JPDunks4

Well that's the goal now, at least for Microsoft. The $50 for XBL or PS+ per year always seemed as a nice bit of extra revenue for both companies. An extra billion or so per year. Now if Microsoft can land people on Game Pass Ultimate, and keep that sub year round as just another sub so many of us have become accustomed to having, that's $180 per year vs the $60 they get now. Most people put Game Pass at roughly 12-15 million subscribers now. I know a lot of subs are probably on entry level specials, but plenty probably aren't. 13 million @ $180 a year, is 2.3 billion. And that is with Microsofts 1st Party output not being anything too special, and no xCloud integration to try to scale it. If they can grow Game Pass to 50 million subs paying close to full price, they have a huge winner on their hands.

I can't imagine them throwing away the entire Apple ecosystem with how much they want to scale this, so I'd assume it'll be compatible on Apple by launch.

No, that was cloud computing. xCloud is streaming games.

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2020/07/16/players-first-you-are-the-future-of-gaming/ I think most of us expected this, but good to know. After trying Stadia a little more, and trying some xCloud beta as well, I think there is definitely a place for Game Streaming. This deal is essentially a Stadia killer in my opinion. Stadia needed a Netflix type library available to stream immediately from, not a bunch of older titles everyone's played, that you need to rebuy. It's going to be huge for Game Pass, where some games I kinda want to try, but don't necessarily care enough to download it. Now you can instantly try the huge catalog of Game Pass games in seconds. If you like it enough, download it for the optimal experience. Now if Microsoft can deliver with a solid slate of quality games from its large portfolio of studios, this could really be a big win for Game Pass.

I literally wrote up half a Stadia post this morning, but ended up deleting it because I hadn't put in enough time and wasn't sure if I could give proper feedback. I am a Stadia "Founder", and have paid the monthly sub even though I haven't used it. I decided to test it yesterday, so I fired up the first Tomb Raider reboot, and played it for a bit. Like @Mr.Vic20, the controls actually feel very responsive for the most part, and the lag was not noticeable to me in my time with it. In that regard, I was impressed. My issue with it though, was that the opening areas of Tomb Raider are very dark, and in the dark areas, the graphics just don't look at what I'd expect, and worse than what the Xbox One looked like that I could remember. I have 500gb down, so the connection should be more than enough. It never looked like 4k to me. I do hope we see some bigger projects from them in the future that utilizes the servers like they claimed to have in the works. Time will tell.

Thanks guys and gals. I have a feeling it maybe a series I really dig, so I'll give it a shot. Also will get to test out the streaming on PSNow as well, see how it stacks up to Stadia and xCloud. I see it has almost all the games, so we'll see how I feel about it as I go and how many I want to play. If i'm not feeling them, I won't do them all back to back. I did the Uncharted 1-3 back to back, and that was okay for me.

I agree with this.

Yeah, I won't go too far out of my way to play the games I missed. If I needed a handheld, that's a step too far for me. I tend to like to play the entire series of a popular game franchise, even if the stories aren't relevant to one another. I generally like to see how the games themselves, as well as the developers, grow and change over the years through their games. Playing the Uncharted Trilogy a few years ago, and seeing how they changed was a fun experience. Then jumping to Last of Us to see how Naughty Dog matured and grew on their original concept. I would've played UC4 before LoU2, but was afraid of spoilers online so knocked it out quickly. I may not play them all back to back, just was curious if I should activate my PSNow Sub now to play those original games. I'll need to see how many older PS games I need to get through that are on PSNow so I don't forget about them while I have the sub active. Any other PS Classics that are only available on PSNow that I should try not to miss. I also haven't played any Metal Gear games as well.

So I am running through my Backlog of Playstation games I've missed. I was gonna wait for the PS5, but got a PS4 Pro for $320 recently, and figured I'd just start to knock out some of the PS exclusives I've missed over the years. I have never played any God of War games. A few weeks ago, when buying PS+ Subs on sale, I accidentally bought 2 years worth of PSNow subs. I saw they have the original God of War HD, and God of War 2 on PSNow. Should I play all the games in the series before moving onto the newest PS4 game. I own GoW 3 Remaster on PS4, so I can play that when I get to it. Are they worth playing? How long are they roughly?

I remember laughing a lot in the first game, when Ellie would essentially be out in the open during stealth sections, and enemy AI would just casually not see her. In a hyper realistic type of game, it did kind of ruin some immersion for me, but it's a game. I had it happen a few times in this game, but not nearly as often or as distracting.

My experience was that the Enemy Human AI was generally pretty brain dead. None of the interactions vs the different human factions impressed me at all really. I found the Infected encounters to be much more enjoyable. That being said, the human enemies did seem to react to my last known spot more so than whee I was. If I was in cover, and rotated out and around, I could stealth kill by flanking them as they were still focused on my last known whereabouts. On Survivor, the damn Clickers felt damn near impossible to sneak up on in most situations. Not sure how much that changes on different difficulties. The main issue with the Human AI, is the same issue with most games AI, they know someone is killing their friends in the vicinity, yet they slowly walk up to the same pile of 5 bodies alone, and are easily body #6. It happened way too often, which made encounters way easier than they should've been.

Nevermind, it's been done. Just a light spoiler tag that was missed. It's been fixed though.

This is a troll right.

Well Xbox One X is still basically a $400 Xbox, and the Xbox One S is still going for like $250/$300. Most rumors think the Series X and Series S will be roughly $500/$300. So I don't think it's too crazy to assume the prices will be really similar. If you are a more avid gamer and shop for deals, you can get Xbox Live Gold for $40ish per year, and can typically also find sales on Game Pass for way below the $10 a month fee. If you do this, then it's still far better to just outright by the console in most cases, but not by a whole lot. The option to upgrade your console after 18 months I believe allows you to renew a new 2 year contract on the new machine after 18 months.

They already have had this available. An Xbox One S All Digital was $20.00 a month for 24 months. This included Game Pass and XBL Gold. Xbox Live Gold and Game Pass alone are $15 a month, so you are essentially paying an extra $5.00 a month for 24 months for the console itself, or $120. Xbox One S with disc drive is $23.00 a month. Xbox One X is $25.00 a month. (Who wouldn't pay the extra $5.00 for the X) Xbox All Access It's really not a bad deal at all if you were going to be paying $15.00 anyway for Game Pass Ultimate. You essentially get the console at less than retail.

And thats fine. I didn't mean to come off as, you must play on Hard to enjoy the game. Just I think finding the right balance of difficulty, especially with the sliders, to make you at least have to properly think and engage in the combat in a strategic way, and inventory management in a strategic way, is what makes the game shine more from a gameplay perspective, at least imo. I thought about going back and replaying it to get collectibles, but too much in the backlog I want to keep tackling. I will probably revisit both games in a few years, hopefully on some kind of boosted PS5 mode. I really appreciate what Naughty Dog has done, and wonder what they do next, and how insane it'll look on PS5. I still have to play Uncharted 4, I'll do that soon.

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/xbox-series-x-price-phil-spencer-says-xbox-all-acc/1100-6478966/ This article just stuck out to me when I read it. Phones are generally upgraded every 2/3 or so years. Tying every cheaper Xbox sold to Game Pass Ultimate for a low price would be the best case for Microsoft. I mean they could charge $20 a month for 24 months for the program for Game Pass Ultimate and a Series S. They were willing to charge $1.00 to get people into game pass, eat a little on the $15 a month price for the sub just to get more people on board. And stating it's going to be critical for both launch and overall generation, makes me think it might be more than just a basic buying option for them, but a deeper part of the strategy. We'll see, but probably not til August. I doubt they talk Series S at all until August based on most rumors.

One last thing, I was discussing this with a few friends earlier. This is a game, that I think hugely benefits from playing on harder difficulties. While I really enjoyed the story and gameplay, what really set this game apart, and really left a lasting impression, was the tension and horror that lingered with me throughout the game. The fact I knew I had to be resourceful and make smart choices in regards to item use, combat, healing, everything. Even on Survivor, I feel I had a pretty ample amount of supplies and ammo at all times, so I'd imagine it must have been pretty overboard on the easier difficulties. I feel the same about many games, like Halo for instance. If you play Halo on normal, its a joke of a game that really doesn't allow a lot of its gameplay elements to matter much. You can run straight through meleeing just about all the enemies. I feel this game might have s a similar impact. If I lost the fear and tension, and felt I could freely engage in combat and use items knowing there is an abundance of supplies and ammo, I think the game would lose a lot of what made it great from a gameplay perspective. I actually really appreciate what Naughty Dog did in this game for difficulty sliders, and being able to fine tune different elements. I think that's an amazing idea I hope more games incorporate, so people can get that perfectly fit for what suits their gaming style while also hopefully honoring the some of the gameplay mechanics the developers implemented.

I finally finished earlier today. Really thoroughly enjoyed it. I also grew to like it more the 2nd half of the game.

1 - They introduced Xbox All Access fairly late into the generation, and never made it a primary part of their strategy in selling consoles. In a recent interview with Phil or someone else at Microsoft, they stated they now have a bunch of other retailers on board to execute this, where as before I think it was very limited. They also stated they wanted to shift the way consoles were sold to be very similar to another popular electronic Device. So it just makes me think they are going to lean more heavily into Xbox All Access to kick off this gen. 2 - The Series S I assume will still be far far cheaper to manufacture than the Series X. So if they are looking to subsidize that SKU, it's less of a direct impact in the short term. And the monthly fee might be something closer to $35 or $40 a month, which may not be as appealing as a $25 a month fee. I have no idea if this would be something they do, but its one way I could see them moving consoles to a required mid gen refresh to keep the tech constantly moving rather than remain stagnant for 7-8 years. As well as a way to try to dramatically try and grow Game Pass Subscriptions and get more people into that ecosystem.

What if... Lockhart is only available to purchase through Xbox All Access, and in 2 or 3 years, when the payment or whatever it is is done, they have you upgrade to the Series X that you trade in the Lockhart for and continue the Xbox All Access on a new plan. That way they plan to phase out Series S's out in a 2/3 year timespan. So that way the Series S is a stop gap for early adopters to get into the ecosystem for like $25 a month for Xbox Gamepass Ultimate and a Series S. They build Game Pass subscribers up huge by having such a low cost of entry to get into Next Gen gaming. Then when the time is up, you can keep the Series S as a xCloud Machine, or streaming box. Microsoft said they want to try to emulate a phone plan, where you generally have a 18 month or 2 year contract then upgrade. Could this possibly be a strategy they want to implement?

You wouldn't prefer to play games on better hardware, with potentially better performance? Not sure if Nintendo games will be able to do that, but if I can play some of these Nintendo games at better performance, I'd love that. Similar to how Xbox managed to have 360 games perform better on Xbox One. With so many games have scaling resolutions, more powerful hardware should help them appear much better.

Diablo 2

Whatever they do, it better finally be back compat