Microsoft is making some significant upgrades to its Xbox Cloud Gaming (xCloud) service in the next few weeks. The Xbox cloud streaming service will be moving to Xbox Series X hardware on the server side, bringing dramatic improvements to load times and frame rates. Microsoft is also moving xCloud on the web out of beta, which is good news for owners of Apple devices.
“We’re now in the final stages of internal testing, and we’ll be upgrading the experience for Ultimate members in the next few weeks,” says Kareem Choudhry, head of cloud gaming at Microsoft. “The world’s most powerful console is coming to Azure.”
The upgrade will include major improvements to xCloud, with players able to benefit from the same faster load times and improved frame rates that are available on Xbox Series X consoles. Microsoft’s xCloud service launched in September, powered by Xbox One S server blades. The load times have been one of the troubling aspects of using Xbox game streaming, and this upgrade will dramatically reduce the wait time of launching games. Players will also be able to access Xbox Series X / S optimized games.
Microsoft’s xCloud service on an iPhone.Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge
Alongside the server upgrades, Microsoft is launching Xbox Cloud Gaming through the browser for all Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members in the next few weeks. The service is currently in an invite-only beta mode, but the expansion will make it available for all Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members to access xCloud streaming on iPhones, iPads, and on any device with a compatible browser (Chrome, Edge, and Safari).
Microsoft is also expanding cloud gaming to Australia, Brazil, Mexico, and Japan later this year, and hinting at plans for new Xbox Game Pass subscriptions. “We need to innovate to bring our games and services to more people around the world, and we’re investigating how to introduce new subscription offerings for Xbox Game Pass,” says Liz Hamren, head of gaming experiences and platforms at Microsoft.
These new Xbox Game Pass subscriptions will likely include some form of access to xCloud game streaming. Microsoft currently only offers Xbox game streaming to those who subscribe to the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate tier, which is priced at $14.99 per month. It’s easy to imagine a future where Microsoft offers a separate Game Pass tier that only provides access to Xbox Cloud Gaming (xCloud).
Microsoft is also announcing plans for an Xbox TV app and its own streaming stick today, alongside the ability to access and use xCloud on Xbox consoles later this year.
(Pocket-lint) – We couldn’t have been more excited when we heard that the original Mass Effect trilogy was to be remastered for a new collection. But must admit to feeling slightly deflated when we realised the games weren’t to be remade completely.
That means, while the graphics and gameplay have undergone extensive tweaking, they haven’t been completely reimagined for modern consoles. After experiencing what’s possible with the superb Final Fantasy VII Remake, that seemed to be a backwards step to us. Initially, at least.
However, just a couple of hours into ME1, we soon realised why the development team decided on a fresh coat of paint and refinements rather than renewal. The trio just wouldn’t be the same games otherwise – unlikely to have retained the character of the originals. Warts and all.
So, in remastering the original Mass Effect games to 4K HDR, adding all downloadable content (DLC) released over the original games’ lifespans, and slathering on some clever technical glue to match it all together, we get the original trilogy at its best. All the while retaining exactly what made them special in the first place.
Plot points
Something that didn’t need refinement is the story. BioWare has always been a master at storytelling and characterisation. Go further into its past and you can see just how well Baldur’s Gate and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic hold up today – purely thanks to their narratives and clever, interwoven scripting.
The latter game was clearly a huge influence on Mass Effect (and itself heavily rumoured for a remaster). However, free from the restraints of the Star Wars lore book, the studio managed to rebottle lightning – several times.
There are many characters you encounter in the Mass Effect games, not least Shepard him or herself – who you play as throughout – but perhaps the most impressive of all is the universe that BioWare created.
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It took a blank canvas and built its own sci-fi saga, complete with new alien species, political factions, historical mythos and much more. And there’s nary a trade dispute in sight – well, not one that any of the trilogy is hinged on. It’s so complex and involving, it has inspired comic books, fan fiction, even a whole range of cosplay enthusiasts. It will also grip you from the very start.
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That’s partly thanks to the speed at which the main story thread reveals itself – which we’ll spare you because you’ve either already played the games first time around and know it already, or want to discover for yourself and therefore avoid spoilers. But it’s mainly thanks to the superb dialogue and neatly woven nature of the games across the entire run.
Many games have adopted inter-threading plots and character development over the years, but few do it quite as well as the Mass Effect series. It enables you to take your lead character – whether created from scratch or using presets – from one game to the next after each completion, literally picking up from where you left off. In addition, actions you make in each chapter have ramifications on the next.
EA / BioWare
By the time you get to Mass Effect 3 and, specifically, the ending, you could experience several key differences to someone else’s journey. It feels organic and, for us, still represents many of the studio’s finest moments.
The same is true with character development and relationships in the game. Each main non-playable character (NPC) in the game forms bonds and relationships with your lead character, depending on your conversational and practical choices. That could end in a friendly or romantic bond, or with them keeping you at arms-length. It results in you empathising with each of your in-game team members more so than in most games – role-playing games (RPGs) or otherwise.
When those NPCs are in peril or decisions on their fate are presented you are genuinely moved or troubled. It’s what made Mass Effect so superb in the first place, and continues to resonate now.
Ch-ch-changes
Of course, that can also be said of the original trilogy releases, each of which being still available through backward compatibility (on Xbox and PC, anyway). Of perhaps more interest are the numerous changes and improvements to this collection.
EA / BioWare
As with many repackaged collections of older games, all of the original DLC from Mass Effect 1, 2 and 3 are present – bar one. Pinnacle Station from ME1 is not present, as the version available to BioWare while putting together the Legendary Edition turned out to be corrupt and it couldn’t find the original files.
Still, you get over 40 DLC packs integrated into the games (where possible). That includes promo weapons and armour.
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The games are also presented with a new launcher, with all three accessible from the same screen. On PlayStation all games are installed to be played from the off, on Xbox (the version tested here), you need to download ME2 and ME3 from the launcher itself. This allows you to save disk space when you are only playing ME1.
Once you start the games, you notice a couple of changes to the options. The first Mass Effect has perhaps the biggest alterations, in that it has the options, plus character creation and models of the subsequent titles. BioWare changed a fair bit in the three years between ME1 and ME2, so the later benefits have now been adopted.
EA / BioWare
That also includes combat. The Mass Effect series combines deep, involving dialogue-based storytelling with action combat sequences. These are third-person and generally use a duck-and-cover mechanic. The first game, however, had clunky, under-realised combat that was tricky to use. We went back to the Xbox 360 original to check for ourselves and found that aiming – especially through the sniper rifle – was a twitchy affair. It has been greatly improved now, with the lessons learned for the sequels being implemented.
The look during combat – the user interface (UI)– has also been unified across the series now. However, ME1 still has some unique foibles. There’s unlimited ammo, for starters, with cooldown times for weapons instead. That was ditched later in the series. On the whole though, it has been polished into a more playable form for sure, which is great to revisit.
Another thing that helps is higher frame rate. While the graphics have been made higher-res and new lighting effects added, to suit the 4K consoles especially, enhanced frame rates make the most difference to gameplay. It differs depending on the format, but the games are now playable in up to 60 frames-per-second on consoles thanks to a ‘favour frame-rate’ option. The Xbox Series X even gets up to 120fps.
EA / BioWare
You do have a resolution drop to get the best frame rates, but it’s very much worth it. We’ve been playing the game largely across Xbox Series S and X, which run the game in backward compatibility but somewhat optimised. We favour frame-rate on the S, which gives up to 1440p and 60fps, while we switch to ‘favour quality’ mode on the X for 4K 60fps. Both run beautifully.
If you’re a PC owner with the right spec, you can even get up to 240fps and run the game in an 21:9 aspect ratio, but we haven’t been able to test that ourselves.
Graphically speaking
In terms of the new graphics themselves, there is a marked improvement, naturally, but you will still have to put up with a lot of the shonkiness of the originals.
EA / BioWare
The artificial intelligence (AI) upscaling process used for many of the texture upgrades did a fine job of creating details that were just fuzzy before, while the manual touching-up work produces excellent character models especially.
However, don’t expect a game that looks like Returnal or Miles Morales. It must be remembered that the original games were released between 2007 and 2012 and, while highly polished, they still look dated. Animations especially are janky. But they are liveable too.
Lighting has been greatly improved through, with the first Mass Effect showing the most change. Outdoor scenes are particularly impressive, with great use of lens flare and recoloured vistas that look significantly better than before. Plus, high dynamic range (HDR) has been added for further saturation and contrast boosts.
That’s not to say it’s all good. Sometimes the picture sharpening does the game a disservice. The Normandy (your space craft) can look overlaid onto a background now, whereas its blurriness helped it blend in before.
EA / BioWare
There are also the occasional annoying bugs or glitches – some old, some new. We’ve experienced some texture pop-in when a level loads, scenery clipping, or the odd character jerking about when faced with unsteady terrain. Sometimes team members just steadfastly refuse to follow you until you save and reload. But, there’s nothing that can’t be worked around or overlooked.
In all honesty, the original games had their fair share of caveats too, but we never minded at the time.
Hit the motherload
Another of the more significant improvements that you get with the Legendary Edition is loading times. Anyone who’s had to sit through the Citadel elevator loading issues of the original Mass Effect will understand just how thrilling it is to finally run the game from an SSD (on console).
We can’t comment on loading times for Xbox One or PS4 (or even PS5, as we’ve not played that copy) – although each are meant to be greatly enhanced too – but our experience of loading on both Xbox Series consoles couldn’t have been any better.
EA / BioWare
When stepping into any of the elevators on the Citadel, it is mere seconds before you reach the next area. This used to take a minute or more. In fact, all the clever tricks BioWare added to help alleviate the loading pain – such as in-elevator conversations or tannoy announcements – are now superfluous. You can still listen to them, but a skip option is also available as they are no longer needed to paper the cracks.
The same is true with loading in other areas of each of the games. Space travel, for example, is almost instant. Even the games load superfast at the beginning, once chosen on the launcher.
There are also many other smaller, often imperceptible tweaks (like an increased number of autosave points), so we could go on and on. It’s worth stressing though, that all of these have been made to improve and existing experience, not replace it. And, as life-long game fans ourselves, there is something altogether noble in that.
Verdict
We’ve played several hours of each of the three Mass Effect games in the Legendary Edition, but haven’t yet completed them this time around (we have in the past, a couple of times). However, we think we’ve seen enough to be able to give an honest opinion.
This collection is like a masterwork or remastering of one of the great music albums. It doesn’t go completely to town, or likely far enough for some, but the subject matter has been treated with the reverence it deserves. Let’s face it, you’d be hard pushed to find better scripting or storytelling out there, even in the biggest budget, most modern games. That’s where the Mass Effect trilogy’s real heart lies – and you can slather on as much polish as you like, but that’s what will draw you back.
Newcomers might initially baulk at the in-game visuals and their many caveats, but once the story grips they’ll find themselves as enamoured as we all were first time around. As for the rest of us, this is like revisiting an old friend and regaling memorable tales – all 100 plus hours of them. Wonderful.
Matthew Wilson 3 days ago Console, Featured Tech News
The new generation of gaming consoles has only just begun but as always, both console makers are already preparing for the future. This week, supply chain sources claim that Sony is already planning its PS5 refresh, which will move to a 6nm APU.
Citing supply chain sources, DigiTimes reports that Sony is already preparing a redesigned PS5, likely to be a ‘PS5 Slim’, with better power efficiency and hopefully lower hardware costs too. Currently, the PS5 uses an AMD 7nm APU produced by TSMC, but the PS5 Slim would use an updated chip based on the 6nm process, which in turn will bring power efficiency gains.
These efficiency gains enable console makers to slim down their designs, as we saw with the PS4 to the PS4 Slim, or even the Xbox One to the much smaller Xbox One S. These mid-gen slim consoles often also lower the price barrier for new customers by anywhere from $50 to $100 USD.
Don’t expect Sony to announce a PS5 Slim anytime soon though, apparently the company is targeting late 2022, so exactly two years after the initial launch of the PS5.
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KitGuru Says: What we’re talking about here is a slim model of the current PS5, not a beefed up console like the PS4 Pro or Xbox One X from last generation. Still, if it lowers prices and takes up less TV stand space, then that’s good news all around.
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A Microsoft executive has admitted that the company doesn’t earn any profit on sales of Xbox consoles alone. The admission came as part of the Epic v. Apple trial yesterday, confirming what we’ve known for years: Microsoft sells Xbox consoles at a loss. Asked how much margin Microsoft makes on Xbox consoles, the company’s head of Xbox business development, Lori Wright, said, “We don’t; we sell the consoles at a loss.”
An Epic Games lawyer asked a follow-up question: “Does Microsoft ever earn a profit on the sale of an Xbox console?” Wright replied, “No.” That doesn’t mean Xbox doesn’t make money, though. Microsoft was keen to point this out in a statement to The Verge just hours after Wright’s testimony yesterday.
“The gaming business is a profitable and high-growth business for Microsoft,” says a Microsoft spokesperson. “The console gaming business is traditionally a hardware subsidy model. Game companies sell consoles at a loss to attract new customers. Profits are generated in game sales and online service subscriptions.“
The Xbox Series S.Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
I asked Microsoft whether it never truly makes any margins on hardware alone, but the company didn’t respond in time for publication. Typically, Microsoft and Sony subsidize hardware at the beginning of a console’s lifecycle, but those early component costs tend to decrease over time. Those lower costs also translate to lower retail prices for consoles over time, though.
A teardown analysis of the Xbox One S, for example, revealed an estimated bill of materials of $324, which is $75 less than the $399 launch price for the 2TB version of the console, back in 2016. Microsoft also launched a disc-less version of the Xbox One S two years ago, which was presumably also sold at a loss.
Sony and Microsoft have similar business models for PlayStation and Xbox consoles, but Nintendo is the exception. In court documents, Microsoft estimates that hardware is generating a loss for Sony, but a profit for Nintendo. That’s backed up by Nintendo’s impressive 84.59 million Switch sales this year, up to March 31st.
Why all these costs are being discussed right now is a big part of the ongoing Epic v. Apple trial. Epic isn’t happy about Apple’s 30 percent revenue cut on in-app purchases for Fortnite, but Apple is arguing that Epic should also take issue with Microsoft or Sony’s identical 30 percent cut. It has resulted in hours of testimony about whether the iPhone is more like a PC or an Xbox, and a debate around open platforms versus locked-down ones. Microsoft clearly sees a difference between Xbox and PC, and has only cut the amount it takes on the Windows side to 12 percent, while the Xbox remains at 30 percent.
Microsoft obviously wants to maintain its business model for Xbox, and has attempted to push the industry toward digital games for years. Microsoft has very much sided with Epic Games in the case against Apple, and Epic has admitted it has never even questioned Microsoft’s digital sales cut. But how long this harmony will exist between the pair will very much depend on the future of digital game sales and cloud gaming. Microsoft is increasingly focused on its Xbox Game Pass subscription, which spans across devices that aren’t even Xbox consoles.
Game Pass also includes xCloud, Microsoft’s cloud gaming technology. Fortnite isn’t part of xCloud, because Epic Games won’t allow it. That highlights the emerging battles that are starting to take place in the game industry over shares of revenue. It looks like Microsoft has been preparing for some of them, but Epic v. Apple feels like the beginning of a greater war over the digital future of game stores.
The Xbox Series S isn’t perfect and won’t be for everyone, but it delivers a near next-gen gaming experience for a reasonable price
For
Attractively priced
Solid AV and gaming performance
Responsive controls
Against
Over-complicated AV set-up
Doesn’t support native 4K gaming
Small hard drive
The Xbox Series S is a tough console to nail down. It’s next-gen, but with one rather large drawback; it isn’t a 4K games console, which will undoubtedly rule out some potential buyers from the off.
But it is about more than just resolution. The Xbox Series S brings features and performance benefits to a price point we’ve never seen a high-tech console hit at launch before. And, after resolution, the price of the Series S is arguably the big talking point.
Price
The Xbox Series S is a remarkably cheap console, costing just £250 ($300, AU$500) – no wonder there was a collective gasp from members of the media when pricing was finally revealed. This compares to £450 ($500, AU$749) for the Xbox Series X.
Using Xbox All Access, where you can pay for the console in instalments, you can get a new Series S on a 12-month contract for £21 ($25, AU$33) per month, compared with £29 ($34, AU$46) per month for the Series X.
Its main rival, the PS5 Digital Edition, comes in at £359 ($399, AU$599). It is also missing a disc drive, but the difference is that it gets all the same 4K gaming performance and specs of the standard PS5 console, whereas the Series S has various performance downgrades on the Series X.
Build
(Image credit: Future)
It’s not just the price tag of the Xbox Series S that catches your attention. Open up the box and you’ll be taken aback by the size of the console. It’s tiny compared with its big brother, the Xbox Series X, but also the PS5 and PS5 Digital Editions too.
Positioned horizontally, the Series S measures 28cm wide and 15cm deep. This is in stark contrast to Sony’s disc-less rival, the PS5 Digital Edition, which is 39cm wide and 26cm deep. This makes the Series S ultra-portable, and you’ll be more than happy to sling it into a rucksack and take it to a friend’s house. The ‘S’ and its relatively small frame will also take up less space on your AV rack.
Xbox Series S tech specs
(Image credit: Future)
Resolution 1440p at 60Hz, 120Hz
Storage 512GB
Outputs HDMI, 3.5mm headphone jack, USB (Type-A) x3
The chassis is essentially an off-white plastic. It doesn’t feel particularly expensive, but that’s hardly a surprise, given the bulk of Xbox’s budget has been spent on what’s inside.
Compared with the striking PS5, the Xbox Series S looks anything but flamboyant. Its only distinctive feature is a circular black grill for the fan, which makes it look more like a wireless speaker than a cutting-edge games console.
In terms of connections, the Xbox Series S doesn’t throw up any real surprises. On the front, there’s a USB (Type-A) socket, a 3.5mm headphone jack and the power button. On the rear, there are power, ethernet, HDMI and a pair of USB (Type-A) inputs.
The only socket we haven’t really encountered before is a slot for expanding the amount of storage on the Xbox Series S. And, depending on the number of enhanced games you intend to buy, there’s a chance you might have to use it sooner than expected.
In fact, storage is one of the biggest drawbacks for the Xbox Series S. On the box, it says it has 512GB of storage, but when you boot up the console and go into the system’s menu, that figure is nowhere to be seen. Before installing a single game, we are down to 364GB. Download a few enhanced games at 60GB+ and you’ll soon be reaching for an expansion card.
Be warned – the official Seagate Storage Expansion Card costs a whopping £220 ($220, AU$359). The good news is that if you already own an external hard drive with backwards compatible games on it for an Xbox One S, you should be able to plug it into the Xbox Series S and use it straight away.
Home screen
(Image credit: Future)
Power up the console and you’re greeted with the traditional Xbox GUI. On the one hand, it’s nice and familiar but we can’t help but think it’s a missed opportunity. Couldn’t Xbox have created a more exciting and inviting interface to wow its customers and usher in its next-gen consoles?
The tile system is still in play and so is the horizontal navigation. You can reach all the relevant areas, such as games and system settings, with minimal button presses. It’s quick to respond to your commands too. This could be down to a combination of more powerful CPU processing, the super-fast solid-state hard drive and even the new low-latency controller.
What’s even more noticeable is the speed at which games load. Compared with the previous generation of Xbox consoles, the Series S is much quicker. Not only does it get you through loading screens with a greater sense of urgency, with Quick Resume, you can now pick up games from where you left off in a matter of seconds. Xbox claims you can have three or four games on the go at any one time.
Controller
(Image credit: Future)
Like the X, the new Xbox Series S gets a new control pad. It’s supposed to be slightly smaller, although the difference is hard to spot. Irrespective of whether it’s shrunk, the controller still feels good in hand. The bumpers are more rounded, while the triggers have been given more sculpted grips and a new texture that also spreads to the rear of the controller.
Your hands and fingertips get better purchase when pressing down hard, and it feels like the texture pattern from the back of an Xbox Elite Wireless Controller (Series 2) has been placed onto the Xbox Series S controller. Which is no bad thing.
The controller also features what Xbox calls Dynamic Latency Input (DLI), which immediately synchronises each controller input with what you see on screen. Of course, your TV’s own lag is also part of the equation here, but at least the console is doing its bit to reduce lag. It feels as though the console is quick to respond to commands, whether navigating the console’s home screen and in-game too.
Another addition to the controller comes in the shape of a new dedicated ‘Share’ button, which means you can capture screenshots and clips and share your gameplay on social media. Those with older legacy controllers from an Xbox One S (or One X) will be pleased to know you can pair them with the Series S.
Features
(Image credit: Future)
According to Liz Hamren, Head of Platform Engineering and Hardware for Xbox, the Series S delivers “four times the processing power of an Xbox One console”. On paper, the figures are 4 TFLOPS of power for the Xbox Series S, compared with 12.15 TFLOPS for the Series X.
The Series S is “similar in CPU” to the Series X, but not identical. The Xbox Series X uses an 8-Core AMD Zen 2 CPU running at 3.8GHz (3.6GHz with SMT enabled) while the Series S uses the same CPU working at 3.6GHz (3.4GHz with SMT enabled).
The ‘X’ is powered by a 52CU (compute unit) RDNA GPU running at 1.825GHz, while its cheaper sibling has a 20CU, 1.565GHz GPU.
The Series S doesn’t have the graphics grunt of its sibling, meaning that resolution is a big difference between the consoles. The Xbox Series S has been geared towards outputting 1440p at 60Hz, up to a maximum refresh rate of 120Hz. It can upscale the picture to 4K to match your 4K TV, but you won’t be able to see next-gen games in native 4K. You can only play games in native 4K resolution (at up to 120Hz) on the Xbox Series X.
But we wouldn’t write off the Xbox Series S just yet. While it does lose out on graphical power and resolution, it still has a range of features that will appeal to anyone looking to make the jump from, say, an Xbox One S.
You can still enjoy refresh rates to up to 120Hz. The console also supports VRR, variable rate shading and ray-tracing just like the Series X. You get the same Quick Resume feature, so you can pick up where you left off at the touch of a button, a faster SSD hard drive and a speedier user experience. All of these mean the Series S is a big step up from the previous generation Xbox One S.
All the streaming apps you need are there too, including Netflix, Spotify, Sky Go, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV and Disney+.
Picture
(Image credit: Future)
When it comes to playing games on the Xbox Series S, it’s difficult to find a lot to grumble about for the money. While it’s not native 4K, what it does dish out is easy on the eye. Play Madden 21 and the intro video bursts into life with a colourful and vibrant display of NFL uniforms and impressive-looking stadia shots.
Detail on jerseys and boots is good. The reflections on player helmets are glossy and add polish to the presentation. The motion of the players, whether they’re walking slowly into formation or blitzing the opposing team, is stable and we don’t notice anything in the way of tearing, judder or artefacts.
Gears 5 looks good too, even though it isn’t being rendered in true 4K. Compared with the Xbox Series X, the more powerful console delivers a picture with more ‘wow’ factor, but the Series S is by no means embarrassed. The on-screen detail is good enough, with decent texture on chiselled faces and war-torn body armour. Motion is stable, and there’s good insight in the shadows.
As a streaming device, the Xbox Series S presents a solid case too. Playing Altered Carbon via Netflix, the Series S produces a watchable picture, with none of the artificial appearance that can sometimes be served up by poorer streaming devices.
There’s a good sense of clarity and motion, with detail and definition both excellent too. As Quellcrist Falconer makes Angelfire rain down on her pursuers, the screen lights up with bolts of blue neon. As each soldier is struck down, the flames turn to embers, small pin pricks burning briefly, but ever so brightly, in Dolby Vision HDR. The detail in the shadows as she hides behind a fallen tree is nicely judged and not overly dark.
We’d say the Xbox Series S is comparable to an Apple TV 4K for picture quality, which is a great video streamer in its own right. That’s quite impressive for a games console.
Sound
(Image credit: Future)
Despite being a next-gen console, we’re still left scratching our heads at the way some audio settings have been implemented.
Instead of being able to pass unadulterated audio from your streaming service of choice through to your AV amp, the Xbox needs to decode and re-encode it. You need to navigate the console’s audio settings and pick one format which the console will then apply to everything. You can select from DTS Digital Surround, Dolby Digital, Dolby Atmos for Home Theatre or DTS:X for home theatre. It’s not a particularly next-gen way of going about things.
Click on DTS:X and you’re told you need to download the DTS Sound Unbound app. This unlocks DTS:X for home theatre, but you still need to pay a further £17 to unlock DTS Headphones:X. Similarly, you need the Dolby Access app to get free Atmos support for your home theatre, but if you want Dolby Atmos for Headphones, that will cost you extra too. Seriously?
However, the Dolby Access app is handy for setting up a Dolby Atmos soundbar, AV receiver or TV. You can customise your audio settings and even switch on a built-in audio upmixer if you want some of the Atmos experience, but don’t happen to own a Dolby Atmos speaker package.
Oddly, during set-up we are greeted by a pop-up from the console asking if we want to pass Blu-ray audio directly to our AV receiver – someone clearly forgot that the Xbox Series S is a disc-less console.
Once set up, you get is a perfectly acceptable sonic performance. The console sounds punchy and lively with a decent sense of clarity, and an even tonal balance. It’s not as subtle or refined as a dedicated budget 4K Blu-ray player, such as the Sony UBP-X700, nor does it have the same sense of timing and natural flair with music. But it sounds lively enough when firing out the 80s soundtrack to Cobra Kai and the dialogue sounds clear and relatively weighty.
Switch to the opening chapter of Gears 5, and as Kait, Marcus et al arrive at the opening to the cave, the detail and definition in the whirring rotor blades is impressive. Combine this with the strings of the soundtrack, and the sound of the birds circling around the huge opening and the console creates a fine sense of immersion and atmosphere as you head underground.
Verdict
Xbox has been pretty smart with the Xbox Series S – the price tag alone will be enough for some to give it serious consideration. However, if true 4K resolution gaming or playing 4K Blu-rays matters to you, it won’t even be on your radar.
If you aren’t fussed about those and just want to play Xbox exclusives with some of the other game enhancements, such as VRR and the high frame rates, then the Series S isn’t a bad shout.
It could also be an affordable console for a second room or to keep the kids happy. After all, you still get a huge chunk of future-proofing and day-to-day performance upgrades that make it a decent jump up from the Xbox One S.
The Xbox Series S isn’t perfect. The user interface feels a little dated for a next-gen console and there are still too many quirks when you want to use it as part of a proper home theatre system. While it won’t necessarily appeal to everyone, if you’re happy with what the Series S can offer, you won’t be disappointed.
Microsoft has started inviting Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers to test its Xbox Cloud Gaming (xCloud) service on iPhones and iPads today. The service works through web browsers, allowing it to also run on PCs and Macs on Edge, Chrome, or Safari. We’ve managed to get an early look at this beta and see how Xbox Cloud Gaming works on an iPhone or iPad.
The web interface for xCloud (yes, we’re going to keep calling it xCloud) is very simple to use. It scales across devices like the iPhone, iPad, or even a large monitor attached to a PC to provide quick access to games. Microsoft has even included a search interface, which is something that’s strangely missing on rival service Google Stadia.
You don’t need to install any apps or extensions; it works natively in Chrome, Safari, or Edge. All you need is a compatible USB or Bluetooth controller. Some games even work with Xbox Touch Controls, so a controller isn’t required if you’re happy to tap on the screen and play. I managed to quickly start games using an Xbox Elite 2 controller paired to an iPhone 11 Pro.
Once you launch a game, you’ll have to wait a fair amount of time for it to actually load. Much like xCloud on Android, the backend servers for Microsoft’s Xbox game streaming are actually Xbox One S consoles. This older Xbox hardware isn’t powered by a modern CPU or SSD, so game loads are affected as a result. Microsoft is planning to upgrade xCloud servers to Xbox Series X hardware at some point this year, though.
Microsoft’s Xbox Game Streaming on an iPhone.
I’ve only been playing xCloud via the web for a few hours, so it’s difficult to judge the experience, but I’ve certainly run into a lot of connection issues both wireless and wired with my desktop PC. Microsoft says it’s working on a routing issue with this beta, but it’s worth pointing out this is a test service, and it’s only just launched, so hiccups like this are to be expected.
Once the connection settles down, it’s very similar to xCloud on Android. If you run this through a web browser on a PC or iPad, you’ll even get a 1080p stream. It feels like I’m playing on an Xbox in the cloud, and there’s a dashboard that lets me access friends, party chats, achievements, and invites to games. This is all powered by Xbox Game Pass, so there are more than 100 games available — and even some original Xbox and Xbox 360 titles that can be streamed.
You can search and easily launch Xbox games in a browser.
Xbox Touch Controls can be used for certain games.
Microsoft hasn’t said when the company plans to roll this out more broadly yet, but given the early connection issues, there’s clearly still some work to be done until the web version is available for everyone. Still, it’s impressive how well this scales across multiple devices and opens up the ability to stream Xbox games to virtually any device that has a Chromium or Safari browser.
I also tried this xCloud browser version on the new Edge app for Xbox consoles, but it’s not fully supported yet. Both the service and the browser are in early beta right now, so full support might come at a later date. Either way, I imagine that xCloud will arrive on Xbox consoles through the ability to quickly stream a game while you’re waiting for it to download in the background. That’s really where xCloud makes sense on a console that can already play Xbox games.
This browser-based version of xCloud does open up the service to many more possibilities, too. Xbox chief Phil Spencer has previously hinted at TV streaming sticks for xCloud, and Microsoft has already committed to bringing the service to Facebook Gaming at some point. It’s easy to imagine Xbox Game Streaming apps for smart TVs, coupled with the ability to access the service from web browsers to ensure almost any device can access an Xbox Game Pass subscription. That’s clearly Microsoft’s goal here, and this beta feels like just the beginning.
Hulu’s Android TV apps can finally stream in 1080p on new Nvidia Shield TV set-top-boxes and Sony Bravia TVs, as spotted by users on Reddit, and written up by Gizmodo, Android Central, and 9to5Google.
Users first noticed the change in the “App & Device Info” page in the Hulu app. After updating, the app lists the new max video resolution as “1920 x 1080”. It’s sort of a sneaky way to make the change. Looking at the update description on the Play Store, there’s no mention of it, so it’s possible something changed on Hulu’s server side as well.
Hulu’s App & Device Info screen that shows the new max resolution.Image: 9to5Google
Gizmodo says it was able to confirm that at least the Nvidia Shield from 2019 and Bravia TVs received the 1080p bump on March 23rd, but the change hasn’t been reflected in Hulu’s support pages, which were last updated in February. Hulu doesn’t seem to specifically list which devices stream in each resolution (outside of Live TV streaming) on its support site, but it does provide minimum bitrates for each:
Standard Definition (SD): 1.5 Mbps
High Definition (HD) 720p: 3 Mbps
High Definition (HD) 1080p: 6 Mbps
4K Ultra HD: 16 Mbps
For the newer Chromecast with Google TV, which runs a skinned version of Android TV, it’s not clear when 1080p Hulu support was added, or if it launched with it. I was able to check on my own Chromecast’s Hulu app and it does currently support 1080p. We’ve reached out to Hulu to confirm which other Android TV devices might have been affected by this update.
4K streaming is even more limited on Hulu. 4K content is primarily limited to Hulu’s original shows and movies, and according to Hulu’s likely out-of-date list, the devices that can actually stream in 4K are the 5th generation Apple TV, the Chromecast Ultra, Amazon’s Fire TV and Fire TV Stick, LG UHD TVs from 2017 onwards, Roku devices, Vizio TVs with SmartCast, and the Xbox One S and X.
It’s nice that more devices could theoretically stream in a higher resolution, especially for folks who’ve shelled out money for higher resolution displays. I do think it’s worth mentioning, however, that some of the Redditors who first found this change had no idea they’d been streaming in 720p all this time.
Microsoft has started testing its xCloud game streaming through a web browser. Sources familiar with Microsoft’s Xbox plans tell The Verge that employees are now testing a web version of xCloud ahead of a public preview. The service allows Xbox players to access their games through a browser, and opens up xCloud to work on devices like iPhones and iPads.
Much like how xCloud currently works on Android tablets and phones, the web version includes a simple launcher with recommendations for games, the ability to resume recently played titles, and access to all the cloud games available through Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. Once you launch a game it will run fullscreen, and you’ll need a controller to play Xbox games streamed through the browser.
Microsoft’s xCloud service on the web.
It’s not immediately clear what resolution Microsoft is streaming games at through this web version. The software maker is using Xbox One S server blades for its existing xCloud infrastructure, so full 4K streaming won’t be supported until the backend hardware is upgraded to Xbox Series X components this year.
Microsoft is planning to bundle this web version of xCloud into the PC version of the Xbox app on Windows 10, too. The web version appears to be currently limited to Chromium browsers like Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge, much like Google’s Stadia service. Microsoft is planning some form of public preview of xCloud via the web in the spring, and this wider internal testing signals that the preview is getting very close.
The big drive behind this web version is support for iOS and iPadOS hardware. Apple imposes limitations on iOS apps and cloud services, and Microsoft wasn’t able to support the iPhone and iPad when it launched xCloud in beta for Android last year. Apple said Microsoft would need to submit individual games for review, a process that Microsoft labeled a “bad experience for customers.”
YouTube is finally enabling HDR support on Microsoft’s Xbox consoles. The HDR support works across existing Xbox One S / X devices and new consoles like the Xbox Series X and Series S. As long as you have a TV or monitor capable of displaying HDR videos, the YouTube app will now automatically switch to output HDR content.
The YouTube app on Xbox has never supported HDR previously, despite HDR being available on the PlayStation 4 since 2019. Both the PS5 and Xbox Series X launched in November without YouTube HDR support, and it’s still not available on the PS5 yet — a step back from what was available on PS4.
The YouTube app on Xbox Series S.
Engadget notes you can confirm that HDR is outputting correctly from the YouTube app on Xbox by enabling the “stats for nerds” panel (see above). A lot of TVs will also display a HDR prompt or switch to a HDR mode when content is played.
Now we just need more HDR content to become available on YouTube. Some of the best HDR content on YouTube is still test videos that were uploaded years ago. We’re starting to see more trailers and videos come with HDR options, but the vast majority of creators don’t upload content with HDR.
(Pocket-lint) – Having decided to wait for the console version before reviewing the game, we ended up playing Cyberpunk 2077 first around the same time as everybody else – with our Xbox copy arriving a day or so before the official release date. Therefore, this review is somewhat late.
But, by holding off in order to play across multiple format platforms, we’ve got the full picture of the experience. We’ve also had the chance to play it on PC (through Nvidia GeForce Now and natively using a rig with an RTX 3080), Stadia and PS5. And, we’ve been able to test it across Xbox Series X and S (installed on the internal SSD), plus on an Xbox One S (on its internal HDD). Boy oh boy have we found a mixed bag of results.
There is such disparity between experiences that it is almost impossible to provide a single review of Cyberpunk 2077 that will cater for all audiences across all platforms. Therefore, the mainstay of our review is based on our experience on both Xbox Series X and S, as we’ve played it for the most part across those machines. We do, however, provide the following caveats before we progress.
Platform woes
Even after the several hotfixes released so far, if you own a base Xbox One or PS4, do not buy Cyberpunk 2077 right now! From our experience on the Xbox One S, combined with the vast amount of anecdotal evidence we’ve seen online, performance is so bad at times that you’ll just want to throw your controller at the screen. Developer CD Projekt Red has promised numerous additional bug and performance fixes over the coming months, so it’s best to hold off at the very least, to see how much the game can be improved first.
If you own an Xbox One X or PS4 Pro, it is playable but still knackered enough for you to maybe think twice – at least until performance issues are addressed. Also, don’t expect anywhere near the quality or crispness of the graphics of the PC version, which perhaps goes without saying.
If you have a PS5 or Xbox Series S, you get a better experience for sure. It’s still got more bugs than an episode of I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here and can suffer crashes, freezing or gameplay errors, but it is playable and, in the case of the PS5, runs at 60fps.
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The Xbox Series X provides the best console experience – partly because of its SSD (like the other next-gen machines), partly because it has the most firepower. It also offers a choice between quality and performance modes, with the latter sacrificing resolution for 60fps. No next-gen version has ray tracing nor any other “next-gen” enhancement – those won’t be available for months as things stand – but this offering runs smoother and at a slightly higher res.
This is true of Google’s Stadia cloud gaming platform too. The experience is very similar to Xbox Series X, including the option to favour either resolution or frame rate. It is seemingly a touch more stable on Stadia too, but mostly comparable to the best console experience.
1/9Pocket-lint
The PC version is undoubtedly the best, depending on your setup. It is especially spectacular with ray tracing switched on. However, you can read plenty of glowing reviews of that version elsewhere, so we won’t dwell on it.
Here instead are our honest thoughts of Cyberpunk 2077 running on console, based on a decent enough experience of it running on next-gen Xbox hardware.
Hidden treasures
Perhaps the saddest thing about everything we’ve mentioned so far is that underneath the litany of bugs, glitches and performance issues, Cyberpunk 2077 is a bold, ambitious, impressive open-world role-playing game (RPG). It is hard to fully recommend right now, especially on lower-powered machines, but it has the story, voice acting, branching mission structure, and creativity of a triple-A masterpiece.
It is also stunning looking, even without true next-gen enhancements, with an art style that makes the very best of an high dynamic range (HDR) telly. Yes, there are plenty of graphical issues when you look closely, and the world is more sparsely populated (with pedestrians and vehicles) than previously promised, but Night City still fills you with awe from the first time you travel through it.
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The gameplay is fun and fluid, too, with the developer’s decision to opt for a first-person perspective clearly being the right choice. It gives you an impression of virtual reality without needing a headset, and is much more immersive than The Witcher 3, say. We do suggest you switch to an included third-person mode for driving, as it can be hard to navigate the streets otherwise, but everything else works well.
As do the game mechanics. Based on a pen-and-paper role-player from the 80s, the game embraces stats and attributes, but disguises them enough to not bamboozle you with numbers. You get simple yet effective character creation tools at the start, to determine your initial attributes and skills, plus what you look like and the angle of the dangle of your bits and bobs.
The rest of the RPG elements are par for the course kind of stuff. For example, levelling up your character through earning experience gives you points to assign to both attributes and perks – the abilities you’ll need to improve weapon mastery, hacking, health, and so on. Plus, you have the obligatory inventory where you can change clothing for armour bonuses and your weapon loadout.
Cyberpunk 2077 is a little different to most (bar Deus Ex and a couple of others that spring to mind) in that it also allows you to change the cybernetics installed in your body. These provide additional modifiers for combat, tech use and the like.
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Where CD Projekt Red gets it right is that while it all sounds complex, these are each intuitively implemented. You won’t feel like you are being constantly pulled out the meat of the game just to tweak a stat here or change a jacket there. And weapons are so easily attained in missions you will have plenty to swap in and out without ever needing to buy anything.
We also generally ignored the crafting options – which give you the ability to build and improve your own weapons and items – as the loot found in the game in plentiful enough to not have to bother.
Mission street
Another area we feel the developer gets things right is in mission variety and structure. The game has a main plot thread running right down the middle, but also hundreds of side missions and objectives that pop up throughout. Indeed, we were 40 hours into Cyberpunk before we realised we weren’t even halfway through the main story.
What’s more, these missions are rarely as simple as “pick up from location A and deliver to point B” – which most open-world adventures are generally criticised for. Instead, they feature stealth, driving, first-person shooting, melee combat, puzzle solving, detective work, and often a combination of any or all of them. Many also allow you to complete them in different ways, depending on your character and playstyle.
In addition, your character type can determine the general path you’ll take through the game, what missions you are offered and some of the dialogue options you get to choose from. At the beginning, you get to choose your background – your Lifepath – between three alternatives and each will not only give you a different first 40 minutes or so, but also affect moments further down the line.
We have so far played as a Streetkid, for the console playthrough, and Nomad, which allowed us to experience something else when we started again on Stadia. There is also Corpo, which puts you in the shoes of someone who works for the largest tech corporation around. This initial choice enables second or third playthroughs to feel a bit different, although it’s worth pointing out that the main story itself maintains a similar course no matter which Lifepath you choose.
Certainly though, it’s a further example that the ambitions of CD Projekt Red cannot be questioned. Its application is another story.
A bug’s life
It’s hard to continue to wax lyrically without addressing the issues. While there is so much to like about Cyberpunk 2077, it is currently hampered by bugs that rip you from the otherwise cleverly crafted immersion. Some of them are glitches that are more visual – such as a character hovering in mid-air rather than sitting on a nearby chair – but others have direct effect on gameplay – like a boss fight being impossible to complete because of the boss himself disappearing into a wall mid-battle.
CD Projekt Red has already pushed two major patches to mend mission-breaking bugs, which has made things reasonably better, but there is so much more to be done and even on subsequent playthroughs, we’ve still encountered issues.
We mostly ran the game from an SSD on the Xbox Series X and S, and both presented a very decent form of the game (bugs aside). Indeed, in the high quality 30fps mode on Series X, it is also very good looking – not quite a 4K presentation, but still crisp and clear.
The SSD also ensured that not only were loading times speedy between fast-travel locations, graphics pop-in was almost unnoticeable. It didn’t suffer the horrible lag before textures appear on objects and pedestrians, as experienced on current-gen consoles.
We did run the game from an external HDD too as a test (after all, this is just an Xbox One game running in backward compatibility through next-gen machines) and sure as eggs is eggs, there were some issues with the graphics. But, it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as on the Xbox One S – likely thanks to the faster processing on Series X/S consoles.
From the SSD certainly, the game is very playable, looking decent and smooth in frame rate. That gives us hope that, once more bug fixes arrive, Cyberpunk 2077 will start to resemble the game we’d hoped for.
Indeed, everything is there for it to be a properly top tier game, it just needs the finesse that a few more months of development would have afforded. Sadly, we were among those lamenting the continual shifts in release dates. With hindsight, we wish CD Projekt Red had delayed further still.
Verdict
So much of Cyberpunk 2077 is superb. The combat belies the studio’s relative inexperience with first-person play, the story is gripping and soulful, and the voice acting and characterisations are simply next level.
Its use of Keanu Reeves as Johnny Silverhand is much more than a gimmick, adding a sense of indie sci-fi flick to the proceedings, while Night City itself is a beautifully crafted character in itself, providing an open-world setting that delights round every corner – especially if you’re a Judge Dredd fan.
But it is also broken. So much so on the base PS4 and Xbox One consoles that we cannot fathom why they were released in that state, or even ever released at all.
On next-gen through PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, there are issues still, but it’s such a better game and, once serviced by more stable updates (including the promised next-gen enhancements), will likely reach the pedestal we’ve all been putting it on throughout its development.
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We’ll revisit it then and could even change our score to match the opinions of those playing it on PC. The lucky beggars.
Sony Interactive Entertainment today announced that it will be removing CD Project Red’s Cyberpunk 2077 from its online PlayStation Store. It also announced that it will be offering full refunds to those who already purchased the game.
SIE strives to ensure a high level of customer satisfaction, and we will begin to offer a full refund for all gamers who have purchased Cyberpunk 2077 via PlayStation Store and want a refund. Please visit the following link to initiate the refund: https://t.co/DEZlC0LmUG.
— Ask PlayStation (@AskPlayStation) December 18, 2020
The company has set up a website where customers can signup to submit their request for a refund. Once it is confirmed that you purchased the game from the PlayStation Store, you should get your refund. However, this may be difficult at the moment as the company is getting inundated with a lot of requests from disgruntled customers.
CD Project Red launched Cyberpunk 2077 on December 10 on Windows 10, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Stadia. The game was initially announced in 2012 but the launch date was set to be April 16 2020, which was eventually delayed to September 17, then to November 19, and then finally to December 10.
Since its release, users complained about excessive issues across multiple platforms, but most notably on the two home consoles. PlayStation and Xbox owners faced poor performance, with frame rates often dipping under 30 and even 20fps during gameplay, as well as crashes that would send them to the console’s homescreen. The performance is particularly poor on the base PS4 and Xbox One S, although the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X aren’t significantly better.
The game also proved inherently buggy, with glitches across the game world that can cause characters to behave in unexpected ways, making it difficult to play even if you ignore the other issues.
The only way to run the game without the performance issues was to play it on a next generation console. A PS5 or an Xbox Series X|S can brute force the game to run better but that still wouldn’t solve the crashing and game code issues. Note that the game currently has no dedicated version for the next generation consoles and it is using backwards compatibility to play the PS4 and Xbox One versions.
The PC version is relatively well-off in comparison. While the game has extreme CPU and GPU requirements that far exceed the company’s stated system requirements and the game code issues still exist, if you have a high-end gaming PC then you can at least enjoy playable framerates.
When users first complained about the issues with the game, CDPR released a statement on December 14 apologizing for the situation on consoles and also stating that they will be releasing smaller updates soon and then larger patches first in January and later in February. They also asked players on PlayStation and Xbox to refund the game if they aren’t happy.
Important Update for @PlayStation Users pic.twitter.com/fCB4z74M3z
— Cyberpunk 2077 (@CyberpunkGame) December 18, 2020
Following that today SIE released a statement saying they are removing the game from its store until further notice and that players who purchased it already can apply for a full refund. This statement was followed later by one from CDPR, where it said that you can still purchase the physical copy through other stores and everyone who still has the game will continue to get updates.
This is the first time Sony has had to remove a AAA title from its PlayStation Store over issues with the game. We have seen situations in the past, such as with the PC release of Batman Arkham Knight, where the developer pulled the title due to issues at launch, but rarely has the platform owner had to step in and pull the plug. This gives us an idea of the volume of complaints the company must have received over the week and also the severity of the issues in question. It would not at all be in Sony’s interests to have a major title that performs so poorly be on its store, even if it is on its outgoing model.
As of this writing, Microsoft has not released a statement regarding the status of the game on its online store. However, you could still apply for a refund on the Xbox if you aren’t happy.
On a personal note, as someone who is 30 hours into the game on the PC, I mostly have mixed feelings about it after reaching what seems like halfway into the main story (I spend more time doing side quests). I would have a lot more thoughts on the game once I finish my playthrough and if you are interested in a review of sorts then let me know in the comments below.
(Pocket-lint) – Maybe it’s just us, but we can’t be the only ones who’ve almost got a hoard of board games at this point, taking up storage that simply doesn’t exist in our flat. Whether our board game box is under the stairs or in the living room, there’s nothing like a family trove of great games to bail you out on a rainy day.
Whether that means the titanic repetition of Monopoly, the “is this actually even a game” bafflement of Ludo or the cerebral brilliance of Settlers of Catan, truly great board games tend to stick around.
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The business of board games is absolutely booming, though, and superb new games are releasing all the time. To shake you out of your comfort zone, and get you playing some brilliant new options, we’ve taken a look at some of the very best games to have released in the last year or so, and listed them here for your consideration.
You never know, this could be the start of a new board game infatuation for you.
Our guide to the best new board games to buy today
Wingspan
Wingspan
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One of the most celebrated new games to release in years, Wingspan is an inspired look at birds, weaved carefully into a complex but rewarding game. You take on the role of bird spotters trying to discover unique breeds of bird, and detailing their characteristics.
The art is beautiful in the extreme, and the tone is more gentle than you get from most competitive board games, as a result of its subject matter. It’s really a superb new addition to the canon of great board games.
Gloomhaven
Gloomhaven
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There’s nothing like a full-on fantasy RPG to get the blood pumping, but these generally require a degree of dedication, legwork and preparation before you can really enjoy them as a group. Gloomhaven is like an entire world of RPG fun in a box, with intricate campaigns and amazing combat encounters to enjoy as a group, and while it’s one of the priciest games you could care to find, it’s also extremely rewarding.
Amazon
Beasts of Balance
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This fun balancing game is brilliant for families, and has the added bonus of a free tie-in app that helps you to organise the game and work out who’s doing what, and letting you play competitively or cooperatively depending on what you’re looking for on a given day.
It’s as simple as it looks, letting players compete to stack up towers of animals and shapes as high as they can without overbalancing the stack and having their work tumble to the ground. It’s superb fun if you have kids, and a great way to bond as a family without parents suffering from any boredom.
Amazon
Mansions of Madness
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If you prefer your board games cooperative, perhaps to keep family friction to a minimum, there’s plenty of fun to be hand in Mansions of Madness, a take on the terrifying mythos of H P Lovecraft. The best part is that, with the aid of a companion app, you can play together against the AI rather than having one player take on the role of Keeper.
That makes it really great fun for a group who want to work together, while its creepy tone makes for plenty of great moments.
A War of Whispers
A War of Whispers
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The newest entry on our list is A War of Whispers, which is making a splash after its Kickstarter campaign. This great game takes a look at the traditional tabletop war and strategy simulators, like the Game of Thrones board game or Risk, and twists it cleverly by positioning players as the spymasters, not the generals.
This means that guessing the intentions of other players is as important as your own plans, and it’s also been designed to be playable much more quickly than other grand strategy games. You can complete a game in an hour easily, making it a really useful game to fill a bit of time.
Klask
Klask
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Klask might, in some ways, stretch the definitions of a board game — it’s very dexterity-based, and has much in common with air hockey or table football. But it’s on a board, it’s nice and compact, and it’s also absolutely superb fun. Players face off with a range of ways to score points on each other, whether by getting the little ball they hit around into the other’s goal, forcing them to lose control of their magnetic flicker, or seeing their opponent attract two of the floating white magnets onto said flicker.
It’s fast-paced fun, and rounds are so quick that you’re sure to get into leagues and long-running rivalries in no time. The perfect board game for quick (or long) breaks in the office, Klask is simply a game you have to try.
Silver and Gold
Silver and Gold
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If you’re looking for something a bit more portable and quicker to play, Silver & Gold is a new card game that could do the trick nicely. You each try to complete treasure maps that look more than a little like Tetris pieces — it’s a game of patterns, but with a pirate twist.
Wipeable cards pair with pens to make it endlessly replayable and quick round times mean that you can squeeze plenty of games in if you’re on a journey or holiday.
Amazon
Keyforge
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Keyforge is the new(ish) game from Richard Garfield, who originally designed the seminal Magic: The Gathering. Like that game, this is a constantly evolving competitive card game, but it’s much simpler to pick up and play than Magic, deliberately so.
The big twist is that, rather than collecting and buying new cards to create perfect decks, Keyforge is built around the idea that each deck is unique and stands on its own. Your deck will look like no one else’s, meaning that every game against a new opponent is a learning process with inventive new changes. It’s a great idea and a fun game that’s got a good chance of building into a behemoth over time.
One of the big selling points of next-gen consoles like the PS5 or Xbox Series X is support for games running at 120fps on TVs and monitors that include 120Hz modes. While we’ve already seen a number of new Xbox and PS5 games running at 120fps, some existing games are only being updated with 120fps for the Xbox Series X, and not the PS5.
Both Call of Duty: Warzone and Rocket League, for example, only include support for 120fps on the Xbox Series X. Activision has not commented on why only Warzone on the Xbox Series X has this support, but Rocket League developer Psyonix has revealed to Eurogamer that it’s more complicated to enable on the PS5 side.
120Hz mode in DIRT 5 on Xbox Series X.
“Enabling 120Hz on Xbox Series X|S is a minor patch, but enabling it on PS5 requires a full native port due to how backwards compatibility is implemented on the console, and unfortunately wasn’t possible due to our focus elsewhere,” explains Psyonix in a statement to Eurogamer.
The PS5 is capable of running existing PS4 games at 120fps, but there’s clearly more work involved for developers to enable it. In the short term, this could mean we’ll see more instances of games running on the PS5 without 120fps, but appearing on Xbox Series X with the higher frame rate.
It’s only been easier for developers to implement this on the Xbox Series X side because Microsoft built 120Hz support into the Xbox One years ago. The Xbox One X and Xbox One S were also updated to support variable refresh rates back in 2018, alongside an option for 1440p video output. Sony has only just started supporting 120Hz with the PS5, but the console still doesn’t support a 1440p mode.
The 120fps support won’t be an issue in the long term, as more developers will be building native PS5 games. But as developers continue to release cross-generation games for Xbox One and PS4 then there’s likely to be a mix of what’s supported. There are signs this could improve, though. Bungie is planning to update Destiny 2 on December 8th with 120fps support on both the Xbox Series X and PS5 for its crucible mode.
Cyberpunk 2077 is finally set to drop in a little under a month, but so far, all the pre-release footage we’ve seen has been on PC. That’s finally changing, though, with a new trailer showing off Cyberpunk footage from both the Xbox One X and the Xbox Series X. Notably, the Xbox One S and Xbox Series S weren’t featured.
Before we get started, there’s a big caveat her e- the Xbox Series X footage is from the Xbox One version of the game. We’ve already noted in our Xbox Series X review that even backwards compatible games play noticeably better on the Xbox Series X, but we’re not going to know what the proper next-gen version of the game will look like on consoles until it arrives as a free patch sometime
next year
.
The new console gameplay video shows a single mission in the game across both consoles, with parts cut out to avoid spoilers and shorten the video, but still shows off a decent amount of gameplay in sunlit and nighttime exteriors, as well as neon-lit interiors. Activities shown also vary between driving, shooting, talking to NPCs and exploring in general.
Unfortunately, the video doesn’t have 4K or 60 fps viewing options, so we’re mostly limited to giving anecdotal impressions of the game’s various effects. Still, with FHD playback, we didn’t notice any stuttering across either console, and the Xbox Series X footage does appear a touch smoother even if it’s not playing back at 60 fps.
Facial, combat, vehicle and character animation is predictably strong across either console, though some Series X character models still look a little last-gen to me. What’s most impressive is the environmental effects, especially on the Series X.
The video cuts back and forth between both consoles, which can make direct comparisons a little difficult, but a single sequence around 6 and a half minutes into the video shows the same neon street market in quick succession on both the One X and Series X.
On One X, store sign text appears a little blurry, as does a hologram of a dancing girl outside one of the shops. These problems are fixed on Series X, where lighting and reflections also look more vibrant and water effects less glossy and more realistic. At least, to my eye.
We’re going to have to wait to get official benchmarks, of course, so the best you can do for now is watch the video yourself and be your own judge.
Cyberpunk 2077 finally launches on December 10th, after several delays and confirmed crunch at the studio, so we’re eager to get our hands on more official performance numbers on release.
(Pocket-lint) – The Xbox One has been a superb console, and thanks to Microsoft’s all-inclusive ideas about the next generation of console gaming, looks set to be a mainstay for a few more years, even with the Xbox Series X and S out now.
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Like most games consoles, though, as you get used to the Xbox One, whether it’s a powerful Xbox One X, or a sleek Xbox One S, there are some things you’ll notice that could be improved. A few simple accessories can make a huge difference to your experience of your Xbox. We’ve gathered some of the very best available, right here.
Our pick of the best Xbox accessories to buy today
Xbox
Xbox One Play and Charge Kit
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For all that we love the Xbox One, it frustrates us to this day that its controllers come with AA battery packs by default, which get expensive or fiddly quick.
This charging pack from Microsoft takes care of the problem, giving you longer batterlife that’s easily recharged with the included cable, which is also of really good quality.
Amazon
AmazonBasics charging cable
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Whether you’ve got that rechargeable battery or not, there will be times when you need to plug in your controller while you play, and a good cable is a must.
If you just want a new cable, then, Amazon’s cheap range will do the trick nicely, and a long version will make sure that you have plenty of room to move around.
Xbox
Vertical Stand
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How you arrange your consoles will depend on a whole bunch of factors around your space and TV stand, but for many people being able to stand them vertically would be really useful.
This stand is one of a few you can find, with version to fit every Xbox One model, letting you stand them up without worrying about toppling over.
The Xbox One controller is absolutely brilliant without any changes, but after a while, you might find yourself wanting some extra control and precision on the thumbsticks.
If so, KontrolFreek has a whole heap of different styles to pick from. We like this pattern for its texture and grippiness, but others can help in different ways.
Logitech
Logitech G920
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Racing wheels are a bit of tech that many people might consider overkill if they’re looking for a simple good time on a driving game.
If you want to take your immersion to the next level, though, in the likes of Forza Horizon 4 or Project Cars 3, there’s nothing quite like a wheel and pedal combo. This set from Logitech is as good as they come, although it’s got a price to match.
Razer
Razer Atrox
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If you’re at all into your fighting games you’ll know that a fighting stick is basically essential to take you to a new level of skill.
Standard controllers just don’t cut it. This stick from Razer, though, is a beauty, with great build quality and fully swappable controls that let you set it up exactly as you want. It’s really pricey, obviously, but it’s for the enthusiast market.
Writing by Max Freeman-Mills.
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