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[BlackTron]

Xbox branded PC would be the stupidest device imaginable and I don't think Phil Spencer is stupid enough to do that.

It'll happen. It's not supposed to take the market by storm or return glorious market share to Xbox. It's just supposed to be a band-aid to save face and offer people a solution who still want a (very expensive) Xbox.

Imagine Sega went third party, but on the way out they licensed other companies to make expensive Dreamcast brand PCs that would play Dreamcast discs. Only 2% of fans even care, but those fans can say "see, they're still in the game" while Sega can say "See, we support our platform and still give our fans a way to access their libraries".

Even though they have moved on.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

Brand trust doesn't exist anymore for Xbox. Let's put on our critical thinking hats and work through this together.

Xbox Series is a lost generation for Microsoft and that's because Series S killed it. Developers can't include features that they originally planned because the S isn't powerful enough to include them. Since MS wanted feature parity in S and X, the games have suffered greatly.

Sure, Series S accounts for 50% of Xboxes sold this generation, but that's for 2 reasons. 1) Series X was hard to come by originally, meanwhile Series S was stacked to the ceiling in most stores. 2) Microsoft led people to believe that they were getting a massive upgrade from last gen for an inexpensive price point. We know how that one turned out.

While mainstream support for Xbox is pretty much gone, there's still a hardcore fan base.

The gaming PC approach wouldn't sell much (5m max), but its low risk as they'd be selling them at a profit (there's no reason to sell a system capable selling a PC that can run Steam at loss, unless you're Valve)

Their subsidised dedicated Xbox platform console approach is no longer working (selling consoles at a loss and making money on game sales) as game sales are so low on Xbox now.

 

[diffusionx]

It'll happen. It's not supposed to take the market by storm or return glorious market share to Xbox. It's just supposed to be a band-aid to save face and offer people a solution who still want a (very expensive) Xbox.

Imagine Sega went third party, but on the way out they licensed other companies to make expensive Dreamcast brand PCs that would play Dreamcast discs. Only 2% of fans even care, but those fans can say "see, they're still in the game" while Sega can say "See, we support our platform and still give our fans a way to access their libraries".

Even though they have moved on.

Yea and that would be stupid. I also don't really see why Sega would do that, outside to sort of but not really placate a very tiny group of people who cling to a dead platform like their life depended on it.

Just cut the cord and move on, it's fine.

 

[Fess]

nobody is going to buy a Xbox branded PC. That is stupid. PC gamers will jsut keep doing what they are doing. They're not going to pay extra for Xbox hardware for backwards compatibility because they dont have Xbox games. That thing would be even more limited.

Wouldn't be a regular PC.

But it still wouldn't be an easy sell. However, running all PC games from all launchers from one simple UI would definitely be an appealing thing for the living room.

And from a console gamer perspective I imagine that Steam access without a regular Windows PC should be interesting. A PC but without any of the concern people post about here.

They could also lure in some Playstation and Nintendo gamers who don't want to have a PC if they keep doing 6+ months timed exclusives, if the games are great. Trigger the FOMO.

I think it's an interesting idea, and keeping status quo at this point gets them nowhere.

But the real problem is the hardware. Cheap parts and good performance don't really happen often on PC.

 

[BlackTron]

Yea and that would be stupid. I also don't really see why Sega would do that, outside to sort of but not really placate a very tiny group of people who cling to a dead platform like their life depended on it.

Just cut the cord and move on, it's fine.

From a position of having infinite money, it makes sense. The optics are better.

Of course it wouldn't have made sense for Sega when not only were they broke but back then PCs were beige behemoths that cost ten times the amount of a console instead of double or triple.

Microsoft also has the issue of servicing existing Xbox digital libraries. It doesn't really make sense that they would be a big game publisher and keep putting those games on Series, while no current consoles are even being made that support the same OS. They may as well throw a token console out there that they don't even bother manufacturing themselves that carries forward old purchases and confers better-than-nothing sales through the ecosystem.

 

[diffusionx]

Wouldn't be a regular PC.

But it still wouldn't be an easy sell. However, running all PC games from all launchers from one simple UI would definitely be an appealing thing for the living room.

And from a console gamer perspective I imagine that Steam access without a regular Windows PC should be interesting. A PC but without any of the concern people post about here.

They could also lure in some Playstation and Nintendo gamers who don't want to have a PC if they keep doing 6+ months timed exclusives, if the games are great. Trigger the FOMO.

I think it's an interesting idea, and keeping status quo at this point gets them nowhere.

But the real problem is the hardware. Cheap parts and good performance don't really happen often on PC.

Like I said in another post, "Steam access without a regular Windows PC" is not as interesting as people think it is, Steam Deck hasn't sold that many units relatively, and that is by far the most popular device in that segment. I also don't see why MS would sell a Xbox PC whose main selling point is being able to access the store MS doesn't control and doesn't generate revenue from (outside of the games they sell directly). They're better off trying to come up with ways to get PC gamers on their store instead of Steam.

I'm not advocating for the status quo. I am saying the best course of action for MS is to abandon hardware and become third party. They release their games on PC and PS5 already. PC gamers will buy a PC, console games will buy a console. They're not good at this hardware thing and releasing some monstrosity like this is just a distraction that keeps their focus away from what they actually are good at.

From a position of having infinite money, it makes sense. The optics are better.

Of course it wouldn't have made sense for Sega when not only were they broke but back then PCs were beige behemoths that cost ten times the amount of a console instead of double or triple.

Microsoft also has the issue of servicing existing Xbox digital libraries. It doesn't really make sense that they would be a big game publisher and keep putting those games on Series, while no current consoles are even being made that support the same OS. They may as well throw a token console out there that they don't even bother manufacturing themselves that carries forward old purchases and confers better-than-nothing sales through the ecosystem.

they don't have infinite money. We are already seeing the ABK sale and the flop of the current strategy forcing major changes at MS. People are looking around and wondering why they are spending so much and getting so little for it. And, like I said, it's not their PC business is doing great - the opposite.

Look, maybe MS will do this. I am saying it will fail and be really stupid. It doesn't make sense. The logic to jjustify it is totally tortured. MS is a software company and should stick to software. That's it.

 

[BlackTron]

Look, maybe MS will do this. I am saying it will fail and be really stupid. It doesn't make sense. The logic to jjustify it is totally tortured. MS is a software company and should stick to software. That's it.

Did you miss the part where they don't manufacture it, and are licensing it out?

 

[Fess]

Like I said in another post, "Steam access without a regular Windows PC" is not as interesting as people think it is, Steam Deck hasn't sold that many units relatively, and that is by far the most popular device in that segment.

Steam Deck is a handheld, fairly weak, can't use that as an example that Steam isn't appealing outside of the normal PC space.

I'm not advocating for the status quo. I am saying the best course of action for MS is to abandon hardware and become third party. They release their games on PC and PS5 already.

They've released 4 games on PS5, late. They've not crossed that line yet.

And if they keep releasing games late on PS5 and SW2 they'll trigger similar FOMO as Sony with late PC releases.

Assuming the games are great, do you wait and hope for a port or do you play day 1 and invest in a new box?

Sony seem to think late ports can move people toward Playstation. You don't think it could move people toward a new Xbox that also have Steam, EGS, Gamepass games?

It's an interesting idea imo. I want to see them try. But I have no idea if it'll work and from my perspective I hope they sell the OS as a separate thing so I can install it on the PC that already acts as my Xbox and Playstation now.

 

[ZehDon]

If the rumors about pc hardware + console interface are true,
then Microsoft will not make more efforts, than they do now. New games will launch on Xbox Series, pc and Next Xbox, which runs pc games.

By saying Microsoft will need to support developers, I was meaning from their software side of things. Making their APIs performant, their hardware features easy to use, and the power of their new platforms easy to translate. If they create something where developers needs to jump through a lot of programming hoops to get their games working on Xbox Series X and their new Xbox platform, developers would probably just not bother.

The legit best thing Microsoft could do for gaming right now, would be an Xbox like OS on PC. Assuming it performed well and was stable, I would pay $100 for it.

Agreed. Offering PC gamers more performance by free by clicking "gaming mode" would be an unbelievable win for their platform. Very interested to see what they actually do - there's been a clear line between Windows and Xbox for a long time, I'm not sure what they'll do.

 

[Thebonehead]

No indication?

Oh wait a NEO account

I'm 'guessing' some people know more than others on this forum.

 

[DAHGAMING]

I still know a lot of Xbox people who will buy it

thats me , day 1 if its got Xbox onit then im buying that thing, 1 day when everyone has defected there will not be Xbox people anymore, just the Xbox person, me.

Abit of talk about 2025 going about for this monstrosity, I still think its to soon and 2026 is more realistic but as you mention if it comes at the same time as GTA6 it will be a good move, it wont change to much but will deffo shift units short term as the best place to play GTA6.

 

[namenotfound]

What are people expecting with an Xbox mode Windows? I'd expect something like Steam Big Picture mode with the launch at startup and launch into Big Picture mode toggles selected. Actually stripping Windows down so all those background services aren't running to me sounds like an unlikely proposition. My understanding is after the ActiBlizzKing acquisition, their gaming revenue/profit is great. They don't need to pull attention from the Windows team in some direction when they're already doing great selling software

Windows serves ads in the start menu for apps, Windows 11 has that section that serves blogspam news aggregation type content that has advertisements mixed. Windows pushes OneDrive, CoPilot, and O365 subscriptions. Bing is growing which ties into their advertising bussiness and data farming for their OpenAI investment. They're doing that Windows Recall feature. I doubt the Windows division will want to maintain a stripped down fork that removes all that revenue seeking stuff for the sake of Xbox. Xbox would need to foot the bill and/or maintain it themselves as a downstream fork and make it profitable rather than people just buying off Steam. I doubt Windows team would even want such a version of Windows to be released publicly for general use. Locked down Xbox hardware fine, but public release would cut into their bussiness and that bussiness being foundational to products like Office and pushing CoPilot, Bing, OneDrive