Except now many loyalty cards are now required to get sale prices that were previously available without them. It is a bleak world where folks have to potentially choose between affording groceries and protecting their privacy.

“at no additional cost” - my bill went up nearly 25% in January. Their generosity is underwhelming.

Ah well - supporting the dev isn’t the worst possible outcome. It sure does make me happy to not see the Google ads regardless.

It doesn’t even matter if Gamepass or Xbox is currently profitable or not. It’s about whether it can be more profitable. They originally thought the path to that was through exclusivity - now they don’t (just as Sony changed course in regards to putting stuff on PC). Anyone who thinks that corporate decision-making is ever based on anything else is being naive.

The practical concern here for me is at what point does MS find it most profitable to stop supporting my ability to use my accumulated physical and digital xbox software. Another reason walled gardens suck.

I just got Projectivy Launcher. You need to get premium (one-time 7.25 cost) to set it as the default but it has some nice customizations. Works great on my Shield and a Google TV.

It went up like four bucks this month for me this past month. I feel like I am in a no-win situation. I want to support the authors of the videos and music I like, make the platform sustainable, and I hate ads and data harvesting. There doesn’t seem to be reasonable way to satisfy all three objectives (or even two).

I agree. I have had major show-stopping bugs with main story quests in Act 3 and more crashes on the PS5 than I have experienced in any game by a huge margin. I love the game but it has been buggier than CP2077 for me as well.