Xbox One Catch-all

Yeah it is significantly less. Expires in feb.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
Abu5217 wrote:

Not 100% sure, but it sure seems that with the redesign of Bing Rewards, MS has done away with the 12 months of Xbox Live. It appears that you can now only get 1 month at a time, for 4900 points. (The 12 month deal was ~29K points).

If anyone sees it where I don't, let me know, K?

Is this not it? It was the first thing I saw.

Ok, that's bizzare. I only had an option for one month. This is a great deal, grabbed it. Thanks Clocky!

Madden 18 coming to the EA Access vault "soon." Guessing at least after next Tuesday since the game itself is in Deals with Gold this week.

TheGameguru wrote:
silentsod wrote:

If you click into the Xbox live reward link there's a drop down list where you can set the reward to 1 year. I think right now it's "on sale" at 23k points.

Wow thanks for that. Picked up another year. I can’t remember how much it was last time but that feels like 50% less points than normal.

It has it for 21K points for me! I was subscribed through October of 2019, so I now it expires in 2020, just days before we vote for a new president!

I hadn’t really thought of the retail impact of the Xbox Game Pass but apparently smaller independent game shops hate it.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...

TheGameguru wrote:

I hadn’t really thought of the retail impact of the Xbox Game Pass but apparently smaller independent game shops hate it.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...

Of course it will have an impact on traditional retailers, but digital sales have been steadily eating into physical sales for a long time now," he says. "It's only a matter of time before the publishers turn the screws even tighter and monopolise the direct sale of games. "As a retailer, we are always against anything that takes away business, but ultimately consumer buying habits will dictate its success or failure, not retail."

Le Cornu adds: "I think it's the way things are going. If you look at the trends of the last five or ten years in music, film, TV - we've seen Netflix, Apple Music, Spotify and even things like EA Access. It's just the way forward

I feel bad for them in a general sense, but I will not be grudge any service that allows me to have less crap laying around. Off to put all my Disney Infinity figures back into storage.
*edit*
Not xbox related, but relevant to this discussion, CDs are next: Best Buy to Pull CDs, Target Threatens to Pay Labels for CDs Only When Customers Buy Them

lunchbox12682 wrote:

I feel bad for them in a general sense, but I will not be grudge any service that allows me to have less crap laying around. Off to put all my Disney Infinity figures back into storage.
*edit*
Not xbox related, but relevant to this discussion, CDs are next: Best Buy to Pull CDs, Target Threatens to Pay Labels for CDs Only When Customers Buy Them

Don't remember the last time I bought a CD. Probably at a show by an indie band or comedian?

We are full digital in our household. The one thing that remains on shelves and displayed are our books. But truth be told, that is just a decoration decision more than utilizing our collection. My wife "reads" almost exclusively by audiobook now. She knits, so this is a perfect way to read and finish up her projects at the same time. And I read almost exclusively only Kindle, iPad and iPhone, depending on where I'm at, and that includes comics.

So we don't add to our book collection, which is in the thousands, and many are actually stored (those that didn't get donated to the YMCA Book Fairs), but the shelves do represent a kind of look back at our lives in the same way pictures on the walls do.

Madden 18 is available in the EA Access vault as of now. Seems like the first time they've actually released it into the vault with any sort of intent as to the timing. Past couple years its come out days before or weeks after the Super Bowl, but it looks like they want to get people into it while they still have football on their mind this year.

An interesting confluence of events resulted in me getting an Xbox One S deal through Amazon.

My PS3 (relegated to streaming in my living room) has begun to die. Will freeze up, boot slow, not boot, lose wifi, etc.

My living room TV’s built in Chromecast is bad.

I received a hefty gift Amazon card that would make a XB1 package around 100$ USD.

So, I could either get a really nice Roku for free or add a XB1 for only 100$.

So, I jumped on the XB1 as it included BF1 (a game I do not own and do want) and all of the same streaming capabilities as a Roku.

I have never owned or even played an XB1 but was a huge Xbox and 360 guy. I bounced hard from the system after the initial announcement as did virtually all of my console friends.

First impressions? Not great. Pretty good. The out of the box experience compared to my PS4 Pro from a few months ago was lacking.

First and foremost, the controller feels really cheap compared to my dual shocks (or even my 360 controllers.) The thumsticks feel like they are too tall. All of the buttons are small and I feel like if I press too hard I will break the switch or springb underneath. The triggers feel really good though, and I think I may prefer them slightly above the dual shock.

The UI is a cluttered mess and it’s not easy to navigate. I feel like I all I saw on the dashboard was nothing but advertisements initially.

Once I figured out how to pin apps, it was much easier to get where I needed to go.

Other than that, I am interested to see how games play and such.

Controller question: if you hook up a controller via USB, does it communicate by cable or wirelessly? Does that behavior change with any of the three different official controller models?

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Controller question: if you hook up a controller via USB, does it communicate by cable or wirelessly? Does that behavior change with any of the three different official controller models?

They switch to USB. Many games will produce a controller disconnect message when you plug-in the charging cable. This is different from the 360 controllers that were wireless 100% of the time (except I think one of the late life-cycle revisions that would switch to USB, think it was the one with the transforming D-pad).

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Controller question: if you hook up a controller via USB, does it communicate by cable or wirelessly? Does that behavior change with any of the three different official controller models?

I'm pretty sure this has been a feature since day 1 (all controllers). I thought I remember them marketing it to those that want the least input lag possible.

https://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-...

Thanks!

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Controller question: if you hook up a controller via USB, does it communicate by cable or wirelessly? Does that behavior change with any of the three different official controller models?

Definitely via USB because I have issues with wireless disconnects in my house. I play plugged in almost all the time because of that.

Anyone with a kinect adapter for a Xbox one S they are willing to part with? I was able to get a kinect for cheap but learned I need an adapter so my little ones can chop fruit.

Igneus wrote:

Anyone with a kinect adapter for a Xbox one S they are willing to part with? I was able to get a kinect for cheap but learned I need an adapter so my little ones can chop fruit.

Let me check. My Kinect died, but I think I still have the adapter around here.

Failing that. I got used from Gamestop, and they had it in stock. You can check online and see what stores in your area might have it.

Microsoft has officially discontinued them (and actually stopped producing them a while back) so they are starting to get harder to find.

Igneus wrote:

Anyone with a kinect adapter for a Xbox one S they are willing to part with? I was able to get a kinect for cheap but learned I need an adapter so my little ones can chop fruit.

The cheapest I've found is the MSRP through Best Buy on eBay.

Rykin wrote:

Microsoft has officially discontinued them (and actually stopped producing them a while back) so they are starting to get harder to find.

Yeah. I noticed. Cheapest I can find is 100+. That's why I'm asking here. Don't want to spend that kinda money. Just thought it would be fun for my kids. They recently played a fruit ninja at a bowling alley in a type of arcade unit. Thought this would be fun.

Haven’t found it yet, but I’m still looking.

For those interested I made a Catch-All for DONTNOD's Vampyr, which has a release date of June 5th.

This isn't the right thread for this, but I just have to squee about THQ Nordic making a deal that includes acquiring Deep Silver and the Saints Row series. Maybe now we can get a proper sequel/reboot to the series!

In related news, I'm almost done with my 100% run on SR3 thanks to backwards compatibility.

THQ Nordic is a garbage developer who releases games with glitched cheevs and never fixes them.

I figured their focus on midtier development, smaller teams, and undervalued properties would make you their fan. But I should have known what was most important!

I played around with remote play last night, and I was really impressed. I didn't get to dig into gameplay much to really test it out, but what I did see was great. Head and shoulders better than PS4 remote play.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I played around with remote play last night, and I was really impressed. I didn't get to dig into gameplay much to really test it out, but what I did see was great. Head and shoulders better than PS4 remote play.

I completely forgot that this exists.

I've used the remote play from my XB1 to my gaming PC a number of times and I was generally impressed.
The only issue I ran into was it won't shutdown or disconnect correctly sometimes and I was unable to reconnect until I manually power cycled the Xbox.

I've used it many times, and it's been almost completely seamless with no issues. It's great.

Now I feel like an ass. I've been playing a few single player games in the basement, during the New England winter, freezing my butt off. Meanwhile my PC is upstairs on the second floor which is, at least, 10 degrees warmer.