This is the smart thing to do if you can. I do hope though that MS will still have their payment plan with the included Game Pass Ultimate for those that need it. I think it’ll become more important and popular in the future if console prices keep going up.
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This. Most the people I see complain about PC gaming it seems pretty clear that they had trouble with it once 20 years ago and that tainted their perseption of it forever. The days of needing to know you IRQ and DMA channels ended decades ago.
Almost all PC gaming now is click install, click play, play.
If you want to say the experience of interacting with one in a living room setting is subpar and takes too much work to get right, alright, Ill give you that. But hopefully that is something MS is fixing (and if they dont, someone else will).
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I don’t think consoles are dying but more that they have matured and have reached their evolution point. Valve for example seems interested in releasing a console however I don’t the traditional console will fly anymore, they have to evolve, and I think that’s what Xbox is trying to do. The everywhere idea is the future. The video media went through this you had the HD DVD and Blu-ray they could certainly have gone with both like gaming consoles do but instead they chose one and went with it. All other media have had homogeneous formats. I think it would certainly help if a developer didn’t have to make ports or several versions of one game to support the different system and I think if this was the way gaming hardware would have been reasonably priced.
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I do not play on pc, however I am now curious to understand it more just to get a better idea of what xbox is up against with this merging of platforms. What problems do they need to solve and how will they do it. My ‘vibe’ is pc is not plug and play and I base this on seeing threads in forums where people are complaining that the game isn’t working on their pc, then other people are trying to help diagnose it, they discuss what pc parts they have and it is this big back and forth and everyone seems to be annoyed. But then I see this above conversation of people agreeing it is getting pretty close to the plug and play of a console. So maybe it does come down to pc competence? With a basic understanding, its no big deal? I have enough of an understanding of computers to work an 8 hour day in MS office, but I have no idea what the people trying to trouble shoot their pc game issue are talking about. Maybe it’s just that I’m reading about the one person’s problems on a forum while millions of others are play the game just fine?
Same for me.
Since it’s expected for Steam and other PC store fronts to be available on the console, im expecting different spec models at different prices. I want the highest spec model because im sure it will be needed to play the PC versions of games. I’m also expecting the consoles to be digital only as having a disc drive in 2026 doesn’t make much sense.
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Yep. As Im getting older Im trending away from multiplatform ownership. I have always been a “own every system” gamer but with the way things are trending, Im heading the direction of having a single primary platform. As somone whose largest libraries are Xbox and Steam (just under 1000 xbox games, 1240 Steam games), what is rumored would essentially be the perfect solution for me.
I actually have a fair number, ~300ish, on GoG.
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Again, same for me.
My plan is to clear out my backlog for PlayStation 5 by the time the Xbox/PC hybrid releases so I can just buy and play all my games on a single console/platform/eco-system.
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I think the important thing to remember is that these sorts of issues are fairly rare. Yes they can and do happen, but its not really any different from when, for example, Atom Fall crashed for me any time I would throw a molotov on Xbox Series X because I have an atmos sound bar and there was a bug with atmos audio. Or how Resident Evil Zero would could crash on Series X at the same point in the game until it was patched. They dont happen to everyone who plays those games, but they happen to some people.
99% of PC gaming is downloading and installing the game in the launcher of your choosing (Steam, GoG, etc) and hitting play. As was mentioned, most games detect hardware and set it to appropriate settings automatically. There isnt a whole lot of tinkering required. The biggest necessity in the PC space right now is making that experience more ammenable to a living room setting via a controller friendly interface. Which MS has finally realized and started work on.
I agree entirely. That the console market has reached maturity is exactly how I’d describe it. Sales are stable and existing console gamers are even spending more, but they aren’t growing. And this is impacting games themselves as they’re (all publishers and developers) are having to find new ways to reach more gamers as production costs increase.
I do think the traditional console is going away. Valve’s “console” would be probably just be a pre-built PC that runs SteamOS/Linux in the same way the current Steam Deck works. Much like how people say future Xbox PCs will go. An evolution is a good word for the transition, and I think it overall will greatly benefit the entire industry (gamers and publishers). The biggest concern just being how painful and prolonged the transition will be. Gaming is interesting in just how long we’ve existed with these walled gardens. So many people have hundreds, if not over a thousand, games that are just stuck on their Playstation or Xbox. Some gamers have also just gotten stuck in the mindset of “console wars” creating an illogical pushback from some vocal consumers.
Xbox is definitely going to push that transition first and how they execute it (or continue to execute it really) will be interesting to watch.
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You mention people have games stuck on their xbox/ps and a few other people have referenced console lock-in due to existing libraries. I’m curious how impactful everyone thinks this is. I do not care at all about existing libraries when deciding what my next console will be. Don’t replay games and there are so many games out there. In the physical days, it was always exciting when new consoles were out b/c I would box up all my stuff, take it for trade credit and damn near get the new machine/games/accessories for an even up trade. In the digital age, I went 360 to ps4 to xsx. Are my digital games gone? I guess. If I really wanted one again I just need to get that particular machine and my games are still there. But again, so much time has gone by if there was a game or two I wanted to revisit, it is prob extremely cheap on the newer machines and possibly runs better at that. All of that to say, I think digital game lock-in is a small group of people who enjoy collecting and it isn’t as big of a factor as people make it out to be.
Maybe this is more of a multi player thing? Like if a fortnight player has a 5 yo save on one console does that prohibit them from changing? I don’t play a lot of multi player so not sure on that. I guess that would add a lot of weight to digital lock in.
I think friend list lock-in is prob pretty huge and more of a factor than game lock-in.
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It’s going to depend entirely on the gamer. For me, I have 850 games in my Xbox owned library (just double checked) and I’m not easily willing to abandon those. I have a big backlog, but even then I do love replaying some favorites (and introducing others to them) and I even go back and play 360 games again. And the available Xbox (OG) games gives me access to tons of “new to me” games that fill out the Xbox store.
It’s also just an investment issue. I’ve invested a LOT of money into my Xbox library over the years for the specific goal is it being better entertainment for me. This has been the case. I’ll often browse games I bought when I’m bored. It’s also incredibly useful when I invite a friend over and we have this massive built up library to turn to when I ask “what do you want to play?” or when I’m kinda pushing them to try a game.
In the same vein I’ll say I’ve been there for every console, I (my family) used to buy each every generation. But back when we pretty much exclusively bought discs, I didn’t care “as much” because I couldn’t put multiple discs in at a time and I wasn’t buying (storing) 800+ discs in my (our) house (we had this little cupboard in the TV stand). But at the same time a big reason I chose Xbox and one platform to focus on, is BECAUSE I wanted a more unified library and to be able to go back and play everything. Just like TV I have comfort games (games I’ll chill with). And my comfort Nintendo games aren’t on the Switch and Nintendo doesn’t do cloud saves like Xbox. I put down the switch because I’d rather play the Wii or heck WiiU or 3ds (gosh I’d love to endlessly play Kid Icarus Uprising), but there wasn’t just “one” Nintendo console or unified experience, all of those had fragmented game libraries and not even cloud saves existed for ports. Playstation was better but had a similar issue. I was at least not the hugest 360 or PS3 guy (and before then I gamed with my family but didn’t fully understand anything 
). But I right now honestly can barely remember what I bought on PS4. That was back when I was still disc focused, so I bought less and I saw it less often (like with discs you can’t just click a few buttons and see your full library).
For some people though, I’d say the library doesn’t really matter but the fact that it’s there does. Most people don’t switch from what they know and they justify this with the same host of reasons. For gaming digital libraries has become the biggest. People really just don’t want to change what they know (humans as a species don’t like change), and the logical reasoning picks out libraries. We could say that no one actually cares about their library, but scores of these same people would still be beyond po’d if Microsoft announced that they were getting rid of backwards compatibility and only doing the PCXBOX with only new games and XPA being supported. Like say your photo album on your iPhone got deleted by Apple intentionally. Well, maybe you don’t really care about your photos (at the end of the day they’re just memories and you aren’t showing all of them 24/7), but you care a lot that Apple deleted them, so you refuse to buy a new iPhone and instead by an android.
On the point of multiplayer though, if anything that’s become the LEAST reason to stay on one platform. Ever since cross-play there’s nothing stopping you from playing with friends on other platforms and most of the multiplayer titles have in game friend lists that work between platforms. You mention fortnite, and Fortnite has cross-progression on top of cross-play. So the game is free, save data and friend lists travel with you, and you can play with anyone on any platform. Really the multiplayer scene is why I’d say the console wars actually died. The console wars were only ever a thing (at least from my perspective when I was growing up; I don’t know at all how they managed to push it before multiplayer games) because kids and adults had to make their friends all play on the same platform if they wanted to game together. I remember this in high school with Destiny and Battlefront 2. I met some new friends and we all played Destiny and Battlefront 2, but on different platforms, so we had to decide the same one to play together (we just went with PS4 because everyone owned one). But this reason died once cross-play became standard and the online live service forever games took over. All of those, especially the free ones, have their own accounts with progression tied to it.
I don’t think it’s an end all be all or it would be the same for everyone, but game libraries will certainly be an issue to address and it will be difficult to satisfy everyone. Or that at least tries to. I do feel bitter when I think about what consoles have done to the longevity and preservation of gaming software.
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Well said. I would definitely feel different if my situation involved the volume of games you own.
On your prior post:
I do think the traditional console is going away. Valve’s “console” would be probably just be a pre-built PC that runs SteamOS/Linux in the same way the current Steam Deck works. Much like how people say future Xbox PCs will go.
Gaming is interesting in just how long we’ve existed with these walled gardens.
We can see how Valve and xbox are transitioning as it happens right before us. What do you think sony’s growth strategy will be (gaming only, not tv/movies)? Capturing a competitor’s market share is just about tapped out at this point and the reasonable assumption the console market isn’t growing (and might be shrinking a bit) will force them to do something different. I just feel like they have been very quite while xbox is clearing making a lot of changes publicly with handhelds/windows full screen mode, and more behind the scenes moves focusing on cloud/pay anywhere/etc. I suppose sony could just take the nintendo approach. stay the course and eveyrthing will be fine.
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You see a lot of people on PC refusing to buy games elsewhere than Steam so I think there is some truth to ecosystem lock in. I’ve seen people go from Xbox to PS or PS to Xbox so for some it’s probably not the case. Maybe PC ecosystems can’t be compared to console ecosystems either, and maybe a deeper look into the whole thing needs to be done.
For me while I don’t always go back to older games I do have a bunch of Xbox One games or Xbox 360 games I like to go back to, and having access to it on one system is definitely one of the main reasons why it’ll take a lot to take me away from Xbox (also Gamepass!). I guess I could buy a similar 3rd party controller and play elsewhere, and I would leave the XBox console for PC if the Xbox app let me play everything ever released there, but they’d still be getting my money anyway so I don’t think they really care.
There’s just too much to analyze here, and like you said, friends as well, although now with crossplay and discord available everywhere, it’s almost a non issue I’d say.
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Thank you so much for keeping the conversation going. This stuff is fun to thinking about. Now on Playstation. From my perspective, I think Playstation is confused. If media was less biased (and PS execs talked more and Xbox execs less) than I think Playstation would be on much shakier ground this generation than Xbox.
If we actually look back on what Xbox has done, not what they’ve said, it’s been a fairly steady transition. During the Xbox One generation they started Xbox Play Anywhere, Game Pass, Backwards compatibility program, and day one PC. Backwards compatibility really doesn’t matter here, but they did that. Anyway throughout the Xbox One generation they got better at PC releases and hit a steady cadence. Going into the series generation Xbox + PC releases for first party was down, and at the start of the generation they even brought their PC only game releases into the fold (AOE and MS Flight Sim). And then we got the start of proper first party launches on PS. That’s just as a publisher, as a platform Xbox has slowly (very slowly) built up their PC launcher and storefront.
But what about Playstation? Well it’s weird isn’t it? I mean first off the Nintendo route is out. Sony spends too much making first party games and they’ve made a name for themselves with high end hardware. Those are their markets. They can’t build a last Gen machine and charge more for it than some current Gen consoles not can they make AA games and charge AAA prices for them. Sony has become the market leader through a high budget strategy. The fact that they’re the market leader is also a reason why they can’t be Nintendo. What motivates all these companies is seeking growth to please shareholders. That gets harder the more money you earn. Xbox and PlayStation both earn more raw revenue than Nintendo in gaming (and this was even before Xbox bought publishers). Playstation earns more than everyone and what that really means is that they have to show significant growth on a larger number. That’s getting progressively harder. Especially with other rising costs.
PS also can’t be Nintendo because they’ve already pushed a multiplatform strategy. PC releases of all PS games is just expected now (if not eventually). There’s no going back. The issue on the PS side though is how inconsistent these releases are. Heck, they even now include Xbox with Helldivers 2. Oh and that covers how PS is desperate for live service game success (something Xbox also figured out last gen and has just utterly dominated this Gen)
Right now Playstation is chasing one thing, more money, and that’s guiding all their decisions. They need to reach new gamers, but are also scared of harming the need of their console. The issue is how hard they’re pushing too. Like they spent so much money on failed live service titles. And they’ve canceled so many games. And they bought so many bad studios (good lord they spent so much money on Bungie just to have to carry them like dead weight). At the same time they haven’t figured out consistent PC releases and now they’ve thrown in a big Xboxr release that no one, ESPECIALLY Sony shareholders, is going to forget anytime soon.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see Sony following Xbox footsteps (the overlay on PC seems like a big step towards a wider ecosystem that includes PC naturally), Playstation’s current profit margins are too low and growth isn’t happening, but it’ll be a bitter road for them. They’re trying to have it all (PC releases, multiplatform console releases, exclusives, and the best live service games). And Xbox is succeeding or steadily moving forward in all of these areas. If anything Xbox has too many stupid successful live service games, Xbox has their own PC launcher and does same day on Steam oh and a second PC launcher to boot now in battlenet, Xbox is dominating the Playstation store charts with massive sales numbers that outpace PS’s own exclusives, and Xbox has a publisher has a much more stable and varied output now while Sony has been canning so many games for live services games that also get canned when they fail. Heck, Sony hasn’t even figured out how to take control with their PSN sign ins failing.
It’s not a question of what Sony is going to do about Playstation, but what they need to do. They need to first figure out PC releases. Part of it is that they just aren’t as used to releasing on PC, but it’s also posturing. At this stage they aren’t pulling over PC gamers by waiting several months. And the staggered releases are even costing them money. Like actually. In business you’re taught that lost potential sales are essentially a loss. With these staggered releases they aren’t just delivering PC gamers a year old game, but they’re doing so with very little marketing. They’d maximize marketing budgets output if they did simultaneous releases and they’d generate more buzz from gamers. This could lead to more sales on both PS and PC (and other platforms in the future, but I’d honestly say they should just do other console ports for now and REALLY focus on figuring out PC). And then Playstation can move forward from that.
Again if the media wasn’t as biased, I think Playstation would be looked at with a much more questioning eye and gamers as well. Because as a gamer I look at Playstation (and Nintendo, but Nintendo I look at even worse because they show no sign of changing) and really wonder what I’m buying into. What guarantee is there that they don’t do another ps3 to PS4 “wipe”? What about the sustainability of consoles? What will Playstation do, what are they doing, to ensure my value as a consumer and their existence as a gaming ecosystem is protected in the long term in addition to the short term? And to be fair to Sony it’s a very simple problem at the root of this: late stage capitalism. What do you do when you’re the market leader and have shareholders that only care about growth? Playstation is a big part of Sony’s stock value. They can’t risk the hardware platform, but they’re also desperate for growth which means making REALLY big numbers bigger all while cutting costs. It’s not an easy task and as a result they’re just floundering and chasing a lot of different birds hoping to shoot at least one. Microsoft itself isn’t that different. It’s just having this problem mainly with “AI” (“generative AI” is to Microsoft as live service is to Playstation) and it has always manifested as shareholders wanting to cut Xbox to throw more money at cash cows like Azure.
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I personally consider myself to be locked to Xbox ecosystem because I own many cod games with season pass on it (because I like to play zombies in couch coop)
Those games are not cheap even on sales, even the old ones
But it’s probably a niche case
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My dad is an old fart who started gaming on the Mattel Intellivision he likes to game on the sofa and not move LOL not the best setup for a mouse/keyboard set up.
Dad is computer literate he even fitted my new graphics card for me he’s used too & grown up with consoles he’s never going to move on from them. It’s nout to do with gfx settings just what he’s used too and likes.
While dad got all the consoles and even held on to his old classic consoles going right back to the 70’s Dad is massive fan of Xbox who lives on his Xbox Series X when he gets home from work not just for games but dad watches Amazone Prime, YouTube and shops on Amazon via his Xbox Series X
Dad already said he’s getting the new Xbox handheld for Christmas and that’s all he wants .If Xbox made cars, he would buy them LOL
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Agreed. I kind of think Valve making a console is to promote Steam OS platform and whatever they build on it. There is a good chance Xbox going fully into PC will reset a lot of things in gaming and Steam might no longer be dominant. The Xbox full screen mode on the Xbox Rog ally really reminds me of the Google Play Store on Android. It is certain to become the standard Game mode for Windows once it releases on all handhelds next year. There’s a lot that Xbox could achieve through it, one being a standard universal format another being the mass marketing of Game pass.
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Yup it’s insane!! They want to call out Xbox gamers for using Xbox and Gamepass but not call out Valve, Sony and Nintendo for selling games from the “genocidal corporation”.
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There’s a good reason why people still will use the App Store or google play store, and that very few people who buy a Samsung phone will use the galaxy store; because it’s not the device’s default option.
MS controls Windows, since it’s pretty much their last bastion, I think they want to attempt controlling that one as much as possible with an in your face Xbox store attempt for gamers, all while being nice to the rest by still making other stores accessible. While Windows Store is already there and isn’t necessarily that popular, maybe with the gamer audience it will be different, who knows!
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Well, “nice” more like they legally can’t. It’d be a big anti-trust issue if they didn’t. Microsoft already had a big court case and lost when they tried to push Internet Explorer too much and dismiss competition. And they still face court cases on default experiences and making sure it’s not too much of a hassle to change defaults.
It’s really interesting (kinda terrible) that Google and Apple don’t face the same scrutiny. Smartphones have pretty much taken over the world, so it’s really surprising how much he control Apple and Google have been allowed to keep over them. The most we got is from the EU. I wonder if, or let’s say when, we’ll see Android and iOS treated more like Windows. We know Xbox is certainly waiting for that to really bring mobile gaming into their ecosystem.
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