The Official NextBox Thread!

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » January 4, 2016, 12:02 pm

In this case the delay seems justified because it will give them

"the time needed to bring to life all the innovative features and thrilling gameplay experiences that we have planned"

At least it's a title not many have even heard of vs the premiere #1 smash hit of the century (even though way less sales than the Halo series) Uncharted.

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » January 13, 2016, 11:57 pm

Microsoft's Xbox Live service went down for several hours tonight, restricting the ability for Xbox One and Xbox 360 gamers across the world to play online and join parties with their friends. The company confirmed the outage a short time after the first reports surfaced online, tweeting from an official support account that engineers were "looking into some troubles with Xbox Live." Microsoft didn't say what caused the service to buckle, but it remains down four hours later.

Annoyed Xbox owners have been vocal in their response to the unexpected downtime — none more so than Snoop Dogg. The rapper, movie star, and avid gamer posted a profane 15-second rant to Instagram soon after news of the Xbox Live outage broke, in which he implores Microsoft to fix its service before he was forced to switch to PlayStation. "What the fuck is you doing, Bill Gates?" Snoop asks. "Fix your shit, man!"

Xbox Live down... again. Business as usual!

I saw in the comments of one of these many Xbox Live down news posts that the reason Microsoft is hacked more than Sony is that hackers were upset when Microsoft sued users for putting back features on the 360 that were there to begin with. They've been hacking them ever since. Well deserved IMO. 360 was a joke. Microsoft has no clue how to deal with it's users. Root kits are the worst of it but there's more than that. Shady company.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » January 14, 2016, 1:58 am

Xbox fans are more vocal when the service is down because it's a great service that people actually use. Seems like no on cares when Sony's service goes down anymore!

Let me know in a few months if Oculus Home goes down. That will matter to me!

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » February 12, 2016, 9:43 pm

Quantum Break Is No Longer Xbox-Exclusive, Will Hit PC On The Same Day

No reason to even buy an XBO. Not that there ever was to begin with.

PS4 + PC all you need!

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » February 13, 2016, 2:58 am

Of course the developers know what crowd pays the bills.

Ubisoft earnings suggest Xbox One players spend more than those on PS4

Put all those numbers together, and it suggests the average Xbox One user is worth about 24 percent more than the average PS4 user for Ubisoft's latest quarter (€7.94 or $8.93 per Xbox One user vs. €6.42 or $7.22 per PS4 user, to be precise). If you extended the outlook to the past nine months of Ubisoft earnings, individual Xbox One users still look about 18 percent more valuable than PS4 users

PS4 = Cheapskates!

Developers have to pump out stuff for the PS4 due to the total number of units out there but, much like IOS > Android, Xbox One is where the money is made per capita. Microsoft has less ground to make up than you think since Xbox One users spend more money.

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » February 14, 2016, 12:14 am

"seems to suggest" lolz. Seems definitive.

Regardless, all that seems to indicate is that PS4 owners don't buy as many Ubisoft games.

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » March 9, 2016, 1:23 pm

Winnow wrote:Fable Legends: future GOTY candidate

Oh really?

Microsoft is canceling development of Fable Legends, Lionhead Studios' Xbox One and Windows PC game, and is "in discussions" to close the Fable developer, according to a statement released by Hanno Lemke, general manager of Microsoft Studios Europe.

Press Play Studios, the Danish developer behind Max: The Curse of Brotherhood, is also set to close, Lemke said.

I guess a delay here and there on a Sony game isn't looking so bad now when compared with Microsoft not even releasing a game at all after 2+ years of development, hey? No wonder Microsoft has to buy third party exclusives!

Animalor · Post by **Animalor** » March 9, 2016, 1:35 pm

Frankly I was never a fan of what they were trying to do with Fable Legends myself. It was pretty much downhill after Fable 2 anyways. Without the "superstar" Molyneux there anymore, I guess this was just a matter of time.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » March 9, 2016, 3:32 pm

It didn't end up being too great in beta. They didn't take my feedback suggestions so that's what they get! GOTY if they would have implemented my suggestions!

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » March 18, 2016, 9:10 pm

A Microsoft Xbox-hosted party during the 2016 Game Developers Conference last night featured women dancing on platforms, rightfully angering many attendees — both men and women — and reminding many in the industry that even an often progressive company like Microsoft can contribute to the video game industry's long history of sexual objectification of women at professional events.

Way to go, MS!

The Xbox One will drop to $300 for a “limited time” next week, Microsoft said today. In other words, don’t ever plan to spend more than that on the console.

See, Microsoft has a habit of announcing “limited” hardware discounts that transform into permanent ones, which is bad news for anyone who buys at the wrong time. In the fall of 2014, Microsoft offered the Xbox One for $350, or $50 cheaper than its standard Kinect-free price, promising that the discount would be “limited.” On January 3, 2015, they bumped the price back up to $400. Then, just two weeks later, it dropped to $350 again. Anyone who bought the Xbox One between January 3 and January 16 had to pay a premium for not being in the loop.

Desperate times!

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » March 19, 2016, 12:40 pm

Aslanna wrote:
A Microsoft Xbox-hosted party during the 2016 Game Developers Conference last night featured women dancing on platforms, rightfully angering many attendees — both men and women — and reminding many in the industry that even an often progressive company like Microsoft can contribute to the video game industry's long history of sexual objectification of women at professional events.
Way to go, MS!

Yeah that was pretty dumb on their part. At least they were wearing green schoolgirl skirts for St Patrick Day.

Microsoft (besides having the better controllers), needs to get their shit in gear.

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » June 8, 2016, 7:42 pm

With Microsoft saying all their first party games are also coming to PC... If you own a PC is there any reason at all to own an XBO? I don't see how 'Scorpio' helps that situation.

To me it seems like PC + PS4 is the best combo!

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » June 8, 2016, 11:05 pm

Aslanna wrote:With Microsoft saying all their first party games are also coming to PC... If you own a PC is there any reason at all to own an XBO? I don't see how 'Scorpio' helps that situation.

To me it seems like PC + PS4 is the best combo!

6 Teraflops!

It helps if it's able to handle Oculus Rift with Touch Controllers. It would be a cheap solution to VR that's better than PSVR. Those gay playstation snow cone orbs arn't as good as the Touch Controls.

I'm all about Vive but it would be a big help to the VR industry.

Also, it seems Microsoft is working on scaling games so they play on Xbox One, 6 TERAFLOPS!, and PC so if one game works on them all it's not a bad thing. The PS4 version would only work on the PS4 (or you'd have to buy another copy) so no chance to hit those ultra level settings if you decide to get a decent PC later on. Now that I have a high end PC system again, I can see PC is the way to go for any game that's available on PC. I wouldn't mind having the choice to play any game I owned on either a console or PC without having to pay for it again.

I'm interested to see what both Microsoft and Sony have to say at their E3 events.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » June 16, 2016, 2:36 pm

Without launching into an overly technical explanation, the Scorpio graphic processor's (GPU) 6 teraflops put it somewhere between the popular GTX 980 (5.3 teraflops) and GTX 980 Ti (6.5 teraflops) from Nvidia.

Both of those cards are powerful enough to support native 4K gaming on a computer, usually with an individual game's graphics settings falling somewhere in the low to medium range. Though consoles are purpose-built for gaming, and they can often do more with what's in the box than a PC with the same spec could.

All of which is to say: teraflops aren't everything. Just for the sake of comparison, the Xbox One and Xbox One S both cap out at around 1.3 teraflops. That's roughly on par with the GTX 480, which Nvidia released in 2010. Even the current Xbox One can output game performance that a PC equipped with a GTX 480 couldn't dream of touching.

"6 teraflops put it somewhere between the popular GTX 980 (5.3 teraflops) and GTX 980 Ti (6.5 teraflops) from Nvidia."

That's pretty damn good. That power combined with a focused console on gaming should provide very nice gaming experiences. Uncompromising 1080 anything and decent 4K low/mid range settings.

Nice to see the 4K upscaling/HDR on the One S and the value of a 4K blu ray player as well.

Animalor · Post by **Animalor** » June 17, 2016, 8:39 am

You have to wonder if that's going to be the play here. There's already great hardware between the Occulus and the Vive, why not make both of those able to connect to Scorpio and leverage the already existing VR work being done on Windows.

Funkmasterr · Post by **Funkmasterr** » June 17, 2016, 10:26 am

I think it's ridiculous to even spend a couple of fleeting seconds thinking about it personally - the release date is a year and a half away, and odds are that will be delayed at least 6 months to a year. In that amount of time, what they announced will be less impressive - and who knows how their focus will shift between now and then. In the meantime, all Sony has to do is bump up the specs on a few of their components in the Neo and they'll pull even further ahead; it already seems to me like they've got more software support from third party devs than other VR - they're showing titles for it that show promise and don't just look like a lengthy tech demo.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » June 17, 2016, 10:51 am

Animalor wrote:You have to wonder if that's going to be the play here. There's already great hardware between the Occulus and the Vive, why not make both of those able to connect to Scorpio and leverage the already existing VR work being done on Windows.

Every Oculus Rift shipped includes an Xbox controller so they have a partnership which probably extends into the future. There is an ugly "console" type war going on between Vive and Oculus...it's mostly Oculus buying the rights to exclusives, Steam/Vive wants everything open so they can make money with Steam.

John Carmack was on stage during Microsoft's E3 event so that's another sign that Microsoft/Oculus are a thing.

VR nerds everywhere upset over Oculus paying for exclusives (sounds like good match for Microsoft!). I think Microsoft/Oculus is good for VR but I'm not a fan of exclusives.

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » June 17, 2016, 1:24 pm

I'll be picking up a Scorpio because of one reason:

"Sadly, however, Microsoft has no excuse with this one. Its Apple-esque introduction to Project Scorpio absolutely, definitely wasn’t supposed to be humorous in any way, shape or form. So when it contained a man earnestly proclaiming that Scorpio would feature “the highest quality pixels that anybody has seen,” the world practically guffawed itself into a coma."

It's all about those High Quality pixels!

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » June 17, 2016, 5:04 pm

Xbox Scorpio vs PS4 Neo – GPU & Memory Bandwidth

Xbox Scorpio: 6 TFLOPS, 320GBGB/s, unknown amount and type

PS4 Neo: 4.14 TFLOPS, 218GB/s GDDR5 (rumoured)

The Xbox Scorpio will likely have 8GB of graphics memory (we don’t know this for a fact, but it’s the bare minimum we’d expect) while the Neo will also have 8GB.

In terms of memory bandwidth, which is the most important figure when it comes to VR and 4K performance, the Scorpio appears to eclipse the Neo with 320GB/s bandwidth versus 218GB/s bandwidth.

That 320GB/s figure on the Scorpio is interesting: it's the same bandwidth as Nvidia’s top-end GeForce GTX 1080 graphics card for PCs, which uses GDDR5X memory instead of GDDR5. It’s therefore possible there will be a gulf in memory tech between the two consoles, with the Scorpio getting faster GDDR5X with the Neo stuck on GDDR5. Of course, this is all subject to change, so it’s entirely possible the Neo will get a memory upgrade before it launches.

Skimping on the memory! For shame!

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » June 18, 2016, 1:28 pm

Just a note regarding Microsoft/Oculus. The Microsoft Stores sell HTC Vives so they aren't "all in" on Oculus. With Microsoft looking like they're trying to be very pen with their Xbox/Windows 10 combo, perhaps they'll give Scorpio the ability to use Rift or Vive.

Microsoft's Spencer announced at E3 that Microsoft games would be coming back to Steam

“I look at Steam today, it’s on an incredible growth trajectory,” he said. “It’s a massive force in gaming; a positive force. I think it will be bigger a year from now than it is today. And five years later it will still be bigger again. I look at Valve as an important [independent software vendor] for us on Windows. They are a critical part of gaming’s success on Windows. I don’t think Valve’s hurt by not having our first-party games in their store right now. They’re doing incredibly well. We will ship games on Steam again.”

It appears Microsoft is looking to capture PC/Xbox and leave PS4 to itself although they even announced they're open to cross platform gaming with other <PS4> platforms.

Several good moves. Easy to see another shift in popularity if the Scorpio rollout is done well.

Sony is like the Sax Player in this video. Their act will only last so long before Microsoft figures it out!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGiBiHocSZM

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » June 18, 2016, 10:54 pm

Thanks Phil Spencer though for your massive insight on Steam getting bigger each year. Nobody would have figured that out if you hadn't filled us in.

Microsoft is in no hurry to put games on Steam as they take like a 30% cut on everything sold through the stupid Windows Store. Hence why you see something like Dead Rising 4 come to Windows 10/Xbox 90 days before (if) it makes it to Steam. If they can start selling a decent amount of games through there they'll be making a lot more money than they will on hardware. So it doesn't take a genius to see that's their plan.

Other than that I'm not going to bother commenting on stupid Scorpio shit that's a year and a half out. Stop wetting your pants already and get back to me when it releases.

Funkmasterr · Post by **Funkmasterr** » June 18, 2016, 11:57 pm

Exactly. Not to mention, nowadays everything gets delayed. 1.5 - 2 years is fucking forever when you're talking about something being high end.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » June 20, 2016, 10:23 am

Funkmasterr wrote:Exactly. Not to mention, nowadays everything gets delayed. 1.5 - 2 years is fucking forever when you're talking about something being high end.

Wow, PS4 delays have made it an expected thing for their groupies now.

When was the last time Microsoft delayed a console release?

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » June 20, 2016, 12:10 pm

Winnow wrote:When was the last time Microsoft delayed a console release?

When was the last time Sony delayed a console release?

Your argument makes no sense.

Having said that I don't think MS will miss the "Holiday 2017" date. There may be shortages if demand is high but I'm sure they'll definitely be in the manufacturing/shipping process by that time.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » June 20, 2016, 12:28 pm

Sony is in a bind. They've delayed their Neo mini enhanced console or at least decided not to announce anything about it and now Microsoft is throwing way more teraflops in their face than they weren't expecting. They can't pump outr another console a few months later after Neo so now they have to go back to the drawing board.

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » June 20, 2016, 12:50 pm

I knew I shouldn't have bothered responding as a rational human being to one of your posts. That'll learn me. Carry on.

Don't forget to change your underwear at least hourly.

Funkmasterr · Post by **Funkmasterr** » June 20, 2016, 1:57 pm

Aslanna wrote:I knew I shouldn't have bothered responding as a rational human being to one of your posts. That'll learn me. Carry on.

Don't forget to change your underwear at least hourly.

Yeah, I wasn't sure why you bothered. I sure as fuck wasn't going to.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » June 20, 2016, 4:58 pm

Consoles are ALWAYS behind the curve when it comes to GPU power but is this new Scorpio is pushing close to 1080 speeds, that's more power than normal for an initial console release considering the cards in previous consoles at the time of release. Xbox One and PS4 seemed weak even at release. Sony is not going to magically come up with something more powerful unless it's crazy expensive or pushed out another year.

Planning/testing on new consoles is lengthy process.

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » June 21, 2016, 8:39 pm

Here are XBOX ONE AND WINDOWS 10 EXCLUSIVES that were either delayed in the past or are currently delayed. Not a full list as this are just the ones off the top of my head:

Crackdown 3 - DELAYED!
Scalebound - DELAYED!
Quantum Break - DELAYED!
Inside - DELAYED!
Cuphead - DELAYED!
Below - DELAYED!
Recore - DELAYED!
Fable Legends - DELAYED! Oh wait.. The whole game was killed and Lionhead given the boot. Oops.
Phantom Dust - DELAYED! (Although it's back again.. That is what won E3 for Microsoft this year (lolz) )

Honorable mention:
Project Spark - Technically not DELAYED! but getting the plug pulled. At least Drive Club is still around!

So fuck you if you think delays are something that only happens with Sony games. There have been DOZENS of delayed games the past couple years across all platforms. Either come up with some new criticism or don't bother because it's tiresome seeing the same shit in post after post.

Tyek · Post by **Tyek** » June 27, 2016, 12:40 pm

My friend is doing the music score on one of the games on the list....DELAYED (Not sure if I am allowed to say what, but he posted updates on his FB page so probably ok) Excited to play it.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » June 28, 2016, 4:55 pm

A new Xbox One is coming next year — and it’s going to blow the PlayStation 4 out of the water

Business insider

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » July 7, 2016, 10:10 pm

MICROSOFT APPEARS TO ROLL BACK ON ITS XBOX PLAY ANYWHERE PLEDGE

Remember how Microsoft said that every game it publishes would now be cross-buy and cross-play across Xbox One and PC? Well, about that...

Microsoft's statement - which originally read "every new title published from Microsoft Studios will support Xbox Play Anywhere" - has now been altered to read "every new title published from Microsoft Studios that we showed onstage at E3 this year will support Xbox Play Anywhere".

Typical MS shadiness.

I'm glad this is the last month I have to avoid Windows updates just so they don't ninja install Windows 10 on my computer.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » July 7, 2016, 11:19 pm

Every title that supports "everywhere" is one more than Sony has for the PS4/PC.

What's the latest thing Sony took away...oh

Sony is killing Ustream support for the PS4 from August 1st

It's almost comical how many features Sony takes away. Some day they'll add one thing back that they took away and you people will go apeshit with glee.

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » July 8, 2016, 12:55 am

Yeah I can see how those are comparable... A streaming service that nobody uses. That's what Twitch is for.

How about address the actual topic instead of your usual deflection. Yeah like that would happen.

I mean this is the Xbox thread and not the PS4 thread afterall. If not having Ustream is such a hardship for you, and apparently it wasn't since you only just brought it up now, then that's where you should have mentioned it.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » July 8, 2016, 3:37 am

Aslanna wrote:Yeah I can see how those are comparable... A streaming service that nobody uses. That's what Twitch is for.

How about address the actual topic instead of your usual deflection. Yeah like that would happen.

I mean this is the Xbox thread and not the PS4 thread afterall. If not having Ustream is such a hardship for you, and apparently it wasn't since you only just brought it up now, then that's where you should have mentioned it.

I did address it my very first sentence. You whine about something PS4 will have zero ability to do. With upcoming Xbox One games you have the opportunity to play them also on the most powerful system available. For exclusive PS4 games you won't be able to play on the PC at all and for any others, pay twice. Sure, for those of you that have weak sauce PCs it won't matter. If that's the case, then the most powerful console might be important to run halfway decent VR.

Incoming, "I don't need this or that, don't care about the features Sony takes away, blah blah blah. Yeah yeah. Sony had it's couple years of good fortune post Xbox 360 mostly due to retards not grasping the idea of digital games soon enough although digital sales are overwhelming those stupid "boxed" sales now. Music? Online/Steaming. Movies/TV? Online/Streaming. Games? Yeah, I'm sure everyone wants to keep buying boxes with disks that will be obsolete very soon.. Nope, digital is here. Deal with it. Go fondle your worthless Music CD jewel box collections and make room in your closet for those PC game boxes. Hell most people don't even care about books anymore...yep, ebooks/audiobooks.

We'll see how it plays out. I see Sony getting stuck with a half assed "Neo" console update that can't really power a decent VR experience with an already known inferior headset for resolution, tracking and FPS. If Microsoft does go with Oculus, you'll have a system that can play on the Scorpio as well as have access to all of the Oculus and Vive games from steam which are getting pumped out at a decent rate already...all of that will be pitted against PSVR's exclusives. Microsoft's solution will be more powerful and have a hell of a lot more flexibility by being able to play VR games from both PC and anything it makes for Xbox.

Sony's success with the PS4 was to Microsoft, the equivalent of a thorn being stuck in a lions paw. It was enough to irritate but once removed, the lion is still king.

PlayStation exec Adam Boyes says he's leaving Sony

https://www.engadget.com/2016/07/07/pla ... ving-sony/

Lately, Sony's gaming platforms have enjoyed a ton of support from third party developers big and small, but now one of the people in charge of those relationships is leaving the company. Adam Boyes announced in a series of tweets (and on the PlayStation Blogcast) that he's going back "to the world of game development" that he left in 2012 to become the PlayStation brand's VP of Publisher & Developer Relations. Recently his job as involved bringing game experiences to PlayStation VR, but Boyes has also connected projects like the Grim Fandango remaster and No Man's Sky.

Recently another name connected to Sony's indie game outreach also left the company, as account manager and former 1UP editor Nick Suttner announced his departure last week. There's no specific word on a next move for either, although the moves come at an interesting time, as Sony reorganizes its internal units, and Microsoft turns up the competition with moves like linking game releases across Xbox and PC. Still, we'd expect the game releases to continue rolling, in fact the team behind No Man's Sky announced today that the game has gone gold.

Well that sucks!

Funkmasterr · Post by **Funkmasterr** » July 8, 2016, 10:05 am

Except for most gamers will be priced out of either of the upgraded consoles, most likely, but especially the Scorpio, not to mention any VR. What that leaves you with is PS4 still dominating as it has due to vastly superior quantity/quality of exclusives.

But hey; keep on living in your dream world, moron.

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » July 8, 2016, 8:38 pm

Winnow wrote:Sony's success with the PS4 was to Microsoft, the equivalent of a thorn being stuck in a lions paw. It was enough to irritate but once removed, the lion is still king.

Until some dentist from Minnesota shoots them in the head I guess.

PlayStation exec Adam Boyes says he's leaving Sony

Again.. How is this relevant in the Xbox thread? You're like someone I used to know at work. No matter what I said about a Republican instead of saying, "You know that's a valid point" he'd immediately turn it around on Democrats. Every single time. After awhile it was just pointless to bring up anything. I've pretty much reached the same point here.

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » July 8, 2016, 10:04 pm

I think we should bring up how awesome the PicoP projectors that aren't being included with the new Xbox. It was just a year or so ago that Winnow couldn't avoid adding them to every thread too!

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » July 8, 2016, 11:39 pm

Aslanna wrote:
PlayStation exec Adam Boyes says he's leaving Sony
Again.. How is this relevant in the Xbox thread? You're like someone I used to know at work. No matter what I said about a Republican instead of saying, "You know that's a valid point" he'd immediately turn it around on Democrats. Every single time. After awhile it was just pointless to bring up anything. I've pretty much reached the same point here.

If there was more than 2 posts a day on this forum I suppose the threads would matter. You seem to be blind as a bat as I addressed your comment immediately and then added other comments of my own. You don't seem to like anything negative about the PS4. I understand. It's a fanboi thing.

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » July 9, 2016, 3:29 am

Unlike you I don't attach my self-worth with a particular product. Say anything negative you want. Just try and be relevant about it.

I previously only bothered to engage in your stupid console war shit because I had nothing better to do at the time. Now I do. It has lost its fun for me. Good job on wearing someone else down. I'm sure when VV eventually does pull the plug you'll be the last one standing. Grats!

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » July 9, 2016, 2:50 pm

I don't even have my consoles hooked up anymore with Fallout IV being the last game I played on a console (better on PC). It's PC and VR for me. Best gaming is on PC and even more so now that most games (especially xbox) support controllers on PC. Looking back on things, it was a waste to buy PS4 and Xbox One.

Games on PC absolutely crush both consoles if you have a decent system. Same with VR when consoles eventually get VR capability although in that particular area, it looks like Xbox Scorpio will be the better choice for quality vs the Wii tech level controllers/lower resolution/underpowered PSVR solution. Of course, even then, if Microsoft partners with Oculus it would suck as I have my doubts about them as a company. Steam and Vive headsets (from HTC and eventually other vendors) are the place to be in combination with a decent PC for gaming and VR. The good news is Microsoft also sells HTC Vive in its stores. If Microsoft is smart and supports both Vive and Oculus for Scorpio, they will ass-smash Sony's solution into oblivion as unlike some people on this board who couldn't tell the difference between Wii and Xbox/Playstation graphics, it's very clear what the better system is after actually trying out VR first hand.

PS4 had a nice couple year run. Xbox 360 was better than that Honeycomb CPU PS3 mess and the future looks to be pointing back to Xbox. Whatever happens, it looks like Sony people will be stuck forever with an awful setup for joysticks on their controllers because Sony likes "tradition"....not a good sign for VR as Sony also has by far the worst controller scheme for VR as well...it's not like input controls are import for gaming or anything. As long as you have a fancy orchestra bedazzling people things will turn out ok. The announcer commented more about the orchestra than the games last E3. Nice.

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » August 18, 2016, 8:25 pm

Aslanna wrote:Below - DELAYED!

Delayed indefinitely!

Microsoft originally unveiled Below more than three years ago, during the company’s E3 2013 press briefing. At the time, Capy said the game was in development exclusively on Xbox One.

More than three years ago! So yeah..Delays happen to everyone. STFU about it already. Enjoy your console or platform of choice and move on. Someone else enjoying a different product doesn't harm you at all.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » October 3, 2016, 3:41 pm

The Xbox One S has bumped up Microsoft's sales quite a bit in the past few months. The console outsold its competition, the PlayStation 4, in both July and August. While no specifics on how much each device sold, the Xbox One made a clear 75% jump in sales following the release of the Xbox One S in August.

Well, the release sale numbers for the PS4 Slim and Xbox One S are in and the gap between the two consoles couldn't be greater.

According to data obtained by MCV, the Xbox One S' sales were 361% higher in its launch week than the PS4 Slims launch week. On top of that, Xbox One sales have increased by 989% the since the week prior to the Xbox One S' release.

That's for the UK. Looks like Microsoft is making great decisions with their new hardware.

Looks like Microsoft can start closing the gap this year while Sony's hardware stagnates and even more next year with Scorpio. PSVR will cause a momentary distration as the masses haven't experienced VR yet and will hae a Wii bowling like reaction to the PSVR until they move on to a company providing a room scale solution next year.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » November 11, 2016, 4:24 pm

According to data released by data-tracking firm The NPD Group, Microsoft's Xbox One console was the best-selling console in North America over the month of October 2016. This marks the fourth consecutive month the console has dominated sales, outselling the PlayStation 4.

Maybe PS4 "Pro" will save the day!

So far I haven't seen many people excited about the PS4 Pro though. The few that have it on a 4K TV forum I'm frequenting aren't happy with it.

Skyrim, The Last of Us, Uncharted remasters run slower on the Pro than the PS4. Of course, they're outputting at 4K but isn't that the point of the Pro? It could sure use a few more "FLOPS" to speed up FPS for 4K. (see Scorpio for more teraflops)

Animalor · Post by **Animalor** » December 11, 2016, 6:45 pm

I traded in my Xbox One for the Xbox One S yesterday as EB Games was having a crazy good deal (for a 200$ cdn difference, I got Battlefield 1, Overwatch and a 50$ restaurant gift card). The new form factor is amazing. It's so much smaller than the OG Xbox One, is completely silent and is noticeably faster navigating menus.

All my games had been moved to an external HDD so I didn't need to re-download a thing so that was great. Just plug in the HDD to the new Xbox One S and there's my stuff.

Since all games are store in the cloud, I just needed to sign in the whole family again and everything was back to normal.

The console itself feels a bit cheaper (materials, physical button instead of capacitive surface etc) but the overall contactness and getting rid of that massive power brick was worth the change.

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » December 11, 2016, 10:39 pm

Winnow wrote:
According to data released by data-tracking firm The NPD Group, Microsoft's Xbox One console was the best-selling console in North America over the month of October 2016. This marks the fourth consecutive month the console has dominated sales, outselling the PlayStation 4.
Maybe PS4 "Pro" will save the day!

Maybe!

The NPD Group's monthly sales report won't be shared with the public until next week, but one detail we do know is that the PS4 topped Xbox One sales in the US during November.

Guess it did save the day!

PS: I bought a Pro. Amazon had them for $340 on Black Friday (or maybe Monday) so figured why not. I care 0% for 4k Blu-Ray.

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » January 9, 2017, 6:56 pm

Scalebound, the much-anticipated dragon action game from PlatinumGames, has been canceled by Microsoft Studios, the publisher announced today.

Much anticipated? Every time I saw the thing it didn't look that great. That long 'demo' or whatever they had during E3 (I think) was cringe worthy.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » January 9, 2017, 11:56 pm

Take note Sony. That's how you deal with games that aren't on track. Cancel them. No pussyfooting about with all the delays and gayness. Game not on track? BAM! It's out of here!

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » January 10, 2017, 12:25 am

Winnow wrote:Take note Sony. That's how you deal with games that aren't on track. Cancel them. No pussyfooting about with all the delays and gayness. Game not on track? BAM! It's out of here!

You might want to scroll up a few posts and see all the delayed games in recent memory on the XBOX platform...

Oh and hey, Last Guardian ranked much higher on Metcritic than Quantum Break. /shock. Microsoft probably should have canned Quantum Break since this was really an idea when they were all about a media device as opposed to a gaming console. Cuphead and Below still haven't seen the light of day.. Recore (eventually) came and went with a whimper (and a 63 rating). Phantom Dust? They already killed it once! Still no Crackdown 3 (although I imagine that will be a Scorpio launch title if Microsoft is smart). Yeah. Such a stellar record there of games being on track.

Out of that list it seems Inside was the only real decent one and that came to PS4 like two months later. The initial delay there was probably them working on the PS4 version!

Proof that you shouldn't buy a console, either one (because PS4 has had some stinkers as well), just for the exclusives. That may have been a thing people did 20 years ago but it's not relevant any more. A handful of decent games you can't play because you're on a different console's ecosystem is not going to change your life one bit despite what people like Winnow say.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » January 10, 2017, 3:04 am

With Steam now fully supporting both PS4 and Xbox controllers, the best solution is PC.

The only time I consider anything at all for console is if it's not available on PC. Communication isn't an issue with most PC games having built in chat and stand alone free apps like Discord are awesome for game chat with friends. (seriously, if you haven't tried Discord for chatting with friends while gaming you should. It also has great text chat/embedding features)

FFXV I almost bought on console but the demo and sausage fest turned me off. Mass Effect Andromeda will be on PC so that's not an issue. In fact, only a handful of PS4 exclusives are left that won't be on PC because Microsoft allows one price for both Xbox/PC. Red Dead Redemption will probably be next on the list for console that I'll get, most likely on Scorpio.