I mean sure, there's a possibility that a Ballmer and Mattrick-era combo of colossal stupidity takes over the company and Xbox again. I mean, if you let a gorilla in a suit become CEO, then one stint with a competent successor is not gonna fix the rot that allowed that to happen in the first place.
But on the flipside, I know it's a bit of a meme to say Xbox is doomed, but Xbox literally is fucked six ways from Sunday if they can't push the envelope on Game Pass subscriptions. Their entire future as an ecosystem gatekeeper in gaming rests on Game Pass becoming sustainable and successful. If they fail, Microsoft just becomes a supersized third party publisher on other people's platforms, and frankly they're half-way there anyway.
In the end, Xbox and gaming is so inconsequential to Microsoft's bottom line that, if any future dumbass leadership team don't even see potential to build their own walled garden, they may just carve it all up and sell it off in the future anyway.
Microsofts big gamble is a digital only cloud streaming future. That is really where they are positioning everything for themselves and gamepass. They acquire so much ip, content and devs. They expect a streaming like future in which consumer end hardware will not exist (except a controller). So gamepass app on every home tv and tablets/phones. They are basically pushing themselves to be a gaming Roku/Netflix in the future.Honestly with how penny-pinching Microsoft is outside of doing the minimum "pro-consumer" gesturing possible, I have no faith in the management of said company. Like I am extremely cautiously skeptical of Starfield especially with the gameplay that we've seen.
Setting aside Game Pass and how their first party games haven't been great at all lately (Because honestly, that's more of a symptom of publicly traded companies in the past 10 years if you look at everything else):
- Their console UI has become increasingly more incoherent over the years. They got like several different ways of doing the same thing, and their settings menu makes things difficult to find any settings. App/Game pinning likewise I've seen others confused by.
- They don't allow replacing the internal drives of their consoles (Which are using standard formats), because they want you to only use their overpriced proprietary external drives (The same thing people gave the Vita flack for, which somehow isn't an issue here)
- Xbox controllers still lack gyro or the play and charge kit that's needed to even charge through the USB port, because Microsoft got paid out by Duracell to actively make their controllers worse and more overpriced (Not even mentioning price of rechargable AAs, and the ridiculously long time they take to charge).
- Xbox still lacks Bluetooth headset or USB audio support, meaning if you want a headset or use your Xbox on a monitor, you're either stuck to the 3.5mm jack, or something like the Sound Blaster X G6 or SteelSeries Arctis Pro Wireless where they have an optical out connection.
- Windows 11 has become such a massive unstable mess (not even taking UX into account) to work with, where enough to where most people are either sticking with Windows 10, downgrading back to 10, or just moving to Linux. Basic features like a vertical taskbar are still MIA.
- Their Xbox PC client is such a mess that people would rather just have their games on Steam. What they tried with Games for Windows Live isn't going to work this time either. Even their PC ports lack extensive controller support and only support XInput and limited rebinding 99% of the time, despite Microsoft talking up about accessibility.
- The process of downloading a digital game, let alone a physical copy with patches is a hell I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. I was helping a relative install Mortal Kombat XI on their Xbox with the physical copy that comes with the DLC, and I was waiting not only for an install, but another download of 64GB of data. Just for the download to fail and not work on multiple occasions. Same thing happened for HiFi Rush on Game Pass on my PC, I just gave up and bought the game on Steam because every time I verified the files, it got worse.
- They couldn't even get their more obscure original Xbox games on their back compat list, such as Brute Force. They're selective with their idea of game preservation at best. I know JSRF has song licensing issues, so I won't mention that one.
Like I can confidently say that even if Xbox put their stuff exclusively on their consoles again, I still wouldn't be interested in their output. I didn't have 90-99% of these issues on PlayStation or even the Switch.
What ever happened to Xbox's push for KB/M support on consoles, or VR?
yup, yup, yup! been using it for like 2 months now, it's greatI tried out CSSLoader Desktop today, basically a Desktop port of the Decky plugin. Comes with its own "store" of themes you can find here: Home - DeckThemes Docs.
Really neat how well it works too, once you install it (needs some "Developer mode" activated the first time you run it, though). Sadly not too many things to chose from yet on the Desktop side, but this feels far more powerful than Steam Skins ever were, with true modularity and tons of options you can tweak on the go.
I asked the same thing a few days ago, but got mixed responses. I've never pre-ordered from them just bought random keys, but from people I know, they've honoured the launch date every time.Anyone ordered Starfield special edition off of CDKeys? I see in my country it is the same price as the standard Steam copy. So $30 off.
Wondering if previous early access copies of games give the key at early access or do they only get key with the standard launch day?
Thanks, CDkeys has been absolutely fine for normal game launches, bought many games day 1 in the past. This was just the first one for me that has technically two launch days.I asked the same thing a few days ago, but got mixed responses. I've never pre-ordered from them just bought random keys, but from people I know, they've honoured the launch date every time.
My payment didn't go through this time and they couldn't fix it, so I checked around and got a pre-order from the Fanatical store instead. Site says key should be available Sept 1st. Depending on your region it might also be at similar or even better price than CD Keys.
If it's a female from Takeda, my money would be on Matsuhime. Daughter of Shingen and "wife" to Oda Nobutada.Fate Samurai Renmant gameplay video
The final enemy is the rider servant while the emblems on the armor point to her (?) being a Takeda clan member i'm coping REALLY hard it's actually Raikou as a Rider servant
I got darktide at launch
I play it with all of my siblings, was pretty horrible because one of us would constantly disconnect/crash and then it would instantly get filled with a random before they could start the game back up. It's sort of looking like it might be time to pick it up again when all of this comes to fruition
It's sort of sad that they basically took all they learned from Vermintide, Vermintide 2 and then just threw it in the trash and seemingly rushed this out. We were all excited for this but none of us have really touched the game since attempting to try to play it and then getting super frustrated. Their "concept" of more elaborate or individualized classes/characters sounded cool but they were literally just shittier versions of the vermintide classes
Yeah that’s why I’m copying hard.If it's a female from Takeda, my money would be on Matsuhime. Daughter of Shingen and "wife" to Oda Nobutada.
Takeda wasn't around in Minamoto Yorimitsu's (Raikou) time, so from a history standpoint it makes no sense to put a Takeda emblem anywhere near Raikou. She wouldn't even know what that is. It wasn't until 100 years later with Minamoto Yoshimitsu that Takeda branched off.
Compared to previous Team Reptile titles that only had 1 song by him from what I remember.So Bomb Rush soundtrack seems to only have 3 Naganuma tracks. Hoped for more, but I'll take what I can get.
I still recommend play it on Series X but emulate it on xenia is so great too.Honestly question,which is the best way to play RDR1?
There are multiple ways to emulate it (I also have the game digitally on my Xbox Series X).
Which is the best way to play on the Steam Deck and the best way to play on desktop. I'm not sure if my PC would even be able to hit 60fps on the game.
I think that Switch Emulator is now best way to play the game on PC. Less demanding, easier to setup. And works fine.I still recommend play it on Series X but emulate it on xenia is so great too.
patches archives:
1. Make a new folder and extract the xenia_canary.zip. It only contains an .exe file. Run it once and then close it.
2. You'll see a file named xenia-canary.config created. Open it with a text editor like Notepad or something similar. We'll make a few changes:
- Look for the "vsync" value. By default, it's set to true, so change it to false. This is to bypass the FPS lock and try to get as close to 60 FPS as possible.
- OPTIONAL: If you want to change the resolution, find "draw_resolution_scale_x" and "draw_resolution_scale_y". By default, they're set to 1. If you want to run the game in 2K, set them to 2. If you want to push your machine to the max, set both values to 3.
- Make sure the "apply_patches" value is set to true. This is for the Extra Settings explained below.
3. Extract Red Dead Redemption along with its 2 DVDs in the same folder. The first DVD is the main game, and the second one is the Undead Nightmare expansion.
4. Open xenia_canary.exe, go to File -> Open in the top left corner, and select the DVD you want.
5. And there you go, time to play. You don't even need to configure your controller; it should detect it automatically, whether it's from PS4, Xbox, or any other brand.
EXTRA SETTINGS
1. Extract the "Game Patches" .zip into the same folder where you have Xenia, meaning the "patches" folder itself.
2. Locate and open the 5454082B - Red Dead Redemption (GOTY, Disc 1).patch file using Notepad from the patches folder, or the one named Disc 2 for the DLC. Here you can modify the "is_enabled" value from false to true to enable or disable the following:
- The "Unlock FPS" value lets you unlock FPS to reach 60 if your hardware allows.
- The "Disable Depth of Field & Motion Blur" value lets you remove typical blurring effects seen in many games. This is optional, but I prefer turning these off in all games.
- The "16x Anisotropic Filtering" value forces anisotropic filtering to reduce aliasing.
- The "360p Mode, 480p Mode, and 540p Mode" values lower the game's resolution significantly, which sacrifices visuals for performance. Choose the one that suits you best.
- The "Disable Sun Flare" value turns off sun rays effects. Deactivating it gains performance but reduces the game's charm.
- The "No Trees - Performance Mode" value removes trees from the game. It looks like a wasteland but significantly boosts performance.
- The "Disable Shadows" value turns off shadows, improving performance at the cost of no shadows.
- The "Higher Quality Post Processing" value unlocks extra graphical effects, but requires powerful hardware.
- The values "Alternative Script Timing & Asset Garbage Collection" and "Use Separate Audio Heap" might provide extra performance on a low-power CPU. These can sometimes help but not always.
- The rest of the values aren't important or are cheats, like infinite horse stamina or unlimited ammo. Use as you like.
3. As an extra, while playing, pressing F6 opens a screen where you can activate AMD FSR and NVIDIA FXAA. You can leave it as default or adjust the values to suit your PC's performance or desired sharpness.
Microsoft fundamentally doesn't understand the role of the consumer. I don't mean that they're anti-consumer, I mean they don't understand that products are supposed to be desirable to the people they expect to spend money on them, instead treating products like forces made to change how a given market works in their favor. They will shell out billions of dollars to make deals and expand the reach for a games service that can't install games reliably and wonder why it isn't taking off.Honestly with how penny-pinching Microsoft is outside of doing the minimum "pro-consumer" gesturing possible, I have no faith in the management of said company. Like I am extremely cautiously skeptical of Starfield especially with the gameplay that we've seen.
-snip-
Like I can confidently say that even if Xbox put their stuff exclusively on their consoles again, I still wouldn't be interested in their output. I didn't have 90-99% of these issues on PlayStation or even the Switch.
What ever happened to Xbox's push for KB/M support on consoles, or VR?
Outside of having to enable experimental mode (or something) to help with crashes I luckily didn’t have many technical problems. I took a break after 300+hours soon after they released the last two maps, this could be nice but me and my friend feels like there needs to get more stuff before we jump back.
Same. I can't help but think, "Fallout 4 was shite though?"I just can't get hyped for Starfield
BETHESDA + Space game with no aliens?
I can't get over the fact that you have to leave the plant via a flipping cutscene.I just can't get hyped for Starfield
BETHESDA + Space game with no aliens?
It has some insane holds. Just to show how strong it's retaining users:3rd straight weekend with at least over 700k concurrent for BG3.
Gotta be the most impressive hold for a Steam launch ever in terms of rpgs.
Cyberpunk and Elden Ring were less than half their peaks going into the 3rd week so this performance is really crazy.
Just got mine too. I’ve actually got nothing on the cards at the moment, having just finished Viewfinder.I just got my Starfield key from GMG! I'm in Act 3 of BG3 now, so I should be done my first playthrough by the time it comes out.