TheGameThrifter

1. How can a console play PC games?
2. What about paying to play online? PC doesn't. Do they remove that paywall too?
3. How does Microsoft make money in this scenario?
4. A Steam Machine has already failed, so what makes this different?
5. Would they lower the price of Game Pass Ultimate on console because there'd be no online pay to play now?

So many variables.

@AverageGamer Majority will.
This also doesn't address the pay to play online situation. Steam doesn't pay to play online. So, they are removing the paywall? Won't that make Game Pass Ultimate cheaper since it's $10 more expensive than PC Game Pass because there's no pay to play online there?

As long as Phil, Matt, Sarah, Satya, Amy all get their extra bonuses, who cares? Right? Right? All hail Phil!

@RegnumSolipsi You might be confusing the timeline a bit? I think it's true PlayStation fans had no desire to play Crackdown 3, ReCore, Screamride, Quantum Break ECT

Microsoft has since bought the biggest publishers and IP...these games were selling well before and will continue to do so.

These are silly stories because Microsoft spent over a hundred billion dollars to get the biggest IP and publishers in gaming. Of course the games that were already selling well are going to sell well still!

But saying Xbox is dominating due to 3rd party game sales is like saying Sega is dominating Nintendo because there's Sega games on a Nintendo...lol

Xbox is killing their own hardware by doing this...so...let's cheer? lol

@LogicStrikesAgain The Xbox road map is the PlayStation road map too. These "Xbox games" will look and play best on PS5 Pro in terms of consoles.

This has turned into a PlayStation road map just the same lol

@abe_hikura Bringing a console library to PC or to cloud isn't backwards compatibility.

@Lucylu1983 Yea, kinda figured MS wouldn't actually try to sell an Xbox. They probably look at cell phones in the games as an Xbox lol

Captured on PS5 according to the end of the trailer. Looks like Sony got marketing rights.

And the end of an era as Gears Of War, the entire reason I bought Xbox 360, Xbox One and Xbox Series X...is headed to PlayStation. No need to make another console Microsoft. Let Sony do it.

Microsoft doesn't want to do hardware anymore. They cooked themselves and are making the prospect of owning an Xbox console so bad, that people won't complain when they stop making them.

Same thing they did with Games With Gold for Xbox Live. They made Games With Gold so bad that nobody cared when they stopped it.

Microsoft just gave the best advertisement ever to buy a PS5 or PS5 Pro lol

Cheering on for Xbox to just be a 3rd party publisher is wild to me. Xbox is and always will be a console. No matter how badly they want to change that.
Every success on PlayStation for an Xbox game is another nail in the coffin for the Xbox console...but keep cheering....for..Microsoft's pocketbook.

@Rog-X Only Microsoft first party use Play Anywhere, which I couldn't care less about a version on PC to begin with. No big 3rd party uses it, and it's actually gotten less use as the years go on with less games using the service.
Physical games are cheaper than digital as well. I can't count the amount of times I've picked up a new Xbox or PS5 game for $5 brand new physically.

Glad I picked up a Pro! Xbox games performing best on PlayStation consoles. What a weird time to be alive.

Blue box gets blue games and green games.
Red box gets red games and green games.
Green box gets only green games.

Make it make sense.

I don't even believe MS makes the regular Series X anymore. They don't even put out disc versions of their games for the most part either. They want everyone renting games.

Seems expensive and takes too long to get to the point. How hard is it to showcase an Xbox console and some great games and get people excited?

Don't they usually have a big Xbox exclusive in this spot after their showcase?

Xbox fans likely won't buy it regardless. Most are Game Pass or nothing type of gamers these days, unfortunately.

Without backwards compatibility, it throws out the entire argument that Xbox lost the most important generation.
Every game should be backwards compatible this generation and Xbox One's generation (aside from Kinect nonsense)

They could have the coolest console ever created, I mean I loved Xbox One X and Xbox Series X, but without consistent exclusive games it'll be DOA.
They've ruined the brand by putting their exclusives on competing consoles, so it really doesn't matter what they do.
They already had a console with more features and better features than PlayStation.
Smart Delivery.
Play Anywhere.
Game Pass.
Most powerful.
Cheapest (Series S)
Backwards compatibility
Auto HDR
VRR

BUT, they failed to deliver consistent exclusive games and so people largely skip Xbox.

@abe_hikura They've been beating Sony on features and even had stuff like backwards compatibility and Auto HDR. The problem is that they've never delivered consistent exclusive games.

There is no Xbox handheld, there's a Windows PC handheld. Such a weird thing to call it because it has no ability to play the Xbox console games you own. Just PC versions of things.

@armondo36 Problem is, their strategy makes their console pointless. Less and less people will buy them and it makes less sense for 3rd party devs to bother with a port at all.

@Dalamar73 They spent 100 billion dollars on publishers and studios.....now they're basically just a 3rd party publisher and don't seem to care about hardware at all.

@Tonmoy Xbox devs get no more or less regardless of where their games are...lol
They get paid hourly like most jobs, clock in and clock out and move on.

Microsoft spent 100 billion dollars buying publishers and studios. This isn't an own. This is just showing how much more likely it is that they'll stop hardware altogether and only be a 3rd party publisher.
To see an Xbox site clap for that is very weird.

@themightyant Microsoft will already be putting their games on Switch 2 for years by then. Their handheld isn't a threat to anyone.

@Flugen Well I'm dubious because companies like Microsoft sell us subsidized consoles. A Series X likely would have cost us $700-$800 without it being subsidized.

Which basically means they make the money up from software sales, subscriptions like paying to play online and microtransactions.

How can they get these things if they have PC stores on their platform? Which means how can they subsidize the cost? Steam games are far cheaper than Xbox games. You don't have to pay to play online with Steam or PC. How will Microsoft make that money up? They get $0 from 3rd party game sales on Steam. $0 from 3rd party microtransactions from Steam.

@Utena-mobile Basically Phil Spencer is slapping an Xbox logo on a PC from these rumors, Xbox owners at ANY time could have bought a PC to play these games lol

They have no reason to block it, it's just a PC at that point. Console war over. The minute they try to make a console something that it's not, it really doesn't matter. No one is going to buy some weird, complicated hybrid machine. Most console gamers buy a console for a reason, and PC gamers buy PC's for a reason. Why would they buy a fixed PC?
This thing is going to do Wii U numbers and maybe that's what MS wants?

@HonestHick The problem is, who's it for? PC gamers like to upgrade and tinker, and console owners like plug and play with no hassles.
PC games tend to be unoptimized, while console games are optimized specifically for that hardware. It's why I'm a console gamer.

If Microsoft isn't subsidizing their next console, it'll be $800 or more, and no one will buy it either way. My personal thought was they should have stuck it out and made their next console a beast and had great exclusive games. Let Activision fund your Xbox console exclusives. They never really gave that a chance, Series X/S never had a solid year of exclusive titles outside the end of 2021, which saw the best sales ever for Xbox (Halo Infinite, Flight Sim, Forza Horizon 5 all released)

@HonestHick Yes, with their weird PC handheld.

There's no way a closed box console could ever have Steam because consoles are subsidized to us at a loss to the maker. A Series X would have cost us $800 if not subsidized.

They lose money on hardware to make money on their own store through software sales, microtransactions and subscriptions to play online and things like Game Pass.

IF you can just buy Steam games or skip paying to play online, how does MS make anything?

None. If I wanted to play Steam games I'd play on a PC. I buy and play consoles for a reason.

They don't care about consoles at all, and each game they release on PlayStation that does well will be another nail in that coffin.

Only 7% of games released on Xbox in 2024 were Play Anywhere. Outside of Microsoft's own stuff, almost no big 3rd party supports it.
If you look at the list of 1000 games, most of it is mobile games or shovelware.

An Xbox branded OEM isn't going to sell anything. It's just another PC handheld.
Even if Microsoft had an Xbox handheld that played our actual library of games (Which is what it needs), they are already confusing people by branding a PC handheld an "Xbox". Unless I can play my digital library of Xbox games on it, it's not an Xbox.

This stuff always feels like it's for a super minority of people. I just want to play my Xbox on a big TV.

@Kaloudz Xbox as a console has never been weaker.

@Kaloudz He's only talking about Cloud and subscriptions and A.I. Those things don't bode well for the Xbox consoles.

@Kaloudz How's it a healthy market that Xbox exclusives are on PlayStation and Nintendo platforms while those games aren't on Xbox platforms? It's a one way street that makes Xbox hardware less desirable and therefore less competition.
Sony can literally do whatever they want because it sounds like Phil Spencer has given up completely on believing in his own console.
You should ALWAYS try to sell your product to as many people as possible, yet this guy has given up repeatedly. What kind of message is that to Xbox employees and fans?

Honest and transparent with everyone BUT Xbox owners lol

@PsBoxSwitchOwner "The team does mention that more platforms are being planned for later down the line"

@themightyant The massive returns was just Call Of Duty...lol
Which is what always happens with COD. It sells very well on PlayStation.

Most people play the required amount for the awards. All this guy talks about is PC and Cloud and people wonder why everyone says Xbox consoles are in danger....

Indiana Jones is my GOTY 2024. It's a shame only 4 million people tried it, and the completion percentage is so low. I think Game Pass is a great value, but it really hampers stuff like this.
Indy is the best game Xbox has put out in a long time and it went largely ignored. There's over 30 million Game Pass subscribers and 4 million people played it?

@gollumb82 I think people care because it's a one way street.
Buy a PS5 and get more 3rd party games, PlayStation games and Xbox games.

Buy an Xbox and get less 3rd party games and only Xbox games.

Also, how long will Microsoft keep up hardware at this rate? Getting outsold 8x1 now.

@TheEstablishment Xbox makes BILLIONS less than PlayStation despite owning Activision and Zenimax...
BECAUSE when you have a lot of console sales you can sell more software, subscriptions and microtransactions.

Weird how that works!