Honestly, I'm curious to see if this rumor turns out to be true. If it does then I'm not really sure what that means for Xbox in the long-term. Putting just Starfield out on PS5 is one thing, but it sounds like they are thinking of putting most if not all of their first-party games on other platforms. If you're releasing your first-party games on other consoles then what exactly is the point of the Xbox? Is it just going to become a Game Pass box or are they planning on pulling out of the hardware business entirely like Sega?
I think that’s the plan. Rumour is that Microsoft want out of the console hardware business. They want to just be a game producer and subscription platform. They want gamepass on PlayStation and Nintendo and, well everywhere and then they can stop making consoles.
Who knows if that’s even possible though. It seems like hell would freeze over before Sony and Nintendo let gamepass on their platforms but, stranger things have happened.
They’re destroying consoles, as a concept. The Xbox has arguably been about that from the get-go. It was a stripped-down gaming PC aimed at crossover between PC and console games. Microsoft encouraged multiplatform development by selling a glorified compiler target. The 360’s hardware was bizarre, for that goal, but you may remember it had excellent ports when the PS3 was struggling.
By the PS4 / Xbone generation it was over. Both machines are nearly-identical AMD laptops. Both machines got mid-generation “pro” upgrades. Every hardware launch is in lockstep, so there’s no point getting in early or waiting for more power. It’s just - do you want the blue one, or the green one?
Making developers publish separate blue and green versions is a situation they hate. They want to sell games to players. Players want to buy those games. At this point, the branded console market is a rent-seeking middleman layer for mildly-obfuscated midrange PCs. There’s one or two neat tricks that consoles have enabled and Windows doesn’t… for some reason… but the bigger obstacle to smooth PC performance has been broken-by-design DRM like Denuvo.
The point of the Xbox will become the same point as a Steam Deck.: a reasonably-priced game-centric alternative to managing a desktop or laptop. Yeah, a PS6 will play most of your Xbox Whatever games, if you buy the versions that only work on PS6. But the Xbox Whatever should play absolutely goddamn anything, except the three games a year that Sony hordes.
Microsoft doesn’t want to win the console war. Microsoft wants to win at computing.
I think it’s fair to see the Xbox as a Game Pass box in the short to mid-term, yes. Microsoft’s efforts have been focused on getting everyone on Game Pass, be it Xbox, PC or Mobile (and they would love for other console manufacturers to have it as well).
They are selling Xbox consoles at a loss and are only recouping money on games and Game Pass subscriptions, now that neither Nintendo nor Sony is onboard with bringing the latter to their ecosystem, might as well port their first-party games to competing platforms to make more money.
I mean, Sony AND Microsoft started to do exclusivity only temporary, first year or few it’s exclusive and after that they both double dip to make some more money
This move makes me believe the rumors of them wanting out of the console buriness are true. May be bad for consumers initially, but at the end of the day, it's just a glorified PC at this point with better optimization from the developers. I'm not too worried for the future
I’d be really happy to play some Xbox exclusives on my ps5! I don’t see any downside to it as long as Sony still has some competition on the console market.
It didn't end up being the system seller quality game they might have wished for, so why not get some more sales out of it. Nobody is gonna base their choice between Series X or PS5 on Starfield, but a lot of PS5 owners would indulge in purchasing the game out of curiosity. The maths make sense.
The problem is, you can extend this sentiment to most if not all of the XBox console exclusives that have been released for a good while now. They have unfortunately failed at producing a killer app for far too long at this point. Ever since Mattrick killed the momentum of the brand, they have never been able to recover it.
As much as I don't want a future in which PS5 is uncontested in the console space (Nintendo is too much its own thing to count as direct competition imo), it is starting to look like, from all angles, it just makes sense for Microsoft to focus on expanding Gamepass and their games as much as possible across all platforms because there's more money in that than in salvaging the XBox hardware brand.
At this point it's not even just about it being too expensive for an upstart, it's about being too expensive, too hard, and not at all worth the risk/reward proposition for anyone.
Microsoft is the largest public company in the world and they failed at it! Coming from two successful previous generations of products! Getting in in the market as an unproven entity at this point would be suicidal. Not to speak of the fact that the requirements to enter as a player in the market today are 10x more than when Microsoft entered the market with the XBox. When they unveiled the XBox, a half-decent network infrastructure for gaming was revolutionary; nowadays, an almost-perfect infrastructure with a good digital store is a minimum requirement.
Quite ironically, many of the players that could plausibly throw their name in the hat already have their fingers in gaming in other ways that don't exactly align with launching a domestic console. Apple is currently pushing for more ports of current AAA games to iOS and Mac; Facebook (I refuse to acknowledge their rebrand) is pushing Quest as its main platform and I imagine a traditional console would clash with that; NVIDIA provides hardware for Nintendo, sells gaming hardware for PC and a cloud gaming service, and I guess a console kinda clashes with all of that; Amazon seemed more interested in becoming a publisher than anything else when it comes to gaming; Alphabet probably still has PTSD from the whole Stadia fiasco...
Like, I don't know, I don't see a fuck you-tier company that could plausibly pull it off and at the same time would be interested in it. Tencent maybe? It's not looking good, honestly.
Stadia was such a funny story, imo. Nobody thought it would last given Google’s track record of killing products. Then to try to get into the gaming industry, an industry notoriously impossible to break into… And lo and behold, they failed and killed Stadia.
The fact that the one thing about Stadia constantly pratted by the press and public was “When will Google kill it?” impacted its growth profoundly. Google’s culture killed the Stadia, not the lack of investment. And as a company, they are in bad shape product and leadership wise.
If they made it gamepass netflix like then it might have taken off, but they required to buy games that you don’t own, even now it causes outrage and back in the day? They was delusional with that idea that you don’t own what your buy
Valve, that’s who would get in on the market. They already made a killing with the steam deck and there have been talks of a dedicated steam console again, like they have prototypes of consoles in their offices. I’m not talking about another steam machine scenario either, I’m talking dedicated valve designed hardware like the index and deck. They have the storefront and the network architecture to support the hardware. I’m already using my deck as a switch replacement and a console plugged into my TV with a USB-C hub.
You know what, you might be right, a second attempt at the concept of a Steam Machine, but this time done in a way that, you know, actually makes sense, with a single super-official SKU, with a lot of abstraction from the "PC" part of it (which Steam Deck has already set the field for) could potentially work.
But they did it so, so fucking badly last time, that I won't believe it until I see it.
Steam deck already successful, they just need to make steam deck but stationary and few times more powerful which next gen amd apus already providing, quite simple mission, and yes, you can flash Linux on mini pc with AMD hardware and have it, hovewer, why people who buy consoles not buying pc in the first place?, because console works out of the box, so valve can aim in that spot
Yeah, at the very least it would result in a brutal deterioration of the value proposition of future Playstation hardware. The harsh truth is that a large majority of Playstation players would not consider moving to PC or Switch 2 as a viable alternative, and Sony knows that, and would price accordingly. We all saw what happened the last time they felt they were uncontested in the market when they unveiled the PS3 and its pricing, but this time there would not be a 360 to punish them for it.
There is not a world in which a hypothetical PS6 isn't at least 599 ( without the hardware to make up for it) if it doesn't have a direct competitor. And that would have its own domino effect on Switch and PC hardware pricing... what are you gonna do, go to the overpriced PS6? Pleaaaaase.
Nobody is winning here long-term. Microsoft is growing its subscription service and every step is with that in mind. Getting people to buy their games now, like Starfield, is likely seen as closing the gap a little more towards encouraging that.
Like all of these things, it will be great and a value at first and then a squeeze for more money with less offerings. People en masse will say they won’t be a part of it, and then record profits (like Netflix right now) will be shown.
Not all is doom and gloom though. Indie games are rapid fire releasing, Linux is growing due to Valve and Chromebooks, and I found a ten dollar bill in my pocket this morning.
I’m mostly frustrated with always online games. They remain the enemy for longevity and nonsense outside of the MMO space.
Gamepass has already hiked their prices up, and is severely hampered on PC by offering “Xbox” versions of games that are often older builds with more bugs, fewer features, and if they’re multiplayer games, don’t allow you to play with friends on Steam.
Years after all the Gamepass hype and I still fail to see how Gamepass is really that much of a value. The only really defining characteristic of it is the day 1 releases, but more often than not those late disappointing on their own.
If you’re pirating everything and want to play online then gamepass is your choice because trendy games switch so fast and buying new one every time is troublesome so you’re buying gamepass and have access to most of them in one go
If the studios are profitable, it was still a good business decision. A bad business decision would be to tank a profitable studio to prop up a struggling hardware platform.
Besides, exclusives are mostly bad for the players, so if companies decide that supporting multiple platforms is the best strategy for them, it’s also better for us.
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