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[M1chl]

I think this conversation is stupid, MS is making (or loosing depends) money, when they lock their users into wallet garden. Console is the way to do it easily, I don't think they are exiting this lucrative market, because then those GamePass numbers would not be in millions. And they love their subscription.

Consoles are cheap, given that pretty much the whole thing is offloaded to AMD, with their drivers and so on. Granted this approach has its own advantages, like the freesync support out of the box and basically anything AMD develops, it just works on console out of the box (if GPU supports it, isn't too old). Their storage is from Surface team and so on.

Sony seems to spent much more on R&D and whole customisation of the silicon.

Given that I have access to the licenced Consoles, I see much more development on MS platforms (granted it could be just that Sony got it right, which they mostly did), pretty much every week new build, if they would truly leave, I don't think they would bother with console specific APIs. This also makes development much more annoying on flip side, because shit you wrote in one week could be deprecated in the next one and removed in next month, etc...

All in all, I don't really think it's worth for them, if they have their HW team and AMD at hand to exit the market. I am sure there will be some cross agreement, that MS will make Win not shit on AMD and AMD will provide something they have on hand. Will they go with ARM64 next time? I am unsure even when they snatched few M1 engineers and have good relationship with qualcomm which also snatched large part of OG M1 team. So its possible. Then they would save big time on silicon, given how much arm licence cost vs how much x86_64 cost to licence and customize.

I could be wrong, but this is how I see it from inside the industry.

 

[Trogdor1123]

Nah more Jaguar.

Jaguar had different manufacturers? I didn’t know that. Everyone knew about 3do but i hadn’t heard of Atari doing it

 

[Dorfdad]

so they are going to they and make steam decks? We tried this and it was an awful experience. Microsoft would have to have a different OS to support these configurations, and it would also probably cause a lot of "issues" and crashing which would hamper the console like experience. I dunno if they should go this route. They are basically just PC's which exist now.

Maybe its just a curated group of hardware they will support and a Xbox Sticker slapped on the boxes?

 

[gooner4life_uk]

lol, microsofts plan for xbox is just pc but shitter?

I dont buy it.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

Just go third-party and do what EA has been doing. They sell games everywhere and have a subscription. Just follow that model.

Do you think Microsoft with all its hubris will be ok with giving Sony 30% of digital purchases?

 

[Negotiator101]

To be a fly on the wall

I simply can’t say much but the people who think Xbox is going to get out of the console hardware business and go straight 3rd party are going to be so disappointed

It sounds like they want doubling down and no longer following status quo’s

In fact I think we hear more about the next Xbox possibly before the PS5 Pro if Sony waits to reveal it like they did the PS4 Pro

This still stand?

 

[Majima Everywhere System]

lol, they just reinvented the PC while high on their own supply. Why would anyone make some device tied to the Xbox front end when Steam is killing it there.

All the same downside will be there as with a pc when multiple hardware configurations come into play

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

Do you think Microsoft with all its hubris will be ok with giving Sony 30% of digital purchases?

To sell even more games just not getting the full cut?

This still stand?

 

[ThaMonkeyClaw]

3DO all over again.

But will the next Xbox hardware be able to play Video CD's without a MPEG adapter?

 

[Topher]

To sell even more games just not getting the full cut?

So bottom line here is, from stuff you've heard, Microsoft is going to be both first and third party?

 

[ResilientBanana]

Fear is in the air and I love it

Lack of competition with only Sony is hell on earth.

 

[onQ123]

So, this has been circulating in a discord I'm a part of which necessarily hasn't been picked up by Xbox community. The person was on the money on Indiana Jones, and is further corroborating about Xbox multi-platform stuff but the most intriguing aspect was on the hardware bit where the poster seems to allude that next-gen Xbox consoles will be akin to partnership like 3rd party controllers whereby other manufacturers will make the hardware which can run Xbox games. It opens up a lot of possibility, such as significantly different configurations (both powerful and weak) but it will also push the cost up as 3rd party won't sell hardware at a loss.

So, what does the Gaf think? I am personally bit torn, I know Microsoft are eating a lot of loss to sell Series S/X but I always thought they would build another Xbox. This rumor also gives a different perspective on FTC leaks, whereby Xbox were aiming at some sort of ARM+Cloud hybrid for next-gen. Was this their plan all along? To have 3rd party sell different kind of consoles which can run their games, meanwhile their focus will be purely on pushing software on multiple platforms, while pushing Cloud as their proprietary hardware for next-gen Xbox.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

So bottom line here is, from stuff you've heard, Microsoft is going to be both first and third party?

Let me first say they could have changed direction in the last few months

But for years that I have talked to key people (Phil Spencer, Mike Ybarra while still at Xbox) the original goal was to put their MP games on every platform day one and had "pipedreams" of possibly putting more games on other platforms sometime in the future and I quote pipedream because thats the very word they used

As of a few months ago they were very deep into looking into their next gen console and I would be shocked if they scrapped those plans to go full third party

Not sure I directly answered your question.

 

[Topher]

Let me first say they could have changed direction in the last few months

But for years that I have talked to key people (Phil Spencer, Mike Ybarra while still at Xbox) the original goal was to put their MP games on every platform day one and had "pipedreams" of possibly putting more games on other platforms sometime in the future and I quote pipedream because thats the very word they used

As of a few months ago they were very deep into looking into their next gen console and I would be shocked if they scrapped those plans to go full third party

Not sure I directly answered your question.

Yeah, you did. Xbox console ain't going anywhere. Got that.

Follow up though. I can get something like Game Pass or xCloud on PlayStation or Nintendo being pipedreams, but beyond that, if we are just talking about Halo for example, is it a "pipedream" for Xbox games like those to be on other consoles? Who is pushing back against that? Sony? Or what makes it a "pipedream"?

 

[Heisenberg007]

Do you think Microsoft with all its hubris will be ok with giving Sony 30% of digital purchases?

I think they have tried the hubris part. They are done with this. Now they want to follow income and profitability, not ego.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

You were for sure ahead of the curve on this one as I didn't "hear" it until September ish

I still stand with this happening but as many know one of my sources of info is not currently employed and with how things ended likely not getting info atm

 

[Heisenberg007]

Yeah, you did. Xbox console ain't going anywhere. Got that.

Follow up though. I can get something like Game Pass or xCloud on PlayStation or Nintendo being pipedreams, but beyond that, if we are just talking about Halo for example, is it a "pipedream" for Xbox games like those to be on other consoles? Who is pushing back against that? Sony? Or what makes it a "pipedream"?

Definitely Sony, as Sony wouldn't allow an XBL account being a mandatory requirement.

If Xbox releases games on PS without that, Sony would be happy to have them. (which is going to be the case now, I believe).

 

[Ass of Can Whooping]

Lack of competition with only Sony is hell on earth.

Hell on earth for you. Paradise for me

 

[HeWhoWalks]

Lack of competition with only Sony is hell on earth.

 

[onQ123]

Let me first say they could have changed direction in the last few months

But for years that I have talked to key people (Phil Spencer, Mike Ybarra while still at Xbox) the original goal was to put their MP games on every platform day one and had "pipedreams" of possibly putting more games on other platforms sometime in the future and I quote pipedream because thats the very word they used

As of a few months ago they were very deep into looking into their next gen console and I would be shocked if they scrapped those plans to go full third party

Not sure I directly answered your question.

They need that actual console as a spec to make games for & a spec to run in the cloud.

My thinking is this will not be for your average console gamer because it will be priced high but it will exist but most people will play these Xbox games on lower end devices that will be helped by the Cloud or your higher end device at home.


This is where the fight with Portal comes in at

Mark my words Portal will be bigger threat to Xbox than PS5 it Self

Xbox biggest advantage is Azure when it comes to the future of "Off-Console Gaming" but with Portal in the mix there is a reminder that there is close to 50 million PlayStation servers in people's homes around the world & growing.

www.neogaf.com

 

[Heisenberg007]

Hell on earth for you. Paradise for me

You'll be able to finally retire!

 

[meatsauce]

Starting to regret supporting MS this gen. I liked what they were doing with the X at the start. Emulation, backwards compatibility, SSD but they started slowly stripping away it's identity for what?
A shitty gaming Netflix? I know many love Game Pass but I think it's a bunch of bloat with the occasional good day 1 game.

I won't be supporting them if they ditch consoles.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

Yeah, you did. Xbox console ain't going anywhere. Got that.

Follow up though. I can get something like Game Pass or xCloud on PlayStation or Nintendo being pipedreams, but beyond that, if we are just talking about Halo for example, is it a "pipedream" for Xbox games like those to be on other consoles? Who is pushing back against that? Sony? Or what makes it a "pipedream"?

Sony said no to making people sign into an XBL account to play games on a PS but without having heard this there seems to have been a shift on that stance from one side or the other which seems to have been on Xbox side

I don't think there has been movement on GamePass coming to Playstation (but could very well be wrong) but the latest I had heard were MP games only, at least to start

I first heard about these discussions possibly 5+ years ago but it just kind of died until recently, its what makes me think one side relented

 

[Ass of Can Whooping]

You'll be able to finally retire!

Been fighting for 23 years

 

[Fredrik]

More flexible next generation

Yeah, this is exactly what I want, from either MS or Valve, best would be if they did it together - A wellmade and silent Gamepass and Steam box for the living room. Then I can forget about traditional consoles. One license and save no matter if I want to play in the computer room or portable (Deck) or in the living room. Perfection.

 

[onQ123]

You were for sure ahead of the curve on this one as I didn't "hear" it until September ish

I still stand with this happening but as many know one of my sources of info is not currently employed and with how things ended likely not getting info atm

Give him drinks & keep bringing up Microsoft until he go into a drunken rant you will get the information that you need lol

 

[onQ123]

Yeah, this is exactly what I want, from either MS or Valve, best would be if they did it together - A wellmade and silent Gamepass and Steam box for the living room. Then I can forget about traditional consoles. One license and save no matter if I want to play in the computer room or portable (Deck) or in the living room. Perfection.

Lenovo, Asus , Dell

 

[Fredrik]

Lenovo, Asus , Dell

Nah, it needs to be someone who knows gaming inside and out, MS and Valve doing a combined thing would be perfection. Steam Deck is close to perfection already but the hardware is too weak for a docked device and too much fiddling to access Gamepass.

 

[onQ123]

Nah, it needs to be someone who knows gaming inside and out, MS and Valve doing a combined thing would be perfection. Steam Deck is close to perfection already but the hardware is too weak for a docked device and too much fiddling to access Gamepass.

Well it's what you will get lol

 

[bitbydeath]

Yeah, cuz that worked out so well for the Steam Machine. Oh wait... no it didn't.

The point of manufacturing your own console is you know the exact specifications of each part and you can oversee quality control. Handing that over to multiple third parties is just a mistake. For one, when you flood the market with multiple devices by multiple manufacturers, it just confuses and oversaturates the market. And two, if devices start failing then your name is still on the line, Even though you technically went the one making them.

I think it’s just their way of getting out in the least negative way. MS have bigger focuses with AI now.

 

[Papa_Wisdom]

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.

You mentioned sega and potentially making another console in your post

 

[mayham2199]

I don't get the OEM thing honestly. No one wants to buy your hardware but you think they'll buy some Xbox OEM device? Why?

 

[Papa_Wisdom]

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?

You clearly don’t know us sega nerds. We will buy any hardware with sega branding on it these days. It’s to make up for a lot of us not buying the Saturn back in the day.

 

[MikeM]

They could do this already if they had a “big picture” equivalent on PC. But, of course they won’t do that to their Xbox app- it would make it better and that is not their priority.

 

[Heisenberg007]

I don't get the OEM thing honestly. No one wants to buy your hardware but you think they'll buy some Xbox OEM device? Why?

Out of the frying pan, into the fire.

 

[pasterpl]

I am guessing they will have their own next gen MS Xbox still as their flagship, like they do with surface 2 in 1’s and license some tech and logo to 3rd parties. This gen consoles are low/mid configuration PCs already, next gen will probably get these even closer with 2 platform owners releasing games on PC already it will make PC version development easier. I can see Razer, Lenovo, Logitech, Alienware, Samsung branded xbox’es that are hybrid console/pc selling quite well (Some probably portable, some cloud only, other stationary, maybe upgradable on regular basis).

 

[Horseganador]

 

[Heisenberg007]

Exclusive content for PS and Switch too! I bet it'll support DualSense as well.

 

[RAIDEN1]

3DO all over again.

Exactly what I was thinking, however I think 3DO would have had a better shot at the 32-bit generation if they had not gone with their business model that they went for, under the hood it was a capable piece of kit compared to the competition in 1993- Sega CD, Jag, upcoming 32x..and early on it could hold its own against the PSX and Saturn...

 

[Proelite]

This makes absolutely no sense unless either MS is quitting HW completely or the OEM consoles have only cosmetic differences.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

You clearly don’t know us sega nerds. We will buy any hardware with sega branding on it these days. It’s to make up for a lot of us not buying the Saturn back in the day.

Or the Sega CD or the 32X or the Dreamcast...

 

[Papa_Wisdom]

Or the Sega CD or the 32X or the Dreamcast...

I had them all, including the Saturn. I did my part!

 

[dotnotbot]

Lack of competition with only Sony is hell on earth.

Nintendo is still there. The fact that they're smart enough to do something different doesn't mean they aren't competition.

 

[jroc74]

Sony said no to making people sign into an XBL account to play games on a PS but without having heard this there seems to have been a shift on that stance from one side or the other which seems to have been on Xbox side

I don't think there has been movement on GamePass coming to Playstation (but could very well be wrong) but the latest I had heard were MP games only, at least to start

I first heard about these discussions possibly 5+ years ago but it just kind of died until recently, its what makes me think one side relented

I saw you post something similar before but it didnt hit me until now. This post really drives home something I said that was not really serious, but kinda was:

What if the ABK deal going thru just helped MS accelerate their multi platform plans. 5+ years is before the ABK acquisition. And to a certain extent acquiring Bethesda.

 

[BlackTron]

I think it's a bunch of misguided fantasy spurned on by a baseless rumor. So I wish you and MS goodluck on the OEM future of XBox.

I hope my luck is a lot better than Xbox's.

 

[Hawking Radiation]

Um wow if true.

I don't know what to say and think about Xbox these days.

 

[bitbydeath]

I saw you post something similar before but it didnt hit me until now. This post really drives home something I said that was not really serious, but kinda was:

What if the ABK deal going thru just helped MS accelerate their multi platform plans. 5+ years is before the ABK acquisition. And to a certain extent acquiring Bethesda.

During the acquisition investigations they said if GamePass doesn’t massively increase by 2027 they’d throw in the towel. We’re still quite a while from 2027 but I think they expected a big jump when purchasing ABK, and releasing Starfield.

 

[Kazekage1981]

So basically a PC?

They would be better suited making a Windows lite OS, or call it Windows XE. And have anyone be able to install that on their PC. A super-fast OS with absolutely no bloat and fine-tuned to prioritize gaming and call it a day. Would be easier getting third parties on board that way.

I am sure I have said something like this before.

I've said it too, you don't need this Xbox branding anymore, they just need to modify Windows 11 to have a UI similar to the current Xbox OS (minus the bloat). If MS releases a new console, it would be similar to their surface line up for OEMs to mimic. This is a good thing. Worried about your physical Xbox hardcopy of the game? Solution is to release an external ultra-blu ray disk drive and attach it to any PC or future xbox console (play anywhere). MS has to really work hard to converting x86 games to native arm. Hoping that when you purchase a game through MS store you can play anywhere: native arm, native x86 and save game on the cloud.

Have to get rid of hardware limitations of consoles and waiting every 4 years for a hardware refresh and upgrade.

 

[ResilientBanana]

Nintendo is still there. The fact that they're smart enough to do something different doesn't mean they aren't competition.

Nintendo isn’t playing the same game Sony is. Microsoft is. Sony does what Nintendon’t.

 

[ResilientBanana]

Did you see how cocky and overpriced Sony was trying to be during the PS3 days? They’ve gotten better. But give them free rein and games will be $90 while consoles are $700. Don’t give them that.