Xbox Game Pass, Game Pass Ultimate now Includes EA Play! [XGP, GamePass]

Yes. Even just The Medium, The Ascent, MS Flight Sim, Hades, Psychonauts 2, Forza Horizon 5, Halo Infinite will have easily made the service worth it this year, not to mention the back catalogue and all the indie gems.

 

What is retro crush , why should I be excited that its coming to xbox and why might it be a tie in or bundled part of Game pass ultimate.

Why am I asking so many questions. Guess I will boot up my xbox and see what its all about

 

Try Katana Zero before it leaves on the 15th. Stylish 2D action with a puzzle element in that you have to optimize a run through a level (aka, retry it until you pull it off without getting hit). The retries have minimal friction, but the enemy actions are somewhat random which can throw off your timing on a second (or tenth...) run. Good soundtrack.

Tales of Zestiria leaves the same day, but it's a JRPG, so consider it a demo because you're not finishing it in a week.

 

Yeesh back 4 blood have really confusing and annoying UX.

I guess the developer really have a knack for that kind of UX...

 

Finally. The most basic of requirements

 

Find it funny how it's a scoop when it was already posted on B3D. Hopefully their article has more details.

Edit: it was nice to see them confirm it with Microsoft/Xbox.

 

Regarding the upcoming updated features (including expanded modding support)

 

Wonder who could have posted such a scoop lol

 

Didn't the Bethesda games support mods when downloaded through the Windows Store?

I still remember the time I lost trying to manually delete the files of a Windows Store game I had supposedly deleted but its dozens of GB still lingered on my mass storage.

 

You mean through the Xbox App? Yes, you can turn on modding which opens up a writable folder to add your mod files. You still don't get access to the executable though so it's limited. I have no idea what this change means in respect to the entire game being accessible and whether that includes the executable.

 

This years Dreamhack Winter MS is sponsoring with GamePass pc, you get 3 months of free gamepass for attending (ticket). So everyone going to DHW gets free pc gamepass for 3 months. MS have their own area/stand aswell i think (they had last time).

https://dreamhack.com/winter/

 

So I spoke of Clarity boost for xcloud before. They now have a survey out asking for type of gpu used if you don't see the option on your stream. So it looks like it is using something on the gpu to boost clarity ? Maybe fsaa ?

 

How Xbox outgrew the console: inside Phil Spencer’s multi-billion dollar gamble
Phil Spencer saved Xbox. Now he wants to reinvent gaming. Ahead of Xbox’s 20th anniversary, we sat down with him and Microsoft’s gaming A-Team to discuss their wildly ambitious future including Game Pass, Xbox Cloud Gaming, Halo Infinite, The Elder Scrolls VI exclusivity and more

https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/article/xbox-phil-spencer-todd-howard-interview

Tommy McClain

 

There's a lot of good stuff in there and people really should read it. I almost feel bad for just picking out a few things that I found interesting in terms of discussions that tend to go round the tree here about Game Pass.

So, at least information from Sarah Bond appears to indicate that MS are very happy about the current economic situation with Game Pass.

Also, contrary to what other people might believe, subscribers to Game Pass buy more games (or at least spend more money on games) than people that aren't subscirbed to Game Pass. And not just a little bit more that might be lost in the noise of random variation, but a fairly significant ~50% more on average.

I suspected this was the case and had argued that this was likely the case in various posts, but it's good to see MS confirming what I suspected.

Also, if you haven't yet, read the article, there is so much good and interesting information in there that has nothing to do with Game Pass.

Like for example,

Regards,
SB

 

"It's a “creator-driven” platform that gives developers the confidence that whatever game they make is “going to find an audience of some heft. Before [Game Pass] you might want to make this game, and then you’re gonna sit in a lot of forecasting sales meetings, and say, ‘well, I don’t know if we can make that game’,” he says.
“Game Pass opens up the creative canvas to many more types of games that may not find an audience in other ways.”
"

This is such a relief, in the world where only next iteration of cod fifa BF whatnot make economic sense and innovation and risky ideas are found in indie titles. As a gamer i couldn't be more happy.

 

I think the model of 80 dollars a game will be a thing of the past sooner then later.

 

I think they might still exist for a long time to come. There are a lot of Microsoft games over the next few years that I'm really excited for and with a sprinkling of third party stuff that ms also has game pass is a no brainer for me.

But if I look at other companies lets say ubi soft and honestly there is nothing on their release line up that interests me. So I wouldn't pay for a subscription to ubisoft. If there is a game that pops up it will most likely be cheaper for me to buy it than tay subscribed.

So at the end of the day I think for smaller and mid level publishers its smarter to offer a stand alone option and perhaps also exist on the bigger companies platforms.

 

I don’t think anyone disputes what they say, it’s just without context it means nothing. There’s several examples, not least what constitutes a gamer who does no subscribe to GP? An example, a family share a console and one person has GP and buys all the games but the rest of the family (obviously) don’t.
I could go on but clearly one data point means nothing without context and full understanding of all the data being counted and it’s interpretation.

 

What I'm hoping to see less of in games is filler. I think GP enables that more. You don't need to add tons of filler content to games to justify the $70 price tag, just put whatever makes sense into the game and put it on GP.

For instance, I'm playing DQ XI (almost done) and it's a very good game, but it really didn't need to be 60 hours long. They added a ridiculous amount of filler to pad the game IMO for retail release.

Hellblade is a good example of a nice 10 hour focused experience that doesn't have any filler. People get mad when they pay $60 for something like that, but throw it on GP and it's fine.

In the last 12 months I played and completed Hellblade, Call of the Sea, The Medium, Ori 2, Battletoads, and What Remains of Edith Finch? in less time than I've spent on DQ XI because those games don't have any padding.

Sure, it's good to have these more involved games like FH5, Halo I, and Witcher 3 etc..., but not everything needs to be a sprawling epic. I hope GP makes that happen more.