A 'Phenomenon' At PlayStation
@swedetrap you are forgetting that GT7 is live service, unlike GT3, game sales aren’t everything when you have an in game store. They will make a lot of additional money there.
Re: As Forza Motorsport Winds Down, Gran Turismo Is Experiencing A 'Phenomenon' At PlayStation
One of Sony’s more successful live services along with MLB the Show and Helldivers 2
Re: Here Are The Top 10 Xbox Games Of 2025 According To Metacritic
It’s been a banger year for gaming and Xbox Game Pass has delivered a lot of top games. Happy gaming!
Re: Microsoft Says It's 'Incorrect' That Xbox Division Is Now Targeting 30% Profit Margins
What bizarre timing to come out and refute this MONTHS after it leaked. But their carefully worded statement ONLY really says it’s wasn’t exactly 30%, little else.
@BacklogBrad @SalaciousCrumb The thing is this wasn’t initially reported by some randoms on the internet, the story was broken by proper journalists at Bloomberg who will do due diligence to have multiple sources before reporting on a story.
Re: Legendary Game Designer Vince Zampella Has Suddenly Died, Aged 55
Horrific news, and at this time of year usually reserved for family. Awful. RIP Vince, you made a massive impact on so many people’s lives.
Re: Talking Point: Which Xbox Games Deserved More Love This Year?
This is always going to be subjective based on what you like. Personally I thought Xbox had a brilliant year in terms of the number of GOOD games, but of the ones I played I don't think any were near GOTY. But i'd happily take more years like this on Game Pass, not every games needs to be GOTY and what they gave was more than good enough.
Re: Talking Point: What Games Are You Playing Over Christmas Break?
@Sy-B look forward to your thoughts. I just finished it after playing through most of the remedy verse.
Re: Talking Point: What Games Are You Playing Over Christmas Break?
Probably not a lot. I play less over Christmas as it’s mostly family time. So maybe a bit of Mario Kart World or similar.
But I am already looking forward to my January where I think I will have time to start a big game either CyberPunk or Elden Ring I think.
But first FOMO got the better of me and I picked up Anthem for the princely sum of £1 and I’m looking forward to giving that a go and judging for myself before the servers shut down on Jan 10th.
Merry Christmas one and all.
Re: Xbox's Phil Spencer Shares Lengthy Video Message After Winning 'Industry Icon' Award
@Balaam_ I get the impression Phil won’t be a “spill the beans” kinda guy. Long time company man, not a pot stirrer, class act. But I agree he HAS to have a LOT of great behind the scenes stories.
Re: Xbox's Phil Spencer Shares Lengthy Video Message After Winning 'Industry Icon' Award
Well deserved! He's been at Microsoft for over 35 years and at Xbox since it started. While I haven't liked all Microsoft's recent decision making, basically since ABK, he's proven to be an asset to the gaming industry and Xbox. Congratulations.
Re: Talking Point: Will Any Of Xbox's 2026 Releases Become GOTY Contenders Next Year?
Fingers crossed for Fable and Clockwork revolution, two of my most anticipated games. I doubt Forza Horizon 6 or Gears E-Day / 7 will have a chance unless they significantly reinvent themselves as GOTY usually goes to something that feels new. And a remake? no chance, though I’m looking forward to it.
Re: Gears Of War: E-Day Is The Coalition's 'Most Ambitious Game Yet'
@Sol4ris yes that statement by Druckmann was stupid too, as it would be from anyone.
But why do you always want to turn everything into a console war? No one ever mentioned Sony, but you always bring them up.
And no it’s not just Microsoft that draw ire, but Xbox has been making a lot of decisions I disagree with lately, from MULTIPLE price hikes, to gutting rewards, to $1000 handhelds. Do you think these things aren’t worthy of criticism? Or does Xbox get a pass? It’s been attritional with Xbox lately. When Sony start pissing me off in the same way I’ll complain about them too. These companies aren’t our friends.
As for crunch at Naughty Dog I have said we don’t have all the facts, and perhaps it will turn out to be worse than reported. But based on what was actually reported I don’t see doing 8 hours a week more for a month or two as “crunch”, which is historically a lot worse. It’s simply working harder for a limited period to get a deliverable over the line, that is common in most industries around key moments. I’ve been doing exactly the same this month to deliver a project and still has plenty of time for life and games. Is it a little inconvenient? Yes. Is it the end of the world and we should all be up in arms? No. You you feel differently, that’s fine.
Not everything is an attack on Xbox dude. People are allowed to have differing opinions.
Re: Talking Point: How Much Time Have You Spent Gaming On Xbox Consoles This Year?
70% PS5 Pro
20% Xbox
10% Split between Switch 2 & Steam Deck
Since I got PS5 Pro it’s my default platform. Also I play my live services there that suck up time.
Re: Gears Of War: E-Day Is The Coalition's 'Most Ambitious Game Yet'
@Questionable_Duck OK, that's fair, there are exceptions, but it's the exception not the rule. Still a largely meaningless thing to say, like when console makers say "it's our most powerful console ever..."
Re: Gears Of War: E-Day Is The Coalition's 'Most Ambitious Game Yet'
This is one of those absolutely stupid and meaningless statements that studios seem to love giving.
"No, actually our next game is much less ambitious than our last"
...said no one ever.
Re: Ark 2 Isn't Coming To Xbox & Game Pass Until 2028, Eight Years After It Was First Revealed
And I would bet it still releases janky AF
Re: Nex Playground CEO Talks Comparisons To Xbox & PS5, And Why Their Console Is So Affordable
Yesterday's technology tomorrow!
(This is usually what I say about Nintendo, but it is a smart way to make a profit, finding a new use for cheaper old tech and making it work for you)
Re: 2025 GOTY Contender 'Dispatch' Just Got Revealed For Switch, But What About Xbox?
@ilyn absolutely agree. Steam is absolutely the gold standard here, well designed for consumers to make better informed decisions.
Re: 'Xbox Wrapped' Ditched For 2025 Due To Ambitious 2026 Plans, Suggests Report
Thanks for the update. But if they want to keep costs low, why not just roll out last years wrap script with a few minor changes? Could easily be done on a comparatively low budget, we do this every year on many projects to deliver clients metrics. Not buying this as a reasonable excuse frankly.
Re: One Xbox First-Party Game Makes Newzoo's Top-10 'Releases By Revenue' For 2025
@Fiendish-Beaver It's comfort food, like live services, the gaming equivalent of things like McDonalds.
Re: Three Elder Scrolls 6 Developers Share How The Game Is Progressing At Bethesda
@beltmenot So did I. Do you think the last games have been as good as Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim or Fallout 3? I don't. Still good, but not as good as those.
Re: 2025 GOTY Contender 'Dispatch' Just Got Revealed For Switch, But What About Xbox?
@Fiendish-Beaver My point with aggregates is that they DON'T always tell the whole story, especially for the 7ish/10s that are the ones that really need the uplift, the 9/10s will be fine.
As for Amazon I am dubious of BOTH very few reviews AND when there are thousands of reviews on a basic product. There are several unethical ways of doing this but it seems to happen a lot. Constant vigilance! lol
Re: 2025 GOTY Contender 'Dispatch' Just Got Revealed For Switch, But What About Xbox?
@Fiendish-Beaver No worries.
Steam is the ONLY user review system I put much merit on. Most other like Metacritic, Sony or Xbox are all pretty useless for different reasons. Metacritic in particular is useless with most either glazing or grinding an axe, with little nuance. The 0 OR 10 Metacritic with little in between is a meme but also often true.
But I think there is a problem with ALL score aggregators whether that is Steam or Metacritic. The problem is that a well made but safe/boring game will often score better than something that is daring that is far more niche, or buggy. These polarising games that some might give 5/10 but others 9 or 10/10 don't aggregate well. Not all 7/10s are equal, and aggregators do a bad job of highlighting the difference!
Hence I think it's more important to find reviewers that like the same things as you, whether that is a friend or a specific reviewer and I will often put FAR more weight on their opinion than the group ones. If they said it's a 7/10 because it's a flawed game, but it's memorable (e.g. Scorn) I will usually play that when I might skip a lot of other games getting 69 on Metacritic. Opinions eh?
Re: 2025 GOTY Contender 'Dispatch' Just Got Revealed For Switch, But What About Xbox?
@Fiendish-Beaver If you hover over the "overwhelmingly positive" or whatever the title is it comes up with additional info e.g. "85% of the 16,642 user reviews in your language were positive".
Re: 2025 GOTY Contender 'Dispatch' Just Got Revealed For Switch, But What About Xbox?
@GeeEssEff @Fiendish-Beaver @FraserG personally I don’t find the number of reviews all that useful on Steam as unless it’s a really small number it doesn’t affect the score much. Similar to how once there are 20-30 reviews on Metacritic it’s rare for a game to change more than a few percentage points.
What I find far more useful is the percentage positive e.g. 85% positive because there can be quite a range between some of the ranges e.g. 80% - 100% could all be “very positive” if it has 50-499 reviews or 80% - 94% if more than 500.
Similarly “mixed” can be 40% - 69% positive reviews which is a really wide range!
Re: 15 First-Party Games Released On Xbox In 2025, But Which Was Your Favourite?
Not played OW2 or Avowed yet but tried most of the rest I wanted to. Keeper is probably my favourite. Doom TDA while good was also a bit of a let down imo.