Well that’s the point, isn’t it? Instead of having these buyers get a used console, on which MS makes nothing, they might buy a new console, and Game Pass.
You can’t share it with 10 friends. Just one who uses your home console. Then you login and play on another console.
It’s basically the same trick me and brother have been using since our launch 360s. I bought stuff on his 360, he bought stuff on mine. Only the “home console” designation makes this a little easier.
We’ve never done it for Xbox One era games though.
Yes, my kid and I will do this with Xbox and PS5. She wants her own PS5 but I keep telling her until she works and can buy her own stuff, I will keep being the owners of both consoles so we dont waste money buying two of everything…independence my ass.
I haven’t owned an Xbox since the original. I’m thinking about getting a Series S mainly for the Game Pass. It basically means I have 100+ games I can play on day 1, which is different than any other console I’ve owned. The price is much easier to justify for me, since I don’t have as much time to play games nowadays. Although 4K is nice, I don’t think graphics are really a big deal anymore for gaming. Load time and FPS are much more important, which it seems like MS is focusing on for both their consoles.
I’ve also seen people saying they’d get the Series S as a “second” console, like many did with the Switch. If MS actually took that kind of consumer behavior into account when developing the product, then they are really forward-thinking compared to Sony.
Once again, the Series S is sounding great for backwards compatibility on Xbox One titles.
The compatibility team does great work. I expect this is going to kick ass. 30fps games running at 60fps. 60fps games running at 120fps. Possibly with Auto HDR.
Pretty amazing how much work they have put into not just making backwards compatibility work but making the improvements as seamless for developers as possible.
Makes sense if Game Pass is the big selling point. The vast majority of Game Pass games are going to be last gen for a long time.
It sounds like the extent of the patch is “update the frame rate cap”, but that unfortunately still requires developers to actually put effort into a patch. Even though it’s “minimal” it still requires several moving pieces and resources and we’ll have to see how many games older than a year actually get a patch.
AT the very least though, any game that couldn’t maintain it’s capped framerate should be more consistent.
That’s interesting. We should see a lot of adoption… the list of “X enhanced” gamepass games is impressively large. I hope they continue enhancing 360 games
The good news continues with the enhanced Xbox 360 titles that were released for Xbox One X. These games will also be enhanced for Series S, this time running with a 2x2 resolution multiplier, bringing titles that ran at native 720p up to 1440p
Getting older games updated for backward compatibility is one of the few bright spots in the Xbox One era. Microsoft has built a lot of trust with developers in this area. Plus it’s a great value proposition to developers:
“Hey folks. Please go do a week of work on your old game. We’ll distribute the patch automatically for free. Some folks have the game on disc already but the update primarily drives new digital sales which can’t be traded in. You make money on an old game you thought was dead.”
And none of this is done in a vacuum. There will be negotiations with publishers that include adding catalog titles to the Xbox Series Enhanced program and Game Pass for example.
Yeah I’m hopeful, especially since I’m going for an S over an X, but we’ll see.
I really should cash in my Xbox One X on Amazon for $212 while I can. I guess the only thing holding me back is that it’s the only thing plugged into my TV, so it’ll just be a black mirror for two months.
More than anything, I’m hopeful that Microsoft will continue to expand the Xbox 360 BC list, and that they’ll do more to reach out to third-party publishers that didn’t do anything for their Xbox 360 titles the first time around. I have a lot of games, especially imports, that aren’t available through BC at all and that don’t have any licensing issues that would cause problems (as opposed to, say, needing to keep my 360 around forever for Rock Band), and it’d make me more likely to buy a Series X if I could play those games on it.
I’m not sure I want it more than anything, but I am hopeful with all their talk about backward compatibility that they’re planning on getting back to expanding that library after launch. My hope would be that, during this time when the developers have been focused on getting the Xbox One out the door, they’ve also been working on getting licensing for a lot of other 360 and original Xbox games that aren’t yet BC. My personal opinion is that the technical issues are pretty much a solved problem at this point, and it’s mostly the license holders, or in some cases where it’s difficult to determine who owns the license, that’s causing the difficulty.
I also hope they do more 360 games for BC, but I very much doubt Rock Band can be one of them. Whenever licensed music gets involved, especially for a franchise that eventually stopped making money, I don’t think it will ever make financial sense for that to happen.
That’s why I bought the little adapter device. Eventually I’ll buy Rock Band 4 for Xbox One and import all my Rock Band 1,2,3,Lego,Blitz,DLC music into it. And I’m hoping Rock Band 4 works fine on the XSX/XSS, including that adapter device making 360 wireless instruments working.
Yeah, I think it was a little unclear, but I’m resigned to keeping old hardware around for music games. It’s everything else I’m concerned about for BC.
As someone who has never owned an Xbox before [this year], it seems maybe somewhat clear that Microsoft seems to believe, or is trying to make real, this idea that there are “two tiers” of console gamers, “X” tier and “S” tier, and to some extent “S” gamers play “S” consoles and so on. Instead of there being “this gen” console and a “last gen” console.
It’s not clear to me - because, tbh, i haven’t really spent time looking because it’s video games - if the sales of S tier consoles was at, below, or above their expectations. And whether or not this is something they’re trying to lean into or trying to make happen.
I personally think they’re going in eyes-open to the reality that it will be hard to convert the large majority of PS4 gamers into Xbox gamers by just offering a slightly more powerful console. I think they’re trying instead to be an attractive second console for a lot of these people. Yes PS4 owner, go ahead and upgrade to the PS5, but look at how cheap it is to have a second console for only $300, and a relatively cheap service that gives you access to a huge library of games on PC, Xbox and mobile. Or stick with your PS5, but still subscribe to game pass on PC.
I think if they had offered, like, a 7 tflop graphics console, rather than a 4, it’s a pretty easy sell. Well more powerful than the PS4 Pro, some % better than the Xbox X^X, ect.
I know, lots of people are complaining it’s just about tflops - but everyone knows from experience with PC games that 75% of the performance is literally just the graphics card. Equal or just a nudge superior to the X*X console… it makes a lot of sense.
If the argument is equal or slightly better than the PS4 Plus w/ Gamepass… i don’t know.
It just feels like, to me, this is really aimed at this hypothetical (or not so) “S” tier of gamers.