themightyant

@RiverGenie thanks for the list, very little of interest for me there, certainly not enough to buy the pack.

@Fiendish-Beaver Cyberpunk is an interesting one because I don't think they ever would have delayed yet again to release 2+ years later. It might have had another delay of another 3-6 months at most and wouldn't have been in much better shape.

At which point I have to wonder how much of the additional work was down to them being determined to improve the game, and crucially their reputation, after all the bad press.

My point is: did we ultimately get a better game because of the bad press at release. We will never know, but it wouldn't surprise me.

@Kezelpaso It's low-key maddening. Much like Dishonored 2 being the only game in the series not running at 60fps on Xbox. Sort it out Microsoft.

Just remake Modern Warfare 3 you cowards! (X360 game)

They did MW1 & MW2 remastered, but then left the trilogy hanging.

@Striker21 That would only work if subscription costs keep going up. I suspect most users given a choice would be happier for games to leave the service periodically rather than costs go up even more than they have.

@Lucylu1983 most Game Pass contracts are in years. But there are a few exceptions. (Especially Rockstar games)

OT2 was added in March 2025 so it’s unlikely it will disappear this month. Feb/March 2026 far more likely or longer.

@Weebleman I agree that is the most logical and likely situation, but Microsoft doesn't always follow logic and I still think there is an outside chance they might run both while they transition.

@Weebleman that hasn’t been confirmed. It’s possible the next Xbox plays BOTH Xbox versions of games AND PC versions to cover both bases.

@IOI not sure why Campaign Evolved should spark the end of Infinite updates as it doesn’t have multiplayer. But this is likely code that they have something else cooking, possibly also for the anniversary.

Seems pretty dirty to leak the news of your old team.

Sharing saves between Xbox and Steam was not a step I thought I’d see. Very interested to see how this goes and if it’s used much.

@Krzzystuff I'd put good money on GTA delaying again to early 2027, so hitting before Nov would be safer!

@Tdx HIGHLY unlikely they are waiting for next gen, as they need a large player base to buy the game, that isn’t going to be on a new console. Whether it runs well on this gen? Who knows, but it’ll probably be 30fps.

Predictable. I’d expect it in 2027.

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.