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After seeing the Direct and MP reveal, what's your hype for E-Day?

Already pre-ordered for e... 2 100.00%
 
Be there day one at the games launch 0 0%
 
Waiting to see how reviews look 0 0%
 
May pick it up on sale 0 0%
 
Still not interested (booooo) 0 0%
 
Total:2
trunkswd on 13 June 2026
JRPGfan said:
trunkswd said:

I hate to say it but Compulsion makes the most sense out of all their studios to shut down. 3 games that were received poorly or just okay. I enjoyed South of Midnight, but that came out 7 years after We Happy Few. That is way too long given the scale of the game. 

Double Fine has a better track record, even if Keeper and Kiln didn't do that great. Plus the studio includes several popular older IPs like the old school LucasArts games - Grim Fandango, Day of the Tentacle, and Full Throttle - as well as Brutal Legend and Psychonauts. They are capable of developing games faster than Compulsion. Other than the potential cost to pay for all the metal music and for Jack Black a Brutal Legend 2 or remaster/remake could do well enough. 

I also see Double Fine being made independent like with Toys for Bob rather than being shut down. 

As far as Game Pass. I can see them spending less on third-party games to help lower costs, while keeping first-party day one games. As well as removing Fortnite Crew, EA Play, and Ubisoft Classics and making those add-ons. Unless they go the full add-on route.

Game Pass Basic - $10/month

  • 50+ games for console and PC
  • Unlimited cloud gaming
  • Benefits for games like League of Legends and Call of Duty: Warzone
  • Online console multiplayer (Will become free with Helix)
  • Earn Rewards points

Game Pass - $15/month - Replaces Premium and PC tiers - Includes everything in Basic plus the following

  • 300+ games for console and PC
  • Unlimited cloud gaming with shorter wait times
  • Benefits for games like League of Legends and Call of Duty: Warzone
  • Online console multiplayer (Will become free with Helix)
  • Earn 2x Rewards points

Add-ons (Current price if purchased separately)

  • Day one games - $5/month
  • Fortnite Crew - $6/month (Separately is $12/month)
  • EA Play - $3/month (Separately is $6/month)
  • Ubisoft Classics - $4/month (Separately is $8/month)
  • World of Warcraft - $10/month (Separately is $15/month)
  • Riot Games benefits - $4/month - You get bonus exp for Battle Passes and access to all characters

Game Pass Ultimate - $23/month - This becomes a discounted bundle - Includes the day one games, Fortnite Crew, EA Play, Ubisoft+ Classics, and Riot Games Benefits (which is what it currently includes).

Prices are just what I think is reasonable with the tiers being their current prices.

I would actually love a new Grim Fandango game.
That hits right in the nostalgia..... like how many decent budget 3D Aventure games (point-and-click) are made these days?
With big IP names behind them, and nostalgia to play on?

Also they should drop the Moba thingy and just focus on Humor and Platforming, i.e. more Psychonauts.
I kinda agree, if someone can rain in Tim schafer, double fine would be better off I think.
Very creative team, but could probably do with more harsh leadership going "this is the way! we're heading this direction"


The only thing I kinda disagree with is gamepass ultimate.... I don't think you should be giving your 1st party games away day1 in gamepass at all.
You have to get your console base back to buying your 1st party.

Not many decently budgeted adventure point-and-click style games made nowadays. I see something more action based like Brutal Legend. The moba/RTS elements were definitely the weakest part of the game. It was fun enough to just cruise around the world and fight bad guys. 

Most people are subbed to Game Pass for the day one games. That is why I am subbed. They could spend less on third-party games and only have first-party day one games to help save some of the money spent on the service. At the current price you are spending $276/year, which is the price of four $70 games.



VGChartz Sales Analyst and Writer - William D'Angelo - I stream on Twitch and have my own YouTube channel discussing gaming sales and news, as well as posting random gaming content. Follow me on Bluesky.

I post and adjust the VGChartz hardware estimates, with help from Machina.

Writer of the Sales Comparison | Monthly Hardware Breakdown | Monthly Sales Analysis | Marketshare Features, as well as daily news on the Video Game Industry.

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VersusEvil on 13 June 2026

How about

Game Pass Cloud - £3.99
>Trail play every game for 1hr each
>Unlimited cloud hours
>Multiplayer
>Ads

Game Pass Basic - £5.99
>25 revolving games changing every 3 months
>First party games 1yr later
>Multiplayer
>Ads

Game Pass Premium - £12.99
>100 Games (yes remove the rest)
>First party games 6 months later
>Multiplayer
>No ads



Ride The Chariot | ‘26 Completed

JRPGfan on 13 June 2026
VersusEvil said:

How about

Game Pass Cloud - £3.99
>Trail play every game for 1hr each
>Unlimited cloud hours
>Multiplayer
>Ads

Game Pass Basic - £5.99
>25 revolving games changing every 3 months
>First party games 1yr later
>Multiplayer
>Ads

Game Pass Premium - £12.99
>100 Games (yes remove the rest)
>First party games 6 months later
>Multiplayer
>No ads


What do you think the cost of say renting out a high end pc, to stream over the internet, a game to you is?
Let's say you have a person on a server, playing a game streamed over the cloud.

What is the cost in terms of Electricity, maintenance, upkeep, replacement/services of devices, oversight (someone paid to do so) ?

Do you think Microsoft or Xbox, can make ANY money, giving you that for  £3.99 pr month ?

They would likely lose money alone, on the electricity and internet costs of doing so.

Why do people act like cloud gaming is free for the people that provide the service.
It is not.

Random dude that plays like 40hours of gameplay a month, ...... they cannot support giving him cloud game streaming for £3.99,
without wanting to throw away money.

Look at geforce now.
10$ a month, for 6hours of gaming (in a row) then auto kicked.... and a cap of at most 100hours pr month.
You get upto 1440p and 60fps.

And that is likely breakeven or losing abit of money for Nvidia.
And that is JUST for the steam, no games given away, you have to buy games you stream via geforce now.

What makes you think Xbox can do better? while offering free games ontop of that? In the UK with their insane electricity prices.

Last edited by JRPGfan - on 13 June 2026

Zippy6 on 13 June 2026

"We've invested a lot. No one can accuse Microsoft of not having invested for the last 25 years. And now we have to turn this into a sustainable business that delivers what is fundamentally one of the best sources of entertainment. The challenge we have is that we've not been monetizing that entertainment. If anything, we've been subsidizing that entertainment." - Satya Nadella

"Subsidising entertainment". I wonder if that's a comment on gamepass giving away far too much value for too little return.

https://wccftech.com/satya-nadella-xbox-sustainable-business/



chakkra on 13 June 2026
JRPGfan said:
VersusEvil said:

Maybe it’s time to scrap Game Pass.

5 years ago.

"Gamepass is the greatest value for money I've ever seen in my life."

Today:

"We will end this fiscal year at about a 3% accountability margin, down year-over-year. Excluding Activision Blizzard King, over the past five years, we have spent over $20 billion on ongoing investments in our content, platform,..."



Yeah I 100% believe that changes will come to gamepass.
Day1 releases on gamepass is too costly, for AAA games.

I can also imagine that the PC side, of gamepass will see subscriptions match the xbox console prices. 
Like why would the PC one just be cheaper? 


I don't think they will scrap it.... but maybe Day1 goes away.

Remember all the threads about how Sustainable gamepass model was back in the day?

I think Yoshida even came out and stated something like :
"this isn't sustainable for its price, we looked into this, and if we did something similar it would need to be priced much higher".
(not a direct quote, I'm going by memory here, just the essence of what he said)

I highly doubt that the 20 million of customers who left Xbox this gen did it because Gamepass was too good for them. Heck, I'm inclined to think that GP is the only thing that stopped even more people from migrating.

And it was this whole "we need money fast" mentality that led them to increase the price of GP and to put their games on competing platforms in the first place, causing the mass exodus.

And yes, their numbers are bad because now they have 20 million ex-customers who are expending their money elsewhere. So now they have to try to convince those customers to comeback. And no, offering them less value for their money is not the way to do it.

I think the only way Helix has any chance of sucess (or even survival) is if they treat these next two years as total investments, and completely forget about any type of profits at all.



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JRPGfan on 14 June 2026
chakkra said:
JRPGfan said:

5 years ago.

"Gamepass is the greatest value for money I've ever seen in my life."

Today:

"We will end this fiscal year at about a 3% accountability margin, down year-over-year. Excluding Activision Blizzard King, over the past five years, we have spent over $20 billion on ongoing investments in our content, platform,..."



Yeah I 100% believe that changes will come to gamepass.
Day1 releases on gamepass is too costly, for AAA games.

I can also imagine that the PC side, of gamepass will see subscriptions match the xbox console prices. 
Like why would the PC one just be cheaper? 


I don't think they will scrap it.... but maybe Day1 goes away.

Remember all the threads about how Sustainable gamepass model was back in the day?

I think Yoshida even came out and stated something like :
"this isn't sustainable for its price, we looked into this, and if we did something similar it would need to be priced much higher".
(not a direct quote, I'm going by memory here, just the essence of what he said)

I highly doubt that the 20 million of customers who left Xbox this gen did it because Gamepass was too good for them. Heck, I'm inclined to think that GP is the only thing that stopped even more people from migrating.

And it was this whole "we need money fast" mentality that led them to increase the price of GP and to put their games on competing platforms in the first place, causing the mass exodus.

And yes, their numbers are bad because now they have 20 million ex-customers who are expending their money elsewhere. So now they have to try to convince those customers to comeback. And no, offering them less value for their money is not the way to do it.

I think the only way Helix has any chance of sucess (or even survival) is if they treat these next two years as total investments, and completely forget about any type of profits at all.

"And yes, their numbers are bad because now they have 20 million ex-customers who are expending their money elsewhere. So now they have to try to convince those customers to comeback. And no, offering them less value for their money is not the way to do it."

^
Losing money isn't a viable option anymore.  Asha Sharma, isn't happy with less than 3% profitability at xbox.
They have to raise prices in some form, to get revenue up.

My point was, that GP was "too good a value" for along time, for the effect it had on xbox's revenue.
They have to change what is offered by GP or the price of it..... its costing them too much not too.
 Phil realized the real cost of things, and did a big price hike (as a quick and dirty solution).
However people arn't willing to pay that much.   The only other option then, is to start removing stuff, and offering less in gp. in future.



"I think the only way Helix has any chance of sucess (or even survival) is if they treat these next two years as total investments, and completely forget about any type of profits at all."

^
They tried that.... for the last 5 years, they spent more than $20 billion and viewed it as "investment" into growing xbox user base.
They have nothing to show for it. That money was just lit on fire.  They cannot keep doing that, spending more on what gamepass costs them, than it returns. It is sinking xbox profit margins.  That was what the whole memo Asha Sharma did, was about. Something has to change, her words.

And that was after spending $76 bn on ABK as well. 
(You spend almost $100bn in total, the last 5years, you want to see "line go up", it keeps investors happy)

Last edited by JRPGfan - on 14 June 2026

coolbeans on 14 June 2026

It's that time again XBOX Imperials! I'm going to run another informal comment contest for my latest review:

https://www.vgchartz.com/article/468204/call-of-the-elder-gods-xs/

Rules are simple: make a comment to be entered into a lotto (not counting any that have to be moderated). Max amount of lotto entries is one.

1st place: What I'm calling the "Out of the Blue Bundle": game codes for Call of the Sea, American Arcadia, & Call of the Elder Gods. Though the former two are also available on 8th-gen consoles, Elder Gods appears to be only PC, PS5, Xbox Series, & Nintendo Switch 2. If unable to acquire legit game codes, then I'll compensate their accumulative retail value with a gift card.

2nd place: 1 year of VGChartz Bronze (or the next higher tier should you already have that)

Deadline to enter will be 6/16/26 @ 11:59 EST



July 2026 Articles:

Battlefield Hardline (XOne) Review -- 5/10 | North (XOne) Review -- 2/10 |

G2ThaUNiT on 15 June 2026


You called down the thunder, now reap the whirlwind

VersusEvil on 15 June 2026

Klarna is a scam fyi.



Ride The Chariot | ‘26 Completed

G2ThaUNiT on 15 June 2026

Looks like Compulsion and Turn 10 are most likely the studios that will get shutdown.

Compulsion was an odd choice for purchase and unexpected that they took 7 years to make a AA game, but SoM still had so many great moments. The music and art style sticking out the most.

Turn 10 though......they've been there since the launch of Xbox. Built the ForzaTech engine and properly supported FH and Fable.



You called down the thunder, now reap the whirlwind