The XBOX One

Heh, yeah, except all those games I already own or already are on game pass. I was looking for a Forza Horizon 4 “expansion pass” of some kind, figuring that would be a good one to get, but looks like they don’t sell that. I think each of the two big expansions were $18 each, which is still a bit pricey.

I’m just posting this video because I thought it was funny. Looks like Avatar has been overtaken as the easiest 1,000 Gamerscore out there.

Interesting. While I do like achievements, gamerscore for its own sake leaves me a bit cold. I guess I think of GS as an artifact of my enjoyment rather than a meta-goal to be maximized. I have no idea how those guys with GS in the millions have a life and feed that beast.

Yeah, that basically sums up my approach. I kind of think of achievements as a scrapbook of my playthrough, in a way. If I’m enjoying a game I’ll go for the achievements, but I’ve yet to play a game solely for achievements and/or Gamerscore. And god willin’ and the creek don’t rise, I never will.

Same here. Early on in the 360’s life I did get games solely so that I could earn achievements on them “one day”. And what ended up happening is that they just stayed on the shelf forever. I don’t even have time to play all the ones I want to play, let alone ones I’d be playing just for achievements. So I never bought any based on that criterion again.

No Avatar or Terminator gamerscore here, but I have an embarrassing milestone on one of those achievement tracking sites. It’s from Barbie Puppy Rescue.

Leaving the pass soon:

Halo Wars (?)
Darksiders 2
Doom
Escapists
Grip
Thieves of Thieves

Or not -

https://twitter.com/XboxGamePass/status/1184512210443354115?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1184512210443354115&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.trueachievements.com%2Fn39291%2Fxbox-game-pass-leaving-october

They must have re-upped their deal. Yay!

Wait, why did they have to do that in the case of Halo Wars in the first place?

Darksiders II is also not actually leaving Game Pass this month. I was keeping an eye on Halo Wars - I think that would have been the first MS first party game that would be leaving GP. I mean, logically enough, they probably have to start taking stuff off if they’re going to introduce every new release first party game. I mean, unless they’re reconsidering their initial plan of keeping the game list fairly small and curated.

Having looked over the list of over 200 PS Now games downloadable by PS4 players as of 9/20/18 (i.e., the ones that don’t have to be streamed to play), MS can’t think that keeping the XGP list small would be a competitive advantage versus PS Now at the new monthly price ($10/mo., same as XGP) and especially the new, significantly lower than XGP annual price of $60. That game list has only gotten longer in 2019, but they don’t sort out the full 650+ game list by system on their website.

Sony will definitely try to me-too you to death. And while I haven’t tried it yet, if the streaming is decent enough, it gives players the ability to not just try-before-you-buy, but also try-before-the-full-install, which is an appealing idea for an inveterate sampler like myself. I have way too many 1 or 2-achievement games in my history.

That’s true, it was some time ago they were talking like that, I guess around the time Game Pass became available. Since then they’ve bumped it up to Ultimate, and we’re seeing new challengers like Stadia, so that may no longer apply. Guess we’ll see.

Age of Wonders: Planetfall is available to play free all weekend. 6.41gb download.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but Sony’s service tends not to have games at release, including Sony’s own games, right?

I think that’ll be the real value of Game Pass, once they can start spinning out a steady drip of first-party stuff on release, along with the odd third party game.

XBox only? What lunacy is this :/

Yep, that’s the one area where they are only half-heartedly me-too, making some high profile first party games like God of War and Spider-Man available only for a limited time. But hey, Knack will probably always be there.

Just on the store? Not a Gamepass thing?

It’s probably the single most expensive investment Microsoft are making into Game Pass. Just getting a collection of old stuff that has long since stopped selling copies, is a lot different than releasing stuff like Halo and Outer Worlds directly to your service, and potentially passing up hundreds of millions of dollars.

It’s sorta like Netflix streaming - how they started out just making gigantic bundle deals for entire libraries of old movies (back when the studios didn’t see the value in streaming), but now they are spending billions on original content, and contracts for specific, lucrative shows.

That’ll be the next shoe to drop in this battle. Someone’ll sign a deal that brings a future Call of Duty game to their “Game Pass”-style service at launch, or something.

I believe the “free play weekend” is a regular feature of Xbox Live Gold. So I don’t think it’s for Silver members. I could be wrong though.

This weekend you can play The Division 2, Age of Wonders: Planetfall and I think Stellaris is the 3rd game? I forget.

No news on that 10k in 10 days bing reward thing.
The other free play is Stellaris, which is also on the pass.

Thanks for posting, would’ve missed them this time.

I pulled a quarter to three playing through the Vanguard & Kir’ko scenarios. The controls and story choices are pretty good, but I didn’t like the maps. No one attacked me when I got bored & set off a doomsday weapon to end the game. Also offered myself as a vassal to an ally which led to an immediate gameover.

Coming soon to Console: