The combat is VERY Into The Breach - small map, you can see where enemies are going to attack but their attacks don't land until the end of your turn so you can get out the way or push other enemies onto their attacks, pushing enemies around and off the map etc are all very ITB. Main difference is in ITB you have multiple units with fixed actions per unit.
I enjoyed the gameplay in the Stadia demo, and a few minutes of bad humour every now and then isn't enough to put me off the parts where you actually play the game.
It's a light-hearted game in an overly serious year and right now I find that appealing (and I don't have a PS5 for Astrobot or Sackboy).
I am however going to wait a month or so - based on previous Ubisoft games the chances are decent that it'll be half price by then 😀
Looking over the livestream again quickly, I'm now wondering -- was I watching a stream for games to convince me to buy a Xbox Series X, or was I watching a stream to convince me to get PC GamePass? I'm not entirely sure what the value proposition here is.
Does it matter? Seems like MS doesn't care either way as long as you subscribe.
This.
Sony's goal is "sell as much hardware as possible" so they can sell their $60 ($70?) games on it. It's worked well for them in the past. It'll probably work well for them again.
That didn't work so well for Microsoft last time so they seem to be switching gears to selling a service - "get as many subscribers on GamePass as possible". With that mindset you could look at Xbox hardware as just a way to make GamePass available to people that don't have high-end PCs already. If you already have a good PC then great! They don't have to take a loss selling you a subsidised Xbox.
Microsoft already successfully transitioned the company's main income stream (Office) to an even more lucrative subscription service, so they know this approach can work. It's why you can get Windows 10 for free so easily - the chance to get you on that Office 365 subscription is way more valuable than a one-off Windows 10 sale would have been.
So a "GamePass first" approach might end up being a very smart move - continual income from the service could more than offset lower hardware sales. Maybe?
Either way, I think thinking of it as Microsoft trying to sell you on GamePass is probably absolutely the right way to look at it.
Arjailer's comments