Reportedly, some third-party video game publishers aren’t sure why they should keep making and supporting games for Xbox consoles due to poor sales in Europe.
Games Journalists try to go 5 seconds without creaming their pants writing an article about “Xbox going away”:
XBOX has seen the writing on the wall. People that want a console want a PlayStation. Everyone else wants a Steam deck or a PC and everyone else wants a switch.
But Game Pass makes all of that irrelevant. With game pass they don’t have to sell hardware at all which always involves taking a loss on hardware.
I figure the next thing we are going to see from them is a thin client that can stream games from XBOX Live+ Me Edition. For 39.99 a month you get Xbox Live and Game Pass and your games get streamed directly from Microsofts datacenter. On the other side, Game Pass for PC will be 30 for local play and 40 to stream and then in 2026 the Xbox handheld will launch which will be a Qualcomm AV1 decoder/Wifi Chip with an X on it that starts at $199, and includes 6 months of Game pass+.
This is the future they’ve been waiting for since The Xbox 360 Elite.
This is not the near future of xbox. Not for mainstream use, at least.
Video games streaming exists. It runs well enough with amazing internet that it’s actually even good enough to use. I did some playing on stadia back before it closed down. With my gigabit fiber internet, it only had a little bit of lag (felt like 20ms, i noticed it, but was quickly able to get used to it too) with the occassional hitch.
The problem is that gigabit fiber is reserved for people who live on the right street in a big city, and absolutely nobody else. And it id a requirement for game streaming to do well.
Once genuinely good internet is available to most everyone, then you will find game streaming services being mass adopted. Until then, game streaming will follow the other cool tech product that has huge market limiting requirements; VR.
Consoles like xbox are made for the casual user. You can’t have a product that works best for the casual user but has huge not-casual requirements to run it.
The next xbox thing wont be a thin client for streaming games, but the product after this one just might be.
Ten bucks says they work with Valve on the next Steam Deck, ‘Now with Game Pass!’
It won’t happen.
Game Pass is subsidized to sell consoles. The fact that it also covers Windows is more of a byproduct. But Microsoft won’t subsidize other platforms, you won’t see Game Pass on PlayStation either. And Microsoft doesn’t care about the PC, they care about you using Microsoft products.
I mean I get it. It’s a business. I just wish Microsoft works stop saying “PC” when they mean “Microsoft Windows”.
Microsoft’s biggest mistake was making the S and not going all in on the X. Having two hardware specs makes developers lives so much harder and leaves a big chunk of the console base with poor specs you have to optimise the hell out of your build for. Whereas Sony put a single target platform in everyone’s hands.
I liked the Series S! Though, I would have bought the Series X instead if it was discless.
Please don’t take this as me being a dick, I’m genuinely curious. Why not just get a Series X and not buy disks?
Because it actually fits on a shelf, it’s way quieter, and can be thrown in a backpack if you want to take it places.
Those are the things I miss after upgrading from the S to the X.
Also “why not get an X and not use disks”… Well why pay double if you don’t need to use disks? The performance difference isn’t huge except on a few games made to utilize the X.
It’s been going on for years now, ever since Microsoft abandoned Gamescom and pretty much gave up on a European presence.
https://www.pcinvasion.com/microsoft-not-attending-gamescom-or-tokyo-game-show/
I find poor sales hard to believe taking into account the pandemic and supply chain issues both consoles faced for a couple years.
PS5 has sold double the units of xbox series S https://www.vgchartz.com/article/460059/ps5-vs-xbox-series-xs-sales-comparison-january-2024/
PS5 also costs 25% more, so it’s not selling more because it’s cheaper. It’s just better and has better games. I’m not sure why that’s hard for you to believe.
I wasn’t saying that playstation hasn’t sold more consoles. I also not arguing that it doesn’t have better games. It does, Microsoft is very clearly dropping the ball even after they acquired as many heavy hitters as they did. My biggest regret this generation was switching to a Series X from the PS4 instead of either tossing money at a PC or picking up the PS5.
What I’m surprised by is that the conditions when consoles have had didn’t seem to be taken into effect.
