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Defining Duke, Episode 226 | Xbox’s MASSIVE Price Hikes Are Here…
🕑 Added 2025-05-01 22:48:07 +0000 UTCWell, we were ready to have a very positive episode, but here we are! Xbox has gone all the away ahead of most of the competition and confirmed the following. Console and accessories prices are jumping immediately. Xbox game prices will reach $80 by the end of the year. In a world where first party is mostly producing divisive titles sitting in the ~80 open critic range, you have to imagine Xbox’s financial situation can’t be in a brilliant stop to step on a rake ahead of its competition. Yet, that’s where things get even more interesting. Xbox’s Q3 2025 results saw them at the industry’s top publisher while also being the leader in games sold on PlayStation with at least four of their titles in the top 10. Xbox wants their money and the Dukes have plenty of thoughts on this. Is this going to push even more people into Game Pass? Will this give birth to a free tier of Game Pass? What of Cloud Streaming’s growth when consoles are becoming extremely pricey. Meanwhile, it's already May and it feels as if we have enough fantastic games to begin our voting on Game Of The Year! Expedition 33 is the talk of the town alongside Oblivion and rightfully so, but it's fascinating just how many incredible experiences surround them. Unlikely heroes in Last Defense Academy, sleeper indie hits in Towerborne, and much more are around every corner. Who has time for all of this? Hell if we know, but we're just happy to be on the ride 2025 is taking us on.
Timestamps:
0:00:00 - Intro
0:06:28 - Health Is Wealth
0:36:44 - Oblivion reaches 4 million players
0:41:49 - Expedition 33 has sold 1 million copies
0:56:38 - People Can Fly’s Project Maverick revealed
1:02:58 - Borderlands 4 gets new release date
1:08:47 - Wuchang Fallen Feather launches on July 24th, 2025
1:10:56 - Robocop: Rogue City - Unfinished Business launches on July 17th, 2025
1:12:37 - FBC: Firebreak launches on June 17th, 2025
1:16:41 - Tainted Grail: Fall Of Avalon leaves early access on May 23rd
1:19:53 - Baldur’s Gate 3 director on AI
1:29:16 - TMNT Splintered Fate is coming to Xbox and PlayStation
1:37:31 - Kevin Eastman on the TMNT Last Ronin video game
1:41:19 - Capcom teases Resident Evil 9
1:44:18 - Splinter Cell: Blacklist randomly gets Steam achievements
1:47:50 - Elden Ring passes 30 million sales
1:50:11 - Microsoft Q3 Results
1:57:06 - Expedition 33
2:34:24 - Marathon
2:54:19 - Oblivion Remaster
3:16:26 - Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy
3:22:29 - Xbox price increase
4:04:00 - Respawn suffers more layoffs and cancellations
4:19:08 - Game Pass Pick Of The Week
Comments
Bartevious
Matt you really underestimate the mechanical differences between Skyrim and oblivion. Skyrim heavily neutered magic, removed any pacing from melee combat (oblivion has much more extensive block/stagger/fatigue mechanics), removed spellcrafting, removed fan favorite skills from the game (athletics/acrobatics) which heavily neuters mobility, both in overworld traversal and verticality in combat/exploration. Morrowind has even more player freedom in gameplay. Everything you don’t like about Morrowind, besides the dice roll combat (which you love in fallout 3 but I won’t poke the bear there) and journal based questing is fixed with the ability to use mark/recall/jump buffs/speed buffs etc etc. you can move like an Apache helicopter in that game. I played Morrowind through for the first time like last year. And Skyrim has the worst combat out of modern ES games, that’s my hot take 😂
Ahlickaloo
Sciel is really strong. Added her from the beginning
TheMuff1nMon
That write in about Expedition 33 not being about builds and team comp is so wrong lol
Pan Ic
In regards to Marathon having few features; this was the same argument being made when Halo bombed. I don't understand this argument at all. Personally I must have north of 10 000hrs in Dust2 alone. Can the game stand on it's gameplay or not?
Murderer Kevin
Need a segment every week with the boys humming game soundtracks
Mr. Scott If You're Nasty
God damn it. How'd this one get out of the stables?
ajwhite
I also hate that Bethesda abandoned the need to repair armor and weapons after Fallout 3
Feedbackghost
Matty, as far as things cut from Skyrim that were in Oblivion: Custom spell making is probably the biggest. You can do some insane stuff with that. Also the Speed stat and Acrobatics skill, which can dramatically alter the way you explore the world.
Bartevious
A bit of health is wealth for the dukes with diet - Do an honest self analysis of what is important to you in your diet. Me personally, I wasn’t a “let me find 87 different amazing lean recipes I love preparing and meal prepping for”, because that’s not my personality. I was able to drop 50 lbs myself by hard focusing calorie count vs protein count, convenience, and lastly taste. Simply picking my meals with those 3 criteria (for me) made it easy to make it a lifestyle switch. I would make up a pan of chicken, ground beef, steak, etc. maybe some eggs sometimes. Use that meat as a base for a couple different meals. Had my frozen fruit, pasteurized egg whites, protein powder shakes going too. I was getting in around 175-200g of protein a day while eating around 2400 calories and it really wasn’t bad. I found that most days I could have something I really like for a meal - Chipotle, somewhat high in protein pizza, etc
Mike1core
PlayStation keeping the lights on at Xbox lol
Russell Robinson
Resident Evil 8bfor DLC. It literally continued what Marty was speaking on.
Chris Van Buren
I personally don’t play on PC, so this “play anywhere” crap means nothing to me. I’m either playing on Xbox or PS5.
