While I can't speak from a gameplay perspective, I can say - as a massive fan of every Bethesda  Game Studios RPG since Oblivion - that if you are looking for deep story or anything resembling such you are looking in the complete wrong place.  Every one of their main stories is plot centered in every respect with usually only a handful of OK characters to give it some color.  Skyrim was a step up but only in that it was more woven into the world.  It was still purely plot centered.  If you are looking for deep themes or elaborate characters and intertwining intrigues...well I almost guarantee you will get very little if any of that from Fallout 4.  And that's coming from someone who will get the game on PC and invest hundreds of hours into it.

I still have to finish Xenoblade Chronicles on my WiiU and Risen 2 + 3 on PC (big fan of Piranha Bytes since Gothic 1) and a lot of RPGs on my Vita.

I'll probably buy Dragon Age: Inquisition GOTY next, followed by Persona 5 and The Witcher 3: Enhanced Edition. Fallout 4 (GOTY-Edition) and Xenoblade Chronicles X will have to wait until 2017. ;)

Too many games, too little time.

both ofc.
fallout on pc is also a dead given

Xenoblade will have a better fan meta, while Fallout 4 will have a better critic meta.

Xenoblade X, the only true Game of thr Year.

In terms of open world and technical quality, ToZ is not even close to the same ballpark. I say this as someone who tends to buy all tales games and i have gotten the PS4 version of ToZ. Tales is not an AAA RPG. I wish it was.

I'll be getting Fallout 4, I don't have a Wii U. I liked Fallout 3, but it had quite a few significant flaws, New Vegas was a lot better and I'm hoping Fallout 4 will be in the vein as that. I'm also hoping you can disable or leave companions completely behind as I hate having them along in FPS games.

I think Fallout 4 will be either mind-blowing or a slight disappointment, there is only a very tiny chance that it won't be good. Hoping for mind-blowing! Loving the customization bits and base building so far.

I'm with JNK on this. Some posters are quick to jump to the victimisation. Sales to all audience vs the opinion or sales range of a group of hardcore gamers will be vastly different. Wether its within the same genre or not. I really dislike people making labels and trying to make of this another us vs them console war thread. Shock, but people may have played the predecessors and really enjoyed them wich makes this sample from a hardcore group of gamers very understandable. what would be weird is that because Xeno is a Nintendo game hardcore gamers would be showing their bias and say: i don't even play Nintendo games because its not on my console of choice and i will ignore gaming quality.

I dont know what goes over some people's head to think that there is a "right" opinion and that is to side with the majority, wich creates conflicts when they see something like this. Yes, Fallout 4 will sell more, but in this hardcore gamer community, Xenoblade X will sell more. That is not strange to me.

What this poll reveals is a big maturity on these forums. Quite honestly bigger than i thought. Not beeing swayed by the perceived majority and forming your own opinion regardless of what the majority thinks is the sign of maturity and mental independence. I applaud the honesty that this poll shows.

Quite honestly i though the "both" option was gonna win. I am pretty surprised.

Genuinely surprised to see XCX has more votes by a large margin given that FO4 has far more hype in general.

Anyway, I'm getting XCX at launch. FO4 I'll probably get for PC eventually, but knowing what Bethesda are like I'm not touching that game for at least six months. I'll look at it once the inevitable GOTY version comes out. You know, the one that'll have all the bug fixes they should have just put in the game in the first place.

I enjoyed both xenoblade chronicles and fallout 3.

That said, other than better ui design I'm not convinced gameplay has significantly improved in any Bethesda game since morrowind, and from what I've read XCX plays much like XC, so i don't see why people are hyped as if either are the next new thing in gaming. They'll be more of the same with a sprinkling of new ideas and hopefully some incremental improvements.

I did get bored of fallout 3 far sooner than i did with xenoblades during both my plays of it. Both have there share of silly subquests and dialogue. I liked the main characters and plot more in xenoblade. Both have great world creation. Both have their bad points and strengths.

I do wonder why hype is so through the roof with fallout 4, but I always wonder that about the elder scroll games.