Yeah, mine was like that for the past week or so. Now it's only letting me search a few times for points and then I have to wait awhile (I assume the 15 minutes) before I get points again. 

How do you feel guys with Series Sales ?

I've been an Xbox 360 gamer since the beginning, and this console was part of my childhood and adolescence. I have a special attachment to the brand with the green X.

But when I see that the Series isn't doing as well as the One, even though I think they're much better machines, as well as the 35% drop in sales in the EU when Starfield was released, I'm afraid of one thing.

That Microsoft will go full PC and abandon consoles for good. I'm starting to get used to them between Kinect, Azure Kinect, Windows Phones, it's a lot.
Obviously, if that happens, it'll be time for me to build myself a war PC so I can continue to enjoy gamepass, but that would be a big turning point...

I hope I'm being pessimistic.

What is your feeling about it?

Surely you mean "full multiplatform" which I also don't believe they will do, full PC doesn't really make sense because they already are full PC, dropping consoles would only result in losing billions in revenue, profits and millions of Game Pass subscribers. The Kinect was just a peripheral so isn't really a fair comparison and Windows Phone didn't have 22 years of brand recognition built up and was in a way way worse position versus its competitors than Xbox is versus PlayStation and Nintendo. Even that being said, Satya is on record as saying he regrets killing Windows Phone so if he regrets that then he would surely regret killing Xbox hardware. Windows Phone wasn't nowhere near Android/iOS or Samsung/Apple.

Anyway, Xbox fans should accept that this generation is awash for Xbox hardware, the Xbox brand took a massive hit during the Xbox One era which they're still recovering from, their mindshare took a huge hit, when people or parents think nowadays what console should they get, it's a choice between PS or Switch among the casual market, Xbox still has its enthusiast market but the casual market who only buy consoles for things like COD/Fifa/Fortnite, etc, are already locked into the PlayStation ecosystem, they will buy consoles based on where their friends are playing, where their digital goods are and it's going to be extremely hard to punch through that mindset again.

Part of breaking through this would require likely an entire generation of high quality exclusive releases (hurt a little by the fact that they do PC day one but there's still a big enough console ease of access market) but it's not going to be like "oh we had a year of great releases, we're saved!" as Phil said, one game alone won't turn around their fortunes, they'll need dozens of them, an entire generation of good exclusives, to start to improve their mindset again amongst the casual audience but they'll also need multiple exclusives which have mass market appeal. I don't believe good exclusives are the main reason people buy consoles but it'll help to improve Xbox's mindshare along with better marketing and localisation.

Anyway, I let Xbox worry about the hardware business, there is nothing I can do or say which can change things, so I'm relatively "meh" about it, as long as they continue to sell enough and the business is profitable (which it is) I believe they will stick with hardware, it's not a main focus but it is a cornerstone of the overall business which now has multiple avenues to make money, the console is a sure bet in making money, not via the hardware itself but selling subscriptions, locking people into a digital ecosystem, digital transactions, etc. So to remove it would be a big risk, I think as long as there is a big enough console audience (tens of millions) which provide a large enough combination of MAU + Subscriptions + Digital Transactions, the console will remain.

In the meantime, I'm very much enjoying the things that actually affect me right now which are the games and as a result of their massive reinvestment into games, I will be a happy gamer for a number of years, if a day comes where Xbox hardware does cease to exist (which I don't think is happening anytime soon, we have at least one more generation) then I will swap to PC but there ain't nobody aside from the most hardcore using Windows Store over Steam right now, Lol. I'd probably only use Windows Store to keep my Xbox profile, all those achievements, etc.

I'd argue that the fact that COD is still #2 even as an expansion sold as a full priced game and the worst rated COD in history says more about how reviews don't affect COD, Lmao. I'm thinking COD fans just aren't stupid and know this was a DLC released as a full game so the price doesn't match the product and will be more inclined to wait for a price drop.

It's a big achievement for Hogwarts Legacy though, only Red Dead Redemption and GTA have managed to knock COD from #1 over the past 10-15 years? But having said that, it did release in February and the Harry Potter IP is still huge which has a very enthusiast audience, along with a casual market that knows it well, gamers have been clamouring for an AAA Harry Potter for the past 10+ years as well.

It's going to be close I reckon, COD will still have big sales in December, how is HL selling on Switch? Could tip it over COD.

Next COD is going to be massive as well, Treyarch + Gulf War + Black Ops + Zombies + Longest Dev Time.

It probably worked out for the better for Microsoft that this years COD is the one that Sony lost marketing on, if they had marketing for COD 2024 then that would sting, Lol. It will likely be the biggest boost to Game Pass ever by a significant margin, one which won't be topped until maybe ES6 (and even then I doubt it will be topped by ES6).

Then GTA will beat COD in 2026 (I know it's scheduled for 2025 but I'm about 90% sure it will be delayed, Lol).

I still think Zombies should be a standalone project though, like Warzone, a singular release which is supported for years with content, it might ease development up a little so that mainline CODs can just focus on Campaign + Multiplayer. It might hurt the sales of Treyarch CODs but it will be offset anyway by the people instead opting to play Zombies Standalone and the money they make from that.

Like I'm sure COD MP has been hurt by Warzone a little bit but it's not been noticeable and both are still pulling in millions.

I might even play a standalone Zombies...Hmm.

Sales are about as good as they’re ever gonna get, which would make Series the second worst selling Xbox ever, if it wasn’t for the Series S then it would be the worst selling Xbox ever and I fully expect it to get worse long before the end of the generation. But nothing me or you do will change that so until games start skipping the system entirely (and not the shit Sony moneyhats) why worry? This will likely be the last generation of tradition hardware from Xbox so I’ll just enjoy their first party output this gen and find a different place to play games next gen. 

Sorry, I disagree. With the thread I mean. Every job worth doing is hard. And we all use products we have no idea how they came to be. That is true for cars, refrigerators, computers? Do you or I know how they are made, how much work got into them? No. But I know enough that there was considerable work poured into these products, and also they worked as a team (what he talks about as well).

Yet, if in the car the drivers seat door is stuck and you have to climb over other seats to get behind the wheel you complain. If your car only works in the city you are living in and if you want to drive to the city your parents live in you need an extra paid licence for that other city you complain. And rightfully so. Similarly I think it is fine to complain about egregious bugs or predatory tactics in games.

In reality I am of the opinion that Starfield isn't that bad actually. Not great either, but not bad as well. It has no more bugs we are used from other Bethesda games and we celebrate Skyrim. I applaud the team that they have abstained from predatory tactics like loot boxes and stuff like that. People complain mostly, because they had high expectations, mostly fired up by Todd Howard claiming how exceptional the game will be. The game is fine, but sorry to say: not exceptional. But a company like Bethesda has no business in releasing Fallout 76 in the shape it was at launch. Harsh complaints are justified for that.

I want to add, in real life I am far more lenient on small businesses that are basically three guys in a garage. Similarly I don't complain as much about indies from small teams. On the contrary I am often amazed how much they can do with the little resources they had to work with. But he didn't take team size into consideration in his thread.

I also wished he might have spoken about games as art. Starfields director has made certain decisions about where to put resources. These might be not as appealing as the decisions in other games, but still I can respect them as artistic decisions. But he didn't spoke about art as well, probably as he and most of his coworkers don't do much of the artistic decisions, that is up to the games director and art directors.

Overall I disagree with the thread. It is fine to criticize a game like Starfield and even more a game like Fallout 76, because Bethesda had a lot of resources available. That might be similarly true for Baldur's Gate, Spiderman, Hogwarts Legacy and Zelda this year. But Remedy has far less resources than the others named, so they have to be lauded for their success with Alan Wake II. Hell, you can look at HiFi-Rush, what it accomplished with much, much less resources. And in comparison criticism towards Bethesda is justified. They didn't lack the resources, the work the thread talks about. They lack something else. So maybe people like this guy Emil should take criticism about the game they worked at not as criticism about the work of the simple devs executing the directors orders, but about the direction and application of available resources.

Nintendo came out of the Gamecube era with the Wii, and out of the WiiU gen with the Switch. Playstation reacted to Vita by dropping handheld consoles.

So yeah, there are two ways to react to a weak generation: double down on your product and improve until it appeals to the mass market or give up.

Which way will MS go? I don't really know, but I guess MS isn't ready yet to give up on the console side of things, because it itself may run weak, but as part of their bigger gaming strategy I see it having it's place.

The game looks very pretty but man the combat still is leaving me with the same vibe as the first game.  I feel that once the graphics wow leaves me, I will probably lose interest like I did with the first game.  But who knows, maybe they can share their tech with MS other studios to bring the wow factor into their games which is missing compared to their competition.