Huge Xbox Remake Coming!

A huge Xbox exclusive just leaked. We have some early Black Friday deals for you, and a growing list of celebrities that are Team Xbox. Let's discuss. Kumail Nanjiani, who is a very beloved comedian, he's most recently known for getting super ripped and being in the Eternals, is, turns out, an avid gamer. He owns an Xbox Series X and a PS5, but we don't have to talk about that. In a recent interview, he said that during the course of last year, every Wednesday, he would get with his friends to play Gears of War. And, most recently, he's been taking his PS5 with him whenever he goes and travels to play Deathloop. He hasn't finished it yet, but he's working his way through. I personally really vibe with that philosophy. He recognizes the fact that Xbox and PlayStation both have really great things to offer, and I can respect that. Another celebrity that's been making the rounds on Xbox Twitter is Dwayne the Rock Johnson himself. As we get closer to the Xbox 20th anniversary on November 15th, his old appearance at the original Xbox reveal has been making the rounds on Twitter. He was there, live on stage, at Las Vegas with Bill Gates to introduce Xbox to the world. I know for a fact that he owns a Series X. I think he owns a Series S as well, but he definitely owns a Series X because it was a special edition Rock-branded console just for him. He has a long history of working with Xbox, including last year when he teamed up with Gamers Outreach to provide 20 children's hospitals with Xbox Series X's from the first batch. And he's currently running a sweepstakes in collaboration with Xbox and his new movie coming to Netflix, Red Notice, where they're giving away all sorts of prizes. They're giving away Series S consoles. They're giving away Master Chief helmets. They're giving away a thousand one-year Game Pass subscriptions. And they're also giving away the 20th anniversary controllers, which that's the big one because they're like impossible to get right now. Anyway, that's probably enough about The Rock and his giveaway. We- he's all over the place right now. He doesn't need any more publicity. I need attention. Forza Horizon 5 has been making a ton of noise and it hasn't even been released yet. Well, it'll technically be released by the time this video comes out, but it's only been available for people with a premium edition with early access and it's already reached- it surpassed 800,000 players for sure. It's probably reached over a million by now and that is really, really, really good news for Xbox. So reviews are pouring in left and right for this game and everyone is absolutely gushing about this game, including Forbes, who has even gone so far as to say that this feels like a turning point for Xbox. And I agree. I personally couldn't be happier. It feels like the beginning of the Xbox comeback. I don't need to tell you the whole thing about Xbox, making fun of Xbox, has been saying Xbox has no... and you can fill in the blank for yourself. Xbox Studios putting out a highly reviewed game, a highly sought-after game, is much-needed good news. And this, like I said, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Halo Infinite is coming out in December and there's a laundry list of Xbox exclusives that are going to be added to that list, to the Xbox umbrella, to Game Pass as well. If you need a little reminder on what some of those games are, we have, let's see, Hellblade, Fable, Perfect Dark, the next Gears title, Avowed, Contraband, literally any other Bethesda game that's being put out, starting with Starfield. And then you have the next Dishonored game, Doom, Wolfenstein, Prey, the next Arcane Shooter. That means, yes, if Deathloop 2 is gonna happen, it's gonna be an Xbox exclusive. And of course, The Elder Scrolls. Whenever that comes out, that's literally gonna be game-changing. You know, the work is not done yet, right? The channel's called Xbox Ready, not Delusional Xbox Fan. There's still some work to be done. But if all of those titles are going to be as good or just around as good as Forza, that's good news for the Xbox name. And like I'm saying, I'm calling it right now. Comeback starting now. I'm sad to say I feel like since I last reviewed Forza, that I feel like I've gotten worse at the game. I thought, oh, now that I know how to do the handbrake with A, I can learn how to drift and really master this game. But that just made it more confusing to me. Like, I try to drift and my car like spins out and I'm burnt. I'm like, I'm consistently getting like 6th, 7th place against highly skilled difficulty Drivatars. And it's just, I'm like, I'm getting kind of discouraged here. But I will definitely jump back in because now I feel like I really have to like, I have one of those moments where it's like I lean forward in the gamer chair and I have to get good. Yeah, that's me right now. A new job listing has people who are super excited for id Software's new Xbox exclusive. So a brief recap, if you're not familiar with id Software, they are the people that made Doom. Yes, that Doom. Id Software is owned by Bethesda and Bethesda is now owned by Microsoft. Hence, this next title that they're working on is going to be an Xbox exclusive. Sorry PlayStation guys. So the job description says they're working on a long-running iconic action FPS that will feature triple-a quality sci-fi and fantasy environmental vistas and skyboxes. So that pretty much says to me that they're working on Quake, right? And a lot of people are talking about this is gonna be Quake. Why do people say that? Well, let's run down the list of things here. Well, Quake was released 25 years ago. They've done four titles and tons of expansions for those series. It's considered to be one of the best multiplayer shooters ever and has laid down some features that we take for granted in the modern FPS genre. Including the rocket jump. So to me that would definitely take care of the iconic part of the description. I'm starting to sound like a conspiracy theorist or something. The next part that definitely for me screams Quake is the inclusion of the word fantasy, right? We're going down the conspiracy hole a little bit deeper, okay? Because on Steam they describe the game as the original dark fantasy shooter. We've talked about this a little on the channel already, but it just makes sense to move on to Quake now that they've already kind of wrapped up their support and kind of run as much as they could with the Doom franchise, including Doom Eternal last year. And they're already starting to bring so much support to the Quake remaster that's on Game Pass right now. Including boosting it to 120 frames per second. So this just makes sense. It feels right. Now some people might be thinking, well, it might be Rage. I'm not sure, but they already passed that off to Avalanche. So I don't think it's as likely as them going with another Quake. A couple years ago they tried to go the free-to-play route with Quake, with Quake champions. And of course, I think everyone tried their hand and like the whole free-to-play. We'll just like kind of, you know, put out a free-to-play game, but then like get microtransactions to subsidize it and make money off of it. But of course, that's not as juicy. It's not as sexy as like a full-on Quake. And I think this is really awesome now that Xbox Game Studios have some traction to really revitalize Quake and really bring back an awesome game that I personally love and introduce it to a whole new audience of gamers that haven't experienced it before. So there's not too much news about the latest Xbox deals for Black Friday, but they have a really interesting deal right now going on for Game Pass Ultimate. For three months, you can get it for $38 instead of the $45 that you would normally pay at $15 a month. Now, I know that people are out there kind of gaming the system. I certainly did this for a while, getting by on like $1 Game Pass months, and that's definitely, if you can swing it, that's awesome. In my experience, those $1 kind of giveaways have always been just the base Game Pass subscription, and this specifically is Game Pass Ultimate. And that's really, I'm gonna make the case for Game Pass Ultimate. I know it's a little bit expensive, $15 versus $10, but you get so much more with Ultimate, and this is a great opportunity to get it cheaper. Here's my case for it. So first of all, the big thing with Ultimate Game Pass is that you get Xbox Live Gold bundled into that, right? And the cheapest monthly subscription for Xbox Live Gold is $10. So that works out to $120 a year, or you can buy it for $60 for the whole year, right? And if you do the math, that extra $5 versus that you're paying with the $15 versus the $10, if that accumulates over a year, that's exactly $60. So it's already bundled into that, and that's a great value. You also get a lot of extra perks with Game Pass Ultimate, including a month of Disney+, three months of Discord Nitro, four months of Spotify Premium, and the best of all, 75 days to Crunchyroll Premium. That's breaking news. That's literally like two hours ago. It broke. You also get access to EA Play, which is like, you know, I know we all have our thoughts about EA as a company, but it's worth it this month because you obviously get access to all sorts of, you know, EA titles, but this month you will get access to It Takes Two, which is a banger of a game. I've been playing through it. It's awesome. You not only with Ultimate get the console Game Pass, but you get PC Game Pass as well. So if you want to hop over on your computer, play Age of Empires as part of your subscription, you can totally do that. It's all covered in that $15 Xbox Game Pass Ultimate sub. If you're not totally ready to make the commitment to Game Pass Ultimate, there are some other Black Friday deals that are going on right now. There's up to $40 off of some select accessories on the Microsoft website, including some controllers, some headsets, things like that. I think there's also a sale on Amazon right now where they have a list of things where you buy two, you get one free, and there's a lot of games on that. So they're billing it as you buy two games, you get one free. Speaking of the 20th anniversary, it's coming up on November 15th for Xbox. 20 years of Xbox superiority. Nah, I'm just kidding. There's been some dips, some rises, you know, just like in life. They have gone on to say that there's not gonna be any big game announcements. It kind of seems to me like a playing on your nostalgia, kind of like Member Berry South Park of like, let's look back on all the good moments that Xbox has brought us. But I feel like that's the perfect opportunity to announce some really awesome backwards compatibility stuff. And of course, that's gonna be interesting. And there have been some leaks kind of hinting at more support for backwards compatible titles, more support for, you know, OG era Xbox, 360 era Xbox games for the current consoles right now. And that's something for sure that if you're doing a whole thing based off of like, oh, let's think about the good old days. It's the perfect opportunity to be like, and you can play all these old games that you used to love on the OG Xbox and the 360. Yeah, it's gonna be awesome. They're also gonna be doing other stuff like holding a trivia event where people can enter and answer some trivia for the chance to win some cool prizes and stuff like that. But even though they're not gonna be announcing a big new title or a game, I would suggest tuning in anyway, because you never know. They might announce some other cool stuff and you will want to be the first to know. Also, they're beefing up the Xbox gear shop with all sorts of 20th anniversary stuff. And honestly, I think we're kind of in an era of gaming where like the fashion for gaming stuff is not like totally cringe. You know what I'm saying? Like I'm looking at some of the stuff I'm like, I would actually like wear that out and about and like not be ashamed of it. You know what I mean? I'm upset that the hoodies are sold out. They had a really sick black 20th anniversary hoodie that was just all black and then like the OG Xbox emblem. It's sold out right now. I'm totally bummed that I missed out on that, but they have some other cool stuff as well. Anyway guys, thanks for tuning in to my ramblings. Once again, my name is Ray. For those of you who are tuning in for the first time, make sure you follow at State Xbox Ready on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok. I'm up on there and we'll see you in the next video.