themightyant

Veilguard’s a good get. While not for everyone - though what game is - there’s a game many will enjoy in there. Perfect to find out yourself risk free on Game Pass and perhaps see what all the fuss was about.

@WildConcept6 perhaps, but I prefer the idea of a console like interface and cut down Windows. I used to game on PC a lot more but it’s such a drag.

No. But I don’t use handhelds that much and already have a Steam Deck OLED and Switch 2.

But if they make an Xbox tv console that played PC games from all stores I’d be in day 1 if the price is right… which it isn’t on the Xbox Ally X

Not sure… 6-7 times maybe… possibly more. Plus a lot of partial playthroughs with friends

@jesse_dylan totally agree, I just wish there was a toggle on switch to change it. It’s maddening with all the muscle memory built up on other devices to go back when you want to go forward and vice versa.

@GeraltWhiteWolf agreed. Will be buying this (somewhere, not sure which platform yet) but will play it on Game Pass too. If it’s anything like as good as HK I will play it many times on many platforms.

Silksong finally! Can’t wait.

@Titntin I’ve got pretty small hands and have no issues. (That’s not saying nobody does, but I suspect it’s the minority, and less to with offset / not-offset sticks and more to do with controller size).

The only one I really struggle with is Nintendo / Switch with their reversed A/B, X/Y and particularly which button accepts / goes forward and which cancels / goes back. I tried changing this in the system settings but it seemed to change it for all games and ruined the controls in some of those, many of which don’t have a remap option for that game.

@MysticWangForce I never understand the fuss between one or the other, people acting like one is unplayable. It’s weird. I jump back and forth between Xbox & PlayStation and at no point does my brain ever struggle with either, you just play. It’s a whole tribal nothingburger imo.

@Medic_alert You’re mostly right, it’s semantics, but ultimately the console will do more with exactly the same hardware as the AI gets better, so it does increase in power in that regard. The paradigm has changed.

But I can see it both ways here. Previously devs would get more out of the hardware over time so it’s a change of the way we perceive this.

@GeeEssEff Thank you for saving my fingers by making every point I wanted to make, and more succinctly. 👏

Why not support BOTH? Have an AA battery slot but ALSO have the controller come with a rechargeable battery pack that fits in that slot. Best of both worlds, if the rechargeable runs out you can slot in some AA's.

However one time use batteries, like Duracell, are typically much worse for the environment, and i'd love to see them cut ties and try and push gamers towards rechargeable options.

But ultimately... choice is good.

I like Shawn Layden, but he does make a lot of incendiary / tribal quotes, with JUST enough of a shred of truth to polarise discourse. It's all to stay relevant and talked about, which in turn keeps him in the conversation and paid.

Frankly I wouldn't read too much into everything he, or others ex-execs, say, it's often there to keep them relevant - and far too often we all fall for their media games.

In case it isn't obvious there are examples of Game Pass (and PS+ etc.) helping and hindering, it isn't one size fits all. But people will read into what they want to. Statements like his are often just a mirror.

I’m looking forward to giving this a fair crack one day but I played it day 1 and it was one of the buggiest games I’ve played in years… scenery floating in the air, dialogue out of sync, janky animations etc. Willing the studio on but it was an unfinished mess at launch.

@BAMozzy I agree it’s an experiential game meant to showcase mental health and psychosis. I just thought the first game did a much more effective job at that. (Obviously… err hopefully… without personally knowing what psychosis is actually like).

I still liked the game / experience in the sequel but thought it was flawed and a step back in a lot of ways.

Lovely seeing Bad Company 2 get so many votes. I loved that series. BC3 please!

81 for both Xbox and PC, while the new enhanced release is currently sitting at 78 = PS5 TAX! /s

Sounds like a solid update overall that addresses many of the criticisms of the game at launch. i.e. Slo-mo, slow weapon sway, not being able to block, Dragon and mech sections - though those last two it isn't clear what has improved.

I have no interest in coming back just for an endless mode but might give it a try if there is any decent DLC coming later. I though the game was solid, but not quite up to previous entries high bars.

@Kaloudz I think that is Arc Raiders

That statement only raises even more questions if i'm honest. Reading between the lines of the specific language used to me it doesn't sound like a new FM game is coming, only that they will support FM and maybe do the engine work on FH.

Nice! I never actually played these back in the day so it will be interesting to play without nostalgia. I enjoyed the Quake 1+2 and Doom remasters.

@GuyinPA75 just wondering what you “ Really looked forward to this game”? We’ve seen and heard almost nothing about it. One very vague CGI trailer and we knew it was a co-op smuggling game, that was about it. Genuinely interested what you looked forward to.

Not surprising we haven’t heard or seen anything about it in so long.

This is really a problem with announcing games so early, just work on them in secret and announce them if/when they are ready to be announced.

I realise SOME early CGI trailers are effectively recruitment ads to get devs on board, but that is more with known IP (come work on a Star Wars/Indy/LotR game), the Contraband CGI wasn’t that.

@Gabrie AGREED! Especially as their curation is so good. Even the seemingly average games usually have SOMETHING that sets them apart and makes them worth at least trying.

Would be interesting to see how they do this. Space travel is notoriously slow but if they have some sort of jump (lightspeed, folding spacetime etc.) Isn't that just a sort of loading screen? Either way I look forward to seeing if it's any better than what we already have.

@WildConcept6 I think at this rate they would do better to wait for next-gen and include all the new next-gen tech (possibly haptic feedback, lift to wake, Wi-Fi etc.) in a next-gen Series 3 than release it now.

The trouble was two fold imo

1. turn based mechanics didn't advance with the genre. With few exceptions most gameplay mechanics were very similar to how they were in the X360 generation. What other genre do we accept that with? Expedition 33 gave them a healthy shot in the arm.

2. The stories and writing of many turn-based games are often very clichéd, often predictable and read like YA novels. (There are of course exceptions) E33 was a turn-based game for adults, characters and their interactions felt real, not just fitting stereotypes.

Can't wait to see what Sandfall do next. They deserve all the praise.

1000 games OR just the Call of Duty franchise.

I have 180 games installed across 5TB so I am assuming a lot of those 1,000 games are smaller to fit on 15TB.

In my day and age it was asking adults to go in and buy cigarettes/booze for you, next gen will be can I login with your face?

Or perhaps even just pretending to your clueless parents that you want to snap their face. "Lets take a selfie..."

I have NO doubt this will be very easy to circumvent if you want.

@MaccaMUFC If it's anything like the process on Xbox it was reportedly a one-time thing and took less than a minute to complete. All it involved was clicking a link / QR code and snapping a picture of my face, which they reportedly deleted immediately. I'm OK with that. Uploading personal documents not so much!

Better yet... hopefully Xbox can communicate to say my Xbox account is age verified and it doesn't have to be done per game.

@CallMeDuraSouka I'm much better than I used to be when I would buy any game I was interested in if it was at the right price, regardless of how many games I had on my backlog. Now I mostly only buy games if I genuinely think I might get to them this year. And I also support some games, especially indies, if I like the look of them. But with Game Pass my backlog is still massive! Good luck with yours.

My backlog is too damn big. Too many games...

@Fiendish-Beaver I was originally playing on normal, which was a good level for the hordes still being a challenge in the mid-game, but by the end they were a walkover and I raised the difficulty. They were still too easy with the right weapons and prep and they lost their fear/thrill.

The best part of the game was in the middle when I randomly fell off my bike avoiding a horde on a darkened road and had to think on my feet. That thrill when you finally take down a horde when not planning for it... blood pumping... great gaming memories I'll always remember. But the rest of the game, not so much.

It deserved a sequel though, there were some strong foundations buried in there amongst the open-world monotony.

Would be cool if true. I finally got around to playing it recently and while I had some issues with the game (not least Deacon's a bit of d!ck, even his fiancé says so in a cutscene, and it has that open world repetitive structure)... YET when it's good it's great.

Taking down hordes are so much fun. There's about a 10-15 hour stretch in the game, before you get overpowered, when fighting hordes is still a challenge and tackling each is a complete thrill. Really good game, if flawed and unevenly paced.

40fps modes still require a 120 Hz TV which isn't standard on most TV models, it's mostly still only on the higher-ends of the ranges.

So, unfortunately, I don't think we can have it as a baseline, which is a shame as, to my eyes anyway, 40fps is a HUGE leap up from 30fps.

How about a neither option?

Who said you could bring sense and reason to a tribal fight? How dare you! Don't you know the Xbox Tax is real? We're an oppressed minority I'll have you know /s

@OldGamer999 I'll be interested to see what it does get... but I think there's a chance it might actually get a lower score despite all the obvious improvements as 83 always felt a little inflated. Many reviews the words were much more scathing than the score and general user sentiment seems to be lower now (only 59% positive on Steam, 6.8 user score on metacritic, < 3.5 on Xbox etc.)

Not really much new for me... but i'm on holiday anyway!

Darksiders 4 that is more like the first game... sign me up.

Goldman, Reanimal and others all look good.

Shame about Anthem. I was hoping to give it a go before the servers went down. But won't have a chance this month.

@Fiendish-Beaver just another thought on:

until that game is actually finished and released, that studio is costing Microsoft money, not making money...

The old studio business model was not getting any for a game until it is on sale and then, perhaps, it makes a profit. That might be 3-7+ years of waiting and hundreds of millions spent. Particularly with how long games take to make now and release dates are almost impossible to predict accurately 3-7+ years in advance, a project might take another year or two that expected, with no money coming in… and plenty going out. That’s why studios usually have publishers, to soak up all this cost before eventually getting any financial return often near a decade after it is first conceived… and what if the game bombs?

This is why many companies nowadays prefer subscriptions, it’s an ongoing, and quite predictable income. They can be less interested in the individual financial success of any one game (though if a game bombs it still bombs, though the metrics of success are a bit different). E.g. instead of sales they are more interested in different metrics like MAUs (Monthly Active Users), Engagement (how much time people spent in a game, which gives perceived value to players and makes users more likely to stay subscribed), and Churn (the rate at which users turnover, and what their average spend is).

Game Pass isn’t currently large enough to make the sort of profits Microsoft would like on its own, and not all players want a subscription service, hence wisely they are also offering games for sale cross platform and getting the best of both worlds. That does make it harder to evaluate a games success - unlike say Netflix who can just focus on MAUs, Engagement and Churn - they also have to look at sales, studio P&L etc.

It’s fascinating because models like Game Pass really do completely flip the traditional business model on its head and alter what is considered a success. I am sure there are plenty of games we thought “failed” in terms of sales but gained Microsoft a lot of engagement on Game Pass. And vice versa.

Xbox on PC makes more sense, but isn't very catchy. And, small thing, the logo with all the letters the same size looks... odd. "XBOX ON PC" would be better as "XBOX on PC" imo.

Not surprising versus this year as this year they were porting a flurry of older Xbox exclusives to PlayStation but that well will run dry and only be new releases.

Time flies! I appreciate that they also went back and tidied up the UI to make it cleaner without the store and not just have blank sections.

The same could be said for every studio ever. (Other than a few that were crowdfunded or getting money ahead of release another way.)

Additionally Game Pass only has to support a small part of all those studio's development costs, not the whole costs. Their games are also sold on Xbox / PC and now importantly on PlayStation etc. where they are making a killing.

They also make a lot of money from DLC, MTX, Early Access editions etc. outside of Game Pass. Game Pass is only one fraction of their total revenue.

@Coletrain Of course WE would be much more interested in that data, but it serves little purpose to Microsoft to share it. Microsoft don't want us comparing vs Nintendo and Sony, why would they?

General rule is if they aren't singing loudly about a metric it's either down, about the same, or minor growth. If it was massively up they absolutely WOULD be talking about it. As they did when Game Pass numbers were always increasing. Same with Sony who stopped reporting on PS+ numbers now only MAUs and revenue, which are up.

@Fiendish-Beaver While I agree with your assessment that there is a difference between revenue and profits we simply don't know enough information to make any further assessment on profitability.

I doubt Microsoft would have felt the need to make so many people involved in the service redundant...

This isn't necessarily true. Game Pass COULD (I am not saying it is) be making record profits of 1x (in your example $1bn) but if Microsoft think AI is going to make 5x ($5bn) then the success of Game Pass and record profits don't really matter they will reallocate their funds and resources to AI... which is what they have done.

Ultimately we just don't have enough information to even remotely make a guess about Game Pass's profitability.

Almost $5bn is very impressive and the first time I'm aware we have had an update on this.

It's a little lower that I posited a few months ago (around $6bn) but considering how little data we had to extrapolate from I wasn't too far off. Always good to have a firm figure.

For those who are interested Sony made a similar amount around $4.5bn (669,873 million Yen) from network services in FY2024. (Data from their financial reports). Obviously PS+ and Game Pass vary massively but they are each pulling in a similar revenue.

Of COURSE it includes all PC, Xbox and mobile... why wouldn't it? Assuming it's legitimate - and there's zero reasons to assume they are lying to investors - why would they only include a part of the business? They spent $69bn on ABK for a reason and Candy Crush, COD mobile etc. were a large part of that.

Those are mostly all figures we basically knew with few surprises. The only really interesting one to me is confirmation that Game Pass revenue is almost $5 billion a year. That’s huge. I’d preciously posited this was around $5 - $6 billion, so not far off.

@Dman10 That is revenue not profit. So there’s still the running costs of a portion of all the studios they own (they sell games too, it isn’t just game pass); plus any third party games on the service; and network / business running costs. But it’s still a huge amount of money - and still growing. As far as I’m aware one of the first confirmations we’ve had of this figure.