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Xbox going OEM route for next-gen? 3rd party consoles in the making?

twilo99

Member
I watched a video of a RTX 4090 being stripped down to repaste.

The board was tiny. The thing was all metal for heat sink. I can imagine this thing going into a console size box the shape of a Series X. Just all metal and a fan.

You still need to power and cool it so... nah, it will have to be a big chassis to fit all of that
 

Darsxx82

Member
I am not remotely saying this is happening

I don't believe anything that comes out of Phils mouth outside of certain settings and sure don't try to understand what anyone is implying

I can only comment on when I asked what more flexibility meant to certain people their reply was something along the lines of "You think the current 2 sku Xbox is a nightmare just wait"

Its why I made a thread dedicated to its discussion at one point

I was talking about the context in which the word "flexibility" that you said was pronounced by P. Spencer.



In this context, P. Spencer responds that making things as easy as possible for developers is the first thing to take into account and that a great variety of hardware impairs their optimization and makes it difficult and expensive for those Studios and developers to offer the best possible product/games.



That is, he was saying that "flexibility" has a limit and that with XSS and XSX they were already touching that limit....



I am not going into what your sources have told you or what you know, I am pointing out that what the "flexibility" that P. Spencer said is very far from what means leave the Xbox console hardware to third parties.



If you follow the context of what was said in that meeting... That flexibility is more like "breaking with hardware generations" and releasing hardware updates without looking at the next Playstation console. Or increasing the cadence of hardware updates or even diversify to other options (Xbox handlhed?)...



That said, the only thing certain is that, from that meeting recorded in documents, the last thing you could say or bet is that MS will stop making console hardware....

Nothing surprises me from these companies

Nothing about these companies would surprise me either, especially in these times where the gaming business covers so much.
It is simply trying to apply a minimum of logic and not lurching from one extreme to another.

The clues or signs that we have today only lead to the fact that MS is definitely preparing new hardware of its own manufacture. What is not known is the strategy it seeks with this new hardware or the showcase in which it wants to introduce it...
 
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THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
Here's what ai thinks the apple xbox looks like....
R1uLZgU.jpg
 

THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
I think a lot of people are right, the 3d0 model would fail......unless they offered the manufacturers a cut of all software sales.......then things get interesting.
 

T4keD0wN

Member
Would be cool, but this is pretty much impossible to organize without making compromises to quality. It would be literal nightmare to manage such operation.

If i were one of the thousands of the necessary people that would be required to be assigned just to oversee or manage a similar venture i would quit my job immediately. Would be a massive waste of money, crazier things have happened i suppose.
 
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Killjoy-NL

Member
That's just the thing. As a scalable hardware the costs are not the same as a console. It's not sold at a loss, and not produced en masse. No one would say "someone might like that high end PC, but enough to justify making it?"

Instead the OEM just sells a PC to someone. Same deal, just with a few twists and different software.
Why not just buy a PC then?
 

Kacho

Member
This is way too interesting to be real. Zero chance they reach the broader market of normies with a move like this.
 

jroc74

Phone reception is more important to me than human rights
I am not remotely saying this is happening

I don't believe anything that comes out of Phils mouth outside of certain settings and sure don't try to understand what anyone is implying

I can only comment on when I asked what more flexibility meant to certain people their reply was something along the lines of "You think the current 2 sku Xbox is a nightmare just wait"

Its why I made a thread dedicated to its discussion at one point

Nothing surprises me from these companies

giphy.gif
 

Bry0

Member
Would be cool, but this is pretty much impossible to organize without making compromises to quality. It would be literal nightmare to manage such operation.
Well there are two things. This type of relationship with manufacturers is no different from what MS does with windows PCs, and they do set baseline requirements that manufacturers meet. Additionally, direct x exists for the very purpose of abstracting game programming from hardware to make it easier to build games that can run in a variety of hardware.

But “without compromises to quality” is the catch and imo you are spot on. If they go this route there will most likely be compromises to quality and consistency to some degree.
 
This was the first thing that came to mind, with an exception.

The 3DO didn't have any market share.

I guess the question/problem would be how they make profit from this, they being manufacturers.

Let's say an XSX loses money at 500 dollars. Let's say Sega wants to sell their own version of the XSX. How do they generate profit? Do they profit share from Microsoft on digital store sales? i.e. Sega has their own store on their xbox? If that was the case how would Microsoft make money? On the sale of the XSX via licensing? That would drive the XSX price up significantly.

I just don't know how that works in today's market and any scalable level. You would need exclusives for each manufacturer to differentiate themselves, but that would also cause people to not want to buy any individual box.

Well IMO, if the idea is that this is Xbox becoming a gaming-centric PC NUC-type hardware product line, then say if SEGA licensed out a build, they'd make the money back through suitable profit margins on the hardware itself. These aren't going to be priced like a typical console; they're going to cost more by default. But that's what you'd expect if it's not on a traditional console business model.

So SEGA make their money back through the sales of the hardware itself, any peripherals they make (compatible with their system, other Xbox NUC gaming systems, PCs in general), and their multiplatform software sales. This is a type of device SEGA would in theory produce at volumes of at best the very low millions, maybe only something like 1-2 million a year if even that. They aren't trying to compete with PS5 or Nintendo in sales here and neither really would Microsoft. From that perspective, I think it starts to make much more sense.

The one big item of question would probably be licensing; I think Microsoft would have to take on orders of component production (if for example they design a spec blueprint with a semi-custom APU or semi-custom processors) for OEMs licensing out their own Xboxes, because it's not like SEGA for example are going to put in an order for 1 million GPU chips from AMD; they wouldn't get great economies-of-scale on it and that'd probably be a big expense on their part. But Microsoft, who already have a direct line with AMD, could put in an order for say 10-12 million chips from AMD, then distribute that out like 3 million for their own Xbox, 1 million for SEGA's, 1 or 2 million for Dell's, etc., getting better economies of scale. They can probably do that for other aspects of the systems, too, but all of this would be part of licensing agreements.

Basically, instead of the typical licensing agreement with Windows per se, it's instead with per-OEM chip and component production on Microsoft's end, for everything pertaining to the base spec blueprint. That means the licensing agreement costs would scale with the volume of production an OEM wants to make their system at. Anything WRT additions outside of that base spec, is still on the OEMs (as would be other things like case molding and packaging). Distribution and marketing from that point on would also be on the OEMs, unless they have some kind of marketing partnership with Microsoft. But the Windows OS and default Xbox frontend would automatically be part of that licensing agreement.

I think such licensing agreements would be based on a percentage of the target MSRP cost of the OEM's device, multiplied by the total volume they're producing. So again with the SEGA example, say they're making an Xbox PC NUC with their branding for $899. They're manufacturing 1 million of them. The flat licensing cost is 5%, so $45 in this case per unit. At one million volume, that's $45 million SEGA pays to Microsoft. The $45 million would cover a partial on the APU & motherboard costs for SEGA, so say if the costs for those components is $250; the $45 million would cover 180,000 of SEGA's units and also gives them a license for Windows in their systems, any other MS productivity software (Word, Office etc.), and the base Xbox frontend UI (that SEGA could freely modify to their tastes), plus the ability to add their own custom utilities to the frontend and Windows. SEGA still has to pay for production of the other 820,000 systems (and for the 180,000 covered in the license, the system RAM, SSD, USB ports etc. tho I guess Microsoft could still handle PCB assembly for OEMs as part of licensing and do so for all systems with an extended licensing agreement).

Probably a lot of things that would need to be fleshed out there, but it's a basic idea of how it would (or could) possibly work.
 

jroc74

Phone reception is more important to me than human rights
Yeah, apple are totally going to take over a failed project from their bitter rival lol.

If apple do a console it won't be an xbox lay of the lsd and get real.
Right, lol.

Apple didnt even do that for the smartphone market, or PCs/laptops....why would they for MS in gaming?

If Apple do a console it will be an Apple console from top to bottom.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Yes, this was all on 15th which is why that poster is gaining attention. Things check out on Indiana Jones, and he is just in a long line of many people who have spoken about Xbox multi-plat rumors. Shinobi was first last year, this poster is latest.

Fresh info is about hardware part, where nobody else has chimed in which is why I created this thread.

I personally think these decisions are way above Phil's pay-grade. ABK acquisition has brought attention to Xbox from Microsoft higher ups and shareholders, it'll become a more critical part to their business so they cannot let Phil and his cronies carry on things like they are doing and lose billions of dollars. It's time to make up that money, hence the push towards becoming a 3rd party publisher. I also don't think they'll fully abandon hardware, I just don't think their next console will be traditional. I expect it to be a cloud hybrid, and such sort of hardware is exclusive to them. Thing logically, if 3rd party is making Xboxes, they won't be subsidized or come cheap. Microsoft can fill the void, but the twist will be it is cloud centered. So cheapest entry to Xbox ecosystem is still through Microsoft hardware. Obviously this is all a big IF, but they are thinking long term.


And this is why all of this is so sad to me. MS is at a point where they've spent so much money on the Xbox brand that Daddy is now making all the decisions. And trust you me.......they DO NOT know what's best when it comes to gaming!!!
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Well IMO, if the idea is that this is Xbox becoming a gaming-centric PC NUC-type hardware product line, then say if SEGA licensed out a build, they'd make the money back through suitable profit margins on the hardware itself. These aren't going to be priced like a typical console; they're going to cost more by default. But that's what you'd expect if it's not on a traditional console business model.

So SEGA make their money back through the sales of the hardware itself, any peripherals they make (compatible with their system, other Xbox NUC gaming systems, PCs in general), and their multiplatform software sales. This is a type of device SEGA would in theory produce at volumes of at best the very low millions, maybe only something like 1-2 million a year if even that. They aren't trying to compete with PS5 or Nintendo in sales here and neither really would Microsoft. From that perspective, I think it starts to make much more sense.

The one big item of question would probably be licensing; I think Microsoft would have to take on orders of component production (if for example they design a spec blueprint with a semi-custom APU or semi-custom processors) for OEMs licensing out their own Xboxes, because it's not like SEGA for example are going to put in an order for 1 million GPU chips from AMD; they wouldn't get great economies-of-scale on it and that'd probably be a big expense on their part. But Microsoft, who already have a direct line with AMD, could put in an order for say 10-12 million chips from AMD, then distribute that out like 3 million for their own Xbox, 1 million for SEGA's, 1 or 2 million for Dell's, etc., getting better economies of scale. They can probably do that for other aspects of the systems, too, but all of this would be part of licensing agreements.

Basically, instead of the typical licensing agreement with Windows per se, it's instead with per-OEM chip and component production on Microsoft's end, for everything pertaining to the base spec blueprint. That means the licensing agreement costs would scale with the volume of production an OEM wants to make their system at. Anything WRT additions outside of that base spec, is still on the OEMs (as would be other things like case molding and packaging). Distribution and marketing from that point on would also be on the OEMs, unless they have some kind of marketing partnership with Microsoft. But the Windows OS and default Xbox frontend would automatically be part of that licensing agreement.

I think such licensing agreements would be based on a percentage of the target MSRP cost of the OEM's device, multiplied by the total volume they're producing. So again with the SEGA example, say they're making an Xbox PC NUC with their branding for $899. They're manufacturing 1 million of them. The flat licensing cost is 5%, so $45 in this case per unit. At one million volume, that's $45 million SEGA pays to Microsoft. The $45 million would cover a partial on the APU & motherboard costs for SEGA, so say if the costs for those components is $250; the $45 million would cover 180,000 of SEGA's units and also gives them a license for Windows in their systems, any other MS productivity software (Word, Office etc.), and the base Xbox frontend UI (that SEGA could freely modify to their tastes), plus the ability to add their own custom utilities to the frontend and Windows. SEGA still has to pay for production of the other 820,000 systems (and for the 180,000 covered in the license, the system RAM, SSD, USB ports etc. tho I guess Microsoft could still handle PCB assembly for OEMs as part of licensing and do so for all systems with an extended licensing agreement).

Probably a lot of things that would need to be fleshed out there, but it's a basic idea of how it would (or could) possibly work.

This has disaster written all over it!!! No way something like this could work because that missing 5% is what a company like Samsung or Sega would need to justify the reason to build hardware in the first place. Because they'd also have to pay brick and mortars to house it in their stores. And pay shipping cost too!
 

Godot25

Banned
Yeah. Just ask yourself how many times have you encounter a "leaker" that suddenly not only knew about exclusivity status of multiple games, but also about entire hardware strategy (outside of hacks and Microsoft doxxing themselves during FTC trial)

Also ask yourself if concept of Microsoft "licensing" 3rd party "consoles" even make sense. How would they split profits from software sales, since Microsoft is currently taking 30%? How would be those manufacturers able to be price their devices competitively when they need to sell hardware at a loss to be competitive? What would even be incentive of those hardware manufacturers to make that kind of hardware? How would Microsoft secure it if they are not making that hardware?

It really seems like people are just refusing to use their brains so they can support narrative they made in their heads.
 
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jroc74

Phone reception is more important to me than human rights
Yeah. Just ask yourself how many times have you encounter a "leaker" that suddenly not only knew about exclusivity status of multiple games, but also about entire hardware strategy (outside of hacks and Microsoft doxxing themselves during FTC trial)

Also ask yourself if concept of Microsoft "licensing" 3rd party "consoles" even make sense. How would they split profits from software sales, since Microsoft is currently taking 30%? How would be those manufacturers able to be price their devices competitively when they need to sell hardware at a loss to be competitive? What would even be incentive of those hardware manufacturers to make that kind of hardware? How would Microsoft secure it if they are not making that hardware?

It really seems like people are just refusing to use their brains so they can support narrative they made in their heads.
I really would not be shocked if this is true and MS decided to treat it like smartphones.

Satya is even on record saying he regrets leaving that market. Technically they didnt leave, thy just left the hardware side.
 

SScorpio

Member
Yeah. Just ask yourself how many times have you encounter a "leaker" that suddenly not only knew about exclusivity status of multiple games, but also about entire hardware strategy (outside of hacks and Microsoft doxxing themselves during FTC trial)

Also ask yourself if concept of Microsoft "licensing" 3rd party "consoles" even make sense. How would they split profits from software sales, since Microsoft is currently taking 30%? How would be those manufacturers able to be price their devices competitively when they need to sell hardware at a loss to be competitive? What would even be incentive of those hardware manufacturers to make that kind of hardware? How would Microsoft secure it if they are not making that hardware?

It really seems like people are just refusing to use their brains so they can support narrative they made in their heads.
Exactly this, it makes no sense what so ever. Microsoft could releaase an updated big screen interface that brings the Xbox interface to the Windows. Then you would just log in and your PC would work just like an Xbox. Then you can have more powerful gaming PCs that work just like an Xbox, while Microsoft sells Gamepass subs, and digital games through the Windows store.
 

M1chl

Currently Gif and Meme Champion
Can't wait for my 3k USD Xbox 3rd Party Series with Nvidia™ GPU, to wipe the floor with 799USD PS6.
 

C2brixx

Member
I recall when the Valve came out with the Steam machines Phil said in an interview that he wished Microsoft would have done something like that cause it fits more with Microsoft DNA. I would love to see them have their own "Surface" Xbox hardware and allow 3rd party manufactures make differentiated Xbox hardware.
 
Well IMO, if the idea is that this is Xbox becoming a gaming-centric PC NUC-type hardware product line, then say if SEGA licensed out a build, they'd make the money back through suitable profit margins on the hardware itself. These aren't going to be priced like a typical console; they're going to cost more by default. But that's what you'd expect if it's not on a traditional console business model.

So SEGA make their money back through the sales of the hardware itself, any peripherals they make (compatible with their system, other Xbox NUC gaming systems, PCs in general), and their multiplatform software sales. This is a type of device SEGA would in theory produce at volumes of at best the very low millions, maybe only something like 1-2 million a year if even that. They aren't trying to compete with PS5 or Nintendo in sales here and neither really would Microsoft. From that perspective, I think it starts to make much more sense.

The one big item of question would probably be licensing; I think Microsoft would have to take on orders of component production (if for example they design a spec blueprint with a semi-custom APU or semi-custom processors) for OEMs licensing out their own Xboxes, because it's not like SEGA for example are going to put in an order for 1 million GPU chips from AMD; they wouldn't get great economies-of-scale on it and that'd probably be a big expense on their part. But Microsoft, who already have a direct line with AMD, could put in an order for say 10-12 million chips from AMD, then distribute that out like 3 million for their own Xbox, 1 million for SEGA's, 1 or 2 million for Dell's, etc., getting better economies of scale. They can probably do that for other aspects of the systems, too, but all of this would be part of licensing agreements.

Basically, instead of the typical licensing agreement with Windows per se, it's instead with per-OEM chip and component production on Microsoft's end, for everything pertaining to the base spec blueprint. That means the licensing agreement costs would scale with the volume of production an OEM wants to make their system at. Anything WRT additions outside of that base spec, is still on the OEMs (as would be other things like case molding and packaging). Distribution and marketing from that point on would also be on the OEMs, unless they have some kind of marketing partnership with Microsoft. But the Windows OS and default Xbox frontend would automatically be part of that licensing agreement.

I think such licensing agreements would be based on a percentage of the target MSRP cost of the OEM's device, multiplied by the total volume they're producing. So again with the SEGA example, say they're making an Xbox PC NUC with their branding for $899. They're manufacturing 1 million of them. The flat licensing cost is 5%, so $45 in this case per unit. At one million volume, that's $45 million SEGA pays to Microsoft. The $45 million would cover a partial on the APU & motherboard costs for SEGA, so say if the costs for those components is $250; the $45 million would cover 180,000 of SEGA's units and also gives them a license for Windows in their systems, any other MS productivity software (Word, Office etc.), and the base Xbox frontend UI (that SEGA could freely modify to their tastes), plus the ability to add their own custom utilities to the frontend and Windows. SEGA still has to pay for production of the other 820,000 systems (and for the 180,000 covered in the license, the system RAM, SSD, USB ports etc. tho I guess Microsoft could still handle PCB assembly for OEMs as part of licensing and do so for all systems with an extended licensing agreement).

Probably a lot of things that would need to be fleshed out there, but it's a basic idea of how it would (or could) possibly work.

Why is Joe Consumer buying a Sega Xbox for 600 dollars (or 899) instead of a PS5 for 500 dollars when they aren't even buying a Microsoft Xbox for 350 dollars?
 

jroc74

Phone reception is more important to me than human rights
Why is Joe Consumer buying a Sega Xbox for 600 dollars (or 899) instead of a PS5 for 500 dollars when they aren't even buying a Microsoft Xbox for 350 dollars?
This is a good point.

It wont be Joe Consumer...it will be GAF User Joe. It will be a niche product.

I really would like to see what MS does that will get it mass market adoption.
 
This is a good point.

It wont be Joe Consumer...it will be GAF User Joe. It will be a niche product.

I really would like to see what MS does that will get it mass market adoption.

If a product is too niche, it'll have a hard time surviving.

The only reason Microsoft would do this would be to shift the cost of Xbox production off their shoulders, but they still have R&D costs to deal with.

Then you have the question of diminished userbases getting fewer titles, particularly exclusives.
 

Killjoy-NL

Member
I recall when the Valve came out with the Steam machines Phil said in an interview that he wished Microsoft would have done something like that cause it fits more with Microsoft DNA. I would love to see them have their own "Surface" Xbox hardware and allow 3rd party manufactures make differentiated Xbox hardware.
Didn't Steam machines flop?
 

graywolf323

Member
Didn't Steam machines flop?
yeah but it was a combination of factors, SteamOS wasn’t ready for it yet (it’s in much better shape now) + those boxes weren’t very cost effective on top of that

I think if we see a Steam Machine again it’ll be from Valve directly like they do with the Deck, the biggest question here is going to be the OS Microsoft goes for but if they’re going the OEM route I have a feeling we’re going to see a third straight gen of the XB1 OS with maybe some more improvements
 
Yeah. Just ask yourself how many times have you encounter a "leaker" that suddenly not only knew about exclusivity status of multiple games, but also about entire hardware strategy (outside of hacks and Microsoft doxxing themselves during FTC trial)

Also ask yourself if concept of Microsoft "licensing" 3rd party "consoles" even make sense. How would they split profits from software sales, since Microsoft is currently taking 30%? How would be those manufacturers able to be price their devices competitively when they need to sell hardware at a loss to be competitive? What would even be incentive of those hardware manufacturers to make that kind of hardware? How would Microsoft secure it if they are not making that hardware?

It really seems like people are just refusing to use their brains so they can support narrative they made in their heads.

Fuck if I know. I'm just here for the sweet xbox fud that drives you crazy
 

Killjoy-NL

Member
yeah but it was a combination of factors, SteamOS wasn’t ready for it yet (it’s in much better shape now) + those boxes weren’t very cost effective on top of that

I think if we see a Steam Machine again it’ll be from Valve directly like they do with the Deck, the biggest question here is going to be the OS Microsoft goes for but if they’re going the OEM route I have a feeling we’re going to see a third straight gen of the XB1 OS with maybe some more improvements
Sounds more like MS is taking another gamble that's going to be dead end.
They literally do that all the time.
 
I don't believe this. Seems like to dumb of a move for MS to make. I guess we will find out. I'm so glad I'm not invested in that ecosystem it sounds like they don't know what the hell they are doing. Reading the emails from early this gen from Phil and the CEO and seeing how things are happening now. It's clear they are all over the place as far as what they want to do and how they want to do it.
 

Pop

Member
Now why would Xbox continue to make a console box? Whats the point for them. No one is buying them

Just become a publisher already
 

digdug2

Member
I could absolutely see PCs from most (if not all) major manufacturers in the near future coming with a little metallic badge affixed to the front that that says something akin to "Windows+Xbox" like what used to come on OEM PCs back in the day.

2cikvfR.jpg
 

StereoVsn

Member
It will great if we can finally get 3 tiers of hardware, but the price points will suck, especially on the low end where you will
Need something like the xss to cover that $200-300 range, there is no way an OEM can pull that off and offer the same quality as the xss provides currently.
Yeah, that’s the thing. MS can eat the $100-200 loss per box since in theory they would have made up on percentage of game sales and GamePass subs.

An OEM has to sell the box at a profit unless they have some sort of revenue sharing agreement with MS. So that XSX would be like $599-699.

MS can’t sell enough at $350…. Unless it’s a PC with like an Xbox compatibility on top I don’t see the point.
 

BlackTron

Member
I like it. $500 consoles are stupid and result in low resolutions, FSR upscaling and shitty RT. I wouldnt mind buying a more powerful $1000 console as long as it doesnt have the retarded windows nonsense i have come to despise. just the other day i couldnt do copy paste in windows anymore. the fucking HDR and Dolby Atmos sounds dont automatically engage. There are bizarre shader compilations that last up to five minutes and stuttering that plagues like half of the games i play on my $2,000 pc.

Honestly this is why my main daily driver PC is still Windows 7 even though I game on 11 by switching monitor input.
 

SHA

Member
It's expected, everything keeps getting more expensive except consoles, adding the cost to develop games is just increasing, so why not? People are complaining about why we don't get better games, at the same time, these people can't just leave the industry cold turkey, it's catch 22, they got no choice at the same time they can't just sit and do nothing, they figured that most consoles demographic are still adults in their 30s and 40s, this hasn't changed literally since the beginning of consoles business, it just makes sense to follow pcs business model without encountering any risks.
 
The point of buying a console is that you get a predictable experience with zero configuration, and games will run the same as on all other units. If a game is optimized to run at 60 on that console it will run at 60 on your particular console. This seems like it would probably remove that advantage.
There are some console games where you can choose what frames or resolution you prefer.
 

Bojanglez

The Amiga Brotherhood
I think the leaks explicitly mentioned a thin Xbox OS, so I assumed allowing others to build hardware running the OS is why that was mentioned.
 
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