Eh, at this point I don't care about anything the FTC is doing. I'm just on the lookout for information from the CMA and EC (it looks like we'll hear something from both of the in January so not long of a wait).

Offtopic: Guys ever felt too much of a gamer, that almost everybody attaches to your style as well? My style is getting liked in uncontrollable way. Games like Valkyrie Profile, Persona, Game X Y and Z etc attached so much that those games I prefer their prices sky rocket while games like Gears of War 5 and God of War are costing 20$ While My JRPG I actually have go premium price.

Why are my preference so expensive while Returnal on PS5 is 30$

Noone should of known about Bulk Slash and D2

MS didn't pay proper tithings to Dark Brandon.  

IT WAS SANTA

Also them SE games I'm probs like Number 7, 8, and 14 who have bought on Xbox.

Speaking of SE...
Just Cause 3... what a frustrating game holy shit. Destruction and traversal and touch notch, especially destruction way ahead of its time. Mission design is terrible and just unfun at times. Escort missions, protecting complete dent heads. Abandon Ship mission can go fuck itself (like SE).

Did get JC 4 for blacked friday so I guess I will play that soon while the mechanics are somewhat fresh.

Not looking too much to Contraband anymore sadly, but I loved Mad Max. Very conflicted.

I will say PS5 wrecks Xbox when it comes to capturing. It's so seamless and fluid. I also love that they record every trophy you get like the 15 seconds leading up and the trophy itself with a nice video banner. 

Trophies also pop instantly... 

Sucks that MS has given up on cheevo fixing and doing very little with their share button. 

Yeah, the FTC case is pretty much unwinnable for them according to multiple legal experts, FTC is fighting a major uphill battle here to actually win. All they are doing is gumming up the works and delaying things. The CMA and EC are the 2 that this acquisition actually hinges on, if both approve the acquisition, with or without additional remedies from Microsoft, the others will fall in line most likely, including the FTC very likely dropping their case. 

I would assume it was the Mad Max/Rage 2 team at Avalanche that is making Contraband. Leaks point to the Just Cause team currently making Just Cause 5 for Square Enix, and Avalanche only has 2 teams at their main studio afaik. So if you liked Mad Max (I did too), there is definite reason to be hopeful Contraband will be good. We just have to hope it turns out more like Mad Max and less like Rage 2, as that team developed both games, and Rage 2 was a bit of a dud compared to the original Rage developed by id Software.

On a related note, that other Heist game that was announced at The Game Awards looks good too, Crime Boss: Rockay City. Great cast including Michael Madsen, Chuck Norris, Danny Glover, Danny Trejo, and Vanilla Ice. It is the debut game of the large AA Czech Studio that is developing it (90+ developers currently), so it's a bit of a wildcard, but has definite potential imo. Xbox may want to look into a day one Gamepass deal on it if it doesn't release too close to Contraband itself. 

Another day, another Japanese game skipping Xbox. This time it is the new Fate/ game, Fate/Samurai Remnant, a musou game developed by Koei Tecmo's Omega Force. We were getting most of the the last several multiplat Omega Force games, namely Dynasty Warriors 9, Samurai Warriors 5, Warriors Orochi 4, One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4, Dragon Quest Builders 2, Attack on Titan 2, and the upcoming Wild Heart (published by EA), with the only multiplat Omega Force game to skip Xbox in the last 4 years being Persona 5 Strikers (the other 3 that skipped Xbox were all Switch console exclusives, Hyrule Warriors 2, Fire Emblem Warriors 2, and Touken Ranbu Warriors).

This could be a bad sign that Koei Tecmo is unhappy with recent Omega Force game performance on Xbox and may be skipping Xbox again moving forward, like they did in much of the early Xbox One lifecycle. I do feel like Phil took them a bit for granted, he has had years now to get more of the Omega Force games that are already on Xbox into Gamepass and I think the only one he paid to get into Gamepass was One Piece Pirate Warriors 4 in 2021.

Edit: Then again, Type-Moon are the one's publishing it, not Koei Tecmo themselves, could be that Type-Moon was unhappy with the sales of Melty Blood: Type Lumina on Xbox.

Either way you look at it though, goes to show Xbox still has a long way to go repairing their position in Japan.

The backwards compatibility is broken on that game if you play it on Series X. Instead of using the Xbox One X settings with 4k support, you only get the regular Xbox One version.