Xbox Series X - The next Xbox that's boxy but sexy xXx

Correct.

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The ideal console for black and white fishing games!

And hand cramps.

Yea, I do think it should be stated that the ā€œcrazy great dealā€ of Game Pass you often cite is this weird Gold to Ultimate transference thing. Itā€™s not hard, and probably thereā€™s a lot of people doing (it might very well be why MS tried to push up the price of Gold), but it isnā€™t the list price. The list price is $15 a month. Itā€™s just an FYI for the thread when people here how great a deal it is - it is, at $5 a month, which is the price being referenced.

Playdate is the hipster retro Star Citizen. It will always be better in your imagination than in reality. Itā€™s probably better if it stays there as well.

To be clear, Game Pass for PC is $10 a month. Game Pass for Xbox is $10 a month. Gold is currently around $5 a month if you get a year at a time. And Ultimate Game Pass is $15 a month and it has all of the above as well as xCloud.

Of course I bet a lot of people will get it through the list price. I just feel like we have a duty to not let that happen to anyone who posts at Qt3. They shouldnā€™t pay list price as long as this deal keeps being offered.

Not to mention collect all those sweet MS commissions.

I never did the Gold thing, going straight to Ultimate instead. That said, Iā€™ve paid probably an average of $7 for my ultimate (now maxed at three years). Sales are very frequent.

Yeah, I did the initial conversion, but Iā€™ve then topped up the last couple black fridays, when multiple retailers were selling 3-month codes for $20.

I love when you visit a forum and see a particular thread has a surge of new posts since the last time you checked, and you already know what happened, lol.

I think Microsoft deserved a lot of heat for trying to implement that price increase - and they got it. So much so that they furiously backpedaled, and fast-tracked a pending announcement about F2P games (according to ZhugeEX on Twitter).

I also think thereā€™s a couple of users who pretty indisputably have a record of only really descending on Xbox-related threads to participate in some combination of concern trolling and instigate fanboy warz. I donā€™t even spend that much time on this forum/thread, yet Iā€™ve both noticed it, and can name the specific users off the top of my head, lol.

ONLY if you donā€™t have any active Game Pass subscription time on your account. I just topped up my Game Pass Ultimate sub with three years a few weeks ago. Let my previous subscription completely expire, added three years of Gold, then clicked the link to ā€œupgradeā€ my subscription to Game Pass Ultimate, which does the 1:1 ratio.

If youā€™ve used the $1 promo in the past, itā€™ll charge you $14.99 to do the conversation instead, but other than that the deal is the same.

The important thing is to make sure thereā€™s no active GP sub on your account - that means both cancelling auto-renewal, and making sure the actual time has run out, since subscriptions donā€™t end until the last billing period youā€™re paid up in advance for. Otherwise you get a much worse conversion ratio (something like 3:1).

All of the above noted, I think itā€™s worth saying that even at the $14.99 MSRP, Game Pass Ultimate is still a really good deal. Right now Iā€™m rotating between Gears 5 MP, Destiny 2 Beyond Light, and Tetris Effect Connectedā€¦ and I didnā€™t pay for any of them outright. Plus it includes a Gold subscription, which you almost certainly were paying for.

And this is BEFORE the floodgates open up from the 23 studios they now own, who will also be making content that will all end up releasing into Game Pass. All for $10/mo, if you only care about console. And again - that includes the XBL Gold subscription you used to pay ~$5 month for on itā€™s own.

Yeah, although even at list price, gamepass ultimate is still an excellent deal. Even at that price, i would have already gotten much moneyā€™s worth with all the games Iā€™ve played.

But, itā€™s the conversion shenanigans that make it a totally insane deal. $5 a month for live gold, plus cloud play, plus a huge library of awesome games, is entirely nuts.

And whatā€™s cool is that i donā€™t have to even think about the price until October of 2023 now.

Yeah, this is part of why i harp on it. Itā€™s definitely not obvious that you can do the conversion shenanigans, but anyone on QT3 should know about it.

Some dev love for the Series S.

Zieba praised the Xbox Series S and X, saying that developing for the two consoles was ā€œa really pleasant experienceā€ and ā€œmostly a no-brainer.ā€ As an owner of an Xbox Series S, Zieba played the game and said he was shocked at the consoleā€™s performance. ā€œThe architecture of S, of this little while box, is just awesome."

That canā€™t be possible, there must be some mistake. I have it on good authority that that console serves no purpose, and all devs hate it. I read that in the Playstation thread, I think.

To be completely fair, developer of an exclusive Xbox game isnā€™t go to go on record as saying that

ā€œHalf of Xboxes sold are ā€œtotal shiteā€, says Xbox X|S developer, where he adds that ā€œXbox drools PS5 rulesā€, publicly regrets supporting Xboxen and believes Microsoft has ā€œlostā€ the console wars, for reasons he details on his blog. He also adds that ā€œconsumers shouldnā€™t support meā€ and urges people not to buy his game so that Xbox line will fail.ā€

ā€¦ though as an owner of a Series S, i can certainly believe it will be just fine.

Nah, man. Itā€™s the shitty attitude.

I canā€™t tell you any of the X/S enhanced games are a must-play right now. I have Valhalla, Legion, and Fenyx, and they are nice but wonā€™t blow away anyone whoā€™s been playing on a 1X. Cyberpunk plays pretty well if you wanted to give it a try.

Honestly, I tried them all and went back to Yakuza Kiwami, which looks really good on the Series X.

The games I found benefitted most from the new hardware were:
Forza Horizons 4
No Manā€™s Sky
Destiny
Gears

Those were some of the best early upgrades. They look and play beautifully.

Oh, Control also played very well, but I donā€™t know if it actually got any upgrades for the new hardware yet, beyond just the fact that the hardware is faster. It played very smoothly though.

It did not, and the upgrade when it comes as of last I heard is only if you bought the newly released Ultimate Edition and there was no path for folks that already bought the game and DLC/season pass. People arenā€™t exactly happy about it.

PS5/Series X/S ultimate edition digital release is Feb 2nd

Yes, but confusingly you can buy it now and download the PS4/XBO version - marked with the X|S badge on the Xboxes at least. Stupid move all around I think.

The Warhammer dungeon crawler Chaosbane also did this - upgraded for the new consoles but required a new, full price purchase. Really short sighted in my mind.

Ultimately though, if you got gamepass, Control still played very well on the XSX.