Xbox Series X/S Launch Day, Pre-orders Arriving Late

Xbox Series X / S launches today

The day has finally come: Microsoft’s next-generation Xbox Series X and S consoles have been unleashed on the world.

To mark the occasion, Microsoft is broadcasting a celebratory livestream showing off launch games at 11.00am PT / 2.00pm ET on YouTube, Twitch and Facebook gaming. If only Mixer was here to see this…

Come play: Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is expanded with the entire EA Play catalogue today, and will be added to Xbox Game Pass for PC on December 15th – at no additional cost. That means over 60 more games for the Game Pass library, including classics like Mass Effect, The Sims and more sports games than you can shake a stick at.

Disney princess: Microsoft is also offering a free Disney+ trial when you sign up for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. Finally, Halo 4 will be added to The Master Chief Collection on November 17th, featuring a “fully remastered campaign”.

What were the Arbiters from Halo 2 originally supposed to be called?

a) Yodha
b) Inquisitor
c) Dervish
d) Hairetikos

The answer will be revealed at the bottom of today's issue. Join up with our community on Twitter and Facebook to discuss what the answer could be.

It’s not a bug if you turn it into a feature

Origin Systems’ classic space dogfighter Wing Commander had a bug that caused the game to crash every time you tried to exit it to return to DOS. The developers could simply not work out what was causing the bug, so they decided to turn it into a feature.

An intrepid developer hex edited the EMM386 memory manager error message to read “Thank you for playing Wing Commander”, and the game was ready to launch.

Join our community on Twitter and Facebook to discuss today's fact.

Go Battle League Season 5 begins

The fifth season of the Go Battle League starts this week, and the next Pokémon Masters EX spotlight has been revealed.

There have also been rumours that UK retailer Game leaked a Pokémon Master Collection including Pokémon Red, Gold and Ruby but it appears to have been a hoax.

Pokémon GO

• Go Battle League Season 5 begins
  • Little Cup format for one week, until November 16th
  • Pokémon that evolve with max CP of 500

Pokémon Masters EX

• Spotlight Scout adds Nate & Braviary Sync Pair on November 12th
• First Time Trial announced, Race to Victory begins on November 12th

Pokémon Center

• Now shipping to Canada through the PokemonCenter.ca portal
• Limited time Special Delivery Pikachu promo card in US and Canada

Sony considered increasing game prices

Some publishers have already decided to raise the price of their next-generation games, and Sony considered raising them even more.

Take-Two’s NBA 2K21 is the first game priced at $70, and Activision Blizzard is following suit with Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. Certain Sony first-party titles will also retail at the new price point.

70 is the new 60: The new price tag is reserved for Sony's “biggest” releases, which they feel is “reflective of the growing development resources needed for these ambitious games.” Microsoft is sticking to the established $60 price point if Gears Tactics is any indication.

Big investment: “Consoles are $500 in US pricing, and I think that’s a heavy investment for people who aren’t every day playing video games,” said Xbox boss Phil Spencer. EA and Ubisoft have yet to announce any changes to their pricing, but they are most certainly watching their competitors with great interest to see how the audience responds.

• Xbox Series X pre-orders from Amazon are late, and the retail giant warns that some orders can't be fulfilled before Christmas
• Super Smash Bros. Ultimate update 9.0.2 coming soon, and might break compatibility with replays
• Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered can use old save data, it just needs an update first
• Take-Two are buying Codemasters for $994m and will take ownership of the venerable publisher in the first quarter of 2021
• Fallout and Dragon Age composer working on “next-gen game” and posts pictures of his orchestra performing

To celebrate the start of a new generation of console gaming we are giving away a new PlayStation 5 to one lucky DailyBits reader. You can find out more about this giveaway on our dedicated page.

Here’s the Giveaway Code for Week 46: 5577

What were the Arbiters from Halo 2 originally supposed to be called?

ANSWER: Dervish!

How could Bungie have made the introduction of the Arbiters more dramatic? By sticking with their original name, the Dervish. That’s a cool word, of course, but it has a bit of baggage: It was the name of an Islamic sect that sanctified material poverty.

Considering Halo is the story of a distinctly American military force battling an alien civilization united by its religious fervour, it was probably a good idea to avoid any parallels with the war on terror. Not all of the Islamic references were culled, though: One of the Covenant high prophets is called the Prophet of Truth, which brings to mind Muhammed, the founder of Islam.

Today's issue of DailyBits was written by Gavin Herman, Erlend Grefsrud, Simon Priest, and Jamie Davey.

We hope you've enjoyed today's issue DailyBits! Please feel free to send any feedback over to [email protected]. Thank You!