How long have they kept going with Surface, even just announcing 2 more product releases this week even though they don’t sell all that much. Because Surface is the hero hardware, the baseline, what all the other manufacturers are based on.
If MS wasn’t making more hardware they’d get rid of their hardware division, but they haven’t. If they didn’t want Gamepass to work out and wanted to go 3rd party, they wouldn’t include COD in it. They wouldn’t have an Xbox Series X refresh at possibly a lower price coming out this year as well.
Hardware is a loss leading industry… sure, you can get people with services/gamepass etc.
If the plan is a open platform with steam etc, which i remain skeptical about, how are they going to gain the usual monetisation that they would from a closed console platform.
I just think it is super boring (OEM consoles, no exclusives, suits everywhere, community slipping away) and chaotic (strategy shifts more often than I change underwear, no focus, no clarity).
Making a lot of money doesn’t mean anything to us, they closed three studios because they think more about short-term profit than long-term, it doesn’t convey much confidence in the brand in the future.
Console hardware is loss leading for PlayStation right now, that’s it. It’s not for Nintendo and Xbox has decided to stop doing it either. I don’t know exactly what their plans are, none of us do. All we have is constant leaks from dozens of people and if you feel positive you ignore the bad and if you feel negative you ignore the good. People look for things that will back up how they feel and ignore the rest, that’s the cyclical part of this that I’m over. People have had this exact discussion recently in this thread and others, for weeks now. I don’t know the plan, I won’t pretend I do unlike so many others.
There is 0 evidence that continuing to bet on making everything exclusive in hopes that one day the global market will suddenly like Xbox when this has never happened in the history of the brand.
There are like what, 10 PS5 only games? As in they’re not on PC or anywhere else, those are not the games that “sell playstations”. We are a week or so out from PlayStation shifting their strategy from sales to user engagement. I know it’s a huge shift for people but it’s not limited to just Xbox, it’s everyone that isn’t Nintendo.
If the next Xbox includes Steam, you can still sell those people controllers, headsets, and people can still buy from your store as it’ll be front and center as part of the experience.
If other hardware makers come out with hardware that supports Xbox accessories out of the box then it’s a win as well.
What should be expected in the best of worlds is a Windows experience shaped like the Steam Deck; steam deck might be Linux but you get a menu and wouldn’t even know your playing on a PC. I’m guessing MS wants the same concept. There is also no way that they make it so your Xbox just alt-tabs into windows to install Steam; it’ll have to be made in a user friendly way and most likely with Valve’s approval and help for integration.
But right now this is several years in the future and we have a lot more to think about, like those millions of customers still on Xbox One that have yet to transition to next gen.
Xbox MAU are still pretty high and very lucrative for MS and I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of the cloud usage is of actual Xbox One players using it to play Series exclusive titles. If those users stay in the ecosystem MS doesn’t really have much to worry about.
Times are a changing and I think we need to come to terms with the fact that we should expect hardware support to be much longer than before and for companies having to adapt with iterative updates or anything else they think bro go them the most users. Why is it we don’t see any of the big GAAS titles dropping old gen support and why is it you still get the big sports titles as well as COD on last gen still?
Everything will be everywhere in a few years. You’ll even be able to access all PS first party titles on your next xbox (via Playstation store on PC or Steam)
I really doubt that PlayStation will ever release their games on xbox, unless Xbox has some kind of Steam integration, which would kill a lot of software revenue. Nintendo also won’t release any one of their games outside of the switch.
Dudes used to say the same about my Xbox One being able to play 360 games. They werent actually 360 executables because they were converted to X86 and that meant the games weren’t actually backwards compatible…i said to him, the result supercedes the means.
Phil already said, they could see a future where the hardware cost is so large that a 30% cut wont cover it. They’ll just sell a $900 console at profit …will people buy it? Well they might if it plays Xbox, pc, and Playstation games with free online.
My point is: If this Xbox/PC is sold at a profit, why not buy an actual pc then?
One of the best things about consoles is their cheaper price. If they end up costing the same as a pc why not buy the PC that can do everything that the XBOX/PC hybrid can do and more.