Only MS would know. Im like you, its a bit complicated to see whate they want with the console but I get the impression they arent seeing console in their futurd and I dont know what will you do to “replace” that.
So far their strategy is all over the place and only God kwnos if it will be worth it.
Couldn’t do that on my end… When PS says “premium” they mean it… in price. Games cost so much and such an expensive sub too.
I get with PC the initial barrier is very expensive but afterwards all those “console taxes” are gone.
Xbox has in hands everything to heat up competition in console market if they go aggressive with the IP they own, however the current leadership has clearly gave up. The moment we see Halo, Gears on, let’s say, PS consoles, the end has come indeed for Xbox consoles. I still keep thinking what was the benefit of bringing Halo and Gears to PC, for example. Halo keeps going on paliative care mode. Gears died in the first week. So much noise for bring Halo to PC and the game keeps struggling to get new players on the platform. And the game is much probably the best first person shooter over there. Playstation was so worried about ABK deal, but in the end Xbox itself made their job easier. If they knew, they could have saved the money spent with lawyers.
Agree! Here in Colombia cost almost a minimum wage 
Im not paying that but I dont want to leave this hobby. Regional prices in steam plus the better sales (actually, steam is straight up the best gaming storefront and ecosystem), mods, THE platform for indies, having more games than other platforms, better perfomance…etc. just make pc the ultimate gaming platform to me.
Needs Steam if they’re letting other stores on. Steam is the best storefront of all time because of the library. Every Xbox first party, Playstation first party (they just come later), every indie, Japanese/Asia dev game ever, near full support from all publishers, etc.
Hey… I was already typing up a Steam post 
I dunno, the more Phil talks the more I get vibes that they are going to make Xbox steam deck like. And Im all for it.
Play PC versions of Sony games on your Xbox.
Lol given how Sony were so childish and blocked the Edge browser on Xbox being able to access their games via GeForce Now, I imagine they’d be apoplectic.
Thankfully, I think Steam are much bigger and more willing to go “nope” when Sony demand a way to block Xbox consoles from accessing their games - it might encourage Sony to build their own store (or just go Epic Games if they agree to lock down - but that’d go against all of Tim Sweeney’s pronouncements) but that’d likely cut them off from major sources of revenue
It does feel a bit 3D Chess - we’re making Xbox games available on PlayStation, but we’re going to allow Steam & Epic Games on your Xbox so you can play PlayStation games on Xbox! 
How many games do you have on steam? How many on yoir wishlist? Always make this question to my fellow steam frens to see of what I have is “normal” or if theres something wronf with me 
There are only about 10 games on my wishlist and I haven’t updated it since ~2011, because back then you needed 10 to participate in sale minigames (I don’t make use of wishlist on any platform, I’m pretty good at just keeping in mind what I want.) I am also decently good at actually playing the things I buy lol, if anything, I’m the unusual type of Steam user.
You might as well save your money and buy a PC. PlayStation games will be day 1 on PC and Xbox. Xbox will probably make you wait a year for Xbox games to go to PlayStation
True, for the past few years I spend 90% of my time handheld so this new PC handheld revolution is ideal for me.
To touch on your other point these types of systems are perfect for me as it’s a one off big investment every few years (just like console) and typically provide a more console like experience, whereas when I had a gaming rig I felt it was a money pit where I was just constantly upgrading it and doing updates etc. As I work on a PC all day I didn’t want to be dealing with Windows stuff when I want to game…
Ah man the community is the part I actually miss most when I’m on console. I made many lifelong friends on Steam. It was my experience that I typically found more enjoyable online matches on PC as in my experience console attracts more casuals which tend to mess about more (or generally be tw*ts). That said I found a few good friends on specific games in the 360 days.
Worst comes to worst I go PC. (likely going to do that anyway) I don’t see Sony getting my money as far as consoles are concerned.
But I’m curious. To the people who are saying they’ll switch to Playstation, let’s say MS made the right call and Sony eventually starts putting all their games on Xbox natively. What then? Are you going to switch to Nintendo?
OMG! That is the most interesting news in months!
I said a while back that it would make more sense if Xbox went to a consumer friendly PC option (AKA the Steam Machine) rather than stick with console restrictions.
This may allude that they are doing exactly this, which would be amazing!
True but their current strategy isn’t working. Xbox being a PlayStation lite doesn’t help. It only worked for the 360 because of Sony’s mistakes with the PS3. They need to do what works for them. I only care about my digital library. They can put their games wherever they want.
I think they would rather lose 30% of 3rd party than to continue making hardware that is expensive and when it sells they don’t make any money on it.
I don’t think your second point is dramatic at all 
, like you say everything will likely end up being an app that you play through the cloud anyway.
Hoeg Law recently talked about how legal action forcing Apple & Google to open up their hardware to other app stores could set a legal precedent. This precedent could end up being applied to other hardware-walled barriers like console, making all consoles capable of playing their competitors software.
However to go back to point one you are right that GP is their unique selling point, they just need to market it more!! If it was growing like they wanted you would expect them to be shouting from the rooftops… but they aren’t 
.
Therefore I think they do need to go back to the drawing board and think up some other USP’s.
Do hope if they open up to Steam and Epic Games etc they allow proper versions, not ones where the games have to be converted to work.
I’d much rather they either open the OS a bit for those partners so it looks like a PC, or they make an OS layer than pretends to be a PC to those stores.
That’ll give us access to the full libraries then.
One side note though - they’d surely have to drop Core, as who would buy a game on the Xbox store (giving MS their 30%) and have to have Core for multiplayer, when they can buy it for the same price on Steam and get the free multiplayer PC gets?
Then people would go for the cheapest console, or the one with the best controller or better features like GP, but it’s understandable that as of right now, if Xbox has X games, and Playstation has X and Y games, people could think PS is a better choice from now on.
I’ve been saying since the rumours were getting more serious, MS needs to create PC consoles from now on if they are going third party, there’s no way people will choose their console if they can find their games on Playstation too, unless Playstation games can be played on it, and Sony would never release their games on Xbox, so Steam is the answer, they’ll lose the 30% cut of course, but they got outsold 3 to 1 last year which was terrible, and this one it’s almost 4 to 1, there’s not much future on the actual console business for MS.
I feel like I need to point this out because a fundamental and basic concept is being misunderstood by some folk. I really have to question the intelligence of such people, to be frank.
Those few are confusing bias and focus. This site, as well as sites dedicated to particular platforms, are focused on this platforms. There may be various biases among the contributors of such sites (whether it’s consoles, game genres, or online/offline gaming) but having a site focused on the platform does not make it inherently biased.
Two entirely different concepts.
When we talk about Dring, who is commenting on all sorts of platforms, we are talking about his personal preferences and biases interfering and affecting his work. Something anyone following the games industry is well aware of.
Note how Dring reported the news of the Activision acquisition. He’s held double standards, was oddly uninformed on the Xbox platform, and interjected his opinion with the news. It goes beyond his bias and delved into his unprofessionalism as a journalist. When asked point blank why he was against the merger (something he advertised flagrantly) he said that he “couldn’t put it into words” (paraphrased). Pretty odd for someone who is a writer.
The fact that the one dude was propping up Resetera, a place had lost credibility in the industry due to its bias, was pretty funny I have to admit.
