Xbox might be bowing out of the console race and going third party.

[Jtbrig7390]

https://twitter.com/klobrille/status...86210527772777

Tim Stuart (Xbox chief financial officer) during a WellsFargo Investor Conference. I do feel like the messaging here is just all over the place.

• "Xbox's mission is to bring its first-party experiences and subscription services to every screen that can play a game, [...] including PlayStation and Nintendo".

Note: Microsoft wants to sell Xbox consoles but at the same time they somehow also want to be a third-party publisher. That's one way to give Xbox fans (no) confidence, I guess.

• Explains that the move to Game Pass Core from Xbox Live Gold was motivated by the idea that paying for multiplayer feels antiquated.

Note: So, they got the right idea that paying for multiplayer feels antiquated, and as a result they created a new tier where you are paying for multiplayer. Alright.

• "We need consumer brands at Microsoft that are meaningful."

Note: Xbox is that meaningful consumer brand at Microsoft. And Microsoft is actively lessening the impact the brand could have by being so defensive about your own content.

If true its honestly not surprising. They have so many IP's under their roof they would make more being 3rd party and running GamePass.

If you can't get Sony/Nintendo users to buy GamePass just put the game on their platform for $70. Honestly its a win win for them with how big they have gotten (in owning content).

[Redwyrm]

Not surprised but how much money do they lose by porting/translating games to Playstation and Nintendo. Or do you just do your PC release and then sell the license to Sony and Nintendo and let them translate the title using their budgets.

Sidenote: I wonder how much of Microsoft's playerbase overlaps with Nintendo's and if it is even worth porting to Nintendo.

[prwraith]

man I wish nintendo would stop making consoles and just make games. >.<

[rhorle]

If the future is cloud/streaming it is the only way to survive. Consoles will no longer be the important part if any device can stream. Sure consoles will probably still be around for "specialty" cases or for enthusiats to get that better performance but I'm sure a lot don't actually care as long as other methods are "good enough". Similar to the difference between a basic roku stick and their 4k or ultra devices.

[Biomega]

My guess is that they're just not making enough money on the hardware. It's a fierce battle to compete, and hardware ain't cheap to make, store, ship, etc. So much overhead for product, whereas games are now largely moving to be digital only with very little physical stuff involved. It probably has way better margins for them. Heck a lot of consoles used to be loss leaders and the real profits came from elsewhere (not sure if that's still the case now). So why not just do that, and sell the ancillary stuff to everyone else rather than try and compete with consoles AND desktops all the time in a race to the bottom.

[Edge-]

It's a mess, but I don't think that's what the call is getting at, really.

Microsoft has struggled on the hardware front to move units in similar numbers to Sony/Nintendo over the past few generations, which is in part why we've seen them put a greater focus on PC with Game Pass and the like while is great. If anything, this sounds more like they want to expand Game Pass beyond PC/Xbox and want to add it to PlayStation and Nintendo consoles.

Connect with that - ongoing discussions of the "end of consoles" with gaming moving to the cloud and Microsoft's efforts on XCloud and there's possibilities for gaming on cloud Xbox machines via Game Pass on Nintendo or Sony platforms. Assuming Nintendo or Sony would ultimately allow that.

Also, technically they're doing this now with Call of Duty/Minecraft and any other title that ships for multiplatform.

They didn't just spend nearly $70B over the past few years buying up major third party publishers just to get outta the platform/service business and go third party.

A lot of it sounds like confused messaging from an executive, and I wonder how much he actually works on/knows about the Xbox division and their plans. More of the quotes from the linked Techraptor article are just weird.

[Redwyrm]

I just hope that when the gaming industry finally does go fully cloud/streaming that it doesn't require to always be online as well. Let me download the game to my Multi-Petabyte TV unit and play offline.

[Tech614]

Translation past all the bullshit exec speak: They will put GAAS MP to try to earn max revenue and increase brand awareness. Big doubt they start putting single player games on competing platforms.

[Belize]

I just hope that when the gaming industry finally does go fully cloud/streaming that it doesn't require to always be online as well. Let me download the game to my Multi-Petabyte TV unit and play offline.

Can't you hope for something more realistic like world peace?

[Redwyrm]

Can't you hope for something more realistic like world peace?

Ok, I hope for guaranteed constant and fast internet service at a reasonable price from my ISP.

Crap, you said realistic. Hmmm

[Zenfoldor]

If the future is cloud/streaming it is the only way to survive. Consoles will no longer be the important part if any device can stream. Sure consoles will probably still be around for "specialty" cases or for enthusiats to get that better performance but I'm sure a lot don't actually care as long as other methods are "good enough". Similar to the difference between a basic roku stick and their 4k or ultra devices.

Disagree. Streaming will never be the primary way core gaming is done due to increased latency, reduced cost of local hardware due to diminishing returns in game graphics and non-managed local wifi.

Internet bandwidth will greatly improve but latency will not.

Sub is a different story, it may go that way, but think about this. In a few years we will have a cell phone that could plug into a TV and play Elden Ring from the phone. We will also have the same latency as today. Download time will be reduced. Toasters will really be able to play Elden Ring. Game streaming isn't required. Game streaming is only required today when local hardware to play modern games is expensive and rare.

What advantage does streaming provide that could make up for latency in a world where anything with a screen can run Elden Ring natively?

As we move forward, latency will become much, much, MUCH more important than simple bandwidth, which will be irrelevant. Bandwidth can scale, latency will not scale down with new technology unless we figure out faster than light travel.

Do we think future gamers will be less picky about latency? Nope. They will be more knowledgeable than we are today and understand inherently this exact argument I'm making right now.

On topic, I'm good with it, bow out xbox. Let Sega back in for another try imo. My XSX collects dust.

[PrimiOne]

What advantage does streaming provide that could make up for latency in a world where anything with a screen can run Elden Ring natively?

It's true that bandwith and latency ain't gonna evolve linearly. The 10Gbps lines are already being deployed everywhere and in 10/15 years maybe they will take the market sector that now 1Gbps occupy but that 10x bandwith is not gonna correlate ( not even close) to a 1/10 in latency reduction.

The thing is....I think that you vastly undesstimate how casual is the average gamer and the best example of that is that now mobile gaming trumps every other platform. Do the average 7.5 hours a week gamer ( US average) really care for what could be ( or not) a barely perceptible difference in latency in the future? I don't know...it's a real question I'm asking.

Now....what advantage? Does your toaster have 400 GBytes free to install 8k resolution textures of an highly detailed open world? Because you are right that latency and bandwith won't evolve linearly but data storage won't either. We can totally forget about storages 10x times the actual ones in 10/15 years.

And that is even forgetting about AI generated content. You enter this building of GTA8. The interior of the building did not exist before you enter because it's generated by the AI ( as the NPC inside wasn't too).Sure you could download all the assets and render in the local hardware but what is the point if you are not gonna get back to that building in weeks or days ...or ever?.

In the end I must admit that I don't know, maybe you are right and streaming gets the niche of CandyCrush ( not GTA or WoW or Grand Turismo) but the real reason that makes me bet for streaming is that I don't think players will get a say about this. We players hates microtransactions and paid DLC's and all the shit that the industry push through our throats and here we are so don't alarm yourself if the streaming allows the publishers for more control of their product so they choose to go that route even with the "Oh , you don't like Assasins Creed: Reno in the cloud?...I don't care.Play it of leave it".

[Kumorii]

Ok, I hope for guaranteed constant and fast internet service at a reasonable price from my ISP.

Crap, you said realistic. Hmmm

I guess you are in the US? That's realistic where I am and I think a lot of countries.

[Mahcake]

It's true that bandwith and latency ain't gonna evolve linearly. The 10Gbps lines are already being deployed everywhere and in 10/15 years maybe they will take the market sector that now 1Gbps occupy but that 10x bandwith is not gonna correlate ( not even close) to a 1/10 in latency reduction.

The thing is....I think that you vastly undesstimate how casual is the average gamer and the best example of that is that now mobile gaming trumps every other platform. Do the average 7.5 hours a week gamer ( US average) really care for what could be ( or not) a barely perceptible difference in latency in the future? I don't know...it's a real question I'm asking.

Now....what advantage? Does your toaster have 400 GBytes free to install 8k resolution textures of an highly detailed open world? Because you are right that latency and bandwith won't evolve linearly but data storage won't either. We can totally forget about storages 10x times the actual ones in 10/15 years.

And that is even forgetting about AI generated content. You enter this building of GTA8. The interior of the building did not exist before you enter because it's generated by the AI ( as the NPC inside wasn't too).Sure you could download all the assets and render in the local hardware but what is the point if you are not gonna get back to that building in weeks or days ...or ever?.

In the end I must admit that I don't know, maybe you are right and streaming gets the niche of CandyCrush ( not GTA or WoW or Grand Turismo) but the real reason that makes me bet for streaming is that I don't think players will get a say about this. We players hates microtransactions and paid DLC's and all the shit that the industry push through our throats and here we are so don't alarm yourself if the streaming allows the publishers for more control of their product so they choose to go that route even with the "Oh , you don't like Assasins Creed: Reno in the cloud?...I don't care.Play it of leave it".

I think the biggest problem you're doing is assuming that the internet connection is gonna be great in the whole world but that won't happen anytime soon. Maybe in 20 years, but not in 5, not 10. Europe internet infrastracture isn't really that good in some countries. Especially if we look at smaller cities, where you're happy if you get at least 50/50 Mbps. Even Asian countries aren't really that great in terms of internet connection speed and latency. And these 2 continents are still HUGE markets for console makers, so they just can't really ignore them.

Is cloud the future? Sure, but it is a distant future. Cloud gaming will never be as stable, as fast, as responsive, as GOOD as physical native gaming. It will never have the same quality because internet connection is dependent and always will be on so many external factors you can't control. And even if you had aritfacts or lag like once every 2 hours, it is still the worse experience, which true gamers (not mobile gamers) do not want.

[Stickiler]

the real reason that makes me bet for streaming is that I don't think players will get a say about this. We players hates microtransactions and paid DLC's and all the shit that the industry push through our throats and here we are so don't alarm yourself if the streaming allows the publishers for more control of their product so they choose to go that route even with the "Oh , you don't like Assasins Creed: Reno in the cloud?...I don't care.Play it of leave it".

The thing is, "players" don't hate microtransactions or Paid DLCs at all. The Gaming Community online does, sure, but they're a miniscule fraction of the actual group of people who spend money and play games. Do I need to point you to the stream clip of the ex-Blizzard dev who was like "Yeah, the Sparkle pony made more money than the entirety of the sales of Vanilla SC2". It's not like the Publishers held gamers down and force-fed them microtransactions, they added them as small optional things alongside the normal gaming experiences and people lapped them up so fast and so hard that Publishers just added them everywhere.

It's far more likely that cloud gaming is added as an option alongside existing options(Hello/RIP Stadia, Hello Shadow, Hello Gamepass Streaming and PS Now), and if more people take up the cloud gaming option compared to the traditional non-cloud gaming style, cloud gaming will just naturally take over the market and being able to download and play your games locally will be exclusive to Indie and Fringe titles.

I personally don't think there's a fucking chance for Cloud Streaming to get any kind of relevance yet, especially because the most popular games today are the worst for stream(Fortnite/CoD/FIFA) due to their fast reaction speeds and relatively high fidelity, and how fucking atrociously terrible internet is in a lot of the world.

[RobertMugabe]

If the future is cloud/streaming it is the only way to survive. Consoles will no longer be the important part if any device can stream. Sure consoles will probably still be around for "specialty" cases or for enthusiats to get that better performance but I'm sure a lot don't actually care as long as other methods are "good enough". Similar to the difference between a basic roku stick and their 4k or ultra devices.

I don't think many people were asking for this. I mean I don't mind Cloud Gaming, but seriously how many people are using that or want to really use it?

It seems like even when the tech would work well, it would still be a niche product as gamers will still want consoles, gaming PC's, handhelds etc. and the market to get "new" people that want to play AAA games, but don't have a console/handheld/pc and are rich is probably a very small number of people.

The most likely truth behind Cloud Gaming is that Microsoft and others can earn a lot more money this way and have fewer risks than making consoles and that's why they're pushing for it... and not because people necessarily want this.

[kranur]

I guess you are in the US? That's realistic where I am and I think a lot of countries.

Was just about to say, that's really realistic lol. In the last 4 years I only had any sort of issue with my internet once and that was due to one of their nodes getting physically damaged.

[Delever]

https://twitter.com/klobrille/status...86210527772777


If true its honestly not surprising. They have so many IP's under their roof they would make more being 3rd party and running GamePass.

If you can't get Sony/Nintendo users to buy GamePass just put the game on their platform for $70. Honestly its a win win for them with how big they have gotten (in owning content).

Honestly its not a terrible move. Theres two main reasons.
1.) Expanded market and adapting to current standards.
2.) Sony zealots are on a level where no matter what you do with the console you can simply not compete.

I still remember when XBOX 360 and PS3 launched back in the day and PS3 was twice the price of the XBOX 360 and had terrible release exclusives for people that dont enjoy snoozefest car racing games. And yet still all of my friends back then bought a PS3 even though they didnt like almost any of the games apart from maybe Ninja Gaiden. I tried so many times to get a valid reasoning for this and most of the time it just diluted to "bUt It HaS bLuErAy" and "I only buy playstation". Plus XBOX controllers have been far superior for a long time.

This is coming from someone who had never touched an XBOX before 360 and was a diehard fan of the PS1 and 2 and can admit that XBOX has taken multiple Ls over the years but the sheer zealotry behind the playstation is just insane to me.

[kranur]

If the future is cloud/streaming it is the only way to survive.

Except cloud gaming is not the future. It will be part of it for people who just want to play something every now and then or some people that can't run some titles at all on their hardware but that's about it. It will not replace the PC/Consoles for people that play a lot of games, especially not any competitive game.

[Usernameforforums]

man I wish nintendo would stop making consoles and just make games. >.<

Ok so rumor is that Xbox is going 3rd party, you want Nintendo to go third party. Who’s left? We got a monopoly with Sony now.