TheGameThrifter

@Kaloudz Xbox is a console, despite what Microsoft tries to push. And that has factually never been weaker. What point is there to them even doing another console if all their games are on PS?

I don't trust businessmen to have a gamers thoughts in their mind, otherwise the Xbox One wouldn't have happened. Microsoft will make short term gains with this strategy, but long term they are losing a lot of market share in the console space.

@Lup People need to look at the high point to this generation. 2021 saw Xbox sales breaking records and they actually won NPD. I understand certain factors like Pandemic were in play, but it's no mistake that holiday 2021 which saw releases of Halo Infinite, Forza Horizon 5 and Flight Simulator back to back to back caused such an increase.

2022 Microsoft release 0 AAA first party exclusives.

They have been so sporadic with releases of first party exclusives that we never got a chance to see what could happen if they had multiple years of solid exclusive game releases.

Microsoft believe everything is like COD, but we've seen how most of the games they put on PS didn't do well. Doom didn't do well on PS, Indiana Jones didn't do well on PS, Pentiment, Grounded, Hi-Fi Rush all flopped on PS.

All they did was hurt their own brand.

@Lup If you're an Xbox console owner, it has hurt you. Developers aren't going to keep supporting a console with a low install base. They aren't going to optimize properly for it even if they do.
PlayStation gets Xbox games and PS games and more 3rd party games.
Nintendo gets Nintendo games and Xbox games.
Xbox gets Xbox games and less 3rd party games.

That's how it hurts Xbox owners.

Why would Microsoft keep funding a loss leader with hardware? It continually drops quarter after quarter and they have basically pulled out of most territories already....

@Kaloudz What's the point of Xbox if it has NOTHING to make it worthwhile and all the Xbox games are on PS and Nintendo platforms which also have their own respective exclusive and console exclusive games?

I think people aren't realizing the importance of competition in the console space. If Microsoft continues to give up in the console space, Sony can do whatever they want, can charge whatever they want. Sony is already getting away with their worst generation ever. They don't even need to show anything first party because MS helps Sony fund more exclusive games that Xbox owners don't get.

@Rog-X You realize the entire reason that Xbox sales have flatlined is lack of exclusive titles and belief that Xbox is the next Dreamcast?

Also, the reason there's no live audience for the Xbox showcase is because every game is going to have a PlayStation Logo and launch day one on PS5? They knew people would boo and be ticked off, so they cut the live audience out of the equation.

If PlayStation gets all PS exclusives and all the Xbox games, why buy an Xbox? I understand some people love the rental service Game Pass, but that's not enough to spend $600 or more on the next console when you're getting less content.

If Microsoft wants to further kill their console brand and go full 3rd party they should definitely support the Switch 2. If they actually want to sell their own console and future handheld it doesn't make sense to do so.

@Kaloudz Microsoft is a 3 trillion dollar company and yet they lay off THOUSANDS of employees at a time with rumors of more coming from the Xbox side of things.
Having Xbox games on PlayStation and Switch has only hurt Xbox console owners because it's a one way street. PS and Switch have exclusives and get Xbox games, while Xbox owners get none of those games.

Making money didn't stop Microsoft from closing Tango or Arkane....or from cancelling games.

If it made 100 million. Then you minus 30% for Sony's cut.
You have to minus any advertising costs.
You have to minus the cost of the port studio.

Microsoft probably made 20-25 million. At the cost of their identity as a platform holder.

No!

This is a PC handheld, PC isn't an Xbox and this won't support our console Xbox libraries.
Microsoft trying to get everything to be the Xbox is like that girl trying to get the word "fetch" to catch on. It's not happening.

Streaming IS NOT backwards compatibility and it's NOT GAME PRESERVATION.

You can't buy those games and you can't play them offline. And the sad part is, I tried Pitfall for the Atari through streaming and the input lag makes it impossible to play. You need precise jumping.

Sony has been doing PS3 game streaming forever and people hate it, everyone has been begging for native backwards compatibility for years now.

@Millionski To be honest, that sounds terrible. I'm a console gamer through and through. I buy console for plug and play and to avoid playing with PC gamers in multiplayer. I actually PAY to play online to have that option.

I have zero interest in a $800 PC with an Xbox logo, but that's just me. If Sony does a standard subsidized console at $500-$600, they have my business. Any Xbox games I like would be available on PS6 day one and optimized fully anyway.

Funny part is, everyone is freaking out about this being Xbox exclusive and dropping day 1 in Game Pass, yet some folks want to believe exclusives couldn't lead to more Xbox consoles being sold.
So ridiculous.

You can't buy them or download them. Cool idea, but streaming only is very limited. I hope that is not Microsoft's idea of game preservation....

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.