Xbox Series X Discussion

DrDamn

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2024/03/19/xbox-game-pass-new-march-2024-wave-2/

Big, decent update. Diablo IV!

Brave

Hot Wheels and Evil West are great additions.

Don’t sleep on Hot Wheels! They’re the best games Milestone have ever made and their Moto GP games are great these days so they’re not shabby at all as developers.

More than a little bit of Blur in them.

There… that should make @SRR twitch a bit. 😉

DrDamn

https://www.resetera.com/threads/chris-dring-at-gdc-xbox-sales-flatlining-in-europe-majority-of-xbox-games-coming-to-ps5-at-some-point-ms-putting-less-focus-on-gamepass-and-more.830718/

Chris Dring writes for gamesindustry.biz

With Xbox, I’ve heard from a very prominent company and one not so prominent that Xbox’s performance in Europe is flatlining. You can follow our monthly coverage in the games market and you can see Xbox’s sales are falling and it’s fell all throughout last year and it’s falling even harder this year.

The major company who released a big game last year said they don’t know why they bother supporting it. We’ve mentioned in a previous podcast that retailers are considering or have began cutting back Xbox stock on their shelves, hardware & games… and now you’ve got third-party publishers going: “We’re putting a lot of effort into creating an Xbox Series S/X version of a game where to be honest with you the market for us is PC and PS5”

And with Xbox putting some of the games on PS5, I understand the majority of them will be coming across at some point, assuming, you know, it progresses as Xbox believes it probably will. I think Xbox is in real trouble as a hardware manufacturer. And that was the thing that came out of GDC for me, because I always just thought, I’ve always been of the belief that it is the Game Pass delivery system, it’s got a good UI, it’s got a good controller, if you like Xbox games it’s probably the best way to play them, etc. I thought it would be fine but then I didn’t really factor in that some developers and publishers might just go, yeah I don’t, you know, is there any point? And that is when you can lose it.

I was watching Michael Pachter’s podcast and he was talking about how it’s all about GamePass for Xbox, yet I’ve actually been hearing that Microsoft’s been putting less focus on GamePass.

DrDamn

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2024/04/02/xbox-game-pass-april-2024-wave-1/

Thought PGA Tour would be coming soon after dropping to _£14 in Easter sales. Well worth a try, I really enjoyed the trial and will nip back in now. It’s improved a fair bit from release too with a 60fps mode and three click input method joining the swing via a stick mechanic. It’s somewhat over EA’ed presentation wise, but I think they even reduced that. Lots of courses and tutorial/challenges too.

Brave

Harold Halibut is getting quite a bit of buzz around it due to the stop motion approach. Looks quite interesting.

2K drive got a lot of praise too. I might fire them up on the ROG Ally and give then a look.

Edit: ah 2K Drive isn’t PC yet. I’ll fire up the XSX for that.

DrDamn

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2024/04/16/xbox-game-pass-april-2024-wave-2/

A few more interesting titles here. Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is a kickstarter funded spiritual successor to the Suikoden series and Manor Lords is also picking up a lot of interest on Steam. Of the ones earlier in the month my boy is enjoying the puzzles of Botany Manor - recommended.

Brave

DrDamn I’ve had Have A Nice Death since early access. It’s a really good roguelike. Full of character and great animation. Pretty challenging but loads of fun.

Orcs Must Die has always been a fantastic tower defence hybrid. I don’t think I’ve seen it on consoles before so I might fire that up. It’s great fun with slightly older kids too.

Brave

Oh and Another Crab’s Treasure is supposed to be a soulslike so I’m very interested in how the hell that’s going to work 🙂

DrDamn

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2024/05/14/xbox-game-pass-may-2024-wave-2/

DrDamn

https://opencritic.com/game/16475/senuas-saga-hellblade-ii

Hellblade 2 reviews coming in. Generally pretty high, some lower scores mostly based on dated gameplay. Universally prasied for the visuals.

I didn’t actually get on with the gameplay of the first so never got too far with it. So will probably give this one a miss.

A selection of scores…

Eurogamer 5 / 5
PC Gamer 58 / 100
IGN 8 / 10
Metro GameCentral 5 / 10
Game Informer 9 / 10
GameSpot 6 / 10
Shacknews 9 / 10
IGN Italy 7 / 10

Gordon

I would be very nervous if I worked at Ninja Theory right now. I’m pretty nervous anyway, come to think of it.

DrDamn

Gordon they’ve got that PS5 port to be working on … plus rumours that they are good for now …

https://www.eurogamer.net/hellblade-2-developer-ninja-theorys-next-game-reportedly-already-greenlit-by-xbox

Alex

I found the original pretty hard to get on with. I found the visual and audio glitches designed to let you experience her psychosis very off-putting. The combat and puzzles were a bit simplistic as well. Might give the sequel a go on game pass.

Jogort

I really enjoyed the original, got a good chunk into it. Was a totally freaky game which I like.
From what I’ve seen of this it looks like just more of the same but better, will wait for it though as too much to play and as usual not enough time.

DrDamn

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2024/05/28/play-call-of-duty-black-ops-6-day-one-game-pass/

The next CoD - Black Ops 6 - will launch day one on GamePass. It would have been a nightmare PR move if it didn’t, but nice to have proper confirmation.

DrDamn

Octopath Traveller has got past some sort of exclusivity deal across Xbox and PS. So Octopath Traveller 2 is now available on XBox and on Gamepass, plus the original has returned to Gamepass.

DrDamn

Xbox with a proper E3 like showcase this evening. Starts 6pm, followed by a CoD special presentation.

Won’t be able to watch live but will catch up later. Quite an impressive list of confirmed stuff, Fable, Avowed, new Doom, Gears 6, Indiana Jones, plus DLC for Starfield, WoW expansion, Diablo IV. Plus lots more.

Gammerz

DrDamn WoW expansion
World Of Warcraft on Xbox? Or is this some other acronym?

DrDamn

Gammerz MS own Acti-Blizzard so some of their announcements get merged in. Unlikely an Xbox version will be announced, this will be PC/Mac only.

Alex

Perfect Dark reboot looks good. Had a nice immersive sim vibe.
Dragon Age 4 out in the autumn, which is not long now!
Fable out next year!
Ooh, Flight Sim, you can get out of the plane and walk about!
Life is Strange - you had me at supernatural murder mystery!
Indiana Jones - more sold on this than the last trailer, looks pretty decent (also out this year!)
Atomfall could be interesting but looks like a mishmash of other games
Assassin’s Creed out this year!
Stalker 2 looks up my street.

Overall a good showcase with a good amount of games I want to play which are out soon. A lot of it especially the fantasy-world-kill-boss stuffs looks all very derivative to me, but there’s some nice variety elsewhere.

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