Topic: Official Push Square Xbox Thread

So, what are the chances MS tries to force Fable out in 2025 after all? Even if it means the game is badly optimised/half borked?

It will be worth keeping an eye on games in general suddenly becoming available well before May next year, too. Devs vs Suits arguing about how ready games have to be to warrant a release could be messy.

When were the rumours of a new Xbox something or other type console releasing, too? Doubt it's related, and GTA will span eons of consoles regardless. But I bet they'd want it out at that time, if possible

What should I do with my Xbox? I don't think it's been turned on since KCDII came out 😅 and now the Pro is the main console of choice.

Game Pass expired a while ago, and it seems if I do ever want to play anything that is on there I can just play it on the Pro instead 😬

The turn around from last summer's showcase, with all these cool games finally set to come to Xbox convincing me to try it out, to the state of things now is pretty extreme.

One last run with all my free points for one or two more games on Game Pass. Or fling it over the moon? I'd say maybe I will look to donate it somewhere, but they might refuse it at this point 😂

@Ravix I’d keep it for when Microsoft eventually pull this 4D Trojan-horse chess-move that all the incredibly perceptive Xbox players keep telling me is the plan /s

Fingers crossed for a good show ...
... and may I be the first to say “World Premiere”.

@CaptD 100% chance of it being a good show. Feels like they might have nicked a good chunk of overall quality from Game Fest and they will have PS and Nintendo users watching with interest too, you'd think.

Weird time for the show though, imo

@Ravix
Yes I’m sure the viewer count will be much higher than in years bygone, unfortunately I’m unable to watch due to the time otherwise I would be tuning in whereas in the past I wouldn’t bother (despite owning a Xbox One S).
As for the quality, I actually thought Game fest was ntb (game awards show is normally better imo). Next year is certainly stacked.

In before ‘Xbox better’ 😏

Well that was a pretty disappointing showcase overall, but at least Persona 4 remake has been confirmed now. Genuinely cannot wait to experience my favourite JRPG of all time again!

I've watched "Future Games Showcase", "Summer Game Fest" and I must say that the Xbox showcase contained the most games that seems to align with my interests (even taking the recent SoP into account, actually). Has been a while since that was the case, so that was a nice little surprise.
The winner of Not-E3 2025 in my book.

One of those weird shows where it felt like it was wall to wall bangers on paper, but a lot of the games didn't come with a lot of real gameplay, so I sorta wanna hold my excitement until I see how almost all of these actually play in a non curated set of clips. Game Pass is having its best ever year this year, and I feel like years earlier the Xbox promise was Game Pass would deliver you at least one big game a month, and it feels like that release cadence has finally been hit.

Certainly was better than Summer Games Fest, that is for sure. Dunno why I even bother watching it every year when I know its gonna be rubbish.

This was similar to Sony's Stat of Play for me in that I recognise there were some quality games shown but not much if anything that actually excited me.
I was quite intrigued by the closer all way up until it revealed it was CoD at which point it lost all interest.

Playing the 'World Premier' or 'Play Anywhere' drinking game would have to come with a health warning.

Is Remedy making the next Call of Duty? 🙃

That really threw me, I was thinking it was a proper new and interesting game based on the trailer, and then it turned out to be CoD 😭

I'm struggling to remember anything else now, it felt like a good show, but nothing has stuck in my mind. Although I'm probably going to play High on Life some time soon, as that's been in the back catalogue.

I thought the Xbox showcase was pretty okay. The ending was a real damp squib. You can't do "and one more thing" and then announce Call of Duty. You just can't. It goes against the entire premise of the one more thing.

Some good stuff was shown, good cadence, very little Phil Spencer trying to put a brave face on the state of Xbox, good variety, clarity on what was exclusive and what wasn't. Felt like it needed a big finish.

They had to replace 'Exclusive' with something, seeing as they hardly have any of them anymore.

Despite my belief that gaming subscriptions are not the way to go for this industry, I've decided to get Game Pass again for the sum total of 79 pund for 13 months. Which is ridiculous. Especially as MS get 0 pund from me as its all cheap codes for Core and then topped up to ultimate with reward points 🤷‍♂️

I suspect they will be putting their prices up this year again so I just had to take this insane deal (which is the equivalent to buying one Xbox game called: The Outer Worlds 2 🤷‍♂️) for the sheer hell of it. I just can't resist a deal if it's this stupid just for the sake of spiting them haha but as long as they are happy to conduct business this way and give away their games for next to nothing, why not, I guess. All my main games should still be on the PS5 Pro, with this as a bonus catalogue for when I can't decide what I want to play and to try games on release I'm not sure I'd buy outright otherwise.

Playing Oblivion got more appealing too, as buying a technical mess would have been a bit annoying, but having it available any time on there, why not try it out 🙃

Games I'm installing:

Bg1&2 enhanced.
Clair Obscur (I might just check it out and get it on PS and play in the winter some time before the game awards)
ESIV Oblivion
F1 24 (played some of 23 last year on Game Pass. Good summertime low commitment game)

Any Indies or anything else I should be checking out/adding to my list? I'm not in any rush to commit to anything, but having some games installed for if the mood takes me is how im treating it.

@Ravix You should play Clair Obscur ASAP as it's one of the best and most original turn-based RPGs in a very long time.

@LtSarge I know 😅 I've been holding off the FOMO for a while. In my mind if I start it I'll end up going on holiday and just not gaming over the summer much for a while and then I'll ruin it for myself by splitting it up with a break in the middle 🙈

I like to play the very best games at the start of the year or over autumn. With more casual mixed gaming the rest of the year.

I also like knowing I've got a real better of a game saved, and Clair is hopefully it, with my penchant for RPGs I'm assuming I'll at least like it a lot.

I'll let you know if I try it out and accidentally get hooked though 😁

So... the next Xbox? I still don't get what market they are aiming for

People who use other store fronts are already on PC. People who mainly care about console gaming are already on PlayStation (😛) People with handhelds already have handheld pcs or Switches.

Are Xbox going to try and eat in to every single market with the same fervor that they ate in to Sony's market share? 🙃 Or are they just making it so its an alternative to all those other things, but if you buy every single MSXB product you can change up how you play the same game and save by "switching" (marketing will need a new buzzword) devices at any time (which seems like an incredibly niche and expensive idea)

I'm still interested to see if they do a more PClike console, but mostly so it pushes PS to make their own insnane pro console option and Valve to make Steam OS the real destination for ConsoleLike PC's instead of Xbox's PClike console

So Perfect Dark getting shelved and The Initiative being shuttered just acts as confirmation for me that the supposed ‘gameplay’ shown at last years Xbox summer show was absolute 🐮💩! I remember being really confused at the time, as all the insider skuttlebutt prior to that show was that (even after Crystal Dynamics were brought onboard) PD was in a development quagmire with little to no actual progress having been made. Then the trailer was unveiled and it looked bloody awesome tbh. I smelled a fish straight away and couldn’t help but conclude that they’d just produced a CGI vid to look like what they envisioned the gameplay would eventually look like but were actually nowhere near. While many will no doubt disagree, to me at least… this news just confirms my initial reaction.

@graymamba The Truth about Xbox show cases, they are all flash but no real subsidence or tech demos like you said. Still fuming about PD getting cancelled!