We’ve said this many times here, that we are bigger gamers and Xbox fans than most of you. We showed you we’ve been with Xbox since the beginning, and we even originally hated it. It’s sad to see what is happening with the 3rd party stuff.

The fences have perpetuated narratives and got folks caught in style over substance. Though the style isn’t really that good, but now they’ve been ordered to switch the narrative. They’re orders are now to soften up their audiences to the 3rd party idea. “Xbox is already everywhere, what does it matter if games go full 3rd party, that means more people can play it”. You know the old PC talking point. They’re now shaming people in their comments section for giving push back. Some of the pro Xbox shills have begun to scratch their heads and stunned MS is doing the things they’ve been saying they’d do for years. Some are mad and you even had them arguing on forums ie Mr Outriders vs that one rumor spewer.

The Xbox Direct was just pitiful, and you have to wonder what the point was. Avowed looked like a development prototype for a larger game or a first person Genshin Impact spinoff. You’re fighting in these same small battle arenas with basic combat against random monsters. I wasn’t a fan of the initial trailers, but this looked like a crazy downgrade. Then the Indiana Jones game was even worse, it literally looks like an indie game. Almost like those first-person walking sims everyone complains about. Indy was supposed to have been in development for a while and this is what they came up with? They couldn’t even give it a decent title. The Great Circle sounds like a rejected title for The Dial of Destiny. Then we got news that after all the dev time, Hellblade II is being scaled back and will be cheaper. The best part of the show was Visions of Mana and it wasn’t for the game itself. I got a kick out of grandad in the leather jacket.

Many people have asked us why we got a Series X. Well we got it cheap and it’s now the console we play the most. It has almost replaced our need to use PC. The Xbox has a true killer app that’s only $20.

For $20 you can unlock dev mode on Xbox. What makes dev mode the killer app is you have the best part of PC gaming, in emulating console games on it. We’ve been playing through a lot of PS2 games lately. You can even install mods, cheats, HD textures, widescreen patches and unlock framerates. A fair amount of games like Socom, have 3rd party online servers. You can also emulate PSP, PS1, 360, SNES, Dreamcast, Genesis. N64, GameCube and Wii. Games can be streamed from your PC and gameplay can be streamed online

I don’t think I’ve ever heard the shills mention this feature. I’m not sure they were allowed to, but this has turned the Xbox into my main console again. I can play all the games I missed back during the Gen6 Wars of the 2000’s.

One of the biggest drawbacks to it is you have to pay for Live twice, to use the parties. But you can use discord to talk. Gameplay clips can only be uploaded to OneDrive which isn’t a dealbreaker or anything.

If you have a series console that you really haven’t used, try dev mode. Get your emulators and enjoy one of the best emulation machines out there. Not even the PS5 can match it in this area. Check the setup guide below