Maybe that fact that nearly all first party games mid at best, you still have to pay a monthly fee for multiplayer games, the terrible UI and the fact that 1TB of extra harddrive space costs 200€ have something to do with it?
I used the 360 as my main console back in the day because it was getting all the good games and multiplats usually ran better on it. I got a PS3 in late 2009 when the price dropped and it started getting worthwhile exclusives. When Microsoft tried to pull that always online crap with the One, they lost me forever. Since all of their games are on PC day one, there’s even less reason for me to get one.
I’m a cloud gamer because I do not have much expendable income. I definitely am not interested in consoles. If my situation improves, I will go back to PC.
I still have never seen whatever the newest version of xbox is called in the stores. I’ve seen PS5’s now and then, but still never even seen an xbox to buy.
I still believe their naming conventions has destroyed the brand.
Grandma that wants to buy a toy for their kids can go to the store and buy the next PlayStation. Xbox… which one do they buy? They don’t, they buy the easy option.
The only thing I will concede is that being able to shorten Xbox One X to XbOX was clever. Naming it the Xbox One in the first place was mind numbingly stupid, though.
I have seen people very confused about which games will run on their system, though. Most are still cross compatible with XB1 and Series X, but some are Series X only now and the boxes aren’t marked clearly enough for some people to tell the difference.
Admittedly I don’t play on Xbox, but yeah their console naming is baffling to me and I honestly don’t know/can’t be bothered to figure it out. PlayStation is simple. Bigger numbers equal newer. Pro version? Just a modest step up but still clearly identifies as the same Gen.
When Xbox launched the One, I thought, “oh they’re going to reset the numbering convention. It’s awkward now but will be easier going forward.” Boy was I wrong.
On the other end there’s Nintendo, but the names are so different and distinct it’s easy enough to distinguish (except whatever the hell Wii U was).
Microsoft seems caught in the middle. They clearly didn’t want to be like PlayStation, but they don’t want to/can’t come up with unique names, so you get just a mouthful of nonsense letters and numbers.
Microsoft have sucked at naming things basically forever. Look at their windows versions. First they were numbered after the year release which made sense, they kind of break the trend with millennium edition but it’s still sort of worked because it came out in 2000. Was also a 2000 which confused things and then after that it just continued to go downhill.
95, 98, 2000 (presumably because they didn’t want to call it 00), XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10 (because nine is evil for some reason), 11
There’s a rumor the next version is going to be called X, I assume because they haven’t really advanced as a company since the '90s and they still think that’s cool.
Keeps support for poorly coded programs working. In the old days, a quick and hacky way to determine which Windows version the system was on was to have the program check the OS name. If the name started with the characters “Windows 9” you knew it was either Win95 or Win98 and ran in one mode, but if it was something else it ran in the other mode. If the new OS was named Windows 9, then certain old programs would break when run on it. Yes, the people who would have coded that way are idiots, and sure, the number of people running those programs may be in the single digits, but Microsoft has been pretty serious about maintaining backwards compatibility, even if that means ever more cruft and jank.
The other reason is marketing. “See? It’s not anything like that awful Windows 8! We skipped all the way to 10 to demonstrate how different it is! Please come back!”
That’s a good point that I hadn’t considered as I thought the sentiment was solely toward the console itself. It may be a blessing in disguise though as now grandma can just buy you a gift card if she’s unsure which version of game to buy, so that way you don’t wind up with some off-brand game you’ll never play.
This is exactly what happened with my mom trying to buy a Christmas gift for my nephew. She knew he had an Xbox but had no clue which version it was so she didn’t know which version of a game to get. I told her to just buy an Xbox store gift card and call it a day, much easier than trying to figure out which version of the console he had. Didn’t want her to buy him a disc if he had the Series S.
This happened to me! I thought I was buying the newest gen. But then…games I was trying to buy were “not optimized for your console.”
I’m still not sure which one I have. I think I have the ONE S. But the games I’m looking to buy are “optimized for X|S series,” but…don’t work on my console. I’m moving to PlayStation soon.
Also, I have a feeling all that news a few months ago about how they’re gonna stop support for Xbox and may not continue to make games for it or will shut down the console division or whatever cannot have helped sales. I don’t remember the articles exactly. But the impression I was left with was Xbox was on its way out. Why would I buy another if they’re unsure of its future?
I used to have a black XBox sitting beneath the TV gathering dust. I think it is a One by the shape. As for the new ones I have no idea off the top of my head which is the best. I’ve seen some on sale in places, but the impulse buy isn’t there because I have no idea what I would be getting. I don’t own a PlayStation, but if I wanted one I know that 5 is the newest, and you can get the small slim one or the big Pro one.
I personally would by a ps6 in a heartbeat, and likely the switch 2. I’ve bought an Xbox one which I sold after the dust on it got too much, and a series x whoch also never gets turned on. 2 gen burns in a row is enough for me to exclude it from my console purchase next gen.
I’ll probably get the Switch 2 when they do their mid-gen refresh model, but I think I’ll skip the PS6. Sony ports their stuff to PC after a few years now and I’m a patient gamer type anyway.
I didn’t see that coming, and it’s a welcome development. If it warps the general PC hardware market enough that devs start optimizing for a standard platform, it’ll result in less buggy products at launch. And maybe orienting development towards a relatively underpowered platform will make it easier for those of us dumb enough to that like to spend more on a desktop to hit those 60 FPS targets.
how i personally see it is that it welcomes devs to set a new minimum pc requirement to target. due to valve not doing contstent iterations (which imo is actually a good thing), it gives people a point of performance comparison reference to when wanting to play a new title.
I think it’s more important that it gives Valve a method of avoiding being shoehorned into a “Windows only world”. The Steam Deck is largely why Linux has pushed past 2% market share on the Steam Hardware Survey consistently now. Holo, which is the codename for SteamOS on the Deck, makes up over half of Steam on Linux.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not dillusional. Windows is still far and away the majority platform and will be for some time. However, there is a real, functional choice now that didn’t exist a few years ago.
Proton is so good that devs have actually gotten better performance by dropping their native Linux build and just running a proton-emulated version in Linux 😀
True, but even if Steam were to offer a x% lower cut on sales for Linux users if the developer makes a Linux-native build, it’d still not entice many to build and maintain a native port if they are only saving x% off a tiny y% of users. Other poster’s point being that incentives like this would actually become enticing to companies when Linux market share (Proton users) increases.
Doubtful Steam is gonna offer a share cut on all sales when it runs on Proton for the 2% of userbase using Linux, and from that only a minority would care whether or not it’s native anyway.
Valve could start by releasing a Steam Deck SDK for Visual Studio that exposes an “Export to Steam Deck” option when targets the latest release of Steam Linux Runtime.
Currently they offer Docker containers which is good but could be improved.
Back when Steam Machines were a thing and Valve tried to only push Linux native games, game developers got placements on Steam Store’s landing page banner in return.
The benefit of Steam is backwards compatibility. The moment you force native porting you lose your greatest benefit. Since you anyway have to build backwards compatibility with Windows you gain nothing by incentivizing native Linux and the developers gain nothing from being incentivized to build native because their games will work through Proton.
There’s no reason for Valve to incentivize native builds. It’s the devs that need to have an incentive to develop natively for Linux. And with the market share being what it is there’s no incentive for the devs either.
I see you don’t know about Steam Linux Runtimes which are backwards and forwards compatible. 1.0 (“scout”) is based on Ubuntu 12.04, so already 12 years of binary compatibility.
I think you’re missing the point. It’s not about OS backwards compatibility, it’s user library backwards compatibility. Imagine if proton didn’t exist and you have 15 years of Steam library that has expanded on a yearly basis. You now buy the Steam Deck to play your library. What games can you play? I guarantee you couldn’t play 99% of your library because less than 1% of all games on Steam have been made natively for Linux. If you can’t play 99% of your library what’s the point of owning the deck? This is why Valve is pouring money into Proton, because Proton is the tool that gives users backwards compatibility for their library. Without proton the Steam Deck would be an utter failure.
It’s also why they don’t need to incentivize native builds, because they already solved that problem on their own with Proton. Why put effort into having developers develop native builds when you could just put that effort into Proton and essentially get the same result (and extra benefits) without hoping the developers do something they didn’t want to do in the first place?
I think you’re missing the point. It’s not about OS backwards compatibility, it’s user library backwards compatibility.
I never proposed to ax Proton, so I’m not the one here missing any points.
It’s also why they don’t need to incentivize native builds, because they already solved that problem on their own with Proton. Why put effort into having developers develop native builds when you could just put that effort into Proton and essentially get the same result (and extra benefits) without hoping the developers do something they didn’t want to do in the first place?
I explained several times already that game updates breaking Proton compatibility is a real thing that would not have happened with native games.
Game developers develop for dedicated platforms other than Windows all the time. They’re called game consoles. Native games don’t just mysteriously break on updates or suddenly ban players because the game developer out of the blue decided that Proton is cheating. First launch of games doesn’t annoy with those stupid Microsoft runtime installer scripts, etc. Proper native games could be optimized the way console games are instead of relying on multiple levels of Windows compatibility layers (the newest BS Proton has to deal with is gamepad compatibility for launchers via a special input wrapper) – they are just a smoother experience all around.
So you understand that it is way more beneficial for Valve to support proton than native Linux, and then say that Valve should incentivize native builds?
So you understand that it is way more beneficial for Valve to support proton than native Linux, and then say that Valve should incentivize native builds?
Proton should be the focus for older, existing games and native games should be the focus for new games. Not really that hard to understand.
In some far future, sure. But at the moment Linux barely makes up 2% of the users and that number is not going to rise if developers started developing natively for Linux. There is currenttly negative incentive for developers to develop natively for Linux, I can’t find the article but there was a developer who ported their game to Linux and while Linux was barely a speck of their playerbase the Linux users made up the majority of support tickets. Valve would need insane incentives to get developers to develop for Linux. Or they could take fraction of that effort and make Proton better. Quite frankly I’m not sure why I even need to explain this, it should be a no-brainer to understand why supporting Proton right now is much better for Valve than incentivizing Linux builds.
In some far future, sure. But at the moment Linux barely makes up 2% of the users
Fun fact: Whenever a console maker launches a new console, ahead of launch the user base is 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000%. And yet no one of them would even think about not incentivizing game development for the upcoming platform.
and that number is not going to rise if developers started developing natively for Linux.
Based on which argument? Games on occasion break on updates. Players get banned for using Proton. That’s negative publicity.
There is currenttly negative incentive for developers to develop natively for Linux, I can’t find the article but there was a developer who ported their game to Linux and while Linux was barely a speck of their playerbase the Linux users made up the majority of support tickets.
Doesn’t change the fact that native games lead to a better experience for consumers (which I already outlined).
Valve would need insane incentives to get developers to develop for Linux. Or they could take fraction of that effort and make Proton better.
Start by offering a proper SDK that plugs into Visual Studio. You’re acting as if incentivizing would cost insane amounts of money, based on no fact at all.
Quite frankly I’m not sure why I even need to explain this
You barely explained anything. I explained why emulated Windows games lead to worse user experience. You refuted nothing of that.
Fun fact: Whenever a console maker launches a new console, ahead of launch the user base is 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000%. And yet no one of them would even think about not incentivizing game development for the upcoming platform.
Actually, no. There’s a reason why for multiple generations we’ve had only 3 console selling companies, because all of them have a pre-existing user bases. We saw when a new player wanted to come to the market, Google tried with Stadia. Not exactly a new console, but a new platform where to play games. Sure, they literally paid companies to get their games on their platform, but in the end they still failed because they could not build a user base. And to bring this point back to Steam Deck, Valve doesn’t need to incentivize native Linux builds because Proton can make those games available on the Steam Deck. Steam deck is literally a success without Valve ever incentivizing Linux builds. Oh, and Valve also had a pre-existing user base to make Steam Deck a success. What you’re saying is so wrong I shouldn’t even be explaining any of it.
Based on which argument? Games on occasion break on updates. Players get banned for using Proton. That’s negative publicity.
With those negatives you’ve shown that at best native builds retain the existing user base. That is not the same as growing a user base.
Doesn’t change the fact that native games lead to a better experience for consumers (which I already outlined).
That is not a fact. That comes down to implementation and considering most developers are not familiar with Linux it’s very much a stretch that they could actually give a better experience than what Proton gives by default. Proton does a really good job, I personally have had minimal issues with Proton and considering the impact it has had on Linux gaming I don’t think I’m the exception here.
I also urge you to look at it from a game dev perspective. You see your game run acceptably on Proton. Do you really want to put in the effort to learn Linux to such degree that you can make the native experience better than the acceptable experience Proton gives, for no additional effort? If I was a game dev, I wouldn’t do it. I’d put that effort into making a next game.
Start by offering a proper SDK that plugs into Visual Studio. You’re acting as if incentivizing would cost insane amounts of money, based on no fact at all.
Sequeing from the previous point. Okay, Valve offers the proper SDK. What’s the incentive for the game dev to actually use it? Why should they spend time learning how to make a game for Linux when they could make another game for Windows and know that it probably also works on Linux thanks to Proton? Unless they themselves want to make a game for Linux there’s no reason for them to actually use it.
You barely explained anything. I explained why emulated Windows games lead to worse user experience. You refuted nothing of that.
Because it needs to explanation. Just go into any Linux gaming community and ask what has been the most impactful thing in Linux gaming for the past decade. The unquestionable number 1 reason is Proton. If there’s anything right now growing the Linux user base it’s Proton.
Does Proton do a worse job than a developer making the game natively for Linux. As I alluded to before, not that clear cut of an answer. But the part you’re so adamant on ignoring is that does making a native build pay off compared to just having Proton handle it? I imagine most game devs would say “no”. Linux playerbase is still too small for developers to give it any attention, which is why Proton is a fucking godsend because it allows users to play games on Linux even if the developers don’t even consider Linux support.
As long as the user base is too small for developers to care all efforts should go into Proton. Valve can’t make developers care unless Valve literally throws money in their face to make them care. And Valve does not need to do that because Proton does a good enough job to not need to throw money at the developers.
That’s it, I’m done. If you’ve got anything to say I have my middle finger up towards the camera. I get it, your pet dream is native Linux gaming. Nothing I say matters because you want to believe your dream. Nothing you say matters because I’m not going to believe your unrealistic dream. I literally don’t care what more you have to say because to me it comes across like a flat earther explaining why the earth is flat. I’m not going to waste any more time explaining how the world is round and with that I consider the discussion concluded.
It doesn’t really matter though, because Wine is mature enough that it’s not a hacky diy fix, it’s a viable solution. None of the games I play run any worse on Linux than they did on Windows, and some run better. The vast majority of people don’t care whether it’s native or not, they just want it to work.
When Xcloud eventually (promises, promises, Phil) gets purchased games access, there’ll be no need for the console anymore. Hell, PC gamers could (in theory, anyway) play GTA VI by buying the Xbox version and playing it on Xcloud (again, if purchased games comes to it, it’s been promised for years).
I have no interest in my gaming experience being at the mercy of network latency. It’s bad enough for online games, but there’s no getting around that other than physically going to the same location as everyone else you are playing with. Big no for single player games. If cloud gaming does replace locally computed gaming, it will be another case of enshitification.
I have a buddy with a catering gig who works on film sets all over, an RV trailer with kitchen and a tv and Xbox in the back that we’d fire up in between meal times. No wifi when you’re filming a snowboarding video in the mountains …if they force that into every game then him and people like him will just stop buying new games altogether.
First off, that’s not Nintendo. That’s a third party controller manufacturer. Secondly, they’re basing that entirely off the specs they got for new controllers and docks. All that’s really confirmed by the article is that the next system will have a similar form factor with iteratively improved controllers and docks. Which is in the ‘fucking obvious’ category. Their speculation about the actual internal hardware specs was pulled straight from their ass.
No wonder Microsoft is exploring bringing its games to PlayStation 5
I think you have it backwards. The Xbox has always been a project to PC-ify the console market - initially running Windows on cheap ARM hardware (which failed) and then shipping an honest-to-god Pentium 3 desktop with USB controllers.
They lost focus during the 360 era because the PS3 stumbled out the gate. That era is when multiplatform development won. PS2 games tended to be made specifically for PS2 - as was practically necessary for all prior consoles. But between GTA, RenderWare, and Unreal, devs saw they could sell the same game to everybody. Microsoft made that easy and got great ports. Sony’s impressive-but-goofy hardware did nnnot.
Every Playstation model since then has been nearly indistinguishable from Xbox hardware. The Xbone infamously tried unifying a variety of… frankly terrible ideas. But that machine and the PS4 were basically identical. And the next model is largely compatible. And the next. And the next.
In some sense, there are no consoles, anymore. You just pick the blue AMD laptop or the green AMD laptop. Even Playstation fans accidentally acknowledge this: they joke about the PS5 having “no games,” when what they mean is, damn near everything is multiplatform. Not even software is unique to one brand anymore.
This is why Microsoft is finally talking about releasing Playstation games. They won a fight Sony didn’t know was happening. I expected it to happen a decade ago, when we thought the silliest possible name would be Xbox Two. And though their motives are deeply gross, they will probably do the right thing accidentally, and push to have consumer hardware opened up, the way the EU is finally forcing Apple to stop choking its own customers.
But, being Microsoft, they are terrible at expressing any of this. They vague-post about the future of The Brand.™ They quietly pull products from shelves. No kidding customers are wary; Microsoft’s acting like they went broke. But they very obviously didn’t. So you have to look at it sideways to figure out what the fuck they’re thinking.
What they were thinking, twenty-five years ago, is that they could make the Apple Pippin work. And they did.
They’ve made a lot of good peripherals like keyboards, mice, joysticks. Xbox one used to support Kinect and TV tuners which was nice.
The surface line has been interesting, and I’d be tempted to buy one if they didn’t come with Windows 11 (I need to look up if you can install Win 10 on the newer ones).
They came out with some wild stuff during the Sidekick phone days like Microsoft Kin and Zune. But honestly current management doesn’t seem to be interested in anything but boring but profitable software services (like Xbox game pass) that they can charge a subscription for.
Edit: I wish Zelifcam hadn’t deleted his comments. They were good questions/conversation.
As someone who has dealt with a couple dozen Surface devices in a corporate setting, I cannot recommend them. They’re fine when they work. When they have issues though, they are practically impossible to repair. Keyboard port issues, dock connection issues, bricked devices, and even expanding batteries are all issues I’ve run into. When you have an issue, Microsoft will just swap it out for a different one rather than fix the device.
At an old company I joined they had rolled them out to all employees. Six months before me getting onboard they had already given up, but we still had to support the ones out in the field. Fun fact about Surfaces, despite it being MS hardware running an MS operating system, the Windows 10 and 11 base system does not have drivers for the keyboard or mouse. You have to use a special image for the Surface devices. That meant maintaining two custom WIM images for deployment and keeping them in sync. We scrapped the remaining Surfaces and gave people the choice of Macs or ThinkPads instead. You can guess which was more popular among the office folk.
I’m really curious when Microsoft will start seeing the fruits of all their purchases. They’ve bought up a lot of game devs. Seems modern games cook for 3-4 years before publishing, so some might be turning up soon.
I think next generation could have some.pretty good Microsoft exclusives. If they had a Xbox handheld next Gen I would buy it. Otherwise I will pass honestly. I’ve had every Xbox since the original. I’m old and just play steamdeck now!
Microsoft has pushed and pushed and pushed and finally achieved their goal of going digital-only with Game Pass. I’m 100% confident that the next console won’t have physical media options, so I probably won’t be getting it as I don’t want Microsoft dictating whether I own something or not.
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