Game News 2.0

I thought the lore and story of how the world had come to be in HZD was great, but it was great in the context of discovering it through Aloy and knowing what the world is now compared to what it was. We never needed to actually see it. A TV show exploring the events of Zero Dawn itself just felt like "It'll be cheaper to film if it's only 50 years in the future rather than trying to recreate the 'new world'"

Is Aloy an interesting/believable character ? I've booted up HZD and played it a bit but I find her/the game annoying/plastic/unauthentic. Like Disney straight to VHS/Streaming level annoying. So, I'd imagine a Netflix adaption of this would be a disaster.

Whoa whoa whoa let's not get crazy here, Aloy is a million miles away from Buffy.

Sounds like they wanted a way out of doing Horizon. It wouldn't be the first show to lose a showrunner while in pre-production or even full production. Think a recent example was Daredevil Reborn.

Only time a showrunner leaving would be an issue is if it was their idea initially, like if Joss had left Buffy as it was starting since it was his creation.

Embracer continuing to ruin the gaming landscape with the news of Piranha Bytes closure. I enjoyed the 3 Risen games, jank and all. Couldn't get into Elex and the Gothic games have a strong following i believe. One positive out of this is 2 of the owners of PB have just opened a new studio, Pithead Games, with intent to concentrate on rpgs. Expect a fun return of iank in the future.

MS are just making up for the obviously unsustainable business model they tried to pull off with GP. It's not gonna end here.

I wonder how much money they lost on HBII overall.

That'll be me out and il just go back to gamesharing and buying the games I want to play. Was great while it lasted all the same.

I wonder does gamepass work on gamesharing?

I'm genuinely trying to figure out how they think such a price increase would just be accepted. Like, are they so delusional that they think how they've carried on for the last few years justifies a price increase? I'd say something if they were dropping banger after banger out, but they've fell flat in basically every area since.

On the plus side, hopefully this will help renew the second hand physical market and a few more game shops open again. But MS are also trying to ditch physical consoles too as far as I'm concerned. They're basically handing the market to Sony/PS. PS+ Premium doesn't feel that bad anymore. Always said Day 1 games were a bad idea, and now we're seeing a spoiled rich kid realise he's spent most his money and trying to claw it back before he gets fired for incompetence. Just seems mad that not a single person in Microsoft has said "Hang on a sec Phil, do you actually know what you're doing?". When he became head, he basically fixed the XBone disaster, but since then he's, imo, only made bad decision after bad decision.

He's 10 years at it now, maybe it's time he step down and let someone else try. Jim Ryan had 5 years and was out the door, maybe MS should have done the same. I dunno, I'll never understand that high a position. But I was basically right about Day 1 games not being a good idea. I wish it wasn't so, Sony need competition and I fear what they may potentially do if they get all the market to themselves (excluding Nintendo's own market, nobody is touching that). But Xbox are not that, and they're pricing consumers out of it. Unless there's another massive loop hole to get 3 years for €200, I won't be signing up. And there won't be.

Day 1 games themselves aren't a bad idea, the issue has been Xbox struggling with Day 1 games that attract enough people. Their exclusives over the past 5 years haven't been that great, and while they have a keen eye for picking up titles from indie or smaller studios to be Day 1 it hasn't been enough to draw people away from PS5/Steam.

There's little difference between what MS are doing and what the likes of Netflix, Disney+ and Prime have been doing for years; once you start reaching saturation, start increasing the price. MS have already borked themselves with the cost of studio acquisitions which they need to recoup even though some of those studios might take years to get out their next game. MS can't really add any new features to Gamepass to attract more people, so all they can do is subtract, offer a lower tier and increase the cost of the normal "Day 1" tier.

Day 1 games have always been Gamepass' biggest selling point and MS could have taken the hit on the cost of it if it lead to the ubiquity and market share they envisioned. But that never materialised because of the quality of their own games and still not being able to claw users back that they lost to Sony with the Xbox One launch.

Taking Starfield as an example, I played in once and I have no intention to play it again. For me GP was great value, I got to play some day 1 games and only paid a fraction of the cost, and I got to play some games that I really enjoyed but it is very unlikely that I would have bought them - Redfall and HiFi Rush are 2 prime examples.

So for me it will still be good value even at 20 a month, if I still have the option to pause it.

So it seems it wasn't as bad as I first thought ( still annoying as I loved the loop hole) and the increase is only for no sign ups, if you have auto renew set up the prices and tiers stay the same or I am reading the email completely wrong.

"Recently, you may have heard about changes to the price of Xbox Game Pass subscriptions. At this time, these increases will only affect new purchases and will not affect your current subscription for the market in which you reside, as long as you are on an auto-renewal plan. Should you choose to cancel your plan and repurchase, you will be charged at the new current rate. If for any reason there may be changes to your existing account, we will notify you at least 60 days in advance and you will have the option to cancel or change your subscription plan at any time."