He's essentially saying that the Xbox One was the last console that stayed with the nature of a 'console generation'. With the Series X/S, Microsoft will no longer share a time period with market competitors in releasing iterations of its consoles. I get what he is trying to say, and I don't think he's wrong. We're moving in a weird direction in console gaming, god bless Nintendo for always being late to the party.
Nintendo is late to the party because they aren't directly competing for the same audience. As such you'll find Nintendo products as a complement to other products. Not many people are going to find many advantages from having an XSX and a PS5. MAYBE an XSS and gamepass and a PS5.
As such Nintendo can really dictate their own pace for the most part, run high margins towards the end of the product life cycle. Nintendo though faces serious risks in maintaining a hybrid model going forward and convincing people that the Switch is worth upgrading from.
What he is saying isn't too far fetched. Internally, the industry has been looking at how best to replicate similar release model to that of cell phones for software and hardware.
Having a new system come out more regularly in combination with software that can maintain compatibility across multiple iterations of the hardware, gets users locked into an eco system, purchase pattern that generates a lot of predictable and steady revenue stream.
Xbox not taking off like MS hoped already has them pivoting to GP as it's primary growth focus. It's not crazy to believe that they would also shift release patterns to a less powerful, less expensive, but more frequent release of the xbox.
Well yeah I thought this was well known
They been planning this smartphone model for years .
It was supposed to create a neverending user base that would scale & grow with every new Xbox but it's not really working as planned because Nintendo & PlayStation getting a bigger user base with the old model of doing things.
It's actually entirely far-fetched. Cell Phones have an entirely different use case. People carry them wherever they go. Getting the benefits out of a new model makes a lot more sense, especially since those benefits don't have to be programmed in. The way upgrades work too would not benefit consoles.
Imagine an annual release of console hardware. What is the value of the console released in year 0 by year 2? Imagine you buy a console at 500 dollars. To differentiate, you're going to need to drop that price at least 100 dollars by year 2. Now you have a bunch of inventory that is sitting on shelves losing value. Cell phones aren't sold for a loss, this is why they can run that model.
Not to mention the optimization you're going to have to do on games to make sure they utilize all the advantages of new units and you'll never be able to incorporate exclusive features because not enough games will support them.
It does not seem very intelligent for the "followers" paid by Xbox on the networks to talk about a new generation in Dec 2023.
They don't realize that encouraging the market to "wait and see" especially if it isn't true is extremely damaging to the brand. Who wants to buy a console today that could be defunct within 2-3 years? And average consumers get this information too. Average consumers ask core gamers for their opinions.
They don't need the Xbox hardware though then. Can just do GamePass, publish games on all platforms and maybe have a cloud streaming box.
No need to spend $billions on designing, making and selling consoles.
GamePass on Xbox Series/One is the largest percentage of their userbase and most consistent. You can't spend billions on 3rd party content (let alone put your own games day 1 on gamepass) without having consistent subscribers, which you're not going to get for other platforms, certainly not streaming devices.
People are really struggling to understand that GamePass can not exist today without Xbox. It wouldn't be sustainable.
On paper they have a hell of a lineup coming out we will see if it delivers
They really don't.
You watch. If Xbox goes third party, we'll get console wars replaced with publisher wars. "Ha! Look at the revenue my favorite third party mega corporation made this year! Suck it, Bandai Namco losers"!
People care about games and platforms, they don't care about publishers. I doubt CoD has anymore overlap with Overwatch than Fortnite.
The naming of Xbox skus hurt more than what most people think
I mean how many PS5 games only were there but the average person walking into Best Buy/Walmart knew PS5 > PS4
Average guy looks at multiple skus Xbox had at launch with getting rid of old models and just wonder how many had to scratch their heads and wonder what was what
I think this hurt the Vita and the Wii U as well.
Xbox publishing some games on PS/Nintendo in the coming months.
Sorry if I didn't explain myself.
The second they announce a major title for PS/Nintendo that isn't a legacy title, it's over for the brand. They'll get an exception perhaps for a game like Blade because of the licensing, but if they were to announce the next Halo was going to be on PS5, Xbox sales would crater.
I believe IF Xbox is trying to squeeze out the next Xbox a year ish after the PS5 Pro they will go on a full court press getting info out there just before the Pro launches
I doubt it. You'd have at least an entire year of no one buying the XSX and you can't concede an entire year just to get a year or two headstart.
The PS5 and Series X just being glorified "Super"-Pro consoles is something I've been saying since early 2021
They are both shit and have no real reason to exist outside of 4K blu ray, VR(PS5) and being an xcloud server for gamepass(SERIES X)
This generation could have been PS4 Pro, Series S and Switch and almost nothing of value would have been lost
Home consoles are just a hop, skip and a jump from being a scam....we are one or two generations away from the only 'upgrade' being a boost in RT cores and Ai tech thats not a future I want any part of
I see why you'd say that, but it just isn't true. The reason why you are saying that is because games are extremely scalable now, there are diminished returns on graphics, and because of backward compatibility.
This generation has a lot to separate itself actually: VRR, SSDs, significantly improved VR, much better controller, and enhanced BC.
PS4 doesn't play PS3 games, has serious framerate issues on games, extremely long loading times, and very limited VR capability.
But you look at PC and most minimum requirements go back as far as the PS4. The PS4 and X1 are going to inherit some scalability options with PS5/XSX, but that probably won't be true of PS6/NextBox. I think as a result we have to start looking at generations being more linked than they have been in the past, which isn't necessarily a good thing or a bad thing.
Look at Sony and they are creating serious value and foundation for a PS6. PS6 will probably have a wireless VR solution in PSVR3 and it'll have a large back catalog of games that can be played day 1. This will be something exclusive to PS6.
PS6 will probably have a PCIE6 SSD which will make the PS5 SSD look like a mechanical drive.
There have never really been generations at all when it comes to PC gaming and console generations are just becoming a bit more iterative.