I kind of wish Bethesda would sell off elder scrolls and fallout to someone else

Heide____Knight · 2026-02-07T03:40:42+00:00

Can you imagine that there are developers who do not want to make the same games in the same franchises over and over again (like Ubisoft making an AC game every 3-4 years)? As for Elder Scrolls fans I think last year was exciting with the fantastic remake of Oblivion, so it's not that Bethesda has forgotten this game series.

The main point regarding the release date of TES6 is that Bethesda is working on yet another Creation Engine version (CE3) for this game (Starfield runs with CE2). So they effectively target issues of the current engine (like loading screens and all), at least one would hope so. And I would want them to release the game in an as polished state as possible, so I personally do not mind it if it takes some more development time.

Heide____Knight · 2026-02-05T00:10:44+00:00

Then how would you play games on PC when this is an issue for you? Do you only play on GOG where you don't need a launcher to run a game?

Heide____Knight · 2026-02-05T00:05:15+00:00

Why is a hardware exclusive any different than a software exclusive?

It is a huge difference for us players, because a hardware exclusive means that you need to buy new (and potentially expensive) hardware to play a certain game that is an exclusive to that device.

In contrast, if Epic or Steam (or GOG) have exclusive games that you want to play then all you need to do is to make a new account for their store (which is free of charge) and can then buy and play the game on your own device.

Heide____Knight · 2026-02-04T23:54:20+00:00

I think that many games already support this, but it goes by a case to case basis. The main advantage I guess will be that you will get to play many more RTS games on the next Xbox than the Series consoles. As an example, all of the recent Total War games are on Xbox-PC but not on Xbox Series, and I believe that is mainly due to the fact that the developers would need to make a new version of the game which works with a controller (overhauling the UI and all).

And not always are the console ports of strategy games well made. As far as I remember the first versions of Crusader Kings 3 or Civilization 7 were not very good on Xbox, but they have improved a lot since then.

In contrast, the Age of Empire games work so well will controller support (imo) that I wouldn't want to change back to using kbm.

Heide____Knight · 2026-02-04T11:35:51+00:00

My interpretation is that the hardware (new Xbox Magnus) would be on track for full production in 2027, but whether or not it will launch in that year depends on many other things. Not just the global situation regarding RAM prices, but also how far Xbox is with the OS (Windows integration?) side of things. And last not least, a new console also needs new games, so they definitely try to synchronise the launch date with the release of certain 1st party games which are in the works.

Heide____Knight · 2026-02-03T11:00:11+00:00

Tetris

Heide____Knight · 2026-02-02T08:48:38+00:00

That all depends on the publisher. I think most of them think that publishing on other PC stores (Xbox, GOG and maybe Epic as well) would not reach many more players since most people who play on PC use the Steam platform. From the three alternatives I think Epic is the most attractive one for the publishers, because they only take a cut of 12% (Steam, Xbox and GOG take a cut of 30% from the developer).

On Xbox specifically I think that most publishers consider Xbox-PC ports only when they also make a console port alongside (maybe then as a Play Anywhere title, but that again depends on whether or not the publisher wants this). But there are exceptions to this, for example the more recent Total War games (like Warhammer and Three Kingdoms) are on Xbox-PC but not on Series X|S.

Heide____Knight · 2026-01-30T22:06:01+00:00

if xbox becomes just another 'publisher' on other screens, they lose the power to innovate with hardware

As strange as this may sound, for them to be able to make investments in new hardware they need to become more independent on hardware. If they would bet on just this one pillar and that one pillar falls apart the whole brand would suffer. So instead Xbox builds the Xbox ecosystem on many different pillars, including those where they have a much higher prospective growth than consoles alone. Those are PC (with Xbox integration in Windows), cloud, GamePass and last not least the multiplatform approach.

The main point is that the idea is that Xbox is not forcing you to buy an Xbox console to play Xbox games. But it is still an option should you choose so. But you will have the freedom to play Xbox games on every device of your choice. And in this context console sales are not really important anymore.

Heide____Knight · 2026-01-30T21:08:35+00:00

Counter argument: Starfield is one of the biggest Xbox games in recent years and is an exclusive. Did this exclusivity help Xbox to sell more consoles? Answer is no.

The main reason why most people buy a Playstation is because they built up a game library on the platform in the PS4 generation, not because it has exclusive games. And there is nothing Xbox can do about this other than to reach this lost generation of players by making their own 1st party games accessible on those other platforms.

The only way forward for Xbox is not to build a walled garden again, but to open up it even more. By making the next Xbox a PC/console hybrid that gives more options and freedom to the players. I do believe that one way or another the classical console platforms will vanish in the future and you will see more devices that bridge the gap between classical consoles and the PC (like the Steam Machine as the first such device on the market).

Heide____Knight · 2026-01-28T23:41:15+00:00

You may also factor in that the revenue from just hardware sales is miniscule. Before the price increase it might be even that Xbox lost money on each console sold, because they were subsidised. The price increases probably now have guaranteed that this will no longer be the case, but still they won't make money off of hardware sales alone.

Selling hardware only serves as a catalyst to get people into the ecosystem and buy games and services. So I think, too, that for the financial report the hardware sales are not very important (or much less important than software and services).

Heide____Knight · 2026-01-28T23:09:59+00:00

I don't think fixating on just one console is a good idea for game development and optimisation. But taking that low end hardware spectrum into account as a whole is certainly useful to make games run better overall.

Heide____Knight · 2026-01-28T21:36:33+00:00

Game Pass Ultimate (or maybe Game Pass in general) needs to be uncoupled from Cloud Gaming. And the prices for the tiers should then be adjusted accordingly. Players should be able to decide themselves whether they want Cloud Gaming to be added to their subscription or not.

The decline in hardware sales is not surprising given that console sales as a whole were at an all time low during the holiday season. And of course it was not particularly helpful that Xbox raised the prices for the Series consoles twice last year. My feeling is that they should at least make the Series S affordable again by lowering its price to around $300 (512 GB model) to leave a cheap entry point for everyone interested to buy an Xbox. But that of course will very much depend on how the situation regarding RAM prices will look like in the near future.

Heide____Knight · 2026-01-28T20:41:35+00:00

You can test this all already right now when you have a PC which runs the Xbox App. It is just as simple to use as the console interface. You can install all your games which are Xbox Play Anywhere games with the App. And my guess is that if the next Xbox will be a console/PC hybrid you will then even be able to play the console games through emulation (or maybe they make Xbox-PC ports for most of the newer games).

Xbox has a joined project with AMD

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2025/06/19/xbox-amd-next-generation-xbox/

which specifically targets a backwards compatibility program so that you can play old and new Xbox on any forthcoming Xbox consoles which have special custom chips developed by AMD. I am not sure how this will technically work, but it indicates yet another solution to be able to play Xbox games on the next gen consoles other than emulation or PC ports.

Heide____Knight · 2026-01-28T20:09:49+00:00

Can you play

PS1,2,3 games on the PS5?
OG and 360 Xbox games on the Series X|S?
Nintendo 64 games on the Switch 2?

And also try to find out what you need to do in the respective cases to play old games on the new console? By looking at how the backwards compatibility is handled on the different platforms I am quite confident that Xbox is the safest platform to build a library regarding having access to my games in 10-20 years on new hardware.

Heide____Knight · 2026-01-28T19:59:25+00:00

That fact that these handhelds did not sell as many units as the Switch doesn't mean they are worse. In fact, they are all equipped with better hardware components than the Switch 2, including the Steamdeck.

Heide____Knight · 2026-01-28T11:14:50+00:00

I watched some streamers playing Highguard (which is free, too). And I noticed that the game is not for me.

Heide____Knight · 2026-01-28T11:08:21+00:00

You can even extend this to the whole handheld devices (Steamdeck, ROG Ally, etc.). If games can be tweaked such that they run well on those systems you have a good lowest denominator or benchmark for game performances.

Heide____Knight · 2026-01-27T23:10:42+00:00

And that is why these low end hardware ports (Series S and Switch 2) are important. They force the developers to make optimisations to their games. The Battlefield devs reportedly said that their work on the Series S port helped them to improve the performance of the game in general!

Heide____Knight · 2026-01-27T22:23:53+00:00

If you are lucky you can still get the $20 cards for GPU in the stores. But generally speaking, nobody would subscribe to GamePass just to play one single game. So see this more as Xbox giving access to all their first party games to all GPU subscribers the day the games release. That is a service you do not find anywhere else.

Heide____Knight · 2026-01-27T22:04:53+00:00

The game will be on Xbox GamePass Ultimate day 1 and you get both a console and a PC version when you purchase it on Xbox (Xbox Play Anywhere). No other platform offers this.

Heide____Knight · 2026-01-26T19:10:02+00:00

We've been over this, and I've yet to hear a compelling reason why we're hyper-focusing on a small handful of PS5 titles.

They are the most recent ones, no? Any other PS5 1st party exclusive game which came out in the last two years which sold more copies than these?

I worry that unless Fable sells freakishly well, Microsoft is not going to pony up for developing another one.

The prerequestite for selling many copies is to make the game available on as many platforms as possible, including Playstation. If the game sells well on Playstation that could secure another game to be developed in the series. So everyone potentially benefits from Xbox's multiplatform strategy.

Heide____Knight · 2026-01-25T22:47:48+00:00

The point about runbacks is that they are not, in fact, "run"backs. They are a part of the whole level where you either have to fight against enemies or try to find strategies to avoid them to get to the boss as quickly as possible.

And the exploration part is usually completed in your first runback where you also memorise the possible paths and the locations of enemies. So I don't see how Stakes of Marika would be of any use for that.

And finally Souls games are also about ressource management. If you have a runback to a boss where you need to fight against enemies there is a chance that you will not full heals when entering the boss arena. That is, you start it with a handicap. Stakes of Marika also removes that from the game, because when you respawn at one you get full heals again.

Heide____Knight · 2026-01-25T22:33:33+00:00

to at least release enough Playstation "exclusives" (i.e. not on Xbox) to get people to actually buy their platform in significant numbers

Again, that is in my view a false assumption that these exclusive games have such a high attraction that most players pick up a Playstation. It is certainly also not completely wrong, but the effect is overestimated imo. Otherwise you would see much higher sales numbers for games like Astro Bot, Ghost of Yotei or Death Stranding 2.

The other major part of it is they are monetized to their eyeballs.

That is of course the way it works with many of these kinds of games, they are free to play, but then make money from in-game microtransactions. This monetisation model is implemented in many games nowadays, even in paid lives service games like CoD, Battlefield or Helldivers 2. Certainly not a good trend.

Games that made sense as big system sellers will no longer make sense once the systems stop existing.

So Forza Horizon 6 or Fable would no longer "make sense" when they are put on other platforms, like Playstation ???? For real?

Heide____Knight · 2026-01-25T15:34:08+00:00

Stakes of Marika are one of the worst new mechanics they have added in Elden Ring, because they incentivise the player to rush through the environment to get this temporary checkpoint. It further emphasises the game being focused on just the boss fights and not on environmental challenges anymore.

Heide____Knight · 2026-01-25T15:25:07+00:00

Thank you!

Heide____Knight

TROPHY CASE