Battlecow2

I have both a Series X and S and from my experience the Series S is a great value. Outriders was a game that struggled to play well on the S seemed to be poorly optimized in general because once I got the X it wasn't some night and day change.

I couldn't get my hands on a Series X and got tired of waiting. There happened to be a Series S at a local GameStop so I picked one up with the thought of getting a Series X later. After having some initial buyers remorse that I didn't get the best option I have no issues so far. As long as the games play OK I might not need to upgrade but who knows.

I don't mean for this to come off as a “hot take” but I think the lack of character mascot actually really helps the Xbox brand transition into Game Pass as a service.

What Sony has done with their characters has always felt like a pale imitation of Nintendo's strategy. Don't get me wrong I enjoy the Astro Bot games and how they have used it to pay homage to their history, but looking back at some of their old ads and some of the games they made ( I'm looking at you Playstation All-Stars) comes off like they are chasing the dragon.

Xbox on the other hand by not having those character mascots is free to position itself as more of a neutral party and can appeal to whatever brand and marketing efforts they are making at that time. Xbox is able to integrate itself into windows and get to be a tool for playing games as they continue going down the Game Pass route I think it only strengthens the need to be less of a brand and more of a service. In much the same way that Netflix is the de-facto idea of a streaming platform I could see Game Pass over take over the Xbox brand and just get that mindshare as the de facto games as a service term.

There is no doubt Xbox, Sony and Nintendo have been successful at defining and selling the idea of a console in the past but I only see one of these 3 making a big effort into creating the next step and I am really curious to see where it goes from here

For me Destiny and Destiny 2 were big disappointments not only as a next-gen experiences.

It was never advertised as such but I was hoping for some kind of WOW type of large-scale environments to explore with friends and have these amazing adventures that replicated people's experiences with other MMOs but we got instead was a multiplayer focused story mode with repeatable activities. I know it was my fault for expecting anything different especially since it was pretty clear looking back that wasn't what they making.

I absolutely loved MotorStorm and even though it was pretty bare-bones I just liked the setting and the vibe of the 1st game.