Xbox Series S/X: Thread 04

[hudson]

Is co-op ready yet?

[nonny]

Is co-op ready yet?

Haha of course not! They've already said Season 2 won't launch with either Forge or Co-op but I've a feeling Forge will arrive somewhere in the S2 timeline and co-op will probably be at the end of S2 or merged into S3.

I'm more interested in Forge to be honest as it looks to be very detailed and I'm hoping the community does what 343 can't, get lots of classic maps out...

[Cassius_Smoke]

And this is why MCC is doing so much better. Halo Infinite is basically trying to compete with another Halo game. One that's fully cooked, has an established player base and a big PC mod scene.
Infinite is so far behind I don't think it'll ever catch up.

[dataDave]

Halo Finite, really.

[Neon Ignition]

My backlog of free Game Pass Ultimate month codes finally ran out the other day. I've been using them up since just before the Series X arrived three and a half months ago and I'd burnt out all my points getting the LE Anniversary Series X controller.

In the three and a half months since I work out that I've built back 8 months of free GPU using the rewards programme. If I were to use the points for store credit instead I'd be looking at being around a fortnight now away from reaching £75 in credit built up. However, my Ultimate sub had expired and a chunk of the reward points is dependent on access so it was time to cash the points in again.

However, the rough math works out as £100-£125 in store credit per 12 months. So... mathematically I took the cheaper route and picked up 3 years of Gold for just under £120 then did the £1 trick to upgrade to Ultimate. In the time the 3 years sub expires I would theoretically build up around a total of around £400 in store credit via rewards points making a massive saving or more likely pretty much getting Series X2 for free.

In short - I blame Nonny for all this

[nonny]

Good innit... I seriously do not know why Sony doesn't do something similar with the new tiered plans for PS+ ... The amount of foot traffic rewards must generate that just helps MS cross promote game pass stuff (and other businesses) is crazy.

They're giving money away and yet I'd argue it's just an amazingly clever loss leader to underpin everything else.

[Neon Ignition]

It's endlessly amazing how much you can claim back from MS. With Sony I increasingly expect the worst option, in just 12 months I've found my perception of the company has changed quite heavily, they really seem to have started down a road back toward their heady 'get a second job' PS2/PS3 transition days when it all went belly up due to ego with them.

[nonny]

It's endlessly amazing how much you can claim back from MS. With Sony I increasingly expect the worst option, in just 12 months I've found my perception of the company has changed quite heavily, they really seem to have started down a road back toward their heady 'get a second job' PS2/PS3 transition days when it all went belly up due to ego with them.

This is basically why Xbox is my main platform and has been since the 360.

I decided to stick with the Xbox One because at the time I was reviewing games and getting digital codes from MS. That made me also decide to go full digital from that point onwards.

Now with game pass & rewards it's simply the most cost effective platform to be digital on. You obviously get cloud saves, cloud streaming and PC included if you're on game pass ultimate, but equally you can use rewards and the discounts to prop up what you spend in the ecosystem, whether that's just extending your membership, buying games or hardware.

I love my PS5 and Switch but I really do feel like they're missing a trick here to support and hold onto consumers in their respective ecosystems. At least on switch the pricing is lower overall and you do earn those eShop coins to get small discounts.

Sony though should have gone all in on Sony Music/Movies cross rewards etc... They are diverse enough that they could do it their own way.

[Neon Ignition]

That's it, I was all in on PS4. The painful schedule for XBO meant I was less invested in it and once I got a PC it removed the need for the hardware at all. I expected the same this gen but PC GP is still lacking, the rewards system works brilliantly and with PS5 Sony have really funnelled me in the direction of notable exclusives only so it gets a lot less playtime than PS4 did. I still like it, when a major title lands it's the kind of stuff MS still isn't close to getting out the gate, but there's less incentive and stuff like the GT7 debacle etc isn't helping either.

[nonny]

Agree MS needs to increase the cadence of exclusive releases but thankfully that is precisely their plan... whether they manage to execute it or not.

It's fairly sparse for big releases across all consoles to be fair. Sony did of course get the double whammy of GT7 and HFW out which is great but I do feel there's a general impact actor all development right now.

I don't think either of these new platforms are really going to hit their stride until next year at this rate.

[teddymeow]

Right then.

My GPU sub expires next month. I have 50,000 Reward Points.

Am I better buying 3 years of Gold and converting that (at, I believe, a one-off £10.99 as I've previously done the £1 trick) or should I use my points and hope I manage to continue earning the 12,000 a month for the month of GPU?

[nonny]

Right then.

My GPU sub expires next month. I have 50,000 Reward Points.

Am I better buying 3 years of Gold and converting that (at, I believe, a one-off £10.99 as I've previously done the £1 trick) or should I use my points and hope I manage to continue earning the 12,000 a month for the month of GPU?

Not 100% sure which methods still exist but I am fairly sure if you let it expire and grab 3 years of gold that still works.

If you just extend using rewards points it's not really as cost effective but then it's obviously not using real money.

I just used cdkeys recently to buy 2x 3 months at £19.99 each but I also grabbed another 9 months worth using rewards so I'm good till mid 2024.

[wheelaa]

If you want to use MS reward points, it is cheaper, as long as your GPU sub is still active, to buy a 3 month Live Gold sub for 15000 points, which will convert to 50 days of GPU. That works out at 300 points per day for GPU, whereas buying the 12000 points one month GPU reward is 400 points per day for GPU.

https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/live/gold/upgrade

[nonny]

If you want to use MS reward points, it is cheaper, as long as your GPU sub is still active, to buy a 3 month Live Gold sub for 15000 points, which will convert to 50 days of GPU. That works out at 300 points per day for GPU, whereas buying the 12000 points one month GPU reward is 400 points per day for GPU.

https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/live/gold/upgrade

Word of warning on this one. I tried to do this twice in quick succession on the 3 month options. It worked on the first one, but the second one I only got one month in the conversion... not sure if it's a bug or that they've stopped people doing this in bulk.

[wheelaa]

How long ago was that?

I bought seven of the three month LG rewards about three weeks ago, one after the other, and my GPU sub was extended by 357 days. (For some reason I always get 51 days with this reward conversion.)

I do use each LG code as soon as it is bought, then refresh the webpage that details my MS subs to check the days have been added correctly to GPU sub, then buy the next LG reward and repeat. Takes a few seconds longer I suppose, but was still done in 5 mins.