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@Titntin this is literally my thoughts completely. It will be a very easy decision for me with Helix. I could see Asha taking away other storefronts now and then it’s no-go for me. If it does have Steam then I think they’ll capture me.

They never quite committed to Game Pass in the sense that Netflix did. If they moved all first party games to subscription that may or may not have resulted in a different outcome.

Even with frequent churn they could count on subscriptions popping up on new releases.

But instead I do feel many gamers realized that for that price they could buy a new game ~every other month.

Granted Netflix has more consumable content but if you want to watch one exclusive movie on there, you’re still forced to sub for a month.

@Stocksy I wonder if all of this not for next gen, but the gen after Helix. Helix is the stop-gap to get all Xbox console games thoroughly ported to PC so Xbox can step back from consoles and say, “See, we respected you and your digital library and can continue to play on any Windows device you want.” At the end of the day they need revenue and I don’t think that returning to an approach that is locking gamers into a hardware box is going to grow their rev stream.

Interesting. Will there metrics be how many Xbox players play them, buy them, increase GP numbers, or uptick in console sales? Because maybe I’m misreading the room but I doubt Clockwork Revolution is doing much of anything to console sales. Nor does Gear look like much more than a passing GP fling for a few hours. But maybe that’s just me.

Maybe that statement was a ripcord to a future parachute to look at Xbox players and say, “see we tried exclusives and you didn’t do enough to make it worth it for us.” It saves face for the new CEO. Either that or she’ll have a very short tenure.

Cloud? GFN is a seamless experience for me.

@Brigurugi lol you mean a new IP with a bawdy song in the trailer won’t be a 11/10 masterpiece that moves consoles?? lol I’m with you. They’re trying to pacify loyalists who can say “see we have exclusives!” But they know full well this is doing nothing to have PS owners jump ship. Exclusives didn’t help them 2 years ago and they won’t help them now.

All this has done is confuse the fan base. Even people who follow closely have no idea what’s going on. And consumer confusion is not a good thing. As someone who jumped ship from maining Xbox this generation the only thing I’ll care about is if Helix actually has other store fronts. But with all this recent talk and vague statements of needing to innovate on Helix for cost I’m wary that’s corporate speak that they end up deciding they’ll lock it down instead.

@Tasuki It is perplexing. It's going to get tiring real fast when Microsoft quickly realizes that these two games will not suddenly spike console sales. I'm not sure if they're trying to just stem the hemorrhaging players from jumping ship? I'm actually not really sure what the purpose of this is. Like Phil Spencer said awhile back with Starfield: "There is no world where Starfield is an 11 out of 10 and people start selling their PS5s." That is true with this as well. All it is doing is decreasing Xbox revenue.

I refuse to believe Microsoft is incompetent enough to think they can turn the ship around by making a prequel game and a new IP exclusive. Maybe market research shows that too little of the 90 million PS5 owners out there wouldn't but it? I don't understand that logic, but hey, who am I? Hardware can't be their end goal here; the profit margin is too thin. So the only logic is somewhere they think this will be a loss leader to... something.

The only thing I can really wrap my head around is that they believe so much in Helix attracting Steam players and generating new Game Pass players that they're hoping some brand loyalty will help? I'm actually quite interested in seeing where all this goes. But in the meantime it's become so confusing to gamers who follow this, let alone peripheral players who have to have to be confused at Xbox's whiplash decision making.

@8th_Observer Correct. Is this somehow going to turn the boat around? Things were exclusive until like 2 years ago and they certainly weren't thriving.

Preach @Naughtyottsel92 - I truly don't understand what's actually changed to get people excited? To each their own I guess. But as a disgruntled Xbox...erm XBOX fan, there's literally nothing here. It's like listening to Peter Molyneux about a game he's making.

Perhaps Helix is the only way forward. If it can play Steam and allow me to dip back into GP that would intrigue me. But Xbox as a platform has burned me too much.

@Friendly Correct. It's most likely fans still hanging on looking for positive outlooks.

Nothing has changed internally with Microsoft regarding goals. They are here to make money and it will be a long, long, long shot to think that next gen hardware is going to sell so massively to justify exclusives. So this leaves income from software and services. They aren't going to pass up the option of tapping into 90 million PlayStations. Sharma will try to make the remaining Xbox... erm XBOX... fans happy to stem them leaving for other platforms. But in the end, Microsoft hasn't suddenly said, "We're happy with where we're at and we're going to go back to limit our sales on our games to just our hardware."

I'm confused why people think exclusives will help. Up until a couple years ago everything was exclusive and it was already a slowly sinking ship with plummeting sales and a failure to move hardware. Nothing has changed from the financial side - Xbox has to make money. It doesn't make money by selling hardware at cost or loss. And pricing it very high for profit won't move consoles en masse either.

They need sales of games and services to be successful. Removing 90 million PlayStations as potential devices to play games on does not make financial sense.

There's no good out for Microsoft at this point. The best they can hope for is to accelerate into cloud services where many people will be looking come next generation or the generation after where console prices become prohibitively expensive to sell enough to pay back AAA development costs.

This most recent push is intended to try to keep the remainder of their players from completely jumping ship to other services whether it's PlayStation, Steam, or Nintendo. There would have to be a miracle to resurrect the Xbox console brand to a point of sustaining the business.

The only difference is that Microsoft has now directly aimed its rhetoric at the Xbox fans who were disgruntled and it seems to be having a positive effect they were hoping for at least for the short term. However, the business side of Microsoft hasn't changed.

@Coletrain I would imagine the priority of this mode has, in fact, always been the navigation improvements designed for portable gaming and couch gaming. And while it does lock out some bloat processes everything I’ve seen also suggests your experience is pretty universal by testers.

@Grumblevolcano If sales have stalled enough on X|S, Microsoft may see no issue ramping up excitement for the longterm of Helix. Although they risk the PS6 being the "new" shiny thing unless they are going to be out to market substantially sooner than that will be.

I agree. Seems odd to start pumping out marketing like that. Then again if they are really not seeing themselves as competing in the same price space anymore, it may not matter to them.

This generation led to me abandoning Xbox after two decades in favor of Steam. Ironically - them allowing me to play Steam on a console while dipping into Game Pass could in fact bring me back to their hardware. I'm not saying I'm the target audience but I am very, very interested in how this will sell and what demographic. As someone in their mid-30s with substantial disposal income, I'd be buying a powerful GPU anyway so price doesn't matter all that much to me with this if I feel like it will be supported.

@TheGameThrifter Good point. They won't really need an "Xbox version" though anymore right? It'll be the same version just on different store fronts?

Something lost in this narrative is these leaks aren’t just for consumers. It’s for providers as well. With big tech posturing, that signals to these companies that they’ll be losing out on millions of dollars (or whatever currency) by directly causing the failure of millions of consoles to ship. It’s incentive to the memory companies to increase their scale.

Prices can be high but if Sony and Microsoft aren’t buying them they’re making less money than if they were buying them.

Don’t think the rumors are all for our sake.

Unfortunate. They need something to convince people that they’re relevant. A machine that plays Steam is a great way to show that.

I do think they need to get this out ASAP. They need to create excitement with a console that plays different store fronts, GamePass, and can play games with anti-cheat (side-eying SteamOS). Otherwise it's game over for hardware sales from them.

The problem isn't the hardware it's the platform now. There's literally nothing they're doing/saying that is making people say, "Gee, it seems like Xbox is going to have a renaissance and I think it'll be the best place to play games." On PC, GP is like just a supplemental service now to complement whatever your main library is where purchase things. And console-only gamers have less reasons to not get a Playstation with every passing announcement Xbox has. So the real issue is the ecosystem. For those who love cloud gaming it's a great platform, but native apps are still pretty rare. For instance, Apple lifted all the restrictions close to what, 18 months ago? And there's still no native iOS or AppleTV app. Just a small example but if you're going to tell me everything is an Xbox but I can't play on my "everything" it really doesn't matter.

After largely abandoning Xbox this generation the idea of being able to plays Game Pass and other storefronts on an officially supported windows device got me to preorder. I have hopes this means Steam purchases will continue to be supported in living rooms.

I've lost faith in Xbox's long-term viability. All 'purchases' are now on Playstation. My Xbox only gets used now where there's a GP game I want to play and I'll sub for a month.

I don't have as rosy an outlook as others. This seemingly talks about multiple chips so now it'll be a Steam situation where you'll have to worry about how your Xbox-branded product will play a certain game? Look at how just supporting X and S caused "issues." Even the ROG Xbox Ally has two different models that are seemingly quite far apart spec wise. It'll just get more and more confusing. But I'll reserve final judgement until the next console is officially released but they seem to be moving in a direction that I have less interest in following them in.

@CaptainCluck the people that buy their phones knowing what ecosystem they have and perhaps even do it on purpose to feel secure in said ecosystem have the freedom to choose different phones. This quite honestly can increase monopolistic power as people have less reasons to use other phone companies.

I genuinely have trouble understanding why a company has to allow other stores on their platform. They put the R&D and infrastructure to maintain. If Apple doesn’t get revenue from the App Store they’ll have to find other revenue sources - perhaps even charging developer fees that would hurt smaller devs.

@Banjo- I guess if enjoying Sony’s first party games makes me a fan, then yes? But I’ve been with Xbox for years and as a casual player, pretty proud of my 70k gamerscore.

As a point of fact - PS Plus or whatever they call it does have first party games, though just not day one.

I think what you listed is true… but it’s becoming more of a specific case. I still maintain that PS is a better suggestion in general to most people. At the end of the day you're still getting more game options on PS.

Hm... Yes? But after switching to maining a PS5 Pro I very much feel that Sony is far and away the better option for most people. With the continued march towards releasing everything on PlayStation anyway, it's hard to justify telling someone to go out and spend money on the Xbox ecosystem.

All dozens of them

No. With “everything” coming to PlayStation the value just isn’t there anymore. In the event of an exclusive I can get a month of GP and play in the cloud.

But I believe Microsoft is 100% ok with this line of thinking and how I really see them killing home consoles in the long run

But wait don’t you worry. GP prices will increase in short order too

I don’t have the rosy outlook a lot of these comments seem to have. It shows Microsoft that they can continue to make money and dominate in gaming without a console. GP growth was for PC and they highlighted cloud gaming hours. They most definitely see a future without their own console. I don’t mind. I’m excited for cloud gaming to take over, but this isn’t a second coming of Xbox as a console. It still is lagging Xbox One (ouch) and they haven’t turned around the decline in consoles. Sure it may have not been as bad as last year but it still continued to decline.

And for the rest of this generation Sony will be the best place to play console games on the Pro.

It’s good news for Microsoft and shareholders but not for Xbox console fans.

Perhaps I’m in the minority but I find the idea of the WiFi controller really intriguing. I would LOVE to pivot to cloud gaming in the future and not need a console. In fact I plan on getting PS6 and no Xbox. However - if Microsoft ever has an exclusive I want to play it’s literally no big deal to just buy a controller and play it wherever I want from the cloud.

I think the point is that the cloud needs consoles to stream games and the idea of owning a console will eventually be a novelty. They’re not getting out of the console business… but they will eventually be getting out of the home console business.

They see streaming Game Pass as the lowest barrier of entry. If people still want to buy games and a console that plays them they’ll be options for that too ala Sony or PC

I’ll for sure give it a try on Game Pass. But I don’t know about “hype.” I think the game just had excellent marketers and it’s hard to turn around in the gaming world without seeing some vlog or sponsored content about this.

Honestly Microsoft could take some notes on how to market games.

My faith in Xbox has diminished and I only use it for GP now; Sony gets my purchases. That being said, I'm very fascinated to see where Team Green is going though.

@Kilamanjaro it’s possible. But I tend to think Microsoft takes this much more seriously than Google did. (Pretty much anyone takes anything more seriously than Google. RIP like every Google project ever). Microsoft also has a better grasp of the hurdles - it has taken the time to build out Game Pass to change the consumer perception of what a subscription means in gaming. And not just replace a console with the cloud. The younger generation is going to cringe at the thought of spending $70+ a game when then can just sub and play a whole bunch of games. To say nothing of the idea of spending the money on a console initially. I don’t think Microsoft believes cloud gaming with usurp the PC gamers, but it’s a viable alternative for console gamers.

@Millionski Yes. Plus when they don't need to target a living room box in price and form factor it'll allow them to iterate quicker and have more powerful options.

And if Playstation cloud gaming ever takes off, Microsoft still wins because it uses their Azure infrastructure. They've essentially won in this sector before it's even really began.

@Markatron84 You have to wonder if this strategy will open up the possibility of other acquisitions with courts seeing how they're bring games to more platforms and actually reducing exclusivity.

Within the decade if GamePass cloud streaming grows more accessible, they win 'the console war.' Old guard gamers may be upset by not having a console, but it's just like video streaming. 4K quality is demonstrably better from a 4K Blu-ray on a disc player, but as a society we've really said that streaming is 'good enough' quality. Same will happen with gaming.

No upfront hardware cost besides a wifi connected controller and an entire catalog of games with all your saves will win everyday. PC gamers will always exist to have the cutting edge tech. But for the rest of us and especially the younger generation, being able to stream will be a game changer.

Plus Microsoft doesn't care if you stream on Playstation or Xbox because Playstation uses their Azure infrastructure anyway.

Castlevania Lords of Shadow 3!!!

I've grown to be OK with all this. Microsoft has made it clear they care about selling games and don't care what platform you buy them on. Yeah it sucks for those who really enjoy the Xbox console, but in the long run will allow gamers to play more games without needing as much hardware. Plus Game Pass will continue to mature and provide a genuinely console-less proposition for people.

But that being said, they'll still need the cloud infrastructure to support GP so they're incentivized to put R&D into continued console development for the near future because they need that hardware to run GP servers too. In the longer term they could easily drop the living room form factor/cost point and be able to provide better hardware on the cloud than consoles could provide (at the expected price point). Very much like NVIDIA.

I think they have a game, set, match thing going on. They've already won from their perspective and the rest of us are just really realizing what game they were even playing in the first place.

I really think the story should be "Microsoft" not "Xbox." Xbox is legacy at this point. Microsoft is enjoying good games and publishing them on everything. Gamers win when we have good games!

But Xbox... I don't know how anyone thinks Xbox as a console brand had a good year. Microsoft went out of there way this year to announce that you don't actually need an Xbox console because "everything is an Xbox" which we're seeing now even includes PlayStation.

I think diehard console Xbox fans had the worst year in the franchise's history.

@Casco Are we the same person? I could have written that exact post lol

It's so cringey to see embedded posts from the X wannabe. Ruins the entire article.

@Fishticon oof that truth bomb though. Yeah especially now they play best on PS5 Pro so you’re actually beta testing the inferior product

@Fiendish-Beaver Yeah - I moved over to PS5 Pro for purchases of games. Ironic though that Xbox games will play best on PS5 Pro until Microsoft releases something new.

It’s not necessary but I would love the option of getting to decide for myself if I want to spend more for a higher resolution/frame rate option the same way PC gamers can decide if they want to spend more for a better GPU.

Last month I started buying my games on PlayStation instead of Xbox. I hope GamePass succeeds and finds it way to PlayStation, but I just don’t have faith in Xbox-as-a-console any longer. I think it’s obvious Microsoft sees the PC market as their bread and butter and I have faith that Sony still has all the incentive to remain a hardware company

@GeorgeKal you really truly think they spent that to somehow catchup with Sony? Naw bruh, they bought that to sell software. On every single piece of hardware they can get it on.

@GeorgeKal mmm ok. You keep telling yourself that shareholders are chill with them leaving millions in sales on the table just to say they have exclusives that by all numbers are not driving console sales. The only exclusive Xbox will end up with is GamePass.

@GeorgeKal says who? Clearly they considered 6 and then pivoted. This move to multiplatform has been planned for a long time.