They have multiple plans, including an ad-supported tier coming. They’re doing more to attract more folks.
Just like ultra premium tiers for other subscription services, or top of the line hardware versions, they’re usually not the plan the majority of folks choose.
Next console generation is going to be so illuminating. Maybe the next Xbox flops. I think there’s a really decent chance of that happening honestly. I also think there’s a pretty good chance that the PS6, if not flops, let’s say, sells at a level that suddenly makes the limits of the console audience really clear. And we all find out that what looked like “Xbox problems” were actually “declining traditional console audience problems” all along.
Yeah, so many question marks around this. Input is one thing and bad enough, but PC is crawling with cheating muppets. This might be a dealbreaker for me tbh, can’t really turn off cross play if this “xbox” is considered a PC.
PS games via Steam, sign me up! If it works like I hope it does. At some point I’m sure Sony will move to day one releases for PC and that would mean I never need a PS at all. If it will work like that remains to be seen.
I play a lot of Fortnite on my PC, lately I’d say 80% of my gametime is done on PC and same with Fortnite and even though I play with a controller, I win quite a bit of my games so my guess is that anticheat can work well in some cases and input can be adjusted to work well in games, enough that Keyboard and Mouse combo vs Controller isn’t that big of a gulf. A lot of COD players play on controllers as well, so there are definitely ways to tune it and keep it fun for everyone.
Yeah but who really needs every game day one? Premium now promises all first party except COD within a year and it has a really strong back library.
But the library isn’t really the focus here because what I think is really telling is the fact they added cloud gaming and PC games to EVERY tier from essential (formerly core) to premium (formerly console and standard). That was originally the selling point of Game Pass Ultimate. When it launched Ultimate wasn’t the “day one” tier because stand alone game pass did that; it was the PC + console tier and then it added cloud (beta) and EA play. Now that’s every tier and Ultimate is only like turning the volume up with more perks most people probably wouldn’t want. But yeah, ahead of the hybrid Xbox PC rumors, every tier of game pass includes both console and pc games.
I’d also just say, premium today at $15 a month offers more value than Ultimate did when it first launched at $15 a month just because the overall library has grown and improved in quality. That’s of game pass in general: it was always a great idea but it started small and Xbox first party was wildly inconsistent in terms of releases. So I’d definitely say premium and even essential are still really attractive to non subscribers. And honestly there’s no way that everyone whose complaining online was even considering buying the most expensive plan. Microsoft’s biggest mistake wasn’t the price increase; it was doing the price increase at the same time they buffed the lower tiers and expecting the internet to reasonably focus on all three tier changes.
It sounds like what I have speculated before. This new system isn’t much different than what we have now. The Series systems can already go into “developer mode” and be used to load games outside of the Xbox ecosystem. This would just expand upon that and be more marketed.
They’ve also already laid the groundwork linking Steam and Epic to Xbox on PC. You’ll be able to view and launch Steam games from the Xbox seamlessly most likely, so no boot to Windows and then launch Steam.
This adds credibility to the drop of the multiplayer paywall. It’s something that has been rumored to be in the works for awhile now. That’s not to say they don’t have some sort of paid access to “Xbox only” or “special Azure” servers or something.
It’s possible that the native Xbox experience remains in the console pool, and you’re only forced into the PC pool when you go to windows and other launchers. Possibly even Microsoft’s own PC Xbox app will have different games and experiences than the native console Xbox mode.
But as of now you can use mouse and keyboard on console but that hasn’t led to every console pool becoming a PC pool. Like you said, a lot of question marks though. A big issue is that will depend on how developers and publishers see this device. Or how Microsoft makes them see it. They have themselves been calling it a “console” and referred separately to the “PC” devices powering Xbox experiences. This device will still need to maintain promises of backwards compatibility for our libraries and all the many many Xbox one and series games just not available on the PC Xbox store. They can’t JUST brute force windows into playing nice.
Honestly this should already be the norm (input matchmaking). Especially with handhelds like the Steam Deck and Xbox Ally and Legion Go floating around with increasing popularity. Not having input match making with optional crossplay is just screwing PC gamer audiences anyway.
I have to hope that’s something visible Xbox is aware of, but a big question is how easy it’ll be for cheaters to cheat on this Xbox. Does “just a PC” mean it’s as easy to break games as on PC. Everyone wants mods on Xbox, but I assume very few want cheaters (more cheaters) floating around Xbox games.
I’m super hyped and super excited for Microsoft’s Xbox/PC console hybrid!!! I can finally have what I have wanted since the Super Nintendo/Sega Genesis which is an all in one gaming console. I’ll have all the storefronts, subscriptions and the games that I own or will own on one box. Storefront wise, I’ll have to access to the following -
I’ll get all of Microsoft’s published games as well as Ubisoft’s published games and EA’s published games day one on their respective subscription services. I currently get Game Pass Ultimate and Ubisoft+ on Xbox but EA Play is just their vault which I have zero interest in. I can then use all that extra saved money on games that I normally wouldn’t take a chance on or on games that I was always going to purchase.
I’ll get all of Sony’s published games and the few Japanese games that are on PC via Steam day one but skip Xbox like Ys for example. I’ll still get all the AA games and the few Indies that I may be interested in but also, I’ll get the Early Access games that I would have liked to buy at a cheaper price due to being Early Access and get to play them instead of waiting for their console release. Really wanted to play Dune and Titan Quest 2 to name a few.
If Microsoft can pull this off by having everything that I want in one place and still streamline it all with the ease of access like a console, this will truly be the best gaming console/platform of all time for me because I would have access to everything that I want. So yeah, im definitely hyped and excited!!!
Hoping for a Fall 2026 release but im guessing it will probably be Fall 2027 which sucks because I want it sooner rather than later.
It’ll be like a modern Windows 11 PC with SecureBoot and TPM 2.0 - meaning security is embedded into the CPU and motherboard and used by the Windows kernel to prevent hacking and cheating.
Basically similar to what the Xbox console OS has had for years that has made it so difficult to break into.
Yes being a PC a user could turn them off, but you then have to re-format any drives secured that way and often reinstall Windows, plus the Xbox app and many anti-cheat software and games themselves detect it and won’t launch without it
For example the new Battlefield requires it.
Cheaters still exist on PC but hack ones should start to go away as games move to only supporting the newer secure technologies - there may still be aimbots to a degree (ones that maybe work by spotting something on your screen and reacting on your controller for you, or a controller with smoother movement / cheat switches etc) but those would be outside the PC / Xbox itself so not something they can stop - and they exist right now already for current consoles, not just for PC…
This is new territory so who knows how it will work. Traditional thought is that console sales/user base is what determined developers supporting your console. It’s that whole (console sales = game sales = exclusives/support) triangle people think of which is the core of console wars. However just because the consoles are sold doesn’t guarantee you will sell your game to those people. Well, there isn’t much difference here. If this Nextbox turns out to be a nice piece of hardware and attracts PC users with no intention to use the Xbox features, it still counts as a sale. The potential behind the sold consoles/user base is still there technically. That’s just at the surface though. The reality is there is probably a bunch of analysis and metrics going on behind the scenes. Some devs/pubs will have different criteria and/or access to information, some won’t have anything but feels.
If people are buying the games, the games will be there to be bought.
On my rog ally it stopped me from playing certain games online because of the disadvantage . I think addressing details like that will be key
The idea of this hardware has me very intrigued. It feels over time like pc gaming it ends up being cheaper than consoles because no online paywall and games being slightly cheaper on pc
I don’t think this machine has what is known as a Xbox version, it’d be a PC where the default login is the Xbox Store without the typical windows PC apps around, probably with better performance due to not running that stuff on background.
The idea is interesting, it’ll be very niche tho just like Steam Deck, but if the price is good for the performance it gives, i might get this, i should update my PC around 2027 anyways so, we’ll see.
Hope that they bring all the features that we have today on Xbox to the new Xbox PC. For example, using discord on Xbox today works really well, they have to make the widget in the Xbox App that we can use Discord with the controller.
And, we going to have support for apps like youtube and Netflix using only the controller?
For sure the Rog Ally is just the beginning, but shows that Microsoft have a long way to make everything works fine with the controller like the actual SO of the Xbox does.
Yes, it absolutely sounds fantastic.
And with Steam you’d get PlayStation games as well, maybe not everything because it’ll depend on when Sony eventually just goes for day and date releases. And I can’t help but wonder, can Sony do something so that somehow we don’t get to access and play their games that way?
But having access to all that on a console is awesome. But we do have to access Windows to use those stores, which I’m okay with if I can easily navigate through it, pick a game and just play it. But I bet the Windows “mode” comes with the option to tinker with settings probably too, which should be interesting. But it should work fine for us controller players, after all you can just hook up a controller with PC gaming too.
This also should hopefully erase any chance of ever seeing a Wukong, BG3 etc situation, and just games in general that (temporarily for fully)skip Xbox while they DO release on PC.
The only way for Sony to prevent their games from being played on an Xbox device via Steam/Epic would be to delist all of their games and stop porting games to PC which I don’t see happening whatsoever. They would lose money on future sales for the games that are already available on PC, they would have to refund those who bought the games already if they delist them and they would be losing money on all new future releases. Business wise, it wouldn’t make any logical sense for Sony.
If the Windows implementation is minimal and doesn’t have all these issues like the current ROG Xbox Ally X has and is more of a background thing, then I think what they want to do would be amazing. And if they can or somehow release the hardware with the ability to swap out the CPU/GPU/RAM/SSD so you can upgrade it at your own pace, that would be even more amazing because once you have the actual console hardware, you wouldn’t have to buy it again. You would just have to upgrade the main components if/when needed and always be current with the tech or at least close to it.
Microsoft has an opportunity to do something amazing but of course, it all comes down to IF they pull it off. And granted, that’s a BIG IF. Either way, at least Microsoft is attempting to do something different instead of just doing the same shit every generation with better specifications.
Game wise, no more worries about missing out on games that skip Xbox because they would be the Windows/Xbox version and even if companies don’t do that combined version, they will definitely have a Steam version day one because if you’re going to be on PC, you have to be on Steam and you have to be day one. Otherwise, there’s no point.
What I know is that im super hyped and looking forward to their next generation hardware and im really hoping for Fall 2026!!!
That’s an interesting thought. Does there stop being any distinction between the “Xbox console” and “Windows” version of a game. That would be a continuation of the blurring that’s already happened.
Maybe that could solve the problem of developers not bothering to port their game to Xbox. If every PC game just already “is” an Xbox game. (I guess they would have to do some minimal stuff like adding Xbox achievement hooks.)
I’m guessing the Xbox and Windows “version” will be the same and today’s “Play Anywhere” initiative is just MS setting up how the licensing or contracts will work in advance. All the games will probably still be developed as an Xbox game, the only difference being people will be able to use a PC to play them if you want to.
The only thing holding PC gaming back is the user experience (and that includes game optimization). If Xbox can truly pull off forcing games to be better optimized for different styles of play (like controller focused experiences) while overall improving the gaming experience then that’d be a amazing. Like no matter how the next Xbox hardware sells, I better see people applauding Xbox for making PC gaming overall a significantly better experience for the user.
As is Xbox does a lot of work to make it as easy as possible to make a game Xbox Play Anywhere. If they just expand on that and make it the default dev environment for Xbox that’d be great.
To be fair this is already the case, and devs currently support the PC MS Store on windows/ Xbox PC App far far less than Xbox consoles. Which is Aloe my sign that things will be fine in terms of support. Publishers and developers follow the customers. No dev is going to go “Oh, well I’m already putting this game on Steam, so there’s no reason to make it for Xbox.” if that were the case then other launchers on windows simply wouldn’t exist. Devs and publishers will continue to work with the Xbox native store, so long as Xbox proves to be a platform with fiscal. Opportunities. And despite moderate sales this generation, more Xbox Gamrrers are spending more money on games and in gaming than ever.
Ideally it’ll just be that “Xbox” games have to be optimized tor “Xbox” hardware to get on the windows “Xbox” store at all. If that’s what we see. The really big elephant is backwards compatibility. They can’t just carry out libraries forward, the MS Store on Xbox consoles have more games and generations of games now than ever. When you boot up this Xbox it needs to have as much support out the gate as series consoles have now. If you HAVE to exit the console experience and/or go to another launcher for games that are currently available to buy on Xbox consoles but not the PC Xbox App/MS Store, then it’s game over (well not really). You should be able to get at least as good of a gaming experience as you can now without exiting the Xbox console experience or dealing with windows at all. This only works if its additive.
I think the easiest would be just making it so that every game moving forward HAS to be Xbox Play Anywhere. Unless they can figure out that rumored magic backwards compatibility fix for bringing native Xbox games to windows. But even then, I don’t know how they’d possibly handle all the licensing for that.