Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Tag: xbox series s

Another Game Finished (Forza Horizon 3)

Posted on by Viljami

I have now finished another game, Forza Horizon 3, for this year (2026). I have already posted about this game earlier as I was telling you how I purchased it from a flea market for maybe three euros or something like that. I wanted to play this racing game for a reason or another. I think it’s nice to play a game that you were at least somewhat excited about when you bough it. I did notice that there is going to be another game released in this series this year. This game is Forza Horizon 6 and it will be available on May 19th this year.

“What was Forza Horizon 3 like to play?” one might ask. It is a racing game but it also has many other kinds of features that make it very diverse as a video game. It was released as an exclusive for Xbox. You basically get to explore huge amount of tasks that differ from a racing competition, finding and breaking different plagues that give you experience points and other rewards to strictly exploring the huge map and driving around discovering different places and roads. So, there is racing but with lots of other stuff to do also. The game basically doesn’t have an age limit. It is recommended for people older or as old as three years. There isn’t violence in this game. It might be a good choice for some younger audience also as a video game.

It did take me a bit over 16 hours to finish Forza Horizon 3. It was estimated, by “How Long To Beat” website, that it would take 17 hours to finish the game. There is still plenty of content to play in the game also after winning the final event against an airship. It is a bit tempting for me to keep playing this game but I think I’ll skip this and start getting ready for the next Forza Horizon game (Forza Horizon 6).

Thank you, again, my dear readers, for keeping reading this blog! I haven’t been writing too many blog posts this year but just hang in there because I think that I still have a lot to say and to write about. I have been busy playing and trying to finish some more games. I am also happy that the visitor counter tells me that there have been almost 200 000 visitors here on this website and on this blog.

There are also plenty of things waiting to get released soon. I am waiting for Resident Evil 9. We are going to see also Valve’s gaming console or computer or what ever it can be described as, to get a release soon. Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade was already launched for Nintendo Switch 2. I still have loads of games in my backlog and I have made also some recent purchases. I just have to concentrate and try to finish the next game.

The next game that I am going to soon start to play is Clair Obscur – Expedition 33. I have already installed it on my Xbox Series X. I bought, this time, the physical copy of this game. I got it for a cheap price of just some euros under 40 euros. The game has received lots of good reviews and it has received some awards also. There was some debate on if there was some artificial intelligence used while developing this game. I don’t know if this matters at all when you think about the game and its overall feel as entertainment.

There are many games getting released this year. I think that we aren’t going to see the next PlayStation console, PS6, yet, this year. Still there is something to wait for. PS5 still has some very good games to get into. We are going to see, soon, how Xbox is playing it cards in this game this year. I think it’s going to be an exciting year as the year is, right now, 2026 already. Think that for a second or two!

PS5 Is Way Ahead of Xbox Series S/X

Posted on by Viljami

Xbox Series S/X has sold since its release only about 28 million units to this day. This means sales all the way from the end of 2020. It has been five years. Do you know how much Xbox Series’s main competitor, PS5, has sold? Sony’s newest gaming console has sold about 84 million units. It was also released in the end of 2020.

What about Nintendo? Nintendo Switch has currently sold about 154 million units. It was released already in 2017. So, it has had some more time to sell than its competitors. These figures describe worldwide sells. I am not so often offering links to any material. I don’t know why. I guess I am not used to it. But, this time, I am making an esception. You can find the figures from THIS Wikipedia article.

There have been many rumours. Some people are referring to times when Sega dropped out of the console markets. That time its main console was Dreamcast that was able to sell only 9 million units during its few years that it was available. To compare the sales to something measurable we can take PS2. It managed to sell 160 million units during the time it was manufactured and available as a new console. This comparison is descriptive since Dreamcast and PS2 belonged in the same console generation.

There were many reasons why PS2 was so successful. First matter that comes to mind is that it featured a DVD player. Many consumers would need to buy a DVD player anyway at that time. So, it was comfortable to buy a PS2 since you got sort of two devices at a one price. PS1 had been a success and PS2 would seem to continue the path that its predecessor started. There were many games released to PS2. “How many, actually?” one might ask. I would make an online search and find that there were almost eleven thousand games released for it worldwide.

We can think for a moment about how gaming is popular as a hobby right now. There are new games and retro games. There are gamers that have been gamers for all of their lives. There are young gamers and there are old and middle aged gamers. Actually, today, there aren’t anyone at any age that wouldn’t be active in playing video games at some level. Even my parents have a relationship with games since they have to hear my speak and maybe even read my words about video games. To say it simply I can only say: “Gaming is now more popular as a hobby than it has been ever”.

Lets return to the beginning of this topic I had in my mind when I started writing this blog post. Why is it that Xbox Series S/X has sold only so little compared to its main competitors? One thing that comes to mind is games. We haven’t seen a lot of Xbox exclusive games in this console generation. PS5 has offered some. It has featured Silent Hill 2, Astrobot and the latest Ratchet & Clank game just to name some of them. Well, we could mention also God of War. So, the lack of exclusive games can be one reason.

Xbox Series S/X is not the lowest selling Microsoft game console to this day since original Xbox sold fewer units during its lifespan. Xbox One sold about 58 million units and Xbox 360, being the most sold Xbox console ever, about 84 million units while the original Xbox sold only 24 million units. So, Xbox Series S/X has sold 4 million units more than the original Xbox did.

Original Xbox has its special place in the history of gaming. It also has a special place in my hearth among some other legendary consoles, like Mega Drive, NES and PS1. The thing I remember from back in the day when Microsoft first got into video game business and released their original Xbox console was that everyone hated Microsoft. It was absolutely amazing factor that seemed to push the sales down. That console just couldn’t, at least not yet, compete with Sony.

We are going to see what will happen with Xbox Series S/X. We are currently waiting for more information about PS6 and some details about when it is going to get released. Sony has stated that there might be PS5 support until as long as 2031 or something that. We might not see a new PlayStation yet in a long while. Right now also gamers have confirmed that our PS4s are still actually very much functional. “Why to release a new console so often?”, one might ask. This might be the question that leaves us pondering some more. So, have a nice rest of the week for all of our dear readers of this blog!

The Highlights of Xbox Series X

Posted on by Viljami

In this blog post I am going to go through how I actually feel and think about some experiences of Xbox Series X. We are going to take a look at this console while its lifespan has lasted right now almost five years. There are new consoles going to get released, some this year, some later, and it is a good time to take a look back on what this console, Xbox Series X, had to offer. Soon it will not anymore be the newest console.

I remember back in 2020 that I was thinking about how my PS4 would not be the newest console anymore. In the fall of 2020 we saw PS5 and Xbox Series S/X released. Being the newest gaming console can be a sort of a responsibility. We are used to seeing new consoles getting released every about seven years or so. While PS4 hasn’t been the newest console in years I, and many other gamers, have been playing on their PS4s during these years. I am very glad, since I haven’t to this day bought a PS5, that the newest games for PlayStation were also available for PS4. Some of these games are Gran Turismo 7, Spider-Man (the first and Miles Morales) and God of War (the first game and Ragnarök).

Back in 2021 (I wasn’t the first one to absorb this time) I first bought Xbox Series S. We were well in the pandemia which begun already in 2020. There was a huge shortage concerning about PS5 and Xbox Series X consoles. There were lots of consumers that would had liked to buy a console but couldn’t. I would have bought an Xbox Series X at first but it just wasn’t available. I finally got my Xbox Series X maybe a year later or something like that. Nintendo, in the mean time, was selling lots of Switch consoles as the shortage didn’t affect it so much.

I ended up buying also Xbox Series X because I already had a 4K capable television and I liked the thing that Series X had more space for installing games and it provided the means to watch actual 4K movies through optical 4K discs. I also ended up buying the official disk space upgrade. I always thought it was very expensive. I did buy the option that included 1 TB of extra space. Xbox Series X also provided a better screen resolution and was more powerful in running the games.

Besides playing games Xbox Series X provides the ability that actually lacks in PS4 of playing music CDs. It is also capable to watch DVDs, Blurays and 4K movies that are sold as optical discs. You can also enjoy games and movies in digital format. I have had a smart television so I haven’t actually used my Xbox Series X as a media center. I do watch video content on my TV and I don’t actually use my Xbox console in that way.

I would like to mention and give some thanks to the Xbox app that I installed on my Android smart phone soon after I had installed my Series X. It is very nice. The way you can share and save your actual screenshots is very nice. I have to say that PS4 performs poorly in this manner. Using PS4 you have to have a USB memory stick to move your screenshots to your PC where you can then transfer them to some social media whenever you have a need like this. Nintendo also doesn’t perform so swiftly in this field. The Xbox app is very functional and many of these Series X screenshots I have shared at Instagram or in this blog have been processed using the app. You can also see from the app how long have you been playing a game and also track your overall Xbox gaming score.

What about the games? Lets first talk about the backwards compatibility. Series X i compatible with 63 out of 989 original Xbox games, 632 out of 2155 Xbox 360 games and all of Xbox One games. This makes the game library very strong. The console already has almost 3000 games that you are able to play. There is an idea also that if you like to play more Xbox 360 and/or original Xbox games you would actually like to have a dedicated and original console also. There are options to emulate the hardware also. But when it comes to Xbox Series X is does provide a nice, although not complete, support for older Xbox games.

Some good older games that can be played on a Series X are old Call of Duty series’s games, original Alan Wake, first three Bio Shock titles, some Silent Hill games, Max Payne series (first three games), Quake I and II, Split Second, Skyrim, Halo series and the Master Chief Collection, just to share some of my favorites. Some best new games, in my own opinion, include titles like Forza Horizon 5, Forza Motorsport, Resident Evil 8, Alan Wake II, Diablo II Resurrected and Control.

All in all I have enjoyed Xbox Series X. Would I have done without it? In have to say maybe. I could have utilized an old Xbox 360. I could have bought only a new 4K movie player. There were only so few actual new games that got released. Right now my thoughts are into the soon to be released Nintendo Switch 2. It is getting its release 5th of June. It is very soon. Switch 2 then becomes the first game console in this new generation of consoles. I think Xbox Series X did well.

Today and also yesterday I have spent some time playing Hogwarts Legacy with my Series X. I finally found some time to do this. Also I am not going to  buy a new game for Series X for a while. I am going to wait for Switch 2 to get released. If I am a fortunate one I will buy Nintendo Switch 2. But that means that it is very much available soon after the launch. Happy Sunday to you my dear blog reader!