Microsoft Assures Gamers It's Not Abandoning Xbox Hardware (windowscentral.com) 25
Microsoft said in a statement Monday it remains committed to developing first-party Xbox consoles. The reassurance came after rumors circulated suggesting the gaming division might abandon hardware manufacturing. The speculation gained traction following a 50% price increase for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and retailers including Costco removing Xbox products from their shelves.
Microsoft said it is "actively investing in our future first-party consoles and devices designed, engineered and built by Xbox." The company's multi-year partnership with AMD for next-generation hardware also continues. Devices in development include the Xbox Ally range under codenames Omni and Horseman, according to Windows Central. Xbox Series X and Series S production has also not stopped, the report added.
Microsoft said it is "actively investing in our future first-party consoles and devices designed, engineered and built by Xbox." The company's multi-year partnership with AMD for next-generation hardware also continues. Devices in development include the Xbox Ally range under codenames Omni and Horseman, according to Windows Central. Xbox Series X and Series S production has also not stopped, the report added.
AHHHCTUALLY (Score:5, Interesting)
What am I missing? (Score:3)
If it ends hardware sales, what will its games run on? Existing installs only? What sense does that make?
Probably not wrong (Score:3)
Microsoft is addicted to the crack of subscriptions, so every single game will be a separate subscription, streamed from the cloud, to dedicated specialty hardware, or perhaps downloaded before each use. Each loading screen takes 17 hours.
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But isn't the Xbox hardware the dedicated specialty hardware?
Sure, but... (Score:4, Informative)
Since all the processing is happening in the cloud, they can use cheaper hardware in homes, and ARM is the future and as a forward-looking company they're going that direction that everyone else went, so, uh, because of the environment you need to buy new hardware and throw out your old hardware.
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Specialty has been getting less and less relevant for consoles, I think the CPU wars between XBox and Sony on the PS3/360 traumatized both companies and/or the writing on the wall for custom silicon being worth it for gaming when PC will always be there.
The current XBox's are x86 with AMD APU chips. Yeah they're specialty for Microsoft but it's running a core of Windows underneath. Same for the PS5 minus the OS. The Switch is a souped up phone.
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Re: Probably not wrong (Score:2)
Correct except for the dedicated specialty hardware part. You can already stream the games to other platforms. They will add more to get more chances to get subscriptions.
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If it ends hardware sales, what will its games run on? Existing installs only? What sense does that make?
Looks like they’re ending the subsidized console business. With the key word being subsidized.
Translation: The next Xbox price will be $200 higher in price. Because Fuck You, That’s Why.
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Looks like they’re ending the subsidized console business. With the key word being subsidized.
Consoles have been sold at pretty near at or above the cost of goods for a while now. Some manufacturers, like Nintendo, actually make a profit on their hardware. Recent price hikes for hardware have more to do with US tariffs and the AI craze jacking the price of GPU silicon than anything else.
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If it ends hardware sales, what will its games run on? Existing installs only? What sense does that make?
Someone else makes the hardware, Microsoft sticks a badge on it.
Then you pay for the subscription.
MS wants out of the hardware game because it's not paying for itself any more. With Sony blinking first and raising the price of the Playstation, Microsoft sees it's out. It can get someone else to build the hardware and just reap the profit from the software sales and subscription services. That was the only thing that made the Xbox profitable, the fact that they could get publishers to pay a per instanc
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If it ends hardware sales, what will its games run on? Existing installs only? What sense does that make?
They've announced that they are going to publish everything pretty much day and date on all platforms, including Sony. XBox hardware will probably stick around for those who can't afford a gaming PC or don't want to deal with maintaining one or people who are already heavily bought into the XBox ecosystem and don't want to have to rebuy everything on Playstation.
I expect the next generation of XBox will be more streaming focused though. They already have their "everything is an XBox" marketing campaign th
I think MS needs to do more to prove this (Score:5, Informative)
The trust in MS from gamers is at an all time low right now. They need to do a lot more to reassure gamers than some words that they could change their minds on. On gaming message boards there are lists of lies that MS have told being passed around as a response to MS's claims here:
"Only 4 games" - referring to MS saying only 4 of its games would be published on other platforms, now they are publishing everything they can on other platforms.
"Here's a trailer for perfect dark" - referring to a trailer MS made for Perfect Dark, which was highly anticipated but then canceled mere months after the trailer was shown.
"Halo will be coming with the launch of Xbox series X" - It did not
"Everything is an Xbox" - This isn't true because not everything can play Xbox games. They are referring to the ability for platforms to play Xbox games via cloud streaming, and obviously not everything can even do that. It is misleading and underwhelming.
"We are looking to be supporting underutilized Activision IP" - They haven't revived any of Activision's old franchises, and instead appear to be reducing staff and scope to only established mainstream games and service games.
"We would like to invest in our Japanese studios" - They instead closed their only Japanese studio and haven't partnered with Mistwalker since Xbox 360.
"Gamepass is profitable and sustainable" - They increased the price of Game Pass and have removed the selling point "day one games" from various tiers of Game Pass.
"Xbox is making a profit"
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Why would publishing on as many platforms as possible be a bad thing?
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And Microsoft always tells the truth (Score:4, Informative)
You can be sure it's true because MS said it was.
State of console gaming (Score:3)
Xbox seems to be moving to the streamed subscription only model.
Switch 2 is now online only, with hardware keys and hostile anti piracy behavior (bricks console if a suspected copied game is used).
PlayStation from Sony seems reasonable with physical games still present and we are still able to buy used games without much worries. Offline campaign games like Horizon 1&2, Last of Us 1&2 have solid sales.
Steam, has the portable Steam Deck, and offers lots of flexibility and a very large library of games. Including retro games.
Cheap retro game consoles from many vendors. Even the ones under $50 can have thousands of games (very questionable sources and legality). I got a game boy style handheld for my son. It can play most games from the 1970s all the way to early 2000, including some PS1 and N64 games... I paid $30 shipped. It stopped working after a few months due to a rusty screen cable, but I managed to fix it.
Personally I do not game that much but I do have a PS5 to play a few campaign games, some racing (I got a Logitech wheel and pedals), and a few sandbox games on my Apple laptop (Minecraft, terraria, space bound, ...)
Right now of the mainstream console players it looks like Sony is the less bad choice. I do not consider the SteamDeck mainstream compared to the main 3.
MS already abandoned few markets (Score:2)
I would not be surprised there is no dedicated console in the future if the present already does not have any in stock.
Put a fork in it, it's done (Score:2)
For some reason, corporations feel the intense need to deny unpopular things they are doing, to the point where if they issue such a denial, you know they are in fact doing the thing.
This also applies to internal communication. If the company swears it's not doing layoffs, closing your location, or being sold... time to polish the resume.
Zune, Windows Phone (Score:2)