Xbox Series X | S

[CarloOos]

1 hour ago, AI1 said:

I had a Game Pass trial on PC for £3 for 3 months and there was just too much stuff on there personally and I didn't renew the sub. I downloaded about 800Gb of games at once (kid in a candy store) and didn't play more than a few hours of any of them. The value is unprecedented, but I'm at the age now where spare time is minimal and I cannot have 10 games on the go at once and work through them all like a second job in the evenings, remembering the different control schemes, plot, characters, etc, etc. It may sound crazy to the Game Pass evangelists, but I'd rather buy one/two games at a time and then spend the next few weeks/months getting it/them finished. So for me, the Sony/Nintendo gaming model is my preference. You may retort 'well don't download so many games then you fucking idiot!' and you'd be right. But there's always that niggling doubt that the Tomb Raider game you've put a few hours into on Game Pass might be a bit of a duffer really, but Gears 5 is on there...should I play that instead? Oh, Forza's on there...I wanted to check that out, let's take a look...Oh Halo Infinite is arriving on Friday, so fuck Tomb Raider, Ooh Cuphead! Must try that...and Ori! etc, etc. Plus the fear that the game you started last month is coming off Game Pass soon, so I have to buy it to finish it!?

 

Essentially, it's the Netflix problem where you spend more time scrolling through pages and pages of TV/Movie thumbnails than watching. All the while your bank account is going down £10-15 a month.

 

IT'S TOO FUCKING MUCH!!

 

I'm sympathetic to this because I'm similar myself, I have Netflix, Prime Video and NowTV and still often end up watching nothing due to indecision. But in spite of the wealth of games available with Games Pass, you only really need to play one or two a month (or a handful of MS first party games a year) for it to pay for itself.

[Uzi]

You gotta treat Gamepass like blockbuster back in the day. Only take out 2-3 things at a time and don't play anything new till you're done with them.

[rafaqat]

16 minutes ago, Uzi said:

You gotta treat Gamepass like blockbuster back in the day. Only take out 2-3 things at a time and don't play anything new till you're done with them.

 

Pretty much this.  I'll pick on a meaty title I know I'm going to like and then I try browse a few that I'm not familiar with and try out.  Give's a nice rotation. 

Tetris Effect coming to GamePass has me made up. I have it on PS4 but Xbox is still my main machine so way more convenient on that.

[rafaqat]

36 minutes ago, Haribokart said:

I'm staying at my friends

 

Woah dude. I thought we were all supposed to be isolating still.  Or do you mean permanently? 

 

[FiveFootNinja]

1 hour ago, Majora said:

This argument I sometimes see around Gamepass' pricing is pretty disingenuous. It didn't cost people £1 to get several years of GamePass, people loaded up on the cheapest Gold sub they could find and then paid £1 to convert it to GamePass Ultimate which is quite a big difference.

 

So for me, for example, I probably paid around £90 to load up on three years - still cheaper than the normal price you'd pay of course, but I still had to make that value call that it was worth paying nearly £100 in advance to take advantage of the offer. And probably even more pertinently, I made that decision to do so at a time where that three year window would span a significant chunk of the new console generation, pretty much guaranteeing I would stay invested in the MS ecosystem at a crucial time.

 

When this runs out I would happily pay normal price for GamePass. In its current form it would pay for itself several times over even at full price and has pretty much single-handedly turned my PS4 Pro into a first party exclusive machine. It's not just the best value gaming sub around, I'd argue it's the best value sub of any kind, period, even at normal price.

Sorry but it isn't disingenuous in the slightest. Do you really think the vast majority of people who have bought in using that 3 year period loophole (to cover that crucial time you mention) were not already invested in Xbox in some way previously and probably already a paying part of that ecosystem?

 

In my case my Xbox Live Gold was due for renewal and when searching around on here for any good 12 month price options I found the discussion about the offer and decided to do 3 years instead of 1, and then the £1 offer. Yes, you can argue I front loaded that additional 2 years into the network, but as I had no intention of just throwing my Xbox One away, and had been renewing my subscription to Gold each year for well over a decade anyway I would have been paying that regardless and had no absolutely no intention of moving over to Ultimate without the £1 deal on offer.

 

Perhaps more importantly as it stands I do not think I would move onto a full price monthly subscription once my offer period ends (you obviously feel differently) and, due to the availability of all the content on my already purchased Xbox One, for the short/mid term I will probably not buy the new hardware any time soon either and instead go for the PS5 so I can play their exclusives (and non-GP third party next gen titles) going forwards.

 

So yes, totally genuinely, MS have only gained £1 of real term finance from me as it stands in exchange for all the content available for 3 years. 

 

I totally agree with you about it being the best value sub around, it's absolute daylight robbery from our perspective. Don't get me wrong, I see what they are doing and I expect it will create an uptick in their market share, but we'll see if it all translates into actual market changing impact long-term (but Sony will have much cleverer people than me keeping an eye on it in case it does). Either way we should all make hay while the sun shines, all the signs point to that ship sailing so we should enjoy it while we all can.  

[AI]

45 minutes ago, Uzi said:

You gotta treat Gamepass like blockbuster back in the day. Only take out 2-3 things at a time and don't play anything new till you're done with them.

 

The problem I also have is owning a PS4 + PSVR,  Switch, PC and Xbox One as well. There is always going to be some 30+ hour AAA game available on one or more of the other systems at any one moment, so that also competes for my gaming time. Combine that with Epic giving away free games every week and that $5 thousand+ game itch.io BLM bundle I haven't touched yet and all the rest of the freebies all over the place and PS Plus and PS Now and Switch sub and Netflix sub and Amazon Prime Video sub and Now TV sub and OMG HELP ME.

 

[Uzi]

Just now, AI1 said:

 

The problem I also have is owning a PS4 + PSVR,  Switch, PC and Xbox One as well. There is also always going to be some 30+ hour AAA game available on one or more of the other systems at any one moment, so that also competes for my gaming time. Combine that with Epic giving away free games every week and that $5 thousand+ game itch.io BLM bundle I haven't touched yet and all the rest of the freebies all over the place and PS Plus and PS Now and Switch Sub and Netflix sub and Amazon Prime Video sub and Now TV sub and OMG HELP ME.

 

See thats weird - I've got a zillion games on PC but my attention always goes to Gamepass where possible if I'm not playing anything hugely important to me or looking for the next game. Simply because for the most part those games I own on Steam/PS4 etc I will own forever - Gamepass games rotate out so it gives me a little bit of positive time pressure to get through them.

 

A good example was Metro Exodus - I started it a while ago but when games like FF7 Remake came out which kept taking my attention away from it. Then I realized it was leaving gamepass in a few weeks so I hammered it out. If I had bought it in a steam sale I suspect it would have probably stayed half played for a long time if not forever and I'm glad I got through it in the end.

[Gabe]

I have no skin in the game (I haven't bought any console in 15 years) but I do find it amusing that people here moan about wanting different experiences or things they can't get on the current consoles - and then completely splurge over Demon's Souls coming to PS5. 

[cultofweaver]

23 minutes ago, FiveFootNinja said:

Sorry but it isn't disingenuous in the slightest. Do you really think the vast majority of people who have bought in using that 3 year period loophole (to cover this crucial time) were not already invested in Xbox in some way previously and probably already a paying part of that ecosystem?

 

In my case my Xbox Live Gold was due for renewal and when searching around on here for any good 12 month price options I found the discussion about the offer and decided to do 3 years instead of 1, and then the £1 offer. Yes, you can argue I front loaded that additional 2 years into the network, but as I had no intention of just throwing my Xbox One away, and had been renewing my subscription to Gold each year for well over a decade anyway I would have been paying that regardless and had no absolutely no intention of moving over to Ultimate without the £1 deal on offer.

 

Perhaps more importantly as it stands I do not think I would move onto a full price monthly subscription once my offer period ends (you obviously feel differently) and, due to the availability of all the content on my already purchased Xbox One, for the short/mid term I will probably not buy the new hardware any time soon either and instead go for the PS5 so I can play their exclusives (and non-GP third party titles) going forwards.

 

So yes, totally genuinely, MS only gained £1 of real term finance from me as it stands in exchange for all the content available for 3 years.

 

I totally agree with you about it being the best value sub around, it's absolute daylight robbery from our perspective. Don't get me wrong, I see what they are doing and I expect it will create an uptick in their market share, but we'll see if it all translates into actual market changing impact long-term (but Sony will have much cleverer people than me keeping an eye on it in case it does). Either way we should all make hay while the sun shines, all the signs point to that ship sailing so we should enjoy it while we all can.  

 

So Microsoft only got £1 off you, except the three years of Live Gold you bought to maximise the deal.

 

 

 

[FiveFootNinja]

16 minutes ago, cultofweaver said:

So Microsoft only got £1 off you, except the three years of Live Gold you bought to maximise the deal.

No, I said Microsoft only gained £1 from me for all their GamePass content as I was going to buy Live Gold over those three years anyway (I just paid it up front).

[Sarlaccfood]

1 hour ago, CarloOos said:

Re: 'This hasn't sold me on a Series X but it was a great advert for Games Pass...' wasn't that pretty much the intention? Games Pass is their platform now, not any specific console. 

Apart from the specific console they keep talking about and spent most of the hour trying to get us to spend £500 on?

 

Gamepass might be their platform in the future, when we can just download the Xbox app onto our TVs and off we go, but while they’re still locked in to ”amount of Xbox’s sold (+some pc users) = amount of gamepass subscribers” it’s still only a part of their platform.

 

(I think they still need to do a good job of selling us the box basically)

[Fusty Gusset]

 

[Quest]

Do we have a list of things in the show that were confirmed for Series X only?

[Sarlaccfood]

2 hours ago, Quest said:

Do we have a list of things in the show that were confirmed for Series X only?

Not yet.

 

Kotaku try and make sense of it here :

 

https://www.kotaku.co.uk/2020/07/23/microsoft-sends-mixed-signals-about-cross-gen-exclusives

 

But MS have been pretty good with communication recently so I would expect them to tweet a list in the next day or so. 

 

 

[MattyP]

6 hours ago, layten said:

Come the end of the year I can buy a PS5 and then pay £60 for a copy of Bugsnax to play on it, or a Series X with a Gamepass sub.

This. Ready made games collection and enhancement of your old games too.

 

MS have been pretty clear about backwards compatibility from the get go. Sony not so much. All comes down to preference of games but personally if I'm going to stump up ~£500 for a games console at launch having to pay another ~£120 for a couple of games too taking the total upto ~£620 isn't very palatable. When arguably I can get the more powerful console and continue playing my existing content and the new games just by switching the console on and letting it download is very attractive. Although wouldn't want to be downloading stuff on launch day  

[MattyP]

6 hours ago, AI1 said:

I had a Game Pass trial on PC for £3 for 3 months and there was just too much stuff on there personally and I didn't renew the sub. I downloaded about 800Gb of games at once (kid in a candy store) and didn't play more than a few hours of any of them. The value is unprecedented, but I'm at the age now where spare time is minimal and I cannot have 10 games on the go at once and work through them all like a second job in the evenings, remembering the different control schemes, plot, characters, etc, etc. It may sound crazy to the Game Pass evangelists, but I'd rather buy one/two games at a time and then spend the next few weeks/months getting it/them finished. So for me, the Sony/Nintendo gaming model is my preference. You may retort 'well don't download so many games then you fucking idiot!' and you'd be right. But there's always that niggling doubt that the Tomb Raider game you've put a few hours into on Game Pass might be a bit of a duffer really, but Gears 5 is on there...should I play that instead? Oh, Forza's on there...I wanted to check that out, let's take a look...Oh Halo Infinite is arriving on Friday, so fuck Tomb Raider, Ooh Cuphead! Must try that...and Ori! etc, etc. Plus the fear that the game you started last month is coming off Game Pass soon, so I have to buy it to finish it!?

 

Essentially, it's the Netflix problem where you spend more time scrolling through pages and pages of TV/Movie thumbnails than watching. All the while your bank account is going down £10-15 a month.

 

IT'S TOO FUCKING MUCH!!

Key is though you don't need to play everything! Just pick something and stick with it! Its great value even at £7.99 if you play one game through a month its great value. The way I use it is to pick a game I like the sound of spend 15mins or so playing if it grabs me finish it off then move on. Many of the titles I've played through would have cost me £15+ to buy anyway. And of course first party AAA titles such as Forza Horizon £40+. Way I see it even if I'd bought FH4 physically played it then sold it / traded it whatever it would have cost more than £7.99 to do this not including the time/hassle. And I still have all the other games to play if I choose too. If I buy a £60 game (that has no demo) I potentially could have wasted some money if I don't like it.

 

Think its a mindset change with Gamepass see it not as collection of games where you feel compelled to download and play everything just choose a select few games that appeal and play. You are not loosing out or paying for something you are not using if you don't play everything! It feels like a Netflix problem but its only a problem if you let it be. Life these days is full of too much choice it's our job to curate, focus and enjoy. Whether that be Netflix, Spotify or GamePass 

[Ozzy Womandias]

Quick question: will this thing have the same backwards compatibility with specific 360 titles as the One?

[footle]

4 minutes ago, Ozzy Womandias said:

Quick question: will this thing have the same backwards compatibility with specific 360 titles as the One?

yes

[Ozzy Womandias]

Nice.

Because I'm only getting one if it means being able to fully replace my One without losing any functionality.

[footle]

4 hours ago, FiveFootNinja said:

No, I said Microsoft only gained £1 from me for all their GamePass content as I was going to buy Live Gold over those three years anyway (I just paid it up front).

you were going to buy live gold for the next two years while your main console is a PS5?
ok, fair enough.

[MattyP]

31 minutes ago, Ozzy Womandias said:

Quick question: will this thing have the same backwards compatibility with specific 360 titles as the One?

Apparently yes and the Xbox titles which work on One too. 

 

Closest on a console you are going to get to a device that will play all your old content whilst enjoying the new. 

 

Not sure I'll be buying many £60 games over the upcoming years.

[MattyP]

5 hours ago, FiveFootNinja said:

So yes, totally genuinely, MS have only gained £1 of real term finance from me as it stands in exchange for all the content available for 3 years. 

No they got three years of Gold out of you. What say £90?! Also you have bought into the ecosystem and will stick with MS because that is where you will get your "free" content. Not going to play a game elsewhere are you if it's part of Gamepass? It's the same reason Google give you 'free" apps on phones. MS will leverage that subscriber base somehow. But first they have to snag you in. 

 

MS are smart I think... Or stupid and rich.... Can't work out which sometimes.

 

[Talk Show Host]

After rewatching the show and taking it all in I am quite pleased with Microsoft. They had some good exclusives, lots of indie offers, the reboot of Fable and Stalker 2. Sony didn’t really show anything of importance and certainly didn’t make us “understand” the power of its console either, except for the bit with Ratchet. It doesn’t matter for me much anyway. A show of power will certainly come and in the end it really means very little.  We just had LoUII and Tsushima in a 7 year old console. What we need to see is a variety of experiences and new business models.
 

Judging by how Sony plans to continue with their heavy development of AAA, it seems we won’t be getting any proper first parties for at least two years. I think this is what Microsoft will try and take advantage of with their service and smart delivery: give us a way to fill those gaps between major AAAs with a variety of games easily accessible at an incredible price. They are really putting a brand new business model against the traditional AAA development times and yesterday’s show was incredible at showing us exactly that. As with Xbox Live they seem to be taking another risk to move the industry in another direction and good for them. With a good price point the value for money for the Series X will be off the charts.
 

It’s going to be one hell of a generation.

[CrichStand]

Watched this and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was an absolute car crash of a show.
 

Halo Infinite looked proper shite. Graphically poor, bland, generic, dated and there was pop in and draw in all over the shop. That’s the flagship, system selling game for Xbox? Fuck me!
 

Pretty much all the other games looked that bad they came across as Indie releases too. How the fuck were the graphics and animation worse than current PS4 games? My GF walked in mid show and literally asked that question! That is definitely not a good sign for Microsoft! On this showing Xbox is fucked. It appears they just haven’t got the first party or even third party exclusives, to compete with Sony and the PS5, let alone sell a £500 console.

[Transient Curse]

5 hours ago, Sarlaccfood said:

Apart from the specific console they keep talking about and spent most of the hour trying to get us to spend £500 on?

 

Gamepass might be their platform in the future, when we can just download the Xbox app onto our TVs and off we go, but while they’re still locked in to ”amount of Xbox’s sold (+some pc users) = amount of gamepass subscribers” it’s still only a part of their platform.

 

(I think they still need to do a good job of selling us the box basically)

 

I think @CarloOos is right. Xbox has become gamepass. If selling the Series X was the main concern they wouldn't have announced this week that game streaming was coming to gamepass, they wouldn't have made their showcase gamepass only games and they wouldn't be supporting current gen hardware (and continuing to make and sell it) while launching new hardware.  

 

They obviously want you to buy a Series X, but not because they'll make money on the hardware (I assume they won'), but because they expect you to buy into gamepass. We're practically at the app on TV and off we go stage already. I assume if the TV runs android apps then we actually are? 

[Sarlaccfood]

27 minutes ago, Wahwah* said:

 

I think @CarloOos is right. Xbox has become gamepass. If selling the Series X was the main concern they wouldn't have announced this week that game streaming was coming to gamepass, they wouldn't have made their showcase gamepass only games and they wouldn't be supporting current gen hardware (and continuing to make and sell it) while launching new hardware.  

 

They obviously want you to buy a Series X, but not because they'll make money on the hardware (I assume they won'), but because they expect you to buy into gamepass.

Yeah but as of right now they need to shift more Xbox’s to sell more gamepass. So they need to be convincing people to buy one. You can’t really separate the two just yet. 

[Hitcher]

8 hours ago, the_debaser said:

I just don’t get what the point of this next generation is, right now, if the games don’t look or play any differently.

But we haven't actually played them yet to know if they feel different to play! 

7 hours ago, TehStu said:

Edit - yeah, I paid $60 + $60 + I think a 3 month +$1 to get GPU through 2022. It was hardly just $1.

But you paid $120 just for Gold; to upgrade to GPU still only cost you $1!

2 hours ago, Ozzy Womandias said:

Quick question: will this thing have the same backwards compatibility with specific 360 titles as the One?

Anything you can currently play on your One you can play on the Series X, as well as use your One controllers.

[Ozzy Womandias]

Just now, Hitcher said:

Anything you can currently play on your One you can play on the Series X, as well as use your One controllers.

Considering I have an Elite controller: SWEET!

[footle]

Just now, Hitcher said:

But we haven't actually played them yet to know if they feel different to play! 

But you paid $120 just for Gold; to upgrade to GPU still only cost you $1!

Anything you can currently play on your One you can play on the Series X, as well as use your One controllers.

(Unless you play Kinect games - i.e. you’re the one person still playing dance central)

[Popo]

7 hours ago, CarloOos said:

Re: 'This hasn't sold me on a Series X but it was a great advert for Games Pass...' wasn't that pretty much the intention? Games Pass is their platform now, not any specific console. If they were specifically trying to sell the Series X they wouldn't be bending over backwards to offer everything on the PC and Xbox One.

Then why launch a new console? Unless you’re suggesting Microsoft are being bounced into a launch by Sony?

 

One thing this stream did, that was absent from the PlayStation stream, was giving the devs a chance to talk about their game - it is always going to be difficult to prove you’ve got something truly next gen on an at best HD-quality live stream, but given the chance to explain your titles next gen credentials is at least something. 
 

I’ll be honest, despite that, I don’t think anyone made a wholly convincing argument. I tend to agree with those saying this new generation is probably coming a year too early. 
 

Edit - apart from maybe The Medium, but I recognise I’m in a minority of people who thought that game looked cool and has some promise (possibly a minority of one).