Support NeoGAF

[ReasonBeing]

I have been lurking since circa 2016. He is the only person I've ever seen do this, at least more than once. I hate the word cringe, but I can't find another adjective that describes how I feel when I see a OonQ self quote. This is coming from someone who agrees with a good amount of his takes.

 

[mckmas8808]

AT0 is for Xbox Cloud very likely. 196 CU GPU then split into two instances of 68 CUs or 4 instances of 48 CUs (if there's an S tier console). Each instance paired up with a separate Magnus SOC. It would be a better setup than what even Nvidia GFN uses.
They could probably use the AT0 for a RTX 6090 tier discrete GPU though.

The 96 CU AT1 is the maximum that will go into pre built devices, I could see a $2k Xbox PC with AT1, built by Asus ROG.


AT0, AT1, AT2 will be used for the discrete GPUs correct? I can see them being used for RTX 6070, 6080, 6090 tier cards.

Im wondering if an AT2 box can possibly be under $1,000 at this point.

 

[Tobimacoss]

Im wondering if an AT2 box can possibly be under $1,000 at this point.

Most likely not. It would have to be AT3 to be below $1k mark. If the tariff and DRAM situation is resolved by then, I think $600 and $1k for MS first party consoles is feasible.

OEMs could then do Xbox PCs at $1200-$1500, or higher spec Consoles.

 

[Felessan]

How many active Xbox One consoles playing Series games via Cloud Gaming? Or Cloud only gamers on fire sticks or TVs. Will all those users just decide that they now want a $6-800 PS6 next gen?

Given that xcloud quarter hours is at ~150 mil, it gives 12.5m hours per week.
Even of one play a hour per day, it's less than 2 mil users. And cloud users as enthusiasts of advanced tech tends to play more than average.

 

[PlayStaytion]

People have begun understanding the concept of investing, there aren't many of them back in the day, the concept of earning money has also changed.

 

[Ashamam]

Even of one play a hour per day, it's less than 2 mil users. And cloud users as enthusiasts of advanced tech tends to play more than average.

Hours is the most useless metric given revenue is not tied to hours, but to monthly unique users, or rather monthly subs paid. All hours played gives is cost, and that being power usage only really.

 

[Felessan]

Hours is the most useless metric given revenue is not tied to hours, but to monthly unique users, or rather monthly subs paid. All hours played gives is cost, and that being power usage only really.

xCloud heavily tied to GPU so unique users also shows nothing of real impact on revenue
Hours/users shows real interest and viability of cloud and given current quite low numbers even for a service that mostly free, as many gets it as extra to GPU game catalog, cloud as a future for massmarket is still a distant dream.

 

[Ashamam]

Hours/users shows real interest and viability of cloud and given current quite low numbers even for a service that mostly free, as many gets it as extra to GPU game catalog, cloud as a future for massmarket is still a distant dream.

It completely lacks context though. I'm saying any argument can be made based on hours and can't really be debunked. Based on a single starting point of 50m/month, that could be 25 million dipping a toe in the water or it could be two million hitting it regularly for a few hours a few times a week, or it could be 1/2 million hardcore users. Or realistically some mix of all the above. The current success and/or future success because of the monthly sub badly needs it to skew to the first option. Or will ads make a free tier the real money earner? Point being we don't have enough information to begin to make guesses. Pretty typical of MS really, they never tell anyone anything and they are a public company lol.

The only way to really understand the inner workings of MS is to work backwards from decisions made once they are past the honeymoon stage of whatever gambit they have in the works. Thats when they start making decisions based on metrics rather than whatever projection C suites sent up the line to get the green light in the first place.

 

[Baemono]

IThe only way to really understand the inner workings of MS is to work backwards from decisions made once they are past the honeymoon stage of whatever gambit they have in the works. Thats when they start making decisions based on metrics rather than whatever projection C suites sent up the line to get the green light in the first place.

They manage to do a terrible job during both periods somehow.

« We just bought these devs, we're gonna let them do whatever they want »
* games score terribly *
« That game sold poorly, we gonna release our next games on PS5 as well »
* port games that were already selling big on Xbox and PC on PS5

 

[Tobimacoss]

Given that xcloud quarter hours is at ~150 mil, it gives 12.5m hours per week.
Even of one play a hour per day, it's less than 2 mil users. And cloud users as enthusiasts of advanced tech tends to play more than average.

You're falsely assuming every player has the same playing behavior/pattern.

Few things we know, over 25 million users in Xbox ecosystem have used xcloud at one point, and over 35 million PC gamers have tried GFN. So at the very least, there's a diverse userbase who has tried the service even if they don't use it actively.

We also know from Nvidia, when they capped their service to 100 hour monthly limit with additional hours being purchasable, that only 6% of the GFN active userbase passed 100 hours, and majority of their users were in the 40-50 hour usage per month.

100 hours per month is 3.33 hours every day for 30 days. Most users don't play every day. And their session lengths average 2-3 hours.

So even if an xCloud user plays 40 hours a month, or 10 hours a week, that would be 3 days of 3.33 hour sessions. Or let's make it 50 hours monthly, so 4 days of 3 hour sessions.

150 million hours per quarter or 50 million hours per month, and 50 hours monthly per user. That would be 1 million users. If it's 25 hours month per user on average, that's 2 million users. If it's 10 hours month per user, that would be 5 million users.

MS only needs to grow the service 4 to 6.66 times from 150 million to up to 600 million to 1 billion hours quarterly in order to create a very viable userbase.

It grew 45% yoy in fiscal year ending 2025, that was before Cloud Gaming expanded to other tiers, especially Essential, and before they expanded to India. Brazil and India demand is too high to keep up for them. And now they're expanding to TCL, Hisense, and Google TVs soon.

So going from 150 million hours per quarter to 600 million isn't that far fetched, I think it's already at 200 million for this quarter most likely. At 1 billion hours quarterly will be a juggernaut with momentum.

At 50 hours average per month per user, 1.5 billion hours per month or 4.5 billion per quarter basically replaces or supplements all 30 million Series users. That is long ways away, but shows you that once the momentum builds up, it's achievable as there are enough gamers in the world who can't afford or don't want hardware.

 

[Felessan]

You're falsely assuming every player has the same playing behavior/pattern.

Few things we know, over 25 million users in Xbox ecosystem have used xcloud at one point, and over 35 million PC gamers have tried GFN. So at the very least, there's a diverse userbase who has tried the service even if they don't use it actively.

We also know from Nvidia, when they capped their service to 100 hour monthly limit with additional hours being purchasable, that only 6% of the GFN active userbase passed 100 hours, and majority of their users were in the 40-50 hour usage per month.

100 hours per month is 3.33 hours every day for 30 days. Most users don't play every day. And their session lengths average 2-3 hours.

So even if an xCloud user plays 40 hours a month, or 10 hours a week, that would be 3 days of 3.33 hour sessions. Or let's make it 50 hours monthly, so 4 days of 3 hour sessions.

150 million hours per quarter or 50 million hours per month, and 50 hours monthly per user. That would be 1 million users. If it's 25 hours month per user on average, that's 2 million users. If it's 10 hours month per user, that would be 5 million users.

MS only needs to grow the service 4 to 6.66 times from 150 million to up to 600 million to 1 billion hours quarterly in order to create a very viable userbase.

It grew 45% yoy in fiscal year ending 2025, that was before Cloud Gaming expanded to other tiers, especially Essential, and before they expanded to India. Brazil and India demand is too high to keep up for them. And now they're expanding to TCL, Hisense, and Google TVs soon.

So going from 150 million hours per quarter to 600 million isn't that far fetched, I think it's already at 200 million for this quarter most likely. At 1 billion hours quarterly will be a juggernaut with momentum.

At 50 hours average per month per user, 1.5 billion hours per month or 4.5 billion per quarter basically replaces or supplements all 30 million Series users. That is long ways away, but shows you that once the momentum builds up, it's achievable as there are enough gamers in the world who can't afford or don't want hardware.

If we go by GFN average Xcloud is roughly 1 mil users at this point.
It's ~tiny~ userbase, very niche. Growing it 6 times to 1 bil is a challenge as it would require to go from something like Asus ROG Xbox to at least SteamDeck, and growing it further would be even more difficult.

1 mil users a month on back of GPU sales is not that much difficult, there are always enthusiasts of new tech that will try anything new and some of them will stay - like people do but ASUS ROG even though it's ultra niche device.

1 bil hours or 6 mil people is a range of core players that already wants value proposition and not just some fancy new tech - they want it to be usable, valuable, but they can still pay premium for what it offers.

Going past 1 bil hours require to tap into semi-casual/casual market and it will be a big problem as that market value convinience, easy of use, accessibility and cheapness. And cloud now have no way to provide stability in those.

 

[DeltaPolarBear]

xCloud heavily tied to GPU so unique users also shows nothing of real impact on revenue
Hours/users shows real interest and viability of cloud and given current quite low numbers even for a service that mostly free, as many gets it as extra to GPU game catalog, cloud as a future for massmarket is still a distant dream.

The issue is you literally can't scale to mass market. Imagine 100+ million monthly active PlayStation gamers. Now imagining having to run enough server blades to service all 100million of these users.

It would be as bizarre as saying you are going to make EVERYONE hire taxis and never own a car ever again, and that means there will need to have so many bloody taxis that you wouldn't even be able to park them anywhere.

The issue is that Game Streaming does NOT scale. You can only install them in parts of the world where the population density makes sense. That is why Sony never even think about running game streaming in Australia.

In the end Game Streaming is focused by Xbox because they are trying to find something for their existing infrastructure to do. They SAY it is the future the same way MS lie about anything else being the future.

 

[KeithMars]

What is there to talk about?
XBox Series S/X has been a complete and utter disaster, destroyed a big chunk of the industry and it was all self-inflicted.
The platform is finished, will be a niche thing next gen if lucky.
That's it.

 

[Unknown?]

So he was tracking ahead by 50% for the first 18 months. That a huge gap.



Reality is that with the limited numbers we have, very easy to get numbers inflated way above where they are.



I will add, it's napkin math. The range I have is between 58-60%. But not that surprising considering total collapse outside of US and UK. Xbox had 2.5% market share in Spain in 2025.

What's more surprising is that Xbox will finish the gen at 33M-ish to PS5 110M+. Thats almost a 4-1 ratio. Hasn't been that much of a disparity since PS2 and would make Xbox Series the 2nd worst selling console since Xbox and that's after MS investing $80B into the division.

Magnus about to be the worst selling though...

 

[Baemono]

What is there to talk about?

Sales number

 

[Edmund]

Magnus about to be the worst selling though...

Might even be worse than Wii U. Gonna be another career moment for Phil.

 

[AJUMP23]

Been thinking about getting my son a used Series S.

 

[KeplerL2]

Might even be worse than Wii U. Gonna be another career moment for Phil.

It's not meant to be a huge seller

 

[KeithMars]

Sales number

Some things are so small they're not worth discussing.

 

[SkylineRKR]

Its too high.

This thing sells like 3 million a year for a while in the US now. Its probably somewhere around 25 million total.

 

[th4tguy]

Nothing about this is shocking. MS has gone out of its way to remove any reason to buy their dedicated hardware.
Someone with a pc or PlayStation can get access to everything Xbox is offering and run it just as well or better.
MS is hoping that making their games available on other platforms will entice people to sign up for gamepass instead of paying $70 for a game but people just aren't doing it.
At least they have the option of full pivot into 3rd party publisher role but they are never going to see the same kind of revenue they would get with a successful store front, collecting 30% on every game sold.

 

[Baemono]

Some things are so small they're not worth discussing.

That's exactly what I told my wife when she wanted to improve of intimacy

 

[Insanemaelstrom]

Might even be worse than Wii U. Gonna be another career moment for Phil.

Considering the rumours( like price, specs, etc) I think it is fair to say MS expects to sell anywhere from 10 to 20 million units.

Personally if the market conditions don't improve( economy and AI caused shortages), I think they might struggle to reach 10million( although even for ps6 launches under the same conditions, I don't expect it sell nearly as well as any of the previous playstations)

 

[Fable]

Console of all gens! You're all jealous you can't find one in store.

 

[Topher]

Console of all gens! You're all jealous you can't find one in store.

 

[CentralScrutinizer]

Xbox Series was a solid piece of hardware with a great user experience and feature set. In my opinion it's one of the best ecosystems and user experience of any console. With that said, I sold mine the moment Microsoft went third party and now I just sub to gamepass on PC for one month a year to play the one game Microsoft actually releases per year.

 

[mayham2199]

It's not meant to be a huge seller

Literally every leaker is saying this but people don't want to hear it. MS is not trying to compete in the hardware space like that anymore.

 

[onQ123]

It's not meant to be a huge seller

Apparently I was high off coke when I said it wasn't meant for the Mass Market


Post in thread 'Costco no longer sells Xbox consoles and games' https://www.neogaf.com/threads/costco-no-longer-sells-xbox-consoles-and-games.1688372/post-270851579

 

[Bigfroth]

 

[StoopKidz]

Xbox Series was a solid piece of hardware with a great user experience and feature set. In my opinion it's one of the best ecosystems and user experience of any console. With that said, I sold mine the moment Microsoft went third party and now I just sub to gamepass on PC for one month a year to play the one game Microsoft actually releases per year.

I mainly game PC but also have a PS5. Experimented with only PS5 and Series X back in 2022/2023 and I agree with your sentiment. The Xbox was great for couch gaming.

 

[SpokkX]

hmm in Sweden none of the big Swedish chains sell Xbox Series X or S anymore. You can only find one from the sites that import from Germany etc

Store listings are just gone from every big Swedish site as of 2026. Completey gone - you only find controllers

 

[Fable]

Xbox Series was a solid piece of hardware with a great user experience and feature set. In my opinion it's one of the best ecosystems and user experience of any console. With that said, I sold mine the moment Microsoft went third party and now I just sub to gamepass on PC for one month a year to play the one game Microsoft actually releases per year.

I will remember it fondly (sounds like an eulogy), have it since launch, nice piece of hardware, combine with the gold to ultimate.. i had almost 6 years of GPU at cost of 5 GBP/month, played fantastic games like Atomic Heart day one, FPS Boost allowed me to enjoy some titles that otherwise are locked to 30fps on PS5, and funny enough it is getting my most attention this days before my sub will end in 6 months,
All in all had a great time with it.. a very nice companion console to my PS5. No regrets.

 

[mayham2199]

Apparently I was high off coke when I said it wasn't meant for the Mass Market


Post in thread 'Costco no longer sells Xbox consoles and games' https://www.neogaf.com/threads/costco-no-longer-sells-xbox-consoles-and-games.1688372/post-270851579

Honestly people have been saying it before that even happened. Pretty sure HeisenbergFX4 said it before that if not him than Jez. There's just people out there who can't wrap their head around a company releasing a console and not really trying to outsell their competitors. It's a new concept that apparently has a lot of people refusing to accept it.

 

[Proelite]

$5000

 

[Ebrietas]

Considering the rumours( like price, specs, etc) I think it is fair to say MS expects to sell anywhere from 10 to 20 million units.

Personally if the market conditions don't improve( economy and AI caused shortages), I think they might struggle to reach 10million( although even for ps6 launches under the same conditions, I don't expect it sell nearly as well as any of the previous playstations)

It won't even come close to a million. Assuming it even comes to market.

 

[J Required]

It won't even come close to a million. Assuming it even comes to market.

I expect a little more than that myself.

 

[Ellis]

Considering the rumours( like price, specs, etc) I think it is fair to say MS expects to sell anywhere from 10 to 20 million units.

Personally if the market conditions don't improve( economy and AI caused shortages), I think they might struggle to reach 10million( although even for ps6 launches under the same conditions, I don't expect it sell nearly as well as any of the previous playstations)

Big brand pre-builds are very low sellers.
The BC part will not interest more than a small majority of users. Most will just keep their Series console for that.

This will sell thousands, not millions. And that's likely tens of, not hundreds of.

 

[Tobimacoss]

Big brand pre-builds are very low sellers.
The BC part will not interest more than a small majority of users. Most will just keep their Series console for that.

This will sell thousands, not millions. And that's likely tens of, not hundreds of.

Big brand pre built PCs are very low sellers? So what exactly do they sell then?

 

[Ellis]

Big brand pre built PCs are very low sellers? So what exactly do they sell then?

Thousands. People build their own, or use smaller business websites that will do it for cheaper than the likes of ASUS.

If they were sold into the millions, then you'd see and hear more from them.

 

[Topher]

Thousands. People build their own, or use smaller business websites that will do it for cheaper than the likes of ASUS.

If they were sold into the millions, then you'd see and hear more from them.

I can't find the link, but I saw somewhere that prebuilts sell about 10 to 12 million units a year globally. That's a very crowded field of competitors though. Dozens beyond the typical Asus, MSI, Lenovo OEMs. So yeah.....thousands per is probably accurate on average.

This is the same business model for handhelds and other marked up PCs. Selling for profit means lower volume.

 

[Nydius]

It's not meant to be a huge seller

Then why even bother? Genuinely not being snarky, I just don't see the point. That's an awful lot of money they're going to spend on R&D, supply chains, and manufacturing for a device that will be niche at best. Since Microsoft appears to be done subsidizing hardware at a loss, they'll have to sell each unit for full cost plus desired profit margin which will price it so high that it will limit the potential customer base even further.

Microsoft can barely sell Series units at a loss and with a budget SKU out there. Magnus seems like a massive waste of time, effort, and money that could all be better spent bolstering their game studio and software development.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Then why even bother? Genuinely not being snarky, I just don't see the point. That's an awful lot of money they're going to spend on R&D, supply chains, and manufacturing for a device that will be niche at best. Since Microsoft appears to be done subsidizing hardware at a loss, they'll have to sell each unit for full cost plus desired profit margin which will price it so high that it will limit the potential customer base even further.

Microsoft can barely sell Series units at a loss and with a budget SKU out there. Magnus seems like a massive waste of time, effort, and money that could all be better spent bolstering their game studio and software development.

It's the Trojan horse for the No Walled Gardens™ crusade that will follow.

 

[nowhat]

hmm in Sweden none of the big Swedish chains sell Xbox Series X or S anymore. You can only find one from the sites that import from Germany etc

Store listings are just gone from every big Swedish site as of 2026. Completey gone - you only find controllers

Just checked here in .fi - yup. No consoles. Some sites say "temporarily out of stock", but... However, there are controllers aplenty! In many different designs!

 

[mayham2199]

It's the Trojan horse for the No Walled Gardens™ crusade that will follow.

How long do you think they will wait to start their lawsuit? As soon as they announce the new console or after it's released?

 

[DeepEnigma]

How long do you think they will wait to start their lawsuit? As soon as they announce the new console or after it's released?

Depends on when the pushback comes from third parties and other platforms I'd wager.

 

[SpokkX]

Just checked here in .fi - yup. No consoles. Some sites say "temporarily out of stock", but... However, there are controllers aplenty! In many different designs!

yes - lots of controll variants for sure

it feels like Xbox left the nordic retail market completely?

 

[nowhat]

yes - lots of controll variants for sure

it feels like Xbox left the nordic retail market completely?

Sure seems that way. But "the writing was on the wall" for quite some time, so I can't say I'm exactly surprised. They simply didn't advertise at all. At best, you'd have some bundles from companies ("Buy $THING and get Series S for free!"), or later, some CoD ads past the acquisition, but that's not how it works. You got to spend money to make money and all that.

 

[bitbydeath]

It's the Trojan horse for the No Walled Gardens™ crusade that will follow.

I don't think that will happen as it's impossible for non-PC store games to work on PC.

Best they can do is try take on Steam.

 

[Hyper_hyper]

Then why even bother? Genuinely not being snarky, I just don't see the point.

You surprised? I mean, it is well known since previous year that next Xbox won't be cheap. Neither XSeries are cheap too

 

[DeepEnigma]

I don't think that will happen as it's impossible for non-PC store games to work on PC.

Best they can do is try take on Steam.

It will muddy when it comes to console licenses on the same box as non console license storefronts. Publishers will then question why they pay that to begin with. Then advertising "PlayStation games" on a console license (closed ecosystem) box as well.

Then buddying up with Epic and putting out the "no walled gardens" PR a few months ago wasn't a coincidence.