Phil Spencer tells Polygon he wants PC Storefronts on Xbox

Good luck with that

Most of their games are selling mediocre or downright bad on Steam, I can’t imagine how bad they’d sell on a completely separate PC store

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Fixed. lol :slight_smile:

This. Sony should just release their games day one on PC via Steam and Epic and call it a day.

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Ha yeah, I didn’t say it was a good idea but I wouldn’t put it past them to try it…

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I wouldn’t be surprised if they did both. A Playstation PC client that has cross buy with Playstation console and also selling separately on Steam.

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Well lets remember that Xbox can use emulators if you open up “dev mode”. The Series S being a cheap emulation darling was a thing for awhile at least.

Probably! Microsoft has managed to do it however they have the advantage of it being built into Windows. I think Sony would struggle a bit more IMO.

With Steam, Epic and GoG it’s already getting quite crowded!

I am interested how Microsoft would implement Steam and Epic into Xbox, I imagine they would still want a % of the sales/microtransactions. If they didn’t they would have to make the hardware more expensive.

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I think at that point it’s no longer subsidized hardware (or lightly subsidized)

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Steam deck cant play a lot of gsmes properly. Id wait for steam deck 2 or get the new rog ally this yesr

It’s still going to be subsidized because a significant portion of the new adopters will get Gamepass or play live service games, thus offsetting the per unit loss. I don’t think it’ll be $200 like the series consoles, but ~$100 loss per unit should be ideal, and possibly more on the handheld.

You’ll need the console to move units to put pressure on Sony to also allow stores on their platform.

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sounds cool, more access for games for console users… but also sounds like at least a decade away from being implemented.

Not necessarily - Jez mentioned something like this in 2019 / 2020, so it’s possible they were testing / trialling it back then, and Microsoft’s work with the handheld PC market will help too.

So will their expertise in virtual machines etc.

Also, the Digital Markets Act is now law in the EU but has been coming for years, so Microsoft and Xbox may have been preparing for a while as it’s really quite against walled gardens - indeed, PlayStation had better hope Xbox sales pick up as if we use their own FTC definition of “high end consoles” they might be approaching a monopoly where the EU force opening up.

Even Apple, one of the biggest companies on earth that seems to ignore all competition and monopoly laws has had to comply and open up iOS to other stores (grudgingly and with caveats that the EU are starting to strike down)

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It would pretty much solve the issue of games that I am interested in playing skipping Xbox, so I am all for it!

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This would make sense if the next console and handheld (I am presuming that will be their two SKU approach)is a basically just a gaming pc & OS.

It could be an interesting approach but will depend a lot on the hardware that is used synergizing well with the software so that Devs don’t need to do any real extra work.

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The absolute baller move would be to make Xbox OS opened up, and get Steam on there… and then you’ve got Sony’s games on Xbox.

Could Sony stop that? :smiley:

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There are also so many third party Asian games that only come to PC & Playstation:

This would solve the ‘skipping Xbox’ situation entirely. Plus they’d get the games which only come to PC so if anything they would have more games than Playstation (in addition to their exclusives)… it would be a pretty hilarious move really.

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I feel if they bring PC storefronts to xbox, then they have to remove online paywall. I feel there’s no way it would be fair to pay for online play for xbox, but not on EGS, Steam, and other storefronts.

A next gen PC device that is subsidized by Microsoft to provide a next gen experience is very enticing.

I think this can work if they remove online paywall, create an easy to use UI, and provide good specs for it’s price. I think if it can move a lot of units if it can have specs similar to PS6 and at a similar cost. As a consumer it would be a no brainer to get this device over other next gen consoles if it gives me access to PC storefronts and removing paywall for online play.

edit:I think theres around 10million that are on core, so if they remove online paywall they’re most likely only losing just aroung $750million/year, but they would open themselves up to get more units sold imo if they create a console like PC experience. I think many are intrigued to get into PC gaming, but like the ability to play on couch and have a console friendly UI because PC still doesn’t provide that imo

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It doesn’t sound like PC storefronts on Xbox. It sounds like Xbox is becoming PC. Complete with unsubsidised hardware.

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I wish I had ‘only’ $750 million each year :wink:, however your right in the grand scheme of things it is quite small. If they pick up another mobile publisher (e.g. Playrix) they could offset that easily (in 2023 they generated $1.8 Billion in revenue).

I think a console like PC would be fantastic, it would make Xbox stand out and make me super excited for the future.

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I definitely wouldn’t mind a XBox console next gen that let’s me play my Steam games too.

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Yes it would likely be a lot less subsidised / completely unsubsidised, but that’s already the case for the PS5 anyway (and you’d expect / hope for the Series consoles).

It’s the economies of scale - if they’re building 20/30 million of these over a few years, they can get a much better price than you or I can for components, and the custom APUs can be customised to be good at gaming rather than the general use stuff PC CPUs/GPUs are designed for.

So we may be talking a little more expensive, but I imagine it would still compete with the PS6 in price.

Think of the Steam Deck, ROG Ally etc. - they’re incredibly powerful and well-priced for what they are, little gaming machines including a screen.

No reason you couldn’t build a console / PC box that was more powerful than them (as didn’t need the expensive screen as it’s got the TV) for not a huge amount more - and we’d hopefully have to worry less about tinkering with settings etc. as such a large install base would be one of the configurations when developers are doing QA testing and would likely have a default profile for

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