3938

Imagine if they didn’t have shortages

3939

From a quick search, it looks like they had 10M Game Pass subscribers in April. 18M is still pretty low compared to the TV/movie behemoths, but over a year that’s still $2B+ for their developers. I wonder if that’s meeting their expectations.

3940

Netflix has been doing streaming a lot longer.

They’re on pace to more than double subscriptions in a year.

3941

When they say 100M active Live users, I assume that counts people logging into their consoles, not Live Gold members paying for multiplayer. Otherwise that would be disgusting.

3942

The more users the more games they’ll get on the service. It’s a self feeding beast! At least I hope so

3943

Yeah. What will really help boost numbers is actually releasing big games on the service on Day One of release. MS is still priming the pump. C’mon guys.

3944

Outside of Halo this may take until 2022. It’s possible another game from first party studios like Forza maybe sneaks in this fall . They did a lot of acquisitions but much of the results are a ways off, in theory there’s some Bethesda coming this year but that was under pre-existing timed exclusive contracts with Sony that last I knew were still being honored (Deathloop and Ghostwire Tokyo). This isn’t to imply there wont be cool day 1 games, just not necessarily many move the needle big games.

3945

Looking ahead further though… all these first party titles will be on Series X|S and run well. Then in 2023 or 2024 a new Series Y console will launch with faster ray tracing, more storage, and blast processing. All the dozens of first party games already in Game Pass will be upgraded at launch, meaning those games in your backlog are suddenly faster, better, and prettier than before. You can pass on that Series S or X to someone else when you upgrade, knowing they’ll still have a great experience and you can play games together.

Microsoft may not “win” now, but they’ve set themselves up to win eventually.

3946

Did… did you just say, in a round about way, that Microsoft will leverage its synergies and align customer journeys to close the loop on future purchases?

3947

…maybe!

3948

3949

Not sure if it’s been posted on QT3 or not, but I didn’t know that Too Human was free on the MS store until today.

3950

Just got mine today! Don’t have many titles, as I was a Sony guy for the last 2 generations, but I did have a borrowed XBox one for awhile so I’ve got some older games. New Vegas, Morrowind, Witcher 2, and a few others. I wil probably do the dollar Game Pass deal.

3951

It’s been free for quite some time - I think since it was made backward compatible on the Xbone. Crackdown and Crackdown 2 are free also, totally worth picking up if anyone hasn’t played them before.

3952

I hope by “do the dollar Game Pass deal” you don’t mean get 3 months for $1.

If you get 12 months of Xbox Live Gold first for $60, (or 2 years for $120), you can convert that Gold subscription time into Game Pass Ultimate time for $1. That’s the much better $1 Game Pass deal than the 3 months for $1 deal.

3953

Whoa, I wasn’t expecting math and conversions to be involved. Thanks for the heads up!

3954

One of the best features of the Xbox is getting better. Seriously, for several games playing on the Series X is the best possible experience thanks to the backward compatibility features.

3955

I need new games added to BC. I need new games added to BC. I NEED NEW GAMES ADDED TO BC.

3956

I ran into an issue that others here have complained about… The dreaded thumb stick drift on the elite controller.

It started manifesting last week, and it didn’t actually impact the controller on real gameplay, but i started noting it when interacting with the menus on destiny, where it kinds of emulates a mouse cursor. After moving the cursor with the left stick, it would kind of drift a bit.

Looking in the controller app, i was able to confirm that it wasn’t returning to center immediately.

I put in a ticket with Microsoft, and they were going to replace it. This process was amazingly easy and fast, but I did a bit more investigation.

After some investigation, it looks like this issue is caused by some of the copper connector inside the stick mechanism rubbing off into a rod, and then accidentally creating a convection when it shouldn’t.

With that in mind, i decided to try something.

I pushed the stick all the way to the side, and then blew into/onto the base of the stick hard. Kind of like an old nintendo cartridge.

This, amazingly, worked. Immediately. The problem is entirely gone now.

Now, the problem may return of course, and the controller still has like 20 months of warranty… But i figured I’d share this trick with folks here.

3957

I will say that I am impressed with the warranty service for the controller. However, I wish the controllers were made better so the warranty isn’t so important! I got my Series X at launch and my right trigger started sticking within weeks. (Kind of like the accelerator in a car sticking which was appropriate since it was royally messing up in Forza!) But the replacement process was great. Nothing to send back is a good thing. So props to MS for the service but boo on controller build quality.