Xbox Series X

[cmdrdredd]

We discovered our local library has a ton of Xbox One games that can be borrowed. Given how well BC works, it makes it easy to check out something old but new to my family.

I think the fact that PS4 Digital is not cut down as much as the Series S and the fact that *maybe* you'll be able to add a NVME expansion drive in a year or so for $80 and nearly triple the space (~600 GB to 1.6GB) makes it a lot different value prop. That and the fact that the PS4 seems to be a console of exclusives - if you are the type of older gamer that is really only going to be playing 1-3 annual exclusives and hoards the game discs anyway (me), well, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Myself I don't see how giving up so much flexibility is worth $100 that will be mostly recouped if you ever sell it, but that's not how some of my friends who were on digital only hunts felt.

Pc gaming has been digital only for a long time now and seems to do well. The problem with consoles going digital only is the monopoly on the marketplace. There is no steam, Microsoft store, GoG etc that can offer some level of competition. Granted new titles are always full price unless you go grey market. Still as games age and sales slow, the titles can drop in price and have store wide sales as well. With only PSN or Xbox stores on consoles, even Nintendo eShop for that matter, they have no reason to offer discounts on titles with no competition from stores. You also have a lot of retailers doing buy 2 get 1 free deals not even counting the used market. This is why I’m pretty against digital only consoles. Though a benefit on Xbox is the cross save feature that allows me to play on pc if I want and transfer the save to my Xbox if I choose to continue there at some point or Vice versa when I own the game digitally.

I do support a service like gamepass because I feel the value is there where I’m not paying $60 for a game I’m not sure about. I’ve played hundreds of dollars in titles I’d probably never have purchased. Every year I can play all the new first party releases and whatnot and I can definitely see myself playing enough games to more than make up for the cost of the membership. Still, you are at the mercy of them keeping the game alive and there are many titles that have been removed after a time and if it is a game with some type of online element, you would need to buy the game to continue. The discount to gamepass members is a good idea though for this reason.

 

[quikah]

Can you comment on the aspect ratios on the screen that are available on the Xbox X series?
I was discussing whether to buy an ultra widescreen monitor or not, and hoped to see a 21:9 aspect ration on the Xbox X series.

16:9 only AFAIK.

 

[purbeast0]

Going to finally get some XSX time now that I'm finished with Demon's Souls.

I have Gears 5 to finish then I am going to play either Doom Eternal or Halo 5. I've played neither of those.

Anyone suggest one over the other? I'm guessing most people would suggest Doom Eternal as it seems to be a much better game and a lot of people say Halo 5 kinda sucks.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Going to finally get some XSX time now that I'm finished with Demon's Souls.

I have Gears 5 to finish then I am going to play either Doom Eternal or Halo 5. I've played neither of those.

Anyone suggest one over the other? I'm guessing most people would suggest Doom Eternal as it seems to be a much better game and a lot of people say Halo 5 kinda sucks.

Doom

Halo 5 campaign is the weakest in the series. Also try control. It’s on gamepass. Excellent game with good atmosphere

 

[blckgrffn]

Doom

Halo 5 campaign is the weakest in the series. Also try control. It’s on gamepass. Excellent game with good atmosphere

Is it Control Ultimate on Gamepass (with native port for S/X)or is it the BC version?

 

[purbeast0]

Doom

Halo 5 campaign is the weakest in the series. Also try control. It’s on gamepass. Excellent game with good atmosphere

I'm not really into FPS in general but I like Halo so that is why I got that, and I got Doom Eternal just because it looked badass lol. I don't have Gamepass but I'll check out some videos of Control and see if it's something I'd enjoy.

EDIT:

Just saw Control isn't an FPS so I'll check out some videos of it and see if it looks like something I'd like. The quick video reminded me of Infamous a bit and I wasn't a fan of that game.

 

[Commodus]

I'm not really into FPS in general but I like Halo so that is why I got that, and I got Doom Eternal just because it looked badass lol. I don't have Gamepass but I'll check out some videos of Control and see if it's something I'd enjoy.

EDIT:

Just saw Control isn't an FPS so I'll check out some videos of it and see if it looks like something I'd like. The quick video reminded me of Infamous a bit and I wasn't a fan of that game.

It plays a bit like an FPS, but it's clearly about more than just straightforward shooting. This isn't a superhero game, let's put it that way.

 

[quikah]

I'm not really into FPS in general but I like Halo so that is why I got that, and I got Doom Eternal just because it looked badass lol. I don't have Gamepass but I'll check out some videos of Control and see if it's something I'd enjoy.

EDIT:

Just saw Control isn't an FPS so I'll check out some videos of it and see if it looks like something I'd like. The quick video reminded me of Infamous a bit and I wasn't a fan of that game.

Control is a PS+ title right now, so just get it there? (unless you don't subscribe)

Have heard good things about Yakuza: Like a Dragon, haven't played myself though.

 

[purbeast0]

I don't have PS+ either.

I don't have any interest in the Yakuza games either, just not something I'd like.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Is it Control Ultimate on Gamepass (with native port for S/X)or is it the BC version?

Standard unfortunately.

Heard good things about Medium too even though reviews are average.

Falconer got added recently as well, have to give that a try even though reviews are pretty bad. For basically free I have nothing to lose

 

[cmdrdredd]

Control is a PS+ title right now, so just get it there? (unless you don't subscribe)

Have heard good things about Yakuza: Like a Dragon, haven't played myself though.

Like a dragon has an awesome story but beware it has the traditional JRPG grinding elements. You will cruise through the game and then suddenly get stomped by a boss 15 levels above you without warning. It almost made me quit.

 

[quikah]

Standard unfortunately.

Heard good things about Medium too even though reviews are average.

Falconer got added recently as well, have to give that a try even though reviews are pretty bad. For basically free I have nothing to lose

Medium is a walking sim, there is little to no action, the puzzles are very simple. 1 or 2 chase sequences and a couple of sneak areas. The story is pretty good and the atmosphere is great, but can be boring if your not into it. Starts slow. I made a review in PC forum.

Falconeer I played a little bit. Looks amazing for a game with zero textures, pretty small because of this ~3GB or so. Worth a look just as a technical showcase. It is an old school flying game like Crimson Skies.

My son is a big dinosaur buff. He has finally gotten old enough to make a go of it at Jurassic World Evolution (he is 8). I have been helping him a bit, I am enjoying it. One interesting performance bit, we were originally playing it off an external HDD, but noticed some choppiness when scrolling around the map, moving to internal fixed it.

 

[blckgrffn]

Falconeer I played a little bit. Looks amazing for a game with zero textures, pretty small because of this ~3GB or so. Worth a look just as a technical showcase. It is an old school flying game like Crimson Skies.

Say what?!? How much like Crimson Skies?!? I loved that game...

 

[quikah]

Say what?!? How much like Crimson Skies?!? I loved that game...

Well, you are flying on a big bird instead of in a plane... otherwise gameplay seems pretty similar.

 

[purbeast0]

Xbox Live was down for 3+ hours and my brother called me because he's a total noob about gaming, and he was asking me why can't his kids play their games they own that are digital.

Here is a perfect example of why I will always go physical over digital when I can, and once it goes all digital, I'll probably be out on that console unless the whole DRM crap changes somehow.

 

[blckgrffn]

Xbox Live was down for 3+ hours and my brother called me because he's a total noob about gaming, and he was asking me why can't his kids play their games they own that are digital.

Here is a perfect example of why I will always go physical over digital when I can, and once it goes all digital, I'll probably be out on that console unless the whole DRM crap changes somehow.

Haha, well I can’t play anything because I got signed out of my Xbox. Sweet.

 

[jpiniero]

Xbox Live was down for 3+ hours and my brother called me because he's a total noob about gaming, and he was asking me why can't his kids play their games they own that are digital.

Here is a perfect example of why I will always go physical over digital when I can, and once it goes all digital, I'll probably be out on that console unless the whole DRM crap changes somehow.

Dunno about XBox, but on PS4/5 if you are playing on the 'Primary' console the DRM requirements are pretty lax. Can be offline, etc. That's for bought games.

 

[purbeast0]

Haha, well I can’t play anything because I got signed out of my Xbox. Sweet.

My brother's kid was signed into his profile and couldn't even play games he owns.

But on top of that, my brother said he couldn't even sign into his own profile, on his Xbox Series X, because they couldn't connect to live.

 

[blckgrffn]

My brother's kid was signed into his profile and couldn't even play games he owns.

But on top of that, my brother said he couldn't even sign into his own profile, on his Xbox Series X, because they couldn't connect to live.

Yeah man, I was farting around rebooting before I checked Twitter and got all signed out. It was like game over. Didn’t even try to play anything, no point in that. We went and did some coop on SC2 instead. Battle.net was up

 

[sze5003]

Maybe the outage is over now? I just finished the Medium about 20 minutes ago. It's digital since I played it through gamepass. I didn't have any issues being signed in on my series x.

 

[blckgrffn]

Maybe the outage is over now? I just finished the Medium about 20 minutes ago. It's digital since I played it through gamepass. I didn't have any issues being signed in on my series x.

It definitely is over. My wife was constantly reloading the status page for Live services because she wanted to run a level in Minecraft Dungeons. Essentially when I walked out of my girls bedroom after telling her goodnight, she told me Live was all green again.

I going to have to admit I thought this was adorable, because she is a very casual gamer until she finds the right game.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Xbox Live was down for 3+ hours and my brother called me because he's a total noob about gaming, and he was asking me why can't his kids play their games they own that are digital.

Here is a perfect example of why I will always go physical over digital when I can, and once it goes all digital, I'll probably be out on that console unless the whole DRM crap changes somehow.

You are supposed to be able to play them even when XBL is down I thought as long as once every so often it connects to “call home”?

 

[purbeast0]

Gears 5 is awesome. Forgot how awesome the Hammer of Dawn is. I'm up to 4-2.

The only thing I am not a huge fan of is the skiff parts. It's like artificially making the game longer than it has to be. The game would be better without those parts.

 

[simas]

You are supposed to be able to play them even when XBL is down I thought as long as once every so often it connects to “call home”?

well.. I dont think Microsoft figured out yet how it supposed to work. My kid was trying to play in an account that was already signed in , the game that she owns and could not launch it at all. very disappointing for her and discouraging me as adult on trusting Microsoft with digital purchases. if Steam/GOG/Epic/whatever unavailable for any reason (including ISP issues), I still expect to be able to play the products I purchased and 'own'. If Microsoft can not do it, I will not be buying from Microsoft..

 

[quikah]

You are supposed to be able to play them even when XBL is down I thought as long as once every so often it connects to “call home”?

My kids were able to play TABS via gamepass (goofy game), it asked to play offline. Might depend on the game and/or how you setup your Xbox.