Xbox Game Pass |OT| Our Backlogs Are Doomed

I played a couple hours of Chinatown when it released. I didn’t finish it but I thought it was ok. Something I feel is a “Must Know” about this game is that it asks you to open a web browser and do actual research about the stuff it’s asking you about. Like it’ll show you some old postcard or coin or something and it’ll ask you “Where did this item come from?” or “When was it made?” or whatever else, and you have to figure this stuff out to proceed the story. I don’t mind researching things but I have to be interested in what im looking up or it’ll start feeling like homework…

Game should be pretty easy to get through using a guide at least lol.

Im also wondering about Kraken if anyone here recommends it.

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Thanks, that actually sounds intriguing. I’ll have a look at it then! :+1:

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Just finished Beacon Pines.

Very cool. I like the art style, how it’s all animals and how some of the dogs are different breeds, haha. Nice story too. More games like this would be great, looking forward to whatever they do next.

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That’s it for the second half? Sorry, but I just can’t shake the feeling that when it comes to the amount of games in the service it’s absolutely been going down compared to definitely last year. Unless I misremember there used to be quite a few smaller titles among one or two bigger ones.

In my opinion a very disappointing end of March. Along with NNK2 it’s just three games closing out March. Compared to last year it’s a big difference and that included multiple big names too.

Microsoft took us too seriously when we said “Stop adding games, we have too many backlogs!” :sweat_smile:

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Wait… that’s it?

Ok…

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last wave of this month was underwhelming? yes, but don’t forget we did received two big day one gamepass games recently, doesn’t look the gamepass has cutting budget

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Yeah, not a great batch/month for me. Still have a ton to play so it’s all right, but I am starting to wonder if part of this is Sony exerting pressure on third-party devs now that they have their own service. I’m sure it’s confirmation bias/appel du vide.

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Did you guys forget what was in the first half of the month? Lol

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Whatever it is, things overall just have been a bit strange for the service, and especially amount wise it’s been on the smaller side. Usually there are a good amount of smaller titles added in as well. I remember the pictures of where it showed lots of pictures from games. I feel that has been going down lately.

Yeah, I’m a bit afraid of that too. If my memory serves me correct things have been changing a bit since Sony came with their service and we shouldn’t put it past them either.

Yep. Basically no real surprises, I think we knew about pretty much all of them for a while now?

I keep hoping that they add AI: The Nirvana Initiative, since the first one was added too. Can still happen. I’d love to play it but it’s one of those games I can see being added and that would suck, lol. And plenty of bigger, but much older games.

No, nothing special for me and only four games in the last batch. Two in this. That’s six games added, and 15 leaving.

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Wow only eight games this month. Half of them are downloaded on my Xbox, but I kind of expected more.

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I hate the word downgrade, but it kinda feels like it sometimes. That’s not to say it still isn’t great value because just one game such as Wo Long in terms of price is already way more than we pay for one month. Plus i won’t ever deny that my backlog is still so big it’s hard to keep up, but I do believe we still can be disappointed a little.

Last year had about ten games more than now for March, good stuff too. And I feel it has been the same for the last couple of months, the amount definitely seems to have decreased. And yeah, games leaving has been at a quite high number, consistently.

It actually is looking like that, haha.

The amount may be less. However, you can easily argue that 2023 has seen higher quality (and bigger) additions so far, compared to 2022 by this point of the year.

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I think last year had MLB too? But Wo Long absolutely is a huge addition and day one at that too. But March last year was strong too, it had Guardians of the Galaxy and many smaller, good games too, a significant bigger amount that this month and it’s looking like that for a while now. Unless my memory is really failing me here. I’d have to look the previous months up and compare to previous years for that.

But I kinda miss the surprises too, when new additions were announced and some games I had never heard of, trying them out, always a significant amount too. It’s definitely less of that for a while now.

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It’s almost like a metric ton of games have been impacted by a pandemic or a war. Have a look at a lot of the titles known to be coming to GamePass but have yet to have a date set. They were meant to be earlier, but you know, timelines have been impacted.

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so xbox game pass is dying?

2022 March was indeed very solid in terms of quantity and quality. It had Tunic, MLB 22, Guardians of the Galaxy (not Day 1), Weird West, FAR: Changing Tides, Shredders, Norco (on PC), and others.

However, I would still argue that 2023 March comfortably matches that in quality. You have Wo Long, Valheim (on Xbox) and MLB 23 as higher profile Day 1 launches. Then, you include two more quality Japanese games in Ni No Kuni II (with all DLCs) and Guilty Gear: Strive. Also, it seems like Way of the Woods, a smaller Day 1 game, may have been delayed from this month.

Yeah, I understand missing the surprise announcements and all. Ultimately, beyond the initial surprise, what matters in the end is the quality of the game itself.

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Yeah, that is exactly what I’m saying.