Kevw2006

@BacklogBrad I could but responding to any messages or notifications on my phone while I'm playing would be annoying.

Luckily I just renewed mine at the start of the month so don't need to worry about it for a while but the increase seems really steep and exceptionally bad timing. The backlash will be fully deserved. Sony were actually starting to build some positive vibes about Extra and this will just undo all the good work.

@BacklogBrad I don't use remote play currently but I would make use of it if I had a device like the Portal to use it on. I'm undecided on whether I will get one at the moment but knowing me I will end up buying one.

@OneWingedAngel I completely agree, $3bn is a theoretical amount. I see many people saying they use various exploits to stack game pass for much less than the normal monthly sub price so in reality the amount may be reasonably lower than that. It's likely why Microsoft are closing off many of those various exploits now.

@OneWingedAngel I think you might need to check your math again. $3bn a year works out at $250m a month and divided by $15 works out at just over 16.6 million subscribers. Now what they haven't mentioned is how much game pass is consulting them to run in game development and adding third party games to the library.

@Al3 The steam deck verified version doesn't have split screen enabled and in order to run it you need to trick it into using the non verified version. Reports are that it doesn't run very well if you do this so no, it doesn't handle it.

@BAMozzy The Series S may have been designed to scale down the graphics but it's becoming a lot clearer that it's not so straightforward. There have been quite a few games release now without 60fps on series S at launch, split screen issues with BG3 and possibly other games too. None of these would be an issue if it was simply a matter of scaling down. PS5 and Series X have other benefits over just 4K and they need to keep up with PC to an extent as well or nobody on console would be getting BG3 for a very long time at least.
It's simply a matter of opinion whether you think that Sony or Microsoft took the right approach and neither one is necessarily correct. Although my only comment is there there definitely seems to be much less issues developing for PS than there are for Xbox at the moment.

@BAMozzy The problem with that logic is that the Xbox One S and PS4 were the base models and both were on a par with each other performance wise. Both were also released well before any higher performance models were announced so they became the standard and games being developed with them as the primary performance target was widely accepted because of this. Now, going by your theory the PS5 is the base PlayStation model and the Series S is the base Xbox model with the Series X being a performance model that is offering games with roughly the same performance as the base PlayStation. That is a situation that I can only see causing some problems somewhere down the line.

@HonestHick I don't disagree with you at all about any other sub service and with there being so many options available these days it may lead to people being a bit more careful about when they sub to a service and only subbing as and when they are using it. I currently subscribe to Netflix, Disney + and Prime at a combined cost of almost £40. I pay my PS plus annually so I'm not including that but if I paid that monthly too then that would be roughly up to £50 a month, at which point I might be thinking something has to go. I'm not saying that it would hurt MS but their whole strategy at the moment is to push game pass hard and it almost feels like they'd prefer you don't buy their games over subbing to game pass.
I saw those skin wraps earlier and I fully agree that they are a brilliant idea and much better for gamers than bringing out multiple expensive special edition consoles. It's something that I've been hoping that Sony would do for the PS5, they already sell different coloured faceplates so could easily sell special edition ones and make a fortune too.

@HonestHick It's not a strategy without its flaws though, I can subscribe to game pass and play Starfield or any other Xbox first party game for the lowly price of a month's sub and then cancel it again until the next game comes out. You don't need to be an accountant to realise that that's awful for business and I'm sure Microsoft's shareholders wouldn't be happy if it became widespread. You may say it's win win but it's also a very risky and expensive strategy to maintain that could come back to bite them. Yes, they have stated the importance of a steady stream of first party games but those games are going to appeal to different people. Someone that plays Starfield may not necessarily be someone that plays Forza so may not sub again for months until something they do like comes along again.
I've said it before on other posts but for the gamers that only pay CoD game pass isn't a cost effective way to play it, buying the game outright is cheaper than maintaining a sub every month to play it, it would cost roughly twice as much playing CoD over game pass than it would buying it outright. The same could apply for any multiplayer game really.

@XboxTheBestBox While I agree that I don't think Microsoft will be leaving the console market anytime soon I definitely wouldn't be using Phil Spencer said it won't happen as the basis for my argument.

@HonestHick You really should go and take a closer look at PC game sales if you think they're reaching 100's of millions of PC gamers. The top selling games don't even break 50mil and as someone else said it's only games sold through the MS store and other first party games that they are making any money on from PC. While it won't be an insignificant amount it certainly isn't 100's of millions they are reaching.
Also their monthly active users are likely inflated by multiplatform games such as Minecraft requiring an Xbox account on any platform to play online so even if you're playing on PS or Switch you're being classed as an active Xbox user too.

I was refusing to buy it at that price but I ended up caving in and buying it (as I knew I was likely to do) and after playing it for about an hour I'm....not regretting it one bit. Sure they could have given it a bit more love but it actually looks really nice for what it is and plays good too.

@Grimmy001 They can't afford to buy something the size of Bethesda or ABK but they could have afforded to acquire much larger developers than they have and they haven't done so far so, no I don't necessarily think they would have if they could. But in all honestly it's not something we will ever know what they would do if they had MS's scale of money.
Again you're only guessing as to why you think Sony have entered the PC market, you can't state opinion as fact as it's another thing we don't really know. But major companies borrow ideas from each other all the time and Sony, MS and Nintendo have all borrowed ideas from each other in the past and it's something that we can all benefit from as for the most part you wouldn't copy a bad idea that someone else has implemented. Apart from paid online, I'm sure we can all thank MS for Sony copying that great idea!

@Beerheadgamer82 I think it's had an increase in interest on PS due to it releasing around the same time as a certain other massive RPG. In all seriousness though it is primarily a PC game and probably seen as more of a niche game on console, although I am hearing really good things about it.

@Savage_Joe Buying Naughty Dog, Insomniac, Bluepoint etc over a prolonged period of time is nowhere near the same scale as buying massive publisher's like Zenimax and ABK over a relatively short period of time. Acquisitions have always been a thing in gaming but no one has done anything like the scale of what MS has over the past few years.

@Fiendish-Beaver The fact that Sony have invested in and grown their studios is something that should be seen as a positive and certainly not something that should be held against them. This is something that MS should be being encouraged to do instead of just going out and buying up all the publishers they can.

@Fiendish-Beaver According to Wikipedia Sony currently has 22 studios and Xbox has 23, not including ABK. I know isn't exactly the most reliable of sources but it lists do look fairly accurate.

@lightningbolt79 If Sony were to buy Square Enix, as most people seem to want, then you may have a point. Although given what happened at the Final Fantasy fan Fest on Friday that seems quite unlikely now.

I think most people realised that it was just marketing spin and it could run on a HDD, just not the way that they intended it to. They've probably figured out some way to get it running reasonably okay on HDD for PC but it is a minimum requirement and they do still recommend an SSD, even on the minimum requirements. They have also have highlighted that it won't run as they intended so I don't think it's fair to say they have lied on anything.

@Max_the_German The tiny maps with not much happening on MH Rise work well for that but they would be terrible for a game like final fantasy where people expect a vast world to explore.FF16 may not be open world but it does have vast areas that are absolutely stunning to look at.

@Max_the_German But then there would have been complaints about the Switch holding it back. They could have released it for PS4 but they chose not to because they made the game that they wanted to make and will have known the consequences of limiting it to PS5 (for now).

@Max_the_German 3 million sales for a game that has released only for PS5 at the moment is very respectable. You compared them to FF15 but that released on PS and Xbox at the same time so the sales for that were always going to be higher as there was a larger install base out there.

@Ravix The EU had concerns about the deal too, they just approved it subject to the adhering to the concessions that were offered. Concessions that they are going to monitor to make sure they stick to.

@Gaia093 If it helps I looked it up and the only references I could find suggested that the crashing was early on in the section contained in the demo.
Personally I'm 21 hours in and not had a single crash so far on graphics mode.

@LightningLeader Agreed, I can't wait to play Starfield and Indiana Jones on my PS5 😁

@Tharsman I agree, the addition of the "not now" at the end makes the statement much less decisive than a straight "no" and leaves the door open for it to happen in the future, possibly after the dust has settled on other deals.
I'd also agree that it definitely sounds like both Sony and Nintendo have a bit of work to do on their relationship with Sega.

@LightningLeader So are MS the only ones that are allowed to buy large publishers? Do we just have to sit back and watch as they buy up more from their 'shopping list' and more and more games are gradually excluded from PlayStation? No one ever said anything about Sony buying publishers like Konami, SE or Capcom until MS went out and bought Bethesda and then announced the ABK deal almost as soon as the ink was dry on Bethesda. Do I want Sony to buy up SE or anyone else? Not really, but if there was a chance that MS were going to go for them after ABK has closed then I'd much prefer that Sony got in there first. Only one company has created this mentality so you can't complain as PS fans wanting Sony to respond to make sure others don't end up in the hands of MS.

@XenonKnight And people are desperate for it to happen so they can get all games for 'free'.

Sounds like they were maybe going to attempt a 'hostile takeover' and SE maybe caught wind of it and that is why their relationship soured lately.

Say what you want about them paying for timed exclusivity but man Sony have really invested in FFXVI, it's basically getting the full first party treatment.

@TheArtfulDodger You could link a video with the words coming out Phil's mouth and some posters on Pure Xbox would still insist he never said it. Much like how they now deny he said they had no interest in putting up game pass prices.

@__jamiie Do you think MS would allow PS plus on Xbox and possibly lose out on revenue from things being bought through the PS store?

So much for MS not taking any games away from PlayStation.

@__jamiie Usually when you use quotation marks the text contained withing them is usually, you know, an actual quote. There's pathetic and childish comments on both sides of the argument, go on any article on Pure Xbox about the whole saga and you will see people in there that would love for the deal to go through and MS to make all ABK games exclusive to try and kill Sony off. Sony, MS and Nintendo all have their own element of more extreme fans that would love the competition to be killed off and their platform of choice be the only one out there, it's best to just ignore them and carry on about your business.

@LifeGirl The only real complaint that got levelled against FF13 was that it was largely too linear until you got near the end. It was a design choice that reviewer's can't really mark down for because if they did then a lot of other games would also need to be penalised for it. If I recall correctly the review scores for FF13 were actually generally quite high.

@dschons Thanks, it's not something that really bothered me but I saw quite a few people mention it so I wondered if there was any improvement.

@dschons Have you noticed any differences from the demo version to the release version performance wise or graphically?

I never really expected them to be available through the normal game, from my experience deluxe or collectors edition content is usually premium content that isn't available in the base game.

@KundaliniRising333 I believe monthly is the only option available for game pass and it's £10.99/month for game pass ultimate. Monthly it's cheaper than PS Plus premium is but the yearly option makes premium cheaper overall.

@KundaliniRising333 Yeah PS Plus pricing is a bit weird bit you generally get a massive discount by paying for a year over paying monthly. In the UK, where I am, the top tier is £13.49/month, which works out at £161.88 over a year but if you pay for a year then it's £99. I feel like £99 for the year is pretty reasonable for premium but £161.88 not so much.

@sanderson72 Don't give them any ideas, those features should all be available for free and not locked behind PS Plus.

@KundaliniRising333 Isn't cloud streaming locked behind the highest tier paywall on game pass too?

@NEStalgia The problem with the sub model though is that you don't have to stay subbed all year round so those regular fixed monthly payments aren't necessarily so regular. I've seen quite a few people saying that they just pick and choose when they sub depending on when something they want to play is releasing. In that scenario you could have someone sub for a month to play something like Spider-Man 2, complete it and then cancel their sub the following month, basically playing a new £70 release for around £10. Where it does work is in a game that someone is likely to play longer term, I wouldn't be too surprised if some of Sony's live service games they are planning on releasing end up being added to PS Plus if they aren't straight up ftp in the first place.

@Number09 This would be the same Microsoft that tried to kill off the used game market and prevent you from being able to even take your disk round to a friend's house and play it on their console?

@Sifi They absolutely do, look at any of their announcement trailers, it always has text saying something along the lines of "not available on other platforms until..." Or "console exclusive until...".
Even FF7R released on PC after the initial stated 6 month period.

@AverageGamer The type of people that pay so little attention to gaming that one trailer would away them aren't likely to be the type of people that will sit and watch the showcases where these games are announced though. By the time these games are even on their radar it will be much closer to release when and trailers or advertisements will show all of the available platforms.

@tallythwack I've got no problems with them sending out an announcement after to say these games are also coming to Xbox, it's fair game and should be expected. Stopping a competitor from subsequently being able to do the same thing is a proper scummy move though.

@cburg Those underhand tactics you speak of have been used in the gaming market since way before PlayStation ever existed. Rightly or wrongly it's just the way the gaming market works and Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo all engage in it. Yet somehow it's only when Sony do it they are "bullying" the competition.

@MayaMousavi They did yeah, it was pre-prepared and ready to upload as soon as the showcase finished. I hope this doesn't start a trend where everyone starts doing it.