An update on recent technical problems and more from the admin: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/250292/on-technical-difficulties-mod-coverage-and-other-things/p1?new=1
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[Xbox] Where MY opinion is the most important opinion. IMHO.
Synthesis
Honda Today!Registered User regular
Honda Today!Registered User regular
Coming off the Tokyo Game Show that most of us weren't actually awake to watch due to the existence of time zones, it's the new Xbox on console, PC, and streaming thread for 2022! Here where we talk about backwards compatibility, dev kit software, the high price of first-party storage, the inescapable subscription-dominated future, Xbox Game Streaming still not being on the Switch, how angry people can get over little green branding in the corner of certain videos, whatever the heck "exclusivity" actually means at this point, how we might not really own anything anywhere, and how you're allowed to complain about corporate branding and names, but only names and branding from certain corporations and not other ones! Hey, we don't make the rules, we just follow them!
Games with Gold
The original unified network for consoles somehow still with us, and still required for any non-free to play multiplayer experience, as on other networks! Since the beginning of time, users with an "Xbox Live Gold" paid membership will have four free titles made available for download for a limited time--hit 'F' for Xbox 360 titles, which still available on the marketplace and and Game Pass (mentioned below), concluded their role in Games with Gold in September 2022. Going forward, games will presumably belong to Xbox Series and Xbox One generations of releases. Yes, you do need to actually obtain them within the overlapping four-week opportunity window. Yes, you can get Xbox Live Gold through a normal subscription fee, buying discounted months of membership through vendors, or abusing Xbox's overly-generous reward program. While original Xbox titles are not playable on original hardware (due to the discontinuation of Xbox Live support for the original 2001 console hardware), all subsequent releases are playable on their original hardware and all subsequent Xbox consoles going forward into the present.
Xbox and PC Game Pass or "The Best Value in Gaming!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06Zz0Og6UuAXbox Game Pass (for consoles) is Microsoft's own subscription gaming catalog service ("Netflix for video games") with hundreds of periodically rotating first and third-party titles across four generations of console hardware, making it attractive for digital-only libraries and people who want to try first party new exclusives (which will make the rounds on the service at the time of their launch). Likewise, the renamed PC Game Pass (for Windows 10 and 11) features an overlapping but different library with a number of PC-only titles that can be installed through the website, Windows store apps or Xbox app, or in the case of EA titles, their software EA Play. However, both services come with their own separate fees--If you want them both, you may wish to consider the Cadillac of Netflix for Games, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate: for less than the combined cost of both services, you can have your Game Pass and Xbox Live Gold subscriptions in a single plan! Because nothing bad ever came from bundling services! For the time being, it remains possible to extend your Game Pass subscription based on unrelated services "credit" (for example, one year of EA Access translates to four months of Game Pass Ultimate), so make sure you do your research when you're stocking up and keep an eye out for sales. Or just do what Microsoft and other corporations are counting on, and set your subscription to blissful autorenewal. Life is too short to worry about things like monthly fees!
In either service, there is no limit on how many games you can download and install from it, and access is for as long as the subscription holds--permanent purchases made from the catalog are discounted 20%, and DLC by 10%. It still does not require Xbox Live Gold (though that is part of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate). Since 2020, Game Pass Ultimate comes with an additional perk you may be familiar with...
Xbox Game Streaming
https://youtu.be/J4FF_mHhwqwLike Google's Stadia and the original Playstation Now from Sony before their unfortunate demises, Xbox Game Streaming (formerly "Project Xcloud") replaces your grandparents' Xbox game from the ancient era of streaming a console over your home network to the sexy future of piping your game in from The Cloud onto not just your mobile devices (so long as they're not made by Nintendo), but Xbox One and Xbox Series consoles, Windows PCs, certain Apple products sometimes and a gradually increasing number of Samsung television and PC monitors! No longer in free beta, it is now available as a benefit from the Game Pass Ultimate, and has migrated to an Xbox Series X experience from the original Xbox One streaming infrastructure (fortunately). Play console-quality games on mobile! Take advantage of all the normal Xbox Live services! Drain your mobile device battery before you know it! Still probably not coming to your favorite non-Xbox console no matter how hard you ask, consult your doctor before hacking your Switch!
As of mid 2022, Xbox Game Streaming is officially available in the following regions:
- Argentina
- Australia
- Austria
- Belgium
- Brazil
- Canada
- Czechia
- Denmark
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- Hungary
- Ireland
- Israel
- Italy
- Japan
- Mexico
- Netherlands
- New Zealand
- Norway
- Poland
- Portugal
- Slovakia
- South Korea
- Spain
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- United Kingdom
- United States
A full list of current Xbox Game Streaming titles is available courtesy of the excellent Windows Central website, alongside a full list of touch-compatible titles which are playable without the prerequisite compatible controller.
Xbox Backwards Compatibility Library
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oe1LUJyCCsSay hello to the most extensive backwards compatibility library since Sony left the Playstation 3 unconscious in a bathtub full of ice! Since early in the Project Scarlett reveal, Xbox has committed to bringing the whole of the Xbox One library forward to the Xbox Series consoles, alongside the existing Xbox One-era software backwards compatibility libraries on all previous Xbox consoles since 2001 excluding Kinect-hardware requiring titles on Xbox 360 and Xbox One. Yes, we are as shocked as you. After capping the 20th Anniversary Showcase with more than seventy additions from the original Xbox and Xbox 360, the powers that be have sorrowfully turned the page on further additions from 2012 and earlier (at least for now), though all new Xbox One releases are playable. In the meantime, pour one out for those games who couldn't be here with us.
Curious if your favorite Xbox 360 or original Xbox game is playable? Check it out!
2022 Tokyo Game Show Xbox Presentation (and concurrent events!)
Watch ol' Phil Spencer stumble awkwardly though Japanese! How cosmopolitan!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yC7kvgjz6VE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz1PSDKEaKk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGxeVxEvvHc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPDI4ehuA38
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8yRkZxpP6k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HBaLeuUusQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8krCALDMCs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDWBL-lXE40Xbox & Bethesda 2022 Summer Showcase
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdyrJX-1pgc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ac0NJZXHLGc(ASL version of the extended Summer Showcase)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dqJptSr1FQ&t=22s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt6x-_jVa60
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_nPvb5Kcu4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq7SbLdFtIY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpBIzKJ58i42023 Xbox Developer Direct Presentation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaL6XQZISq0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2i1Vq3Odbg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFwh3m-RIeA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHgceB5vzhkXbox 20th Anniversary Showcase
This wasn't even that recent! Oh, god, we're all so old!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_a0ijMQex4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJYsA1jXf60
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yT_i6hXf9WU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yappZvmxcP8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC65DNzxyxU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2d6IMBS8oY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1h--43R8OoPenny Arcade Forums' Game Clubs
Pax Arcadia
Arcade Squad (Gears of War series)
The Bees Knees (Halo series)
Additionally, you can find the forums Xbox Live gamertag list here, and the form to sign up here.
Synthesis on
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Posts
We've actually had this question in many a past [Xbox] thread, to the point where I'm kind of surprised I don't overtly refer to it in the OP. Maybe I should fix that argabarble.
Introspection aside, short answer "Yes." Long answer "it depends." Did the developments implement cross platform saves? Many do, including Japanese and Korean developers, but it's not a requirement at all. Atlus could just implement that, and have the PC and console releases use a different, non-interchangeable format.
I checked the Persona 5 Royal page on Xbox.com, and it does mention cloud save support. Combined with multiplatform support, this means "saves work between Xbox platforms, whether console or Windows, overwhelmingly." Exceptions to this, like Final Fantasy VII, don't list "Xbox Cloud Saves" (even though, very clearly, they do back those saves up online "on the cloud") because they don't work across the PC and console versions because Square-Enix lol.
So, very probably. It may not have been what you were asking, but Game Pass games are functionally identical to the normal, "please buy this" release of the game on that platform. It has all functionality that the developer saw fit to implement. Cloud Streaming is (presently) online the Xbox Series X release of that game; if it has cross-platform saves, you can load up that save on Windows (via Xbox on PC).
pleasepaypreacher.net
Sucks we don't get Project Eve/Stellar Blade. Buy up another developer in retaliation, Microsoft.
When we say "Cross Platform" here, unfortunately we do mean "within Xbox." And yes, someone might get upset about Windows PC's being included on that.
Starting from a place of "Virtually every Xbox game supports online save storage"--the number of games with cross platform saves between Xbox and Playstation is very low, and they seem to consist overwhelmingly of games where your progression exists almost entirely online anyway (the Fortnite example).
I don't particularly fault Sony's agenda here, or at least not as much as might have been warranted two to three years ago; I don't think it's occurred to developers to even use identical save data even as the actual game architecture has become very similar (though not identical--I don't think the consoles use the same basic language, and they definitely don't use the same graphics APIs). On top of that, developers definitely haven't been thinking of implementing cloud storage available to both ecosystems. And on top of that, Playstation requires a premium service for online cloud saves, meaning it's not a universal feature among all online consoles.
At the very least, the current consoles (Playstation 5 included) are a lot less useful if left offline indefinitely, so that's become very rare. But there are way too many other constraints. The famed examples--Fortnite, Minecraft, etc.--represent games where progression exists mostly or entirely online, in the context where you could go between hardware. Most people don't go into this with the intention of repurchasing Deathloop for Xbox, and expecting their saves from Playstation 5 will be available.
It would be nice to have it, but that's where we are right now.
Yeah it seems like the kind of game I'll just have to appreciate other people who can do it play it.
pleasepaypreacher.net
That's exactly the problem I have with it, tbh. It just feels "off" until you manage to get enough of a streak going to pull in all the music tracks, at which point it feels better.
I really want steelbooks to become the new default case, just sort of skip over green/blue boxes.
It was a huge bullet point in the latest Cyberpunk 2077 patch that it now supports cross-platform cloud saves if you sign in to your GOG account. I have the game on Xbox and Steam (so not where the "more typical" Xbox/PC-via-Windows-Store cross-platform kind of thing would be), and it worked flawlessly going both ways. So I could pull my main save from my Xbox and load it straight up on my Steam Deck, then save it there and continue later on my Xbox. And in this case it'd work on PlayStation as well.
But yes, at that level of functionality, it's still notable by being extremely rare. But, as Cyberpunk 2077 now proves, it can be done. Platform holders clearly aren't in the way (even the famously reluctant Sony). All that's needed is the will.
As a side note to the non-identical architectures, APIs, etc - there was a workaround once upon a time to extract a save from Skyrim on the Xbox 360 (if you put the save on a USB flash drive) such that it could be loaded up into a PC copy of Skyrim. I did that one too, and it worked, even though that was entirely unofficial and I don't think it could go the other way. But the point is the actual save file, in that case, was fully compatible cross-platform. I suspect more of them are technically compatible than we think, and the barrier is elsewhere (e.g. devs, publishers, etc etc not wanting to implement the feature).
The more the likes of CDPR do it with games the size of Cyberpunk (they also did it with The Witcher 3, notably on Switch and PC), the more others may go "hmm, why not?" I like playing on multiple platforms and this is a definite boon for people like me. Hopefully we'll see more of it.
Steam | XBL
So, I had forgotten just how many topless women are in those games. Like, I'm not a prude, as my love of Ninja Gaiden has demonstrated, but there are way more topless polygonal PSP women in those games than I remembered. They were still good games in spite (or maybe because?) of that (generally; some were more filler from what I remember, but none were DMC2 bad).
Also, each of them has at least one "Here are these friendly lesbians, you think you're interrupting them, but actually they're happy to see you," minigames. They're topless too, but at this point we're edging (ha) into softcore pornography at that point. But otherwise, topless (mortal) ladies, topless statues, topless monster ladies, topless goddesses, and so forth.
It's funny thinking of Rachel and Ayane from Team Ninja's golden age, coming off as ridiculous in skintight leather ninja gear and fighting a tentacle monster. Meanwhile in Hellenic Greece, half the women are just topless and you have to slaughter an octopus god and all his topless Medusa henchwomen. We're probably better off with the new direction of God of War since then.
No joke.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Beat the demo and you get a special helmet you can use in the full game
It's only exclusive to PlayStation for 4 days, the other 4 days are open for everyone else too
They've done this for several games
That is a cool way to make me play a demo, unless Ya Boy Kongming was also made an unlockable character. It's probably some helmet you level out of early on but much classier than pre-order bonus, the opposite in fact; we're so believing of our game play/beat the demo and get a bonus. That it's from Team Ninja who put 500 bucks of characters and costume behind a paywall for DoA6 is even more thunk provoking.
pleasepaypreacher.net
I think there's way too many punctuation marks for that to be a Serious Reaction.
Are they going to use Musou character renditions of the Three Kingdoms Era crew... or its own thing? I see multiplayer, so I'm kind of wary. Will look at the demo though.
Yeah... that's a Lu Bu...
Man, Sony must be furious with these "Playstation guys" how dare they do anything with exclusivity, it hurts gamers!
Also, about the Xbox UI change, I see a lot of people go "I dont care since I only use Pins" ... Isnt it a problem that this update is supposed to remove Pins entirely then? "Pinned apps, friends, community tabs, and more have all been removed in favour of curated lists of Xbox Game Pass titles."
Few problems
The drop rates are all fucked. Missions require insane amounts of certain materials and sometimes you have to craft them even if you already have them in you inventory.
The economy is fucked meaning you have to farm a specific crop in each area to make money for the insane price hikes for everything( villager houses cost exponentially more and there's no reason why) there's also no way to buy any crafting materials
Villagers are mandatory for progress and certain tool upgrades. Do you like Mother Gothel ? No ? the abusive kidnapper not up your alley? To bad she's gonna be your bestie because she's part of a quest
Want a cooler pickaxe? Hope you unlocked Maui because otherwise thats not happening ( also why does he not upgrade fishing? Its Maui)
There's more but honestly between that and the weird glitches and slowdown on an Xbox I'm very glad I didn't pay for it
One of the problems with the drop rates is that things keep spawning on the inaccessible side, and I think there might be a total limit to how many of one item can exist. So if more of the things you collect respawn on the other side, your rate of collecting goes down more and more.
A hacky solution until they fix it: if you have a wishing well, you can go into building mode and move it to the other side. Then fast travel, and you’ll be on the inaccessible side and can collect what you need. Not pretty, but it works.
Demo is crashy, which whatever, it's demo/beta. Combat is very weightless though, almost no feedback to any hits.
It also sits in the weird ground where combat is supposed to be more deliberate and dangerous but everything feels like it should be a faster hack'n slash. That might be a me thing though, I had a similar issue with the Baldurs Gate game.
No I feel you, its got like dynasty warriors attacks, with dark souls enemies, it feels kind of weird.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Yeah, that part sucks. Especially since it’s very inconsistent with what can be ready beforehand and what needs to be made after it’s asked for.
I mean, I've been pretty consistent with that ads on home thing over the years, but can you explain this removal of pins? that didn't seem to be the case? afaik you can't add your own pins to the very top group/page?
edit:
Bottom right corner has a "more options" menu... what's in there?
https://www.trueachievements.com/poll/51115/xbox-dashboard-update-reactions
yeah, if that is the case it's not ideal.
though... you probably should have led with that and not "I hate ads on my home page" :P
Figured it out. RT only jumps to the next section and the "Add a group" action doesn't count as a section for RT. I had had a custom group, which does count as a section, but I must have deleted all the games that were in it and that caused the group to disappear? Bizarre, either way I now have to keep a dummy group if I want to use RT to jump to the bottom of my pins.
My X1X has a Suggested Apps section (was it always called this) that is filled with games and the One Guide [so I can play the 360 without fucking with wires] and I just added a game to that list. I just can't make it the very top level grouping.
The default 'home' has the row of recent apps used, the More Games&Apps tile, and then any XBL/internet login stuff next to it. Other than Suggested Apps, I cannot pin anything like I could on the 360, but you can very much still do a similar thing.
Or perhaps I just don't fully understand what 'pins' mean in the Series era.
Again, unless it's something different for Series consoles, 'more options' is contextual to the highlighted game/app.
Which in this case is Halo Infinite.
Edit: * I think they'd what it's called. The overlay on the left that pops up when you hit the Xbox Button
Pins is the default group and you can make more. It can be a combination of apps and games. On Xbox series, you go to My Games and Apps, then Groups (third option) and scroll down to bottom to create a new one. Pressing start over a game tile or app gives you a drop down menu where you can add to your groups.
My Pins top row is all apps I use the most then second row is games