Xbox Backtracks On $80 Games Like ‘Outer Worlds,' Is ‘Black Ops 7' Next?
Perhaps the future where all big games are $80 is not so nigh after all. In a surprising move, Microsoft has just announced that it will reverse course and no longer price its fall selection of games at $80.
The Outer Worlds 2 pricing itself at $80 was eye-rolling at the time, as the series may be good, but it's a nascent franchise and not exactly Elder Scrolls or Fallout in terms of demanding such a premium. Obsidian also took the chance to announce the price cut in-character in the Outer Worlds universe:
Outer Worlds 2
FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™
Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase
Pinpoint By Linkedin
Guess The Category
Queens By Linkedin
Crown Each Region
Crossclimb By Linkedin
Unlock A Trivia Ladder
What's notable here is that this is not just said to be Outer Worlds reducing its already announced price. Microsoft says 'our full priced holiday releases,' plural, and you might know what the next question is going to be: What about Call of Duty?
Microsoft never announced a price for Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 when it was revealed, nor have they opened up pre-orders. But it stands to reason that they would not make this statement about 'full-priced holiday releases' and not include Black Ops in that selection. This is significant because it goes past the idea that it's just Outer Worlds, a far, far smaller franchise getting this cut, but Call of Duty, one of the biggest properties in the world, and one that probably could command an $80 price. But it seems Microsoft doesn't want to go there.
They don't want to go there yet. They're just talking about the rest of 2025, and after that? It's anyone's guess. Yes, we've started to see more $80 games crop up, sparked by Mario Kart World going first, but it is not yet industry 'standard.' This fall's Ghost of Yotei from PlayStation, for instance, a big launch for a pretty big franchise, remains $70.
Microsoft has enough pricing problems as it is. They have recently jacked up prices of all its hardware to absurd levels, making Series S consoles cost more than PS5s and Xbox Series X's cost more than PS5 Pros in some instances. But yet again this is Microsoft waffling and seemingly to admit to yet another mistake in a series of many mistakes and instances of backtracking we've seen from the brand.
Now, we wait for the Call of Duty announcement, one way or the other.
Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Bluesky and Instagram.
Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Forbes
8 minutes ago
- Forbes
Today's Wordle #1509 Hints And Answer For Wednesday, August 6th
Looking for Monday's Wordle hints, clues and answer? You can find them here: How To Solve Today's Wordle I'm not sure if I've complained about the heat yet this summer (haha, yeah right) but it is just way too hot out. Not all day. The morning wasn't so bad. The evenings are fine. But the afternoons are brutal. I also live at 7,500 feet above the sea, and when you're that high up the sun is incredibly harsh. Relentless sun, endless blue skies. Dry, windy, dusty. North of here, on the north rim of the Grand Canyon, wildfires burn. Send us rain! Here's the deal: You send us rain and we'll send you some sunshine! For now, short of miraculous weather trades, let's just do this Wordle. Wordle is a daily word puzzle game where your goal is to guess a hidden five-letter word in six tries or fewer. After each guess, the game gives feedback to help you get closer to the answer: FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder Use these clues to narrow down your guesses. Every day brings a new word, and everyone around the world is trying to solve the same puzzle. Some Wordlers also play Competitive Wordle against friends, family, the Wordle Bot or even against me, your humble narrator. See rules for Competitive Wordle toward the end of this post. Today's Wordle Hints And Answer Wordle Bot's Starting Word: SLATE My Starting Word Today: CHORE (45 words remaining) The Hint: Grumble and moan. The Clue: This Wordle has two vowels in a row. Okay, spoilers below! The answer is coming! . . . Every day I check Wordle Bot to help analyze my guessing game. You can check your Wordles with Wordle Bot right here. CHORE was a strong opening guess, leaving me with just 45 remaining solutions. Weirdly, the very first word that popped into my head after this was GROAN. I put the 'R' in front of the O and imagined an 'A' following that and there it was: GROAN. A part of me hesitated. I almost put in GRAIN just so I'd have all new letters and rule out more remaining words. But I went with my gut and my gut was right! GROAN was the Wordle! I get 2 points for guessing in two and 1 point for beating the Bot. The Bot gets 1 point for guessing in three and loses it immediately for losing to me. I widen my lead but only just: Erik: 3 points Wordle Bot: -1 points The word "groan" comes from Old English "grānian," meaning to murmur, complain, or utter a low sound of pain or grief. It is of Germanic origin, related to Old High German "grīnan" (to growl) and Old Norse "grenja" (to weep or howl). The root conveys a sense of emitting a deep, inarticulate sound of distress. Be sure to follow me for all your daily puzzle-solving guides, TV show and movie reviews and more here on this blog!
Forbes
8 minutes ago
- Forbes
NYT ‘Strands' Hints And Answers For Wednesday August 6, 2025
Looking for Monday's Strands hints, spangram and answers? You can find them here: How To Play Strands The New York Times' Strands puzzle is a play on the classic word search. It's in beta for now, which means it'll only stick around if enough people play it every day. There's a new game of Strands to play every day. The game will present you with a six by eight grid of letters. The aim is to find a group of words that have something in common, and you'll get a clue as to what that theme is. When you find a theme word, it will remain highlighted in blue. You'll also need to find a special word called a spangram. This tells you what the words have in common. The spangram links two opposite sides of the board. While the theme words will not be a proper name, the spangram can be a proper name. When you find the spangram, it will remain highlighted in yellow. Be warned: You'll need to be on your toes. 'Some themes are fill-in-the-blank phrases. They may also be steps in a process, items that all belong to the same category, synonyms or homophones,' The New York Times notes. 'Just as she varies the difficulty of Wordle puzzles within a week, [Wordle and Strands editor Tracy] FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia LadderWhat Is Today's Strands Hint? Time to do the NYT hint and then my own hint after that: Paint me a picture And mine is: Some common things What Are Today's Strands Answers? Now we begin the answer portion of the program which is the spangram and the full list of the other answers, the spangram is: STILL LIFE Here it is on the page, and read on: The answers are: Today we focus on a very specific type of painting, which would be our spangram, STILL LIFE. There are certain objects that come up routinely in the artwork, and a number of them make up some famous paintings that thousands of amateurs have tried to emulate over the years. Many in art class, almost none as professionals. I remember doing pitchers and fruit ages ago. Jewelry? I must have missed that one. Same with a guitar. And no one can do sunflowers like, well, you know. Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram. Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Amalgamated Financial (AMAL) Stock Trades Down, Here Is Why
What Happened? Shares of socially responsible bank Amalgamated Financial (NASDAQ:AMAL) fell 5.8% in the afternoon session after an analyst at Piper Sandler downgraded the stock to 'Underweight' from 'Neutral,' citing potential political and regulatory pressures. The investment firm also slashed its price target to $27 from $34. The stock market overreacts to news, and big price drops can present good opportunities to buy high-quality stocks. Is now the time to buy Amalgamated Financial? Access our full analysis report here, it's free. What Is The Market Telling Us Amalgamated Financial's shares are not very volatile and have only had 6 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today's move indicates the market considers this news meaningful, although it might not be something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business. Amalgamated Financial is down 17.2% since the beginning of the year, and at $27.47 per share, it is trading 28% below its 52-week high of $38.13 from November 2024. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Amalgamated Financial's shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $2,370. Today's young investors likely haven't read the timeless lessons in Gorilla Game: Picking Winners In High Technology because it was written more than 20 years ago when Microsoft and Apple were first establishing their supremacy. But if we apply the same principles, then enterprise software stocks leveraging their own generative AI capabilities may well be the Gorillas of the future. So, in that spirit, we are excited to present our Special Free Report on a profitable, fast-growing enterprise software stock that is already riding the automation wave and looking to catch the generative AI next. Sign in to access your portfolio
