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[CLW]

Google Apple both have the $$$$$ the question is do they have the desire to hire the correct talent.

They could but given the lower ROI I doubt either are interested

 

[poppabk]

Microsoft should just announce the rumoured next gen console ASAP. Make it £999 and a beast. Would go down well after that PS5 pro unveil.

I do think MS might go a route like this. Instead of trying to 'win' in numbers - just go 3rd party-ish but with their own hardware available just not trying to compete directly. What form that takes is anyone's guess at this point though, could be an Xbox PC, a high end traditional console, a handheld. Gotta imagine they are running the numbers themselves seeing what if anything might work.

 

[Interfectum]

Apple will not being doing it. There is literally zero incentive for Apple to enter the console space. The only one on that list that has true incentive is Valve. The rest will lose their ass just like Microsoft did.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

Steam Deck is at like 3-4m sold units at this point.

These are PS Portal numbers, not dominant console numbers.

Worth noting that Steam Machines were a bit of a flop too.

Valve have a good software platform with Steam, but going toe to toe with Sony on hardware would be difficult as Sony produce a lot of the hardware in their consoles themselves which keeps costs down.

 

[diffusionx]

Apple will not being doing it. There is literally zero incentive for Apple to enter the console space. The only one on that list that has true incentive is Valve. The rest will lose their ass just like Microsoft did.

Apple has a videogame console. It's called the Apple TV.

 

[Astray]

Hence "close to being"

Xbox Series consoles have ~30m sales in the market rn, and they consider this a gigantic failure that necessitates them to go 3rd party to recoup costs.

So no, 3m is not even remotely considered to be "close". The Steam Deck is a peripheral, not a console competitor.

Worth noting that Steam Machines were a bit of a flop too.

Valve have a good software platform with Steam, but going toe to toe with Sony on hardware would be difficult as Sony produce a lot of the hardware in their consoles themselves which keeps costs down.

They have always been terrible with retail marketing and distribution. For these things, you need a focused company that thinks in terms of worldwide penetration, and Valve is nothing like that (and no, just setting recommended regional pricings and billing in all currencies doesn't make you actually global in the scale you need to be to become a successful console player).

What keeps them thriving rn with the amount of concessions to the consumer is the fact they haven't waded seriously into HW waters.

If they bet the farm on expanding into home consoles as they are right now, it's gonna be their Vietnam, Sony and Nintendo will absolutely eat their lunch and eviscerate them in the market. Valve would need to change drastically in order to succeed at this business.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

Apple has a videogame console. It's called the Apple TV.

Would they put an M4 chip in there and up the price though?

They risk losing Apple TV customers that way.

 

[Interfectum]

Xbox Series consoles have ~30m sales in the market rn, and they consider this a gigantic failure that necessitates them to go 3rd party to recoup costs.

So no, 3m is not even remotely considered to be "close". The Steam Deck is a peripheral, not a console competitor.

Microsoft invested billions into launching the Series consoles, bought publishers and used their long history of Xbox and failed.

Valve is treating Steam Deck as a side project and sells 4 million+ without breaking a sweat. If they actually tried the next time they could top 20 million easily, especially with a more mature OS and better distribution (which they would most likely get now).

 

[yurinka]

I think Apple, Google, Samsung, Xiaomi, Tencent and PC parts manufactures could make their gaming device with gamepad that can be connected to a tv in a PC handheld hybrid or minitablet with attached gamepad hybrid in a Switch fashion, as we saw with Asus Rog, MSI Claw or Lenovo Legion Go in PC/Steamdeck way or Ambernic & similar in the mobile hardware side.

Apple and Google running their OS, the other ones maybe running their own custom Linux/Android which could allow to install there something else like Windows.

All these huge companies have their main market on mobile and/or PC, a traditional console would be a too small market for them, and to operate the traditional system of making first party & third party exclusives would be too expensive for them. I think they'd continue making steps instead into to continue merging the mobile, PC and console gaming markets into a single one.

We're in a bad moment to sell hardware due to huge inflation and price of components rising in the recent years instead of decreasing over time as happened in the past. But I assume at some point it should stop and see again prices going down.

Let's say in around 5 years from now, in the next gen, you may get decent PC handhelds for $300 or maximum $400. And at that moment is a standard for PC handhelds to feature there Steam, PC PSN, MS game store, GoG, Epic Store, Google Play, EA Play, Ubisoft Connect, Amazon Prime gaming (well adapted and optimized) stores and launchers plus all the cloud gaming clients and all new games are released considering PC handhelds in terms of UI or making low enough settings to run there decently. All of them featuring wifi 7 or 8 to have a good online even if using the 5G of your phone.

And at the moment the Xbox (PC handheld) portable gets released, they also release a gaming focused version of Window optimized for gamepad only controls and to be watched in small tablets/big smartphones and tvs. Not only for intel like x64 CPUs but also adding a great ARM perfomance/support even for devices like Raspberry Pi. At that point ARM CPUs had become more powerful and more intel equivalents. A couple years later, becomes common for game publishers to release their PC games for ARM devices.

I think that at this moment the PC/Android handheld hybrids market could start becoming more mainstream with Sony being the best seller.

Valve is treating Steam Deck as a side project and sells 4 million+ without breaking a sweat. If they actually tried the next time they could top 20 million easily, especially with a more mature OS and better distribution (which they would most likely get now).

As of now Steamdeck should be at 3M+, pretty likely around 3.3M-3.5M. I think that the main issue it has to be more mainstream (same applies for the other PC handhelds) is the pricing.

 

[diffusionx]

Would they put an M4 chip in there and up the price though?

They risk losing Apple TV customers that way.

Most console gamers don't care about power. That's the mistake that enthusiasts always make. So Apple doesn't care about those people, like Nintendo doesn't care about those people (or, they tell them to buy a laptop or iPad). And Sony can make a good profit by releasing a machine for people who do.

Microsoft invested billions into launching the Series consoles, bought publishers and used their long history of Xbox and failed.

Valve is treating Steam Deck as a side project and sells 4 million+ without breaking a sweat. If they actually tried the next time they could top 20 million easily, especially with a more mature OS and better distribution (which they would most likely get now).

20 million units is a lot... Where are they getting that from? These devices are expensive and bulky.

Valve has also been working on the software and concept behind the Steam Deck for like, 15 years. So yea it's Valve time but I do think they took the entire project very seriously and as part of a long term plan.

 

[onQ123]

Most have already transitioned to PC so it wouldn't really be a void because the line became blurred since Xbox One .

 

[Toots]

Waiting for the "my cock" poll choice to vote

 

[Mr.Phoenix]

Good for you if you think that money alone has kept XBOX in the industry for almost 30 years, but no, it's not.

Well, yes, I believe it comes down to money. The Xbox as a brand has pretty much been barely profitable since its inception. And that's over a two decade period.

This was a strategy of Sony and XBOX decades ago when that was a possibility and the competition was greater.

The reality today is that there are fewer and fewer Third Party exclusives. Studios and publishers are pursuing this strategy of launching their games on all possible platforms. "Exclusivity" is being reduced to AA titles or new IPs. Sony is having big problems contracting 1/5 of the number of exclusives it had 15 years ago and we are talking about PS with its large user base. Imagine now the difficulties for someone with 0 user base and no roots in the industry trying to buy exclusivity of games so that these do not come out on a PS console

You say Sony is having issues contracting third parties, I doubt that. I feel what has happened now is that they no longer need to. It has become obvious to them, that even if a game is also available on the Xbox, or even the PC, it doesn't affect their bottom line. PlayStation is more profitable now than they have ever been, if that is not an indication that they needn't fight for exclusivity as they once used to, I don't know what else is.

Console games (including Sony's first party games) are coming to PC simply because the console market is no longer sufficient to amortize their development costs. There is no need to invent another reason.

If this were the case, sony would be releasing everything on PC day and date as opposed to 2-3 years later for maybe a mil or so in sales. Sony games are coming to PC because there is no need to leave money on the table. And its obvious that there is money to be made giving IPs/title that have maximized their sales potential a second wind on a non-competitive platform. At least for sony. What you are saying only applies to MS, they are the ones in a position where their market share is insufficient to sustain their Xbox business, hence why its in their own best interest to release everything on everything. Including their primary competitor.

That is to say, the console market is becoming small even for Sony, even though it is the outstanding market leader. Now tell me what prospects a new competitor may have of entering, investing billions and believing that the bet may have a chance of success.

Never said there were prospects for a new competitor. I literally said I doubt anyone would come in.

??? These games do not arrive due to a simple technical limitation. If Switch 2 is capable enough, you will see how many more will arrive...

I would think that is obvious.

Imagine when in the days of X360 In the days of 360 there was talk of big franchises and Ips from big publishers (Yakuza, Monster Hunter, Dragon quest, Persona, etc, etc) were not released on Xbox consoles.... Now the controversy is in collections of retro games from fight (which in the end are released) or exceptional cases of Studios indi AA or AAA with few means that delay their release.... That should be enough for anyone to see the reality of the situation and the difficulties in achieving exclusivity in this industry.
That alone should make it clear to you what the situation and vision of the Studios and Publishers is about limiting their games to one platform.

Again, the shift away from exclusivity, happened because Sony no longer needs it. It actually started dying out in the PS4/XB1 gen, hell, even MS said (albeit its up in the air if they should be believed) that Sony's exclusivity practices is one of the reasons that pushed them to acquire certain publishers.

As you describe it, it seems very easy to achieve. The reality is different. The reality is that achieving just one big success and making your investment in it profitable is a lottery. The games that move money and users are games that were launched 10 years ago. He adds that now a game of the type he describes needs 6-7 years of development and enormous costs. Now try to spend all that money on investment to launch it only on a non-existent user base

You say this as if this has not always been the case with every new console/platform launch. Never said its easy, never said it doesn't come with risks, but that is the nature of the console business.

I repeat, there are several companies with the money and potential to enter the console market, very few but there are. Another thing is that some of them see fit to take an extreme risk and do it and lose thousand of billions in the attempt in a market that has been hitting its ceiling for 3 decades, where hardware does not make money and to amortize that software a user base of 150 million high specs market)is not enough. Now remind them that it is going to compete with Sony Playstation... So the result is that there are 0 interested companies.

Agreed. However, a user base of 150 - 200M is more than enough. Unless what you mean here is if that base is shared between 3 - 4+ platforms. In which case I would also agree with this, hence why in my initial post I also said, there is room enough for only one in each segment of the console market.

And this is being told to you by someone who signed today for XBOX to leave the market if that would cause new competitors to enter, as many as possible. But reality collides with what one may wish for.

I don't understand this...

 

[El Muerto]

A new console wouldnt survive. Sony built up their brand and fanbase. Nintendo does it's own thing and doesnt really compete against Sony and Microsoft. Streaming and PC are the future. PC wont go away as streaming services (except for Xcloud) use PC games.

 

[thismeinteil]

Simply put, there will be no void. We already have 3 dominant platforms and there is no need for another. Nintendo has you covered if you want lower end HW, but desire portability. Sony has you covered if you want higher end HW in the console market. PC has you covered if you want the highest end HW, albeit at a premium price. With the growth of PC, and failures at MS, Xbox just became an unneeded 4 wheel on this successful tricycle.

 

[Mr.Phoenix]

I never said there won't be a difference. Just that the difference will matter much less than last gen, in a way that makes Nintendo a bigger menace for Sony than before.

While I technically see your point, and even agree with you in a sense... I also feel its not that straightforward. Its not just a technical issue. Cause I assume that's where you are getting at with this, that the next switch would have hardware that sits somewhere between the PS4 and PS4pro, and as such can run games (even if using some form of DLSS) that we would typically see on the PlayStation.

But all I will say (cause I am tire of typing) is that the more like Playstation Nintendo becomes, the less like Nintendo they become, and that becomes a problem in of itself. What has always been their angle, and when Nintendo has thrived the most, is when they can differentiate themselves so much from Playstation that they can't be compared or even put in the same category.

 

[cireza]

Thank god i'm no brokie then You can continue to hire your games and leave the people alone that want to own their games

I buy my games. I was simply making a joke

 

[Rambone]

I can't really see any benefit of Apple coming to the market at this point. Do they even have a stable of first party developers that matter with non shovelware games ready to go? To get the numbers on their platform, will they go the Epic Games route and throw money hats for 1 year exclusivity to games? I am fine with Sony/Nintendo/Steam-PC fulfilling my gaming needs. I dunno, seems like a lot of unknowns here, maybe I'm fine with where I am at.

 

[diffusionx]

Simply put, there will be no void. We already have 3 dominant platforms and there is no need for another. Nintendo has you covered if you want lower end HW, but desire portability. Sony has you covered if you want higher end HW in the console market. PC has you covered if you want the highest end HW, albeit at a premium price. With the growth of PC, and failures at MS, Xbox just became an unneeded 4 wheel on this successful tricycle.

MS also made themselves irrelevant by putting all their games on PC day one, I hope Sony sees that for their own sake.

 

[Maddoxswe]

I buy my games. I was simply making a joke

You are a good person ! <3

 

[Del_X]

Apple or Valve. Apple has a console-like ecosystem and could scale up the Apple TV into a $500 box with an M chip that would play AAA titles just fine. Valve could also just scale the steam deck into a $500-600 set top box.

 

[rm082e]

Simply put, there will be no void. We already have 3 dominant platforms and there is no need for another. Nintendo has you covered if you want lower end HW, but desire portability. Sony has you covered if you want higher end HW in the console market. PC has you covered if you want the highest end HW, albeit at a premium price. With the growth of PC, and failures at MS, Xbox just became an unneeded 4 wheel on this successful tricycle.

Well said.

I would just add to the above it seems like Xbox realized this years ago. They knew if they couldn't compete with Sony, then they had to create a new place in the market or they wouldn't survive. Enter Game Pass and PC ports of all their games. They tried that for a bunch of years and it clearly wasn't enough.

I've often wondered if Phil accepted there was no hope for Xbox after about 2015, so he's been working to buy up enough developers and IP so that when the Xbox brand dies off there will still be enough business to justify keeping Microsoft Game Studios as a publisher. It's the only logical explanation I can come up with for them buying ABK at the insane price they paid.

 

[Negotiator101]

 

[Astray]

Microsoft invested billions into launching the Series consoles, bought publishers and used their long history of Xbox and failed.

Valve is treating Steam Deck as a side project and sells 4 million+ without breaking a sweat. If they actually tried the next time they could top 20 million easily, especially with a more mature OS and better distribution (which they would most likely get now).

Buying big publishers only started in this gen. They also failed in the Xbox one era when they didn't have the albatross of buyout costs around their necks. The console biz is not easy at all.

You have not elucidated why Valve is gonna be good at the console game besides "Steam Deck is good", it isn't just about making a quality device, quality storefront and quality OS and calling it a day, the things they would have to change about their business are astronomical and almost prohibitive.

Here is an entire list of things Valve would need to do to actually turn the Steam Deck into a viable handheld contender, none of these are negotiable, they are the basics of basics:

1. Actual Distribution: PS and Nintendo win because they care about Vietnam or Malaysia as much as they care about the EU market, if you go into any store that sells video games in these places you will find a pristine and well-stocked section that has everything you need. Meanwhile you cannot guarantee Steam Deck availability everywhere, it took years for it to arrive to my country's major retailers, and my country is a desirable market in its region. Imagine what that would be like in smaller markets.
2. Actual Marketing: It's not enough for a Steam console to just exist in a good state and be on shelves, it also has to be marketed to people. If I don't know that it's available, or I'm not informed of its benefits, I won't buy, simple as. Steam does zero marketing for the Deck as it is.
3. Actual servicing and Warranty Services: Collaborating with iFixit is a good move imo, but relying completely on user-fixability to this extent is essentially abdicating the responsibility and throwing it to the user. Not every user is willing to take their machine apart to change a stick or some other part. Proper disposal for things like faulty batteries or finding parts easily in your market are crucial things that can only happen if you have presence.
4. Content Rating: This may come as a shock, but the vast majority of games that release on Steam don't have a unified content rating system, instead, Steam abdicates this responsibility and has devs merely describe their games' content in text, which makes games unfilterable (I just checked the Steam storefront, and while there are mood and genre and subgenre filters, there are no meaningful content rating filters! Simply insane! Also you would have to do this work for each and every country in accordance with their local rating authority btw. Remember the Helldivers 2 PSN drama and how people called Sony idiots for not having worldwide PSN regions? THIS is why!

And btw, those are all things that Steam needs to do to have a viable console contender, they do not guarantee winning the market by any means (for example Steam has near-zero exclusive IP that is suited to playing on a couch with a controller, they will be fighting against the companies that make Mario and God of War, that's a losing battle for sure).

 

[Sanepar]

MS won't leave hw market. They will have a next xbox. Wben this happens cloud will be mainstream platform.

 

[BlackTron]

While I technically see your point, and even agree with you in a sense... I also feel its not that straightforward. Its not just a technical issue. Cause I assume that's where you are getting at with this, that the next switch would have hardware that sits somewhere between the PS4 and PS4pro, and as such can run games (even if using some form of DLSS) that we would typically see on the PlayStation.

But all I will say (cause I am tire of typing) is that the more like Playstation Nintendo becomes, the less like Nintendo they become, and that becomes a problem in of itself. What has always been their angle, and when Nintendo has thrived the most, is when they can differentiate themselves so much from Playstation that they can't be compared or even put in the same category.

I mean the biggest difference with Switch is that third party games run like ass. They can have 3p games run pretty good, without losing all the benefits they currently do or their identity. Guess we'll see though.

 

[lh032]

Sony could launch another console division to compete with ps6.
Xbox refugees will join the new sony console ecosystem to console warring with playstation.

 

[nowhat]

I dunno, I guess they'd have to first enter the console market for us to assess that.

(I jest, and did own a 360)

 

[Interfectum]

Buying big publishers only started in this gen. They also failed in the Xbox one era when they didn't have the albatross of buyout costs around their necks. The console biz is not easy at all.

You have not elucidated why Valve is gonna be good at the console game besides "Steam Deck is good", it isn't just about making a quality device, quality storefront and quality OS and calling it a day, the things they would have to change about their business are astronomical and almost prohibitive.

Here is an entire list of things Valve would need to do to actually turn the Steam Deck into a viable handheld contender, none of these are negotiable, they are the basics of basics:

1. Actual Distribution: PS and Nintendo win because they care about Vietnam or Malaysia as much as they care about the EU market, if you go into any store that sells video games in these places you will find a pristine and well-stocked section that has everything you need. Meanwhile you cannot guarantee Steam Deck availability everywhere, it took years for it to arrive to my country's major retailers, and my country is a desirable market in its region. Imagine what that would be like in smaller markets.
2. Actual Marketing: It's not enough for a Steam console to just exist in a good state and be on shelves, it also has to be marketed to people. If I don't know that it's available, or I'm not informed of its benefits, I won't buy, simple as. Steam does zero marketing for the Deck as it is.
3. Actual servicing and Warranty Services: Collaborating with iFixit is a good move imo, but relying completely on user-fixability to this extent is essentially abdicating the responsibility and throwing it to the user. Not every user is willing to take their machine apart to change a stick or some other part. Proper disposal for things like faulty batteries or finding parts easily in your market are crucial things that can only happen if you have presence.
4. Content Rating: This may come as a shock, but the vast majority of games that release on Steam don't have a unified content rating system, instead, Steam abdicates this responsibility and has devs merely describe their games' content in text, which makes games unfilterable (I just checked the Steam storefront, and while there are mood and genre and subgenre filters, there are no meaningful content rating filters! Simply insane! Also you would have to do this work for each and every country in accordance with their local rating authority btw. Remember the Helldivers 2 PSN drama and how people called Sony idiots for not having worldwide PSN regions? THIS is why!

And btw, those are all things that Steam needs to do to have a viable console contender, they do not guarantee winning the market by any means (for example Steam has near-zero exclusive IP that is suited to playing on a couch with a controller, they will be fighting against the companies that make Mario and God of War, that's a losing battle for sure).

Everything you just listed is infinitely more fixable than a company like Apple or Tencent getting into the game. Valve has the fans, the developer arm, the games, the platform ready to go and they've been playing in the video game hardware arena for years. Apple has no developers, zero hardcore gamer credibility, etc and Tencent is the Chinese villain.

I have no doubt Steam Deck / Steam Deck Console filling the Xbox void would be an uphill, maybe near impossible battle, but IMO they are by far the closest competitor to get into the game and compete. The rest of the options are non-starters.

 

[vaibhavpisal]

No company that is big and ambitious will try to replicate what Nintendo/Sony have been doing.

Google tried with their version (Stadia) and failed. Same will happen with almost every competitor that will try to bring its own vision to the table.

Xbox has been hanging with them cause they started 25 yrs ago. So some of that old dna is still there.

At best, Valve could make a steam box that will be just a pc made to their spec, loaded with steam OS.

 

[rodrigolfp]

Could, yes, but pls Lord, no. 2 consoles are more than enough.

Valve tried with Steamboxes, but open PC gaming on a closed console-like system isn’t practical due to the multitude of PC configurations

Valve tried to sell a "pre build PC". Nothing to do with consoles.

 

[Mahavastu]

I would assume that if one company has a chance, it is Valve

• they have experience with Consoles via the Steamdeck.
• Because of steamdeck they have most of the needed software already on hand
• with Steam they have a digital store with a large userbase and this userbase seems to like them
• this large userbase has quite some games there they can already play, so they do not have the problem of other companies which do not have this and the userbase would have to start at zero
• they have a synergy because games would work on both, PC and console, so it might be attractive to there users because they do not have to buy the game twice
• they should have enough money to finance exclusives.

Potential cons:

• why would Valve subsidize hardware when the PC users so far payed full price for their PC?
• they might lose Sony as publisher on their shop.
• is it really worth the effort and the substantial initial R&D?
• they have nearly a monopoly on PC? Does it really pays off to do a console?

 

[hinch7]

MS also made themselves irrelevant by putting all their games on PC day one, I hope Sony sees that for their own sake.

I mean they own the majority of the PC market with Windows. Have ABK and other big IP's under their bent and their own store fronts.

There's nothing stopping them from making their next 'Xbox' a PC with their own storefront and on the front page have better value as they cut out other middlemen (Steam etc). But still allow you to install other stores on their machine - its a PC after all.

 

[Astray]

Everything you just listed is infinitely more fixable than a company like Apple or Tencent getting into the game. Valve has the fans, the developer arm, the games, the platform ready to go and they've been playing in the video game hardware arena for years. Apple has no developers, zero hardcore gamer credibility, etc and Tencent is the Chinese villain.

I have no doubt Steam Deck / Steam Deck Console filling the Xbox void would be an uphill, maybe near impossible battle, but IMO they are by far the closest competitor to get into the game and compete. The rest of the options are non-starters.

Bro if Valve tries to fix these things, they will cease to be the Valve you know and love.

Like take the content rating problem for example (very massive issue btw, if I ever have a kid, I will never allow them on Steam until they fix this), the easiest way for Valve to solve it is by having every publisher get content ratings before launching their game, except this actively fucks with the easy money they have rolling in from smaller devs that just make games and launch on Steam. A dev now has to have some sort of bureaucracy in place to deal with these things.

Valve is good to you rn because it has landed in a position where they aren't required to do this, but if they do mass-market consoles? They absolutely will have to change, because governments will absolutely demand it.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

if xbox is gone, console gaming would be Nintendo and Sony.

Apple, Google etc.... they'd focus on digital services for PC, mobile, TV streaming.

 

[Thavash]

Don't care if I get laughed at or down voted.
We've dreamed about this for years.
With MS not interested in games, and Sony clueless about what gamers want, now is the time for Sega to make a comeback.

1) Get the backing of some Venture Capital funding
2) Cut a deal with AMD or Intel who are desperate to unseat Nvidia
3) Get those teams in Japan working again
4) Focus on A and B , not AAA. Take a chance on some fun new concepts
5) Physical disks
6) Just aim for a niche, not market domination

 

[twilo99]

Apple but they would never do this

 

[_Ex_]

Valve; A Steamcel console would likely make it this time around.

 

[Topher]

Maybe if anti-trust regulators one day split PlayStation into two, but other than that.....nope, don't see it.

 

[Ebrietas]

First of all, what void? Was there also a void after stadia shut down?

Apple technically has the easiest route to make their own PlayStation or Xbox since already have most of the ingredients in place. But they have no incentive. They already own the world’s most lucrative gaming platform that runs on all of the idevices they sell each year at profit. They get the upside of the console business model without the downside.

I think Valve can do it via steam os. But it would require licensing out the steam os to third parties to make consoles out of. I think this is actually very realistic. But I’ll tell you what, Sony’s PC porting “strategy” will look even dumber than it already is when next to every ps5 there is a Samsung steam station that has every Sony game available plus every other PC game.

 

[diffusionx]

I mean they own the majority of the PC market with Windows. Have ABK and other big IP's under their bent and their own store fronts.

There's nothing stopping them from making their next 'Xbox' a PC with their own storefront and on the front page have better value as they cut out other middlemen (Steam etc). But still allow you to install other stores on their machine - its a PC after all.

Well that is the tension MS was dealing with from day one. Like you make Halo a Xbox exclusive and piss off PC gamers, who are used to MS being a major PC game publisher since the 1980s.

There's nothing stopping them from doing that other than it's a really stupid idea. Microsoft really isn't good at any of this, their surface line is in freefall, nobody cares about Xbox, they should stick to software.

Apple but they would never do this

Attractive women marketing your stuff at a conference is now "wild", shows how much things have changed in such a short amount of time.

 

[SmokedMeat]

Consoles are a giant money losing venture that no one is going to be stupid enough to venture into

You can’t show up as the new kid on the block against a Sony and Nintendo that have decades of established franchises and in house studios making games for their fanbase.

 

[Guilty_AI]

None.

I said this before but consoles are basically a legacy market. They exist because certain console brands have existed for a long time and have garnered large followings. Whoever tries to break into the market right now will have neither a playerbase nor a developer-base to prop up their console.

What i think is far more likely to happen is big companies investing into form-factor PCs a la Steam Deck.

 

[SeriousCrayon]

The last thing we need is Apple in the gaming market..I mean it would be funny too see all these people complaining about the PS5pro price go running to overspend on an apple product. They'd probably introduce haptic feedback in their controller and say its a new feature and the Apple idiots would eat it up,

 

[StreetsofBeige]

None.

I said this before but consoles are basically a legacy market. They exist because certain console brands have existed for a long time and have garnered large followings. Whoever tries to break into the market right now will have neither a playerbase nor a developer-base to prop up their console.

What i think is far more likely to happen is big companies investing into form-factor PCs a la Steam Deck.

Yup.

Gaming has grown gigantic in users and market sales. Yet console sales havent even really touched he past few gens. You'd think by now if console sales kept up, breaking 100M should be no sweat. but only the most successful systems break 100M.

but then mobile gaming is probably like 500M or 1 billion users by now. And Steam users keep going up hitting new CCU records.

 

[proandrad]

Microsoft can still make a comeback if they play it smart for next-gen. They need to stop the stupid 2 console series s/x crap. If they want to have the more powerful console they need to be make it a large gap where it is undeniable, with no multi platform games ever being close in visual comparisons. If they decide to be the cheap console, they need to be really cheap to move massive volume, so devs are forced to make their games on Xbox first and scale up to PlayStation.

 

[skyfinch]

Who made NGage?

 

[Darsxx82]

Well, yes, I believe it comes down to money. The Xbox as a brand has pretty much been barely profitable since its inception. And that's over a two decade period.

Well, if so, then imagine the situation of a new competitor trying to make it profitable to enter the console market...

You say Sony is having issues contracting third parties, I doubt that. I feel what has happened now is that they no longer need to. It has become obvious to them, that even if a game is also available on the Xbox, or even the PC, it doesn't affect their bottom line.

If I didn't need it, I wouldn't continue buying exclusive Thirds consoles of any kind, especially those that hardly move users. The fact is that it continues to do so with those that are within its reach because the big IPs from big publishers are no longer up for the job and some have already stated that the exclusivity agreements with Sony have not worked.

PlayStation is more profitable now than they have ever been, if that is not an indication that they needn't fight for exclusivity as they once used to, I don't know what else is.

And yet they continue doing it and always with the aim of intimidating Xbox

I repeat, they don't do it with the big IPs because now they are no longer so within reach and Thirds publishers are no longer so up for the work because the PS console user base is no longer enough to pay off such expensive and long developments. And this is recognized by Sony by releasing its games on PC and even on Switch.

If this were the case, sony would be releasing everything on PC day and date as opposed to 2-3 years later for maybe a mil or so in sales. Sony games are coming to PC because there is no need to leave money on the table. And its obvious that there is money to be made giving IPs/title that have maximized their sales potential a second wind on a non-competitive platform. At least for sony. What you are saying only applies to MS, they are the ones in a position where their market share is insufficient to sustain their Xbox business, hence why its in their own best interest to release everything on everything. Including their primary competitor.

I invite you to read the statements from Sony's CEO about what he thinks about the need to bring more PS games to other platforms.

Then, the thing about Sony only releasing games on PC 2-3 years later..... OK

Never said there were prospects for a new competitor. I literally said I doubt anyone would come in.

I would think that is obvious.

Again, the shift away from exclusivity, happened because Sony no longer needs it. It actually started dying out in the PS4/XB1 gen, hell, even MS said (albeit its up in the air if they should be believed) that Sony's exclusivity practices is one of the reasons that pushed them to acquire certain publishers.

Again, Sony continues to buy console exclusives, lots of them.

If Sony don't need anything, They wouldn't do them. The fact is that it no longer has the ease of achieving the exclusivity of large IPs, even though it is the console with the largest user base, and Thirds are no longer up to the task.

And we return to the same thing. The costs and development times of games need to squeeze out every last million potential users. Believe it or not, Sony no longer has enough with its 100-120 million users per generation to continue growing.

You say this as if this has not always been the case with every new console/platform launch. Never said its easy, never said it doesn't come with risks, but that is the nature of the console business.

We are talking about the strategy of acquiring Third Party exclusives as a weapon to compete in the market.... I repeat, this strategy has been impossible to bear for decades because the costs to achieve it are too many and the third parties are not up to the task either.


That is to say, a new competitor without a first party structure and power finds it impossible today because that strategy of buying third party games is impossible. Even more so for a user base of 0.

Before, a large Studio selling 1 million of its games was a success. You only needed to launch on one platform to have great benefits. Those were the days where game development required "only" $10-15 million and 2 years of development. Now the big AAA costs 200 million and you need 5+ million to amortize before seeing benefits.....

Agreed. However, a user base of 150 - 200M is more than enough. Unless what you mean here is if that base is shared between 3 - 4+ platforms. In which case I would also agree with this, hence why in my initial post I also said, there is room enough for only one in each segment of the console market.

That's why I said that that is one of the big reasons why I don't see the possibility of any new competitors entering the console market. Not even any of the big technology companies.

I don't understand this...

I was trying to say that I am one of those who believes that competition (no matter how poor it may be) will always be better than a lack of options.

That XBOX would leave the console market would not be the problem in itself, the problem is that there is absolutely no one to occupy that space. And well, I understand that you and others do not agree and I respect that, but a console market where only Sony is, It is a worse situation than what currently exists.

 

[tmlDan]

My answer is primarily none, Valve could do it but wouldnt support it enough cause they are just so lazy and just dont have the influence people think they do. Tencent might do it but they likely see more value in mobile than consoles.

The only one that COULD, would be Apple. But look at Apple TV, even with Apple and their influence in the mobile space, is dying, even though it has some amazing shows/movies

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Who made NGage?

Nokia.

I dont know if it's true, but supposedly the R&D team proposed it to upper brass as a joke looking like a taco. And they greenlit it.