Xbox Game Pass for Console, PC, and Android

Jonman wrote:
polq37 wrote:

Why can't Microsoft put it on Gamepass for PC?

PC GamePass doesn't sell MS hardware like the console gamepass does.

But it does sell GamePass subscriptions, which I think is more up Microsoft's alley these days.

My own guess is that it will end up on PC GamePass sooner than the 1 year period for consoles, but that's based on no knowledge...

Jonman wrote:
polq37 wrote:

Why can't Microsoft put it on Gamepass for PC?

PC GamePass doesn't sell MS hardware like the console gamepass does.

Pretty sure the consoles are sold at cost or at a loss. Microsoft probably makes bank on the controllers though. The marginal cost of each additional copy of Windows 10 is super close to $0. Getting people to buy more copies of Windows 10 is the money maker in this situation.

Seems like having a 10/10 game available on PC would push a lot of subscriptions.

I suspect that there are contractual reasons why they can't put the game on Gamepass for PC, but I would like to hear a clear statement from Microsoft explaining the situation.

polq37 wrote:

Also, I'd really like to get the inside story of how bad Bethesda was tanking a couple of years ago such that they actually sold the exclusive console rights. I suspect that story won't be told for another 10-15 years though.

Why do they have to be doing poorly to accept a big sweaty wad of money from Sony? Sony has been burning through some serious bank to try to nail down exclusives the past few years.

I'll guess that the exclusivity agreement was against Microsoft, not any storefront. So Microsoft can't offer the game until the exclusivity agreement expires.

I'm fine. I have any number of other games I can play at the moment. I can wait to play this one.

Rykin wrote:
polq37 wrote:

Also, I'd really like to get the inside story of how bad Bethesda was tanking a couple of years ago such that they actually sold the exclusive console rights. I suspect that story won't be told for another 10-15 years though.

Why do they have to be doing poorly to accept a big sweaty wad of money from Sony? Sony has been burning through some serious bank to try to nail down exclusives the past few years.

When big developers with a long multiplatform history start accepting money to go exclusive, it's usually a sign that things are going pretty wrong in the financials area. Obviously, the situation is different for smaller indie developers.

Bethesda selling itself to Microsoft a year later also suggests that they may not have been in great shape. Recall that Bethesda (Zenimax) was actually owned by an ancient corporate lawyer who died not long after the sale went through. In the last few years prior to the sale, they were acting more like an undercapitalized company than a company that was capitalizing on its successes.

New Game Pass games announced

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/AunhWHZ.png)

Great month for our household. I'm personally looking forward to Sable, Tainted Grail and Lost Words. My son is thrilled about I Am Fish and Subnautica: Below Zero. Game Pass keeping us busy.

Games leaving the service:
Drake Hollow (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Ikenfell (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Night in the Woods (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Kathy Rain (PC)
Warhammer Vermintide II (Cloud and Console)

Phoenix Point Console!!!!!!!!

Leaving September 30

  • Drake Hollow (Cloud, Console, and PC)
  • Ikenfell (Cloud, Console, and PC)
  • Night in the Woods (Cloud, Console, and PC)
  • Kathy Rain (PC)
  • Warhammer Vermintide II (Cloud and Console)

Ooh. I should finish Night in the Woods.

Unsighted coming to GamePass is the standout in all of that for me. It's a bit of metroidvania in a top down brawler/shooter, and with some non-linear/multiple path exploration. I loved the demo and wishlisted it the moment I finished it.

Damn, I will not get to Ikenfell in time

I've put maybe 6-8 hours into Breathedge and have mixed feelings on it. It feels kind of like something like Subnautica -- you were in a space ship that crashed/blew up, you're safe in a small compartment of it, but there's a ton of wreckage to explore, and you can collect parts to help you collect more parts and build more items that will help you survive longer. The goal appears to be to get to a rescue pickup location something like 3000m away, and you're picking up stuff to allow you to hold more oxygen in your suit, to create oxygen refueling stations, and to craft resources that will protect you from hazards like cold and radiation. There are also little scenes you discover in the wreckage that you can examine and learn about.

From a gameplay perspective, I think it's pretty good but not great. I have had multiple long periods where I was just stuck, because I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do next. It seems like it's actually a fairly linear path of upgrades you need to work through, so I would appreciate stronger direction. Especially as you expand your range further, this is frustrating because, even with an upgrade to my movement speed, it still takes maybe 3-4 minutes of just pointing my stick in one direction to get to the area that seems like my next point of exploration. So to get that far out, look around, and not find any particularly useful resource or blueprints and have to head back to base to unload materials or try to craft something new feels a bit tedious. Maybe the next thing I'm ready to do is craft some additional speed upgrade, or some sort of fast travel point? I'm on the edge of just quitting.

In terms of the story, it's a real miss for me. It got off on the wrong foot with me as it starts with a "disclaimer" that beings "WARNING This game is of a humorous nature and does not seek to offend anyone," which had me on edge, as that read to me more like a joke about content warnings rather than genuinely trying to put players at ease. The game itself isn't offensive in any way that I've noticed, but it's just got this dopey sensibility that I find tiring more often than amusing. Like, one of the first things you need to do is "recalibrate your communications array" and so you need to "build a calibration tool" which turns out to mean duct taping a big ball of metal at the end of a big wrench and bonking the computer with it until it works. You also find a ton of condoms in space for some reason, and these end up being part of a lot of your constructions. Its tone reminds me most of Journey to the Savage Planet--it's not hopelessly unfunny, there are occasionally mildly amusing bits, but there's just so much of it and it's trying so hard, and I'd just like to move past it all. I definitely would be more interested in the game if it had a more straightforward approach.

I definitely wouldn't recommend buying this, but it's an okay use of Game Pass. I think I'm at a point where I'll have to decide if I want to look up a guide to figure out how to progress or if I'll just delete it and move on.

What I really loved about Breathedge was the soundtrack. As you said, the humor was juvenile and the gameplay has been done better in other games.

Skatebird's very cute! I especially love that there's a decent amount of Australian birds. I made a galah with a rockabilly pomp - amazing!

Spoiler:

Look at it - ridiculous! IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/UbndWed.png)

The skateboarding's actually fairly solid, if a bit too floaty. It's probably a little too memey/internet for my tastes, but it's great for Game Pass. Like, it's really unlikely that I'd actually pay for this game, but I'll happily mess around with it every now and then.

I agree that it's great for Game Pass in that after 10 minutes I knew it wasn't for me and could uninstall it. I'm too old for that twitchy finesse gameplay anymore.

I like the humour and atmosphere in Breathedge, but I don't like wandering around in space looking for rubber, only to find out online that peeing in the space-loo creates random crafting materials such as rubber.

I might go back to it, but it takes too long to find basic things to do basic things.

1Dgaf wrote:

I like the humour and atmosphere in Breathedge, but I don't like wandering around in space looking for rubber, only to find out online that peeing in the space-loo creates random crafting materials such as rubber.

I might go back to it, but it takes too long to find basic things to do basic things.

Thank you. This helps.

I just looked up a guide for Breathedge and kind of can't believe what I'm supposed to do next, in that it's fairly easy and obvious, except the game utterly failed to make clear to me that I could achieve this objective now. I really think they could have something special if they a)turned their "comedy" knob down from like a 10 to a 4, b)made everything in the world like 20-30% closer together so that long trips don't involve holding a stick in one direction for 3-4 minutes straight, and c)providing a more streamlined and straightforward set of objectives. Now that I understand that I should be capable of accomplishing a big task, I'm going to give it a shot and see what the game offers next. But I don't know that I ever would've bothered trying this if I didn't see a guide that made clear that I now have all the tools I need.

12 minutes any good?

Feels like a loaded question I think there are some really cool aspects to 12 Minutes, *but*, the story/the solution to the 'mystery' is terrible and I think YMMV about the mechanics/puzzles. I liked the solving the mystery a lot, so much so that even though I think the solution was just awful, I really enjoyed figuring out how to progress in the game. It was the sort of thing where I poked and prodded until I got stuck, set the game down, and was just wandering about in life and the game would float into my mind and I'd start thinking over what I'd been stuck on and then come up with a solution I would try out the next day... Very satisfying to me, but I've certainly heard others who felt like the puzzles were too picky and non-sensical at times. I feel it's absolutely worth playing as long as you keep your expectations low for the ending.

Based on what I've heard about the tonal aspects and how ham-handed they are, and what i know of your personal politics from forum posts, Sally, I'm guessing there's gonna be a disconnect there.

I made a "too many other games out there to put up with that BS by choice" decision on it myself, for that reason.

But then i booted up Maneater and murdered a bajillionty fisherman, so my advice should be taken with a large grain of salt(water).

12 Minutes:

I got tired of the trial and error clickery and started playing it using a guide. I would have liked for there to be save states so that you can try different stuff in the middle and end of the game without having to repeat the beginning.

Something new and shiny caught my attention before I could finish it. I doubt that I’ll go back.

For all that I'm regularly "Game Pass is a helluva deal", I should really start factoring in that something like 5% of games on there just don't work. Superliminal is the latest casualty - crashes every time right after the Xbox login is done.

I genuinely can't remember the last time a Steam game didn't work.

Game Pass on console is a helluva deal.

On PC its a nice extra that sometimes doesn't work, much like the Windows store.

Jonman wrote:

For all that I'm regularly "Game Pass is a helluva deal", I should really start factoring in that something like 5% of games on there just don't work. Superliminal is the latest casualty - crashes every time right after the Xbox login is done.

I genuinely can't remember the last time a Steam game didn't work.

This is similar to the issue I had recently. Forcibly restating the Gaming Services services on my machine seemed to work last time. I also logged out in the Xbox app during this process so not sure if that helped or not. It certainly wasn’t enough on its own.

I tried I Am Fish and wow I hated that game so much so fast. I guess I owe it another try to see if I was just in a bad headspace or something.

Absolutely had the same experience.

It looks charming as hell. Visuals are nice, but everything feels cheap and it's an absolute chore to play. Because it is a physics game, I get it, but I hate the slow movement.

Finally picked up the MCC for $20, now I need to find time to play it.

pandasuit wrote:

I tried I Am Fish and wow I hated that game so much so fast. I guess I owe it another try to see if I was just in a bad headspace or something.

I also just tried it and it does not recognize my controller at all. I tried playing with keyboard and mouse and it was horrible so I quickly quit and uninstalled.

MaxShrek wrote:

Finally picked up the MCC for $20, now I need to find time to play it.

I need to get back to this series.

I blasted through 1 and 2. I overall enjoyed them a lot! Though by 3, I was feeling a bit burnt out. Great games that I probably would have loved more had I waited the years between like everyone else.

The plan was to catch up before Infinite, but I don't think that's going to happen