Yeah PC does have a lot of alternatives.
Gaming Xbox Series X|S
- Thread starter Bojan11
- Start date
I find it very interesting how quiet this thread is right now.
feck all worth talking about and I've been playing my Switch more. I only use Xbox for crossplay games at this point.
Yep another pile of shite.
Not sure why they keep bringing back GTA V.
Not sure why they keep bringing back GTA V.
I thought there might be some talk on the FTC stuff coming out is all.
I mean, there'll be plenty of mouth if it goes MS' way.
At what point is this not "value for money"? I mean among those who pay full price btw, not the fanboys doing the trick.
I did the trick earlier this year for two years and right now even that feels like bad value
I hope Starfield is good enough to make it worthwhileI did the trick earlier this year for two years and right now even that feels like bad value
Understandable. My subscription ran out in May and I haven't felt compelled once to renew. I've picked up the odd game in the sale here and there for about the same price I'd have paid for GP.
I'm not sure I'll even renew with Starfield as TotK has made me a bit burned out of long-ass open-world games (not technically MS' problem but hey ho).
I thought you loved those and hated story driven games?
Nah, I just didn't like God of War.
What specifically?
I did the trick earlier this year for two years and right now even that feels like bad value
I sold my Xbox a few weeks ago while still having two years remaining on my GPU and I probably missed zero hours of usage so far.
Wasn't there something about the newest halo being shit and proper low player base already?
What new Halo? There hasn't a Halo out since 2021.
The gold conversion trick doesn't work anymore. It's 3:2 rather than 1:1 conversion now.
So if you buy 1 year of gold and convert it into GP you'll get 8 months instead of 12.
So if you buy 1 year of gold and convert it into GP you'll get 8 months instead of 12.
Same, honestly.
Insurgency is absolute quality
It’s a lot better value if you’re needing Gold anyway. Gold + GP works out about 3 quid a month for both for me which is still crazy value.I did the trick earlier this year for two years and right now even that feels like bad value
If you play a few smaller games and a couple of the big ones on the way it’s more than paid for itself even without Gold though. I don’t think it needs to be a constant stream of the best games to be worth it. Not yet anyway.
Desperate.
Harsh on yourself
Can’t wait to play Candy crush on Xbox
Well, this has been an interesting day. I'm not surprised one bit that the PI was denied. However, I am VERY surprised that the CMA appear to be backing down. People in the know did not expect this. Now, let's see what concessions they get. I suspect the UK will not get any ABK games in gamepass. But who knows at this stage.
Likewise. Was chatting to someone at work about it just minutes after the US decision hit the news, I said that it would put some pressure on the UK but that it still seemed pretty contingent. I was proven wrong about 10 mins after than
It's not surprising that the American company gets American backing based on their favourite pastime: whataboutisms. They made it all about the big bad Japanese boys Sony, and the FTC played along.
And not everyone is surprised about the subsequent CMA change of heart either...This is why you always take ITK opinions with a huge pinch of salt.
What's least surprising overall though is the "gamer" rejoicing from the xbots going on over on the likes of reddit/twitter. It's incredibly shortsighted, especially from the COD fans who love the pro leagues.
And not everyone is surprised about the subsequent CMA change of heart either...This is why you always take ITK opinions with a huge pinch of salt.
What's least surprising overall though is the "gamer" rejoicing from the xbots going on over on the likes of reddit/twitter. It's incredibly shortsighted, especially from the COD fans who love the pro leagues.
Huh? It was an agency of the US Government that was suing to block the deal. Is the FTC anti-US, and a federal judge in California somehow pro-US?
No, the FTC let them lead the case down that path and made a weak case in response. It was the opposite of what happened in the UK where the current/previous generations were not allowed to be used as such a strong argument.
Microsoft clearly learned from their errors over here, as some predicted they would after taking CMA too lightly.
Of course it is allowed, it was just a matter of time like many said. Now Diablo 4 on Game Pass please. 
FTC arguments were a joke, it was "Sony this" "Sony that", it is about customers protection, no one cares about what Sony gets or loses. Except PlayStation fanboys of course.
FTC arguments were a joke, it was "Sony this" "Sony that", it is about customers protection, no one cares about what Sony gets or loses. Except PlayStation fanboys of course.
Last edited:
I think the FTC had a weak case from the start, in terms of how mergers are judged in the US. The burden of proof of anti-competitive intent is on the FTC, and the judge was clearly unconvinced.
From the decision (Dr. Lee was the FTC's expert testimony in terms of the economics):
Yep, it's a completely different case than the UK one. Which is MS doing it right this time.
Honestly the only thing that gets me about this whole thing is how unprepared they was over here. The CMA were bang on right about using the future and cloud gaming, as that it what is really affected by this and not letting all this Sony/MS nonsense sidetrack them.
But as I said from the moment that happened, MS would not make that mistake again and they will find a way to get at the CMA starting with a favourable result in the US or EU. Plenty of people told me I was wrong (including a couple on here), but...here we are.
It's shit for gaming, shit for the future technologies and all those development teams under it all, but ultimately nothing much will change in the near future so only bragging rights are affected short term. Sad as that may be.
From my POV I really don't care about bragging rights. I game on PS5 and PC but that's not some sort of identity. Professionally I did care about it for a while as a merger arb trade, but was no longer involved since earlier this year (didn't make or lose anything today).
On a personal level I do care and really believe in anti-trust regulation, and in that sense I was unhappy that the FTC was going after what I thought was a really weak case in light of the laws and precedent in the US. I absolutely do want the FTC/DOJ making efforts to prevent mergers that form monopolies/near-monopolies, but I just thought that this wasn't one of them. And by bringing bad cases to court I think they waste resources and have the potential to set bad precedent.
As always, I'm not bringing one sided twitter arguments to this place. Especially with someone who will never understand the point, nor ever want to.
There's already plenty of talk about the ramifications both for and against in here and the other thread anyway.
(obvs not at you MTF).
There's already plenty of talk about the ramifications both for and against in here and the other thread anyway.
(obvs not at you MTF).
Last edited:
It's a bad case only if it's based on current/past generations though and nothing more.
It's a worrying thing when you talk about the move to cloud and the biggest tech firm (second largest cloud capacity) buying up the biggest publishers to potentially take away one of the biggest gaming IPs though and lock it all behind their future services.
That's not "pro consumer". People shouldn't be rooting for either Sony or MS (or Nintendo for that matter) doing this. But again, bragging right for most people matter more than seeing beyond the end of their noses.
As for your court point, surely the biggest gaming buyout ever would always attract that anyway? Which is why I'm suspicious of how the FTC handled the whole thing from the start, but maybe it was just awful planning. I mean they let MS dictate the path, and the Judge made mockery of their poorly researched claims. But then I am always suspicious of these things, we are talking way above all our heads in terms of what goes on behind closed doors and we all know how MS operate and how they got so big. Again, I've said since day dot that CMA will eventually let this happen, MS are not ones to shy away from something that really matters to them. And this really matters, the mistake most are making is thinking this is about games and the Xbox division (which is a tiny amount of their revenue) and trying to claw back market share against Sony (which they won't whilst there's still hardware in homes). This is a worthwhile piece of the puzzle for the cloud future for them. Wouldn't surprise me who's next either.
Fair that it was always going to attract at least an analysis. But the FTC didn't even have to necessarily ask for this injunction to halt the merger before it happened, which is what then led to this preliminary judgement of the merits (they have to convince the judge they are likely to ultimately win in their arguments). They could have let the merger close, and then use their administrative case (if they won in their own panel, which I think they would) to force them to de-merge (possibly wouldn't even have merged yet). Then it would have been up to MSFT to appeal to federal court, but it's different positions then.
You're right that the cloud market and Azure are the big drivers of MSFT today, and Gaming is relatively small. But for Gaming to become relevant to the cloud, you would likely need Cloud Gaming to be widely adopted, which it shows little evidence of so far. The cloud market is big because of enterprise demand (storage, compute, and now accelerated compute/AI). There's no split by MSFT or anyone else of cloud revenue from consumer demand, but it's likely minimal relative to enterprise.
Your view is that in some number of years consumers will indeed have largely migrated to gaming via cloud, and that will give MSFT the opportunity to make CoD and other titles exclusive to their cloud gaming platform?
That's the view that should be looked at, and correctly was in the UK yes. Whether or not it holds up legally in different regions is well beyond my knowledge of any of that stuff, but the FTC definitely let it be made mostly about the big bad battle with Sony (and less so with Nintendo) and the market right now. Which was an obvious waste of time on so many levels, so that's why I find it so odd. Maybe cynically so, but then I was being cynical about the CMA's decision and likely u-turn, and we can now see what they are really like.
My personal view, which has never changed no matter who is doing the buying among the big boys, is that this further strangles developers and development, the advancement of technologies within gaming and creativity and will continue to do so. Both Sony and Xbox have an awful track record with 3rd party companies and how they are treated, and we all know just how bad Activision themselves are. Whilst most don't know or care, having been a part of the industry and still with plenty of friends in it (and have been directly affected by both those companies and their methods) it's close to my heart. Huge publishers buying up smaller companies is one thing, but over the years we've seen them strangle small companies with all sorts of methods making it so it's incredibly tough to be independent now. Even what they like to call "indies" has changed and requires a ridiculous level of funding, which is obviously then controlled. But that's obviously nothing to do with the legalities of this case and the legal rights or wrongs, nor will it ever change, nor do I expect most gamers to care. Until they have something to moan about of course.
On a gaming note, just realised SOT has the first Monkey Island tall tale coming out this month. The effort they put into these things is fantastic.
It's a shame the game is having server issues of late. Gaming in general has slept on netcode much like it has AI for years now. Hitreg is becoming more and more an issue in games, though in the faster shooters like Apex and COD you don't notice it anywhere near as much, it's getting worse.
It's a shame the game is having server issues of late. Gaming in general has slept on netcode much like it has AI for years now. Hitreg is becoming more and more an issue in games, though in the faster shooters like Apex and COD you don't notice it anywhere near as much, it's getting worse.
This was always going to go through eventually. Lots of people seem very upbeat about it. We'll see what the public opinion says in a few years when MS line up their next major publisher acquisition. We all know it's inevitable.
I give it six months.