The XBOX One

Not really. Microsoft says you can play offline BC if you’ve set your Xbox to your main console, but this doesn’t seem to be true in all cases. We have the one Xbox One. It’s set as my main Xbox. When our internet goes down, the Xbox basically turns into a brick. We can watch blu-rays and play some games, but not all, and definitely none of the BC titles as far as I’ve seen.

The full offline support page lists some caveats:

[quote]There are some activities that you need to be online to use, such as:

Playing games and apps that require an Internet connection.
Playing games that require online sign-in, even for a single player.
Syncing and playing saved games on more than one console.
Using social features like friends, messages, and parties.
Browsing and buying content from the Xbox Store, Music & TV, and Groove.
Using Xbox SmartGlass.
Updating the console or apps.[/quote]

I’m assuming digital BC games fall under here.

Playing offline can also make you miss achievements, I know I never got a couple ones in Firewatch when I played that offline.

And under the “Better Late Than Never, I Guess” category, Gamespot says that Broken Age is coming to Xbox One. Looks like it’s been rated by PEGI but not yet announced. Of course I kickstarted the thing so it’s old news but what the heck, I may double dip. And it’s not a bad little adventure game for anyone who hasn’t tried it yet.

Dead Space 2 and 3 were added to backwards compatibility list. I hope EA Access gets them into the vault soon. I’d love to finally try them both. I’m a huge fan of the original on 360, and I tried playing Dead Space 2 a few times on the PC, but just couldn’t get into it. I’m not sure if the platform had anything to do with that though. I don’t think it did. But hey, now I can test that theory (if they add it to the vault).

I read somewhere (I forget where) that the Dead Space games had already been added to the vault today. Is that not the case?

Hey, that would be nice! My wife is watching SlingTV right now. I was remote-playing Andromeda from my PC, and suddenly my controller stopped responding and my character started moving slightly forward, so I knew she had turned on the controller downstairs and was about to turn on the TV, so I stopped streaming. Once she’s done with TV, I can go down and check the Vault.

I can confirm that the two games are not in the vault.

I haven’t renewed my Gold Subscription in a while, so I keep forgetting to get it when it’s on sale. Lately the best sales have only gone down to $40. On Slickdeals, I have look at February for one that was $37, and then back around the end of 2016 for $34 range price points. I should have bought this in one of those sales in retrospect.

Still, I do have the summer to keep looking for discounts. I think my Gold goes until end of August.

You can get 2 years for $80 right now, instead of the normal price of $120

Yep yep. I saw that. That’s in that $40 range, that’s pretty common. I’m waiting for that deeper sale. $33-$35.

The game I’ve been waiting for since Backwards Compatibility was announced is finally here. Geometry Wars 2. Woohoo! Mass Effect Andromeda might have to be put on hold for a while.

Maybe I’ll finally try to get the SMILE achievement.

Now the other one I really want backwards compatible desperately is Rez HD.

There are still a bunch of 360 games I’m hoping get back compat releases - that Star Trek game that is awful but I love it, Pandemic’s stuff like Mercenaries 2 and The Saboteur, Bionic Commando. Oh and why is Rearmed 2 BC but not the first one? Also everyone is speculating the Crackdowns will be released to coincide with the third game, so guess I’ll have to wait on those.

This only available on the Xbox One dev kit:

Me likey!

Speaking of Scorpio …

And if I could also get the Scorpio to show my dick measurements that would be cool, kthxbye

yeah, that would just add to the cost of the box - I’d rather have a software overlay which could be enabled for the production version. It is pretty slick however, but a waste of money to do in hardware for non-devs.

I’m pretty sure the article is satire but it’s the internet and it’s Polygon, so who knows. I can see lots of people getting fired up about that though. “WHAT? My FPS count dipped to 59 in the middle of that last firefight! This is an outrage!”

Plus, how many publishers would love to see their game playing with a big old “30” on the readout?

If you want an Xbox One with a frame rate counter you could always, you know, buy a PC.

Very glad to get Geometry Wars 2. Now just need Settlers of Catan, Lost Cities, and Game Room and I’ll be super happy. Of course, the last two’s chances are somewhere between slim to none.