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Microsoft’s gaming chief hints that Xbox could get PC stores like Epic Games one day

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CliffyB's Cock Holster
XBOX is about five years ahead of the way the entire industry is going to end up going

Nintendo used to make trad home consoles now is a tablet, Xbox is a store, PS6 might just be a breakout box for PSVR3 with everything built into the headset

Why would you assume this? Sony and Nintendo's sales aren't dropping and with Xbox out of the equation are going to do even better.

To me its just usual mega-corp blindness induced by greed. Consoles aren't big enough and lucrative enough for them, they'd rather be a bigger version of ABK at this point.

They aren't trying to "win" anything, anymore. They just want to maximize the amount revenue they can pull out of gaming, in all its forms and formats.

Because when they do that, they effectively become gaming.
 

Topher

Gold Member
Why would you assume this?



Sci-Fi GIF by Amazon Prime Video
 
In the future consoles will have multiple stores. And that's a good thing.
No. Monopolies are never a good thing because that's what you ask for, every games playable on PC. Basically that's mandating that all games be playable on Microsoft OS which has technically a monopoly!

You want to force Nintendo to release their games on Microsoft OS? That will change the way they do games. We need entertaining companies doing their own thing (and OS).
 
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MarkMe2525

Member
The “exciting stuff coming out in hardware” could equally mean an Xbox app being prepared for existing hardware.

“Largest technical leap” because it can go on anything.

Edit: It makes more sense than releasing a $1000 high-end console that very few people would buy.
"Coming out IN hardware"... not on hardware. It makes more sense to assume a 20+ year console manufacturer is talking about their own console. You're using a made up price point to bolster your assertion, which doesn't mean anything. Quite the leap you are making, verging on the absurd. No judgement though, I have made some absurd logical leaps in my life as well.
 
I meant to the manufacturer of licensed Xbox consoles. There was a rumor before about Xbox branded consoles potentially being made / sold by 3rd parties. No idea if true for clarity.

It's shaping up like it may be true. You might be referring to that Discord leak; forgot the username but it started with a "G". IMO that leak was 100% accurate, it's looking to be turning out that way.

Dunno about having storefronts pay a licensing cut but I also dunno about OEMs paying a license cut. I think MS would just have them pay what they normally pay for the Windows license and extra for an Xbox UI frontend the OEM could customize to their product's liking. But the thing about that UI frontend is that the devices would need to be able to boot into that frontend automatically and seamlessly.

Launching it from the desktop environment shouldn't be a requirement for the user, but they should be able to switch to the desktop environment from within the frontend UI seamlessly (and without requiring a reboot). Like how you can switch from desktop to tablet Windows mode on laptop convertibles.

Give us a "Other OS" option like what the PS3 had so we can install Steam OS.

Unless it's a literal PC in a sense, this just causes more problems than it's worth. Especially WRT security; consoles as traditionally defined are closed boxes, meaning the platform holders don't want to risk hackers easily funking things up. Options like 'Other OS' naturally invite that.

Otherwise the console platform holder has to do other things like restrict hardware access when in Other OS mode, so you're running another OS on gimped hardware that can't access say the GPU for example. That's how it was like with Other OS on PS3 IIRC.

And in Microsoft's case, if they're going to default to the Xbox OS (I do not think they will, or they'd open up the Xbox OS to function basically like Windows in most ways including optional desktop environment, compatibility with multiple storefronts and Windows apps etc.) then the 'Other OS' option for most users would just be Windows anyway.
 

bitbydeath

Member
"Coming out IN hardware"... not on hardware. It makes more sense to assume a 20+ year console manufacturer is talking about their own console. You're using a made up price point to bolster your assertion, which doesn't mean anything. Quite the leap you are making, verging on the absurd. No judgement though, I have made some absurd logical leaps in my life as well.
The price point was the rumour from Heisenberg, he’s mentioned it a few times. I think the key is that it’s a high-end device and naturally expensive.

Software IN hardware makes sense. 🤷‍♂️
 

MarkMe2525

Member
The price point was the rumour from Heisenberg, he’s mentioned it a few times. I think the key is that it’s a high-end device and naturally expensive.

Software IN hardware makes sense. 🤷‍♂️
HeisenbergFX4 HeisenbergFX4 was speculating and even if true, it's not info we have atm. It is a fallacy to use an assumption as a basis for a claim. Could one reasonably conclude that Phil is talking about a box that is over $499? It sure looks like it. Could one reasonably conclude that means this box costs $1000, which also somehow means that they are referring to another companies box? No
 
I mean, I can see it working well in tandem with GP. I’d be down for a console that I could play my go games on as well as games from other storefronts. Make it the right form factor and OS for living room gaming and all of and you have access to a multitude of more games in existing libraries as well as others previously unavailable on Xbox consoles.
 
Can this guy ever talk straight, he speaks in riddles and makes no sense, if a Xbox console exists they will never share it with other stores, end off, what dose this guy even want, a steam box, handheld steam box, I’m confused about Xbox strategy going forward every passing day.
 
I don't know how many white flag moments Spencer can have as CEO here and for his supporters to keep on supporting him.

It's pretty clear that they're now thinking about a PC for the next Xbox running the Xbox ecosystem as an overlay over PC, but eschewing all software royalties means they'd have to sell the hardware at a serious premium, especially if the hardware was compelling enough spec wise.

It also goes in line with what they said about the biggest leap.

This is a mistake, but that's not knew for Phil "swing for the fences" Spencer. The difference between Nintendo and Microsoft's hail marys have been entirely rooted around enhancing the experience vs a craven attempt at capturing market share.

As an addendum to this, my guess is that Phil is trying to negotiate profit sharing with Epic and others to appear on the Xbox, but that is going to be a very difficult process to negotiate.

Will games still have cross entitlement? And if so, how will you manage the profit share? Games purchased on the device itself vs on PC? With multiple stores on the Xbox, that makes things even more dicey.

Ultimately, as I mentioned this is clearly a white flag moment and yet another hail mary. If this is the case it'll be interesting how they work out Xbox game entitlements moving forward. All the games you purchased on Xbox in the past probably won't carry over to entitlement on PC. So they'll have to remain in the xbox store and xbox library.

Not sure how well this benefits anyone involved.
 

HeisenbergFX4

Gold Member
The price point was the rumour from Heisenberg, he’s mentioned it a few times. I think the key is that it’s a high-end device and naturally expensive.

Software IN hardware makes sense. 🤷‍♂️
I don't know any price points being honest, just heard the line "Its likely going to be more expensive than what people are used to" and even that sounded like speculation coming from him
 

ZehDon

Gold Member
I've always found it odd how many gamers seem to desperately want no competition. In their ideal world, PlayStation is the only console and Steam is the only storefront. They seem to miss that these platforms got better because they had to fight their competitors.

As physical games barrel towards end of life, having multiple storefronts to offer competitive pricing and features is definitely the way the industry needs to move to ensure consumer benefits continue. We're already screwed on digital pricing - often costing more, not less, than their physical counterparts. If Xbox wants to prince their hardware at a profit and open it up to other ecosystems, I welcome the disruption.
 

Dane

Member
I've always found it odd how many gamers seem to desperately want no competition. In their ideal world, PlayStation is the only console and Steam is the only storefront. They seem to miss that these platforms got better because they had to fight their competitors.

As physical games barrel towards end of life, having multiple storefronts to offer competitive pricing and features is definitely the way the industry needs to move to ensure consumer benefits continue. We're already screwed on digital pricing - often costing more, not less, than their physical counterparts. If Xbox wants to prince their hardware at a profit and open it up to other ecosystems, I welcome the disruption.
Honestly its only here and Twitter sub circles that happen, in other places no one cares and have a much more positive view of MS because they can play their games on Steam and use Gamepass. I find funny that EGS didn't gain traction here since Timmy wanted to enforce exclusivity to the point of literally taking out pre selling games from Steam and Kickstarter.

The reason why Steam is a leader is because almost everyone else is literally greed minded and zero value return to customer, the exceptions are GOG and key resellers, even Microsoft Store while shit in part of PCs (never had that issue tbh) offer crossbuy with Xbox and PC.
 

Ashamam

Member
Calculation complete. More value in prying open Apples ecosystem than retaining your own (failing). Hard to argue against something when you literally run the same model on your own product. Bonus points for also being able to pry open Playstation.
 

DaGwaphics

Member
Tbh I don't mind if they bring the Epic Games Store since I have like almost every freebie they've released so far lol. Though I rather have Steam.

8CNBfLQ.png

If they went with windows store for the console, Epic would be the one with the software that they would need (because of the exclusives). Steam hasn't really bothered with buying exclusives so far.
 

Taycan77

Member
These statements by Spencer are little more than an admittance they are going full 3rd party and future hardware offerings will be little more than branded PC's.

These decision have already been made - but we can look forward 2-3 years or word salads to ease people in - rather than ripping the plaster off and admitting they are done with the traditional console war.
 

Astray

Gold Member
Hopefully more FPS for less dollars
Fat chance.

Allowing other stores would only reduce the amount Microsoft can take in thru the Xbox store and creates all sorts of issues between Xbox, the storefronts and the devs/publishers.

The entire reason consoles come in subsidized is because the console maker wants to make the money back in software royalties.

Odds are one will have to pay the same or far more than you would for a PC of equivalent features.

Also fucking lmao at EGS agreeing to share anything with Microsoft when they only take %12 royalties (and in some cases even less).
 
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Ummm… the console would need to fundamentally change for that to happen. Its not like they can run off the shelf PC versions of these games.

I don’t understand Xbox at all now.
It doesn't. They can doit just like the epic store is on Android, it just has to be android games. Same with the Xbox, Spencer didn't say PC games he talked about offering more competition within a platform.
 
He knows Xbox is dead as a platform....

He just can't say it out loud (yet)

He will try to make it look like an "industry problem" to cover for his failures
He's not wrong, these are things that have been talked about before. As Spencer states the problem with the console industry as a whole: it's not growing in users and hasn't significantly grown since the PS3 era. The Xbox Series is selling worst than Xbox 1, the PS5 struggled to sell thanks to the pandemic and yet despite that people are somehow not upgrading to a PS5 in drives as the PS5 is expected to sell less than PS4. Where did all those gamers go? In a recent interview Spencer said they are moving from consoles to mobile handheld devices like phones and to PC. Those people not buying Xbox Series consoles should be buying PS5s instead which would mean the PS5 market share would grow over the PS4 since the Xbox One had a larger market share than the Series, yet PS5 sales aren't growing to reflect that. But you know what is growing in users: mobile and PC. For console gaming investment this is a big problem.



Https://www.pushsquare.com/news/202...over-108-million-ps5-consoles-this-generation "Sony CEO Jim Ryan is feeling bullish about PS5 sales now that the COVID-induced supply slump is over, and the plucky little box can actually be found on store shelves. The Sony bigwig says he expects the PS5 to breach 108 million units sold over the course of its lifetime. Considering Sony needs to sell an additional 70 million PS5s in order to make that happen, that's some pretty tough talk."

That's 108 million less than the PS4s 117mil and here's some context that number was provided when Sony was feeling bullish about future PS5 sales so they set some good sales targets and aggressively discounted and promoted the PS5 since then to reach them. Well guess what in a recent financial call they announced they failed to meet their targets and came to the conclusion that PS5 sales are winding down. If they thought 108 mil was the lifetime target when they were bullish, imagine now. In terms of new blood (more users) the market is not growing, it's actually shrinking. Nothing like this has happened before in the last 20 years and this will affect how much money is invested into consoles of the future.
 
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Fredrik

Member
These statements by Spencer are little more than an admittance they are going full 3rd party and future hardware offerings will be little more than branded PC's.

These decision have already been made - but we can look forward 2-3 years or word salads to ease people in - rather than ripping the plaster off and admitting they are done with the traditional console war.
Yeah this is my take as well. As said earlier, Xbox OS is already based on Windows 10, it would make perfect sense to use regular Windows and just make a Steam OS-like Big Picture mode instead for use on a Surface-team made living room PC. At that point they’ll have Steam and EGS and GOG etc plus Gamepass on ”Xbox”. Meaning they’ll also have Playstation games on ”Xbox”. And Nintendo emulators. I’m surprised they haven’t already done this.
 

bitbydeath

Member
HeisenbergFX4 HeisenbergFX4 was speculating and even if true, it's not info we have atm. It is a fallacy to use an assumption as a basis for a claim. Could one reasonably conclude that Phil is talking about a box that is over $499? It sure looks like it. Could one reasonably conclude that means this box costs $1000, which also somehow means that they are referring to another companies box? No
It’s all rumours until an official announcement is made, my comments were about the recent talk of using existing hardware, it doesn’t rule out what he said previously. Eg. Phil’s handheld running Xbox titles = App. And this thread of their being multiple stores on a single device (a pc for example) = an App.
 
I am actually surprised that they didn’t put more effort in an own store front from the start. They have to share now profits with Valve and Epic, although they could get 100% from the software sales by making their own storefront.
 

RoboCain

Member
But they did. Bill Gates wanted the original Xbox to have full Windows, until the devs told him it's not possible. Consoles are not supposed to take 10 minutes to boot. It used a stepped version of Windows. Also, DirextX on Xbox always gave devs access to low level API, a feature that Windows got with DirectX 12. We only now have the tech to replace Xbox OS with Windows.
You are talking hardware, I'm talking software. MS let Steam grow in the Windows space and failed to be a competitor for years. Now they are making a third party store on their own device? How's that makes any sense? Is the next Xbox just a HTPC with windows? In that case I may get one just to run Steam. And how about my Xbox content? Will it run on any PC with Windows via software BC? In that case I may just get a regular PC and have everything in one device.
 

MarkMe2525

Member
It’s all rumours until an official announcement is made, my comments were about the recent talk of using existing hardware, it doesn’t rule out what he said previously. Eg. Phil’s handheld running Xbox titles = App. And this thread of their being multiple stores on a single device (a pc for example) = an App.
I also agree that new hardware doesn't rule out an Xbox app (as you describe) or multiple stores on single device, but I didn't respond to refute any of those points. I was rebuting the assertion that Phil's recent statements leads one to reasonably conclude that MS is "done with hardware" (as in their own hardware). I don't feel we need to re-hash any of it, I guess I just don't really understand what you are saying here. That's ok though, we could just be talking past each other.
 

UltimaKilo

Gold Member
If Microsoft really wanted to go full-blown PC, releasing a new Xbox in 2026 would make a lot of sense, along with a new console every 3-4 years.
 

Fredrik

Member
I am actually surprised that they didn’t put more effort in an own store front from the start. They have to share now profits with Valve and Epic, although they could get 100% from the software sales by making their own storefront.
??
They already have their own storefront and they’ve put a lot of effort into it and tried pulling people in with Play Anywhere and Gamepass etc, but it failed and people wanted Steam so now they release everything on Steam.

At this point it would make perfect sense to release a Xbox or a Windows box with preinstalled Xbox UI with access to Steam. I don’t know why Phil talk about Epic Games Store instead of Steam though. Epic has failed, people only care about it for the free games and rare exclusives.
 
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??
They already have their own storefront and they’ve put a lot of effort into it and tried pulling people in with Play Anywhere and Gamepass etc, but it failed and people wanted Steam so now they release everything on Steam.
Meant to say to make a better storefront, the current one is just not good enough if they want to compete with Steam. I just think it’s funny that they cannot come up with one which consumers will be happy to use. Microsoft are software gods, so that they get beaten by Steam so easily is just showing they didn’t put enough effort in it.
 

drganon

Member
He's not wrong, these are things that have been talked about before. As Spencer states the problem with the console industry as a whole: it's not growing in users and hasn't significantly grown since the PS3 era. The Xbox Series is selling worst than Xbox 1, the PS5 struggled to sell thanks to the pandemic and yet despite that people are somehow not upgrading to a PS5 in drives as the PS5 is expected to sell less than PS4. Where did all those gamers go? In a recent interview Spencer said they are moving from consoles to mobile handheld devices like phones and to PC. Those people not buying Xbox Series consoles should be buying PS5s instead which would mean the PS5 market share would grow over the PS4 since the Xbox One had a larger market share than the Series, yet PS5 sales aren't growing to reflect that. But you know what is growing in users: mobile and PC. For console gaming investment this is a big problem.



Https://www.pushsquare.com/news/202...over-108-million-ps5-consoles-this-generation "Sony CEO Jim Ryan is feeling bullish about PS5 sales now that the COVID-induced supply slump is over, and the plucky little box can actually be found on store shelves. The Sony bigwig says he expects the PS5 to breach 108 million units sold over the course of its lifetime. Considering Sony needs to sell an additional 70 million PS5s in order to make that happen, that's some pretty tough talk."

That's 108 million less than the PS4s 117mil and here's some context that number was provided when Sony was feeling bullish about future PS5 sales so they set some good sales targets and aggressively discounted and promoted the PS5 since then to reach them. Well guess what in a recent financial call they announced they failed to meet their targets and came to the conclusion that PS5 sales are winding down. If they thought 108 mil was the lifetime target when they were bullish, imagine now. In terms of new blood (more users) the market is not growing, it's actually shrinking. Nothing like this has happened before in the last 20 years and this will affect how much money is invested into consoles of the future.
#SonyToo
 

Fredrik

Member
Meant to say to make a better storefront, the current one is just not good enough if they want to compete with Steam. I just think it’s funny that they cannot come up with one which consumers will be happy to use. Microsoft are software gods, so that they get beaten by Steam so easily is just showing they didn’t put enough effort in it.
It’s no point. All not-Steam storefronts are failing. What they need to do is make a good big picture mode for Windows and use that for a serie of $500-$2000 Xbox branded living room PCs and let us access Steam and every other storefront and launcher there.
Then they would have Xbox games, Playstation games, Nintendo emulators on ”Xbox”.
 

Damigos

Member
MS wouldnt have this identity crisis if they just respected their franchises. Last 2 Halos are terrible, gears of war is dead, fable is dead, sea of thieves is terrible, forza motorsport was insulting..only forza horizon is good.
As i said before, wether we like it or not, exclusive games run the console business. All of Sony’s and Nintendo’s success is due to their exclusive games. Not hardware, not services, not play everything everywhere. Exclusives.
And i am talking about consoles, since we re talking about xbox, not pc
 

Mooreberg

Member
I don’t understand Xbox at all now.
I continually get the impression that they cannot stick with a single idea for longer than two weeks. This is the breathing room you are afforded when your parent company is worth half a trillion more than Apple. I cannot imagine a division that had to monetarily justify it's existence could operate the way Xbox for the last... uh... damn, it's been a while hasn't it?
 

DavidGzz

Member
Funny thing is if MS allows Steam and Epic stores, they essentially also get PlayStation games that come to those stores. So, you'll have MS games on PS6 and PS games on Xbox. Each console will still be relevant in their own ways. PS6 for Sony day one games, Xbox for PC games and a cheaper way of playing MS games, if Day one on Game Pass is still a thing in the future.
 
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