Yeah, I got it from like a conceptual perspective, I just don’t get it as a person who plays video games. It’s not really working for me, and I’m already ‘bought in’ insofar as I have a gaming PC. It made the tone of the whole showcase really lacklustre for me and most of my Twitter timeline, compared to Sony’s showcase. And I am way more interested in Avowed than I am any of the games Sony showed.
Maybe if they do a presentation at some point expanding the Windows-only version of Gamepass, or announce the digital-only Series X is, like, $150. I’m interested in Gamepass, though if Sony releases a competitor for it… But right now I just look at all that and think ‘idk, I bought that itchio bundle, I’m good until Avowed shows up on Steam/Epic’.
I found the size of the PC Gamepass library to be comparable to the Xbox version, and this recent rundown from Techradar has the PC count at 150 games versus 200 on console, so the gap isn’t quite as big as you’d think. Plus, with Gears Tactics, Flight Simulator, and Age of Empires II DE releasing on PC first, in some ways it feels like PC is taking precedence over Xbox this year. Of course, personal preference being what it is, perhaps the breadth of the library may not appeal to you, but I recommend checking out what’s there.
Also, if you are leaning in a PlayStation direction for a sub service and have decent internet, I messed around PSNow on PC a little back in February and the service is actually really good. Good enough to stream Spider-Man at least.
Last time I looked at the PC Gamepass it was super clunky, but maybe that’s just the Xbox software they use… but if they’ve expanded the library a bit, I might give it another look.
And I’ll look into PS Now, too, thank you for suggesting it!
I get Game Pass when it’s a dollar and play whatever interests me for that month, cancel and won’t think about it again until it goes on sale for a dollar. I’m not their target audience for any of this, which is fine. Sony wow’d me pretty good with their PS5 conference because a lot of what they showed was at least in-engine. A lot of Microsoft’s was just pre-rendered teaser, which doesn’t do much for me anymore.
I’m settling for getting a PS5 eventually. I’m at least more curious to see system-level stuff on that platform than I am with the Series X.
Oh and Microsoft needs to take another pass at their storefront. It’s poop from a butt.
The biggest announcement for me was really in the pre-show:
Yuji Naka and Naoto Ohshima working with Square Enix of all studios to make a new 3D platformer that has a lot in common with NiGHTS into Dreams. Even the studio’s logo evokes Sonic Team’s logo.
This is super cool, a spoiler FAQ for Tell Me Why that lays out concerns people may have with possible mishandling of LGBTQ themes:
I really hope stuff like this becomes the new norm in games. Why not allow people to spoil themselves if that makes it easier for them to access the work?
Completely agreed. This is like ten thousand times better than all the TLOU2 bullshit where even after release a lot of wikis and stuff still have bogus “leaked” info instead of accurate plot summaries.
Slowly coming to grips with the fact that I just don’t like the Halo games, or Bungie’s general gameplay and level design ethos.
Not Xbox specific but apparently the port announced today of Dragon Quest 11 S is using the downscaled Switch assets, and won’t offer existing owners an upgrade path (similar to Persona 5 Royal). Square-Enix is real frustrating sometimes with how they treat their back-catalogue of games.
Everwild looks really cool, but this is the second time we see it and I still have no idea what the game actually is? I think it’s the game that I’m most curious about.
Avowed looks like totally my shit, especially as who knows when the next TES is coming out (Like 2025?). Love me some first person RPG stuff, and it gave me some LOTR movie vibes in a good way. Again, I wish there was more info about it. This whole showcase was super light on gameplay, which was disappointing.
Part of the reason we haven’t talked a lot about Everwild is because we’re still feeling a lot of these things out. We’re still playing around with gameplay ideas.
