A lot of us xbox owners seen this coming. There's no game news coming out from Microsoft other than "hey we bought another game company, look at their catalog!". Our 1st party titles take long in between iterations and at this point I say only Forza is a solid game but racing games jsut don't generate hype as a system seller but geared towards the car crowds. Halo has fucked up royally. The master chief collection was all outsourced and came out a clusterfuck. It's taken years to fix and outside of the loyal halo players it's also not a system seller anymore. The latest Halo tried too hard to be a call of duty but why? It's changed course a tiny bit but again only the loyal player base keep that going. The current status of Microsoft as a games company is mild to blah. And we believe it's by design. Simply to add sub-par game titles to Gamepass and eventually go the Sega route and be an online game portal available to all. However the epic store and gog and steam are already available. So how to differentiate Gamepass? Buy up companies and keep their IP, if the acquired company keeps doing good then keep it going, if it fails (due to Microsoft "hands-off approach") then close the studio irregardless of past performance and keep the IP and offer MS owned IP solely in its future Gamepass iteration. Just my thoughts as an xbox owner, longtime game fan
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My goal is just to have a community where people can go and see what new game news is out for the day and comment on it.
Other communities:
Wow, that's some serious PlayStation power! With nearly a 5 to 1 lead over Xbox, it's clear where the gaming crowd's loyalty lies. But hey, healthy competition only fuels innovation, right? Let's see how Xbox responds in the next round!
I literally cannot tell you what the latest Xbox is. PlayStation? 5. EZ.
Well the last one was One so this one must be Two
Xbox One Series S Series E Series X
Is actually the newerest one
Article feels weirdly biased, an Xbox mid-gen update has been talked about for over a year and is expected in the next like 4-6 months. Anyone in the market for a current gen Xbox is likely to consider that and may decide to postpone their purchase until then, making sales artificially lower than demand for an Xbox. The article doesn't even mention it, instead talking about even more speculative hardware that isn't likely more than some R&D project, if that.
You can see similar effects for PS4 sales when the PS5 was announced, sales cratered. Can't tell too much with the PS4 to PS4 pro because they announced close to actual release.
Feels like the author is clickbaiting the console war.
Mid-gen PS5 and Xbox series are both expected in the next 12 months, the Switch successor is probably going to drop in a similar time frame.
Hardware sales will be suppressed for all console platforms.
The mid-gen console will be called Xbox 360 Series Two.
Xbox has tried very hard to convince you to play their games on anything but the Xbox. Cloud? Sure. PC? Sure. PS5? Sure. Switch? Most definitely.
But if we’re talking about console sales, Microsoft has been downplaying its need to sell hardware for years now, pushing the idea that you can experience Xbox anywhere, namely on PC with day and date Game Pass releases, and on other devices through cloud gaming, which remains a niche market. The path to cash has been Game Pass subscriptions, as it’s more valuable to have players paying a monthly/yearly fee that will end up being far more money than a single console would be
Of course they have. Consoles are a loss-leading model. They literally lose money every time they sell you a video game console. If you can get somebody in your ecosystem on a separate system, why wouldn't you?
Then why sell them?
To sell games
They might stop. The rumor is they are swapping to premium Steam Deck style, Xbox Branded PCs next gen.
They could sell a niches product like that at at profit if they wanted.
Nintendo for example, has always avoided the loss leading model, and makes like $50 off each unit sold. (Those figures were from launch, its Likely more now that production costs have inevitably gone down over time)
From the article:
Xbox has no plans to abandon hardware, despite what these sales trends may start to suggest.
Nintendo exist because of their IP, we all love Mario and Zelda and Metroid. They put a fairly low quality product out on the market knowing it will be consumed for the purpose of playing mario.
It has a low build quality, low spec and has very little in the way of partnerships and such. Its basic.
It was also at the time a pitch perfect execution of a home/handheld console hybrid. They launched a new class of hardware effectively.
Now Sony is starting to do the same. You just can't sustain multiple gazillion dollar games with only one platform.
Unless you're Nintendo of course.
And Sony is still complaining about bad sales... I wonder if Microsoft will even bother with another console again. I guess they will pull a SEGA and just start selling games on other consoles.
From the article:
Xbox has no plans to abandon hardware, despite what these sales trends may start to suggest.
I could see them offering a new console that is mainly for cloud purposes. Microsoft believes the future of gaming is streaming. The only government body that paid any attention to this during their purchase of Activision blizzard King was the United Kingdom. While streaming is still pretty shitty right now for games, I think Microsoft has their sights 10 to 20 years ahead.
If I were Microsoft, I would consider speaking to Sony or Nintendo about running the live aspect of their console. Both have had serious issues with their services, and it's where the money is for a software company like Microsoft - especially with the better hardware people from Microsoft going elsewhere.
Get Sega back into the console game, and we might see some more innovation.
There are still supply chain issues, or synthetic shortages. So many annoying 'out of stock' listings for PS5's in Canada, and prices are locked at MSRP mostly.
Which is fun, because in my eyes the OG Xbox was just a refined Dreamcast.
an overpowered Dreamcast, really. It had no need to be so powerful. Its a shame most games were cross platform with the PS2 as the lead development platform.
As a PS2 owner, and a lover of the Dreamcast but had to skip a gen because of poverty – I always felt like I made the wrong choice when I went to visit my xbox owning neighbor.