Xbox Announces Cloud Gaming Streaming Sticks, TV Integration

Called back when they started Project XCloud. It only makes sense.

Nice announcement wow. That’s almost everything I wanted to hear

'kin 'ell. This is big.

But how will they ever sell 100m consoles and win the console wars? /s

Jesus, they're going all in. I'm really excited, Game Pass was already kind of Netflix for games but now it really is.

@uptownsoul I don't think consoles are going away any time soon. So many people love owning physical consoles and the performace will still beat average streaming for years to come; fibre internet rollout hasn't even cracked the US or the UK, let alone globally. The world you're dreaming of will happen, eventually, but I don't think it'll be this decade.

ExBox

Apparantly I have to write some other stuff to make a flippant comment.

Will this make owning an xbox completely obsolete?

Obvious to hear and good but I won't be using it ...I don't think streaming games Is good enough yet ..well it isn't with my internet anyway

@Chaudy with streaming music and video, cds and blurays and dvds are still produced and sold, albeit in smaller quantities. So I'd say hardware might be around for a bit longer. When streaming is on par with playing on a console, then we might see a fazing out.

@StylesT it's a great option, side entree, like xcloud. But when they make it the only way to play, looking at control on switch, not so much.

@themightyant 100%, definitely an alternative option for cost-minded folk as opposed to a replacement.

I don't like this, I'm scared they will make consoles go away.

@Chaudy in a way yes but obviously dependant on the person. For some like me with other consoles, average laptops, and smart TVs it makes buying an actual Xbox a wholly unneeded purchase. But in general I don't think in anyway this will totally replace or phase out their console business.

@themightyant I'd buy that even if it was 1080p upscaled. Ratchet and Clank looks gorgeous and I'd love to play GoW and Spider-Man. Exclusives-only streaming device? If I could sign up when I wanted it, that would be great.

@uptownsoul they've never had good ROI on their consoles. The reason the 360 came out before the PS3 is because they rushed the production because they were losing so much on the OG Xbox. They stated in the Epic trial that they've never made a profit on console sales. MS is a trillion (TRILLION!) dollar company, they don't care about ROI on consoles. This GP streaming device would just be another revenue stream to target people who don't want to, or can't, buy a second console but still want to play all the Xbox exclusives (Bethesda et al). For Playstation folks who want to play Elder Scrolls, this could be a great "in".

@Chaudy not for along time

@uptownsoul Only Nintendo gets ROI on hardware sales alone.

@uptownsoul Not really when I specified "hardware sales alone". But it's a semantics thing at this point as we both know what I mean. If you want me to say a "Net positive ROI on hardware sales alone" to make it better, whatever. Either way, Nintendo is the only one that profits from hardware sales correct.

This is great news for all Xbox gamers.
I will always want to own a console, but the money Microsoft needs to invest into their game development will need to come from subscription services.
There are potentially a few hundred million console gamers (with no profit), but maybe billions of people willing to pay a subscription to go cloud gaming on their TV app or Smartphone etc, which will bring in billions in profit.
If its going to help Microsoft produce better games, they're welcome to get the money from wherever they want.

@uptownsoul Microsoft just produced the most powerful console ever and it defo wasn't a swansong. Until streaming tech can match console performance, people won't accept that as the only platform, and MS know that. If you think otherwise, you're kidding yourself. This is just about getting the Xbox platform in front of as many people as possible because that all equals GP revenue.

And Microsoft binned Mixed because they realised they weren't gonna compete with Twitch. Not that that's got anything to do with this conversation; sounds like a sore spot of yours though.

That's great for people with decent internet, which in a lot of the UK is still not as many people as it should be (and i assume elsewhere too). I'd be all in for this if I had at least 100Mb Fibre, rather than averaging around 20Mb!

What I don't want to happen is for offline gaming to disappear and you never own your games. It's already almost that way with TV, with Netflix, Prime, Disney etc etc and Music with Spotify, Amazon Music, Youtube Music etc.

@uptownsoul https://www.purexbox.com/news/2021/06/microsoft_is_already_working_on_new_xbox_consoles_but_dont_expect_to_see_them_soon
'nuff said...

@Chaudy Once fast internet is everywhere, yes. But that is a decade or more away

@uptownsoul Microsoft is playing a long term game. Have you read the last Xbox financials? No return on investment? Lol sure.

@uptownsoul I mean yeah, Microsoft and Sony want to try to reduce how much loss they take per sale, but both do it in order to compete with each other and to get people into their eco-system at a better buy-in value, hardware-wise than PC. Nintendo refuses to sell for a net loss on hardware sales, but they also know that they have their own market that is kind of set apart from Xbox and PlayStation. So, it isn't really the same with Nintendo, and Xbox is doing a different monetization strategy than PlayStation with Game Pass, whereas PlayStation is increasing the price of their games by $10.

Just get it added to fire sticks and now tv boxes aswell

@Snake_V5 xCloud, unlike other services, runs off Xboxes as their server Blades. You really are still playing a console in the cloud.

@uptownsoul this site literally just published an article highlighting that MS have said they're not abandoning consoles. Give it a rest, mate.
"Cloud is key to our hardware and Game Pass roadmaps, but no one should think we're slowing down on our core console engineering. In fact, we're accelerating it."
https://www.purexbox.com/news/2021/06/microsoft_is_already_working_on_new_xbox_consoles_but_dont_expect_to_see_them_soon

Does this mean sometime in the future instead of consoles wars we can have software wars 😆

I think they will continue to make a console
Because streaming will not give the premium product but 4K 12tflop console in your home will with the game download on the console.
I prefer the premium version with full resolution etc.

@mousieone I mean I don't want the actual console to go away.

@uptownsoul Fair enough. Yeah, I think it's the inevitable path. Though I don't think they'll be able to divorce themselves from physical console for at least another 10 years. Internet infrastructure still has a ways to go to be able deliver performance required to eliminate home console. It sure is a great add-on though and will only get better. Microsoft is definitely ahead of the game in this realm.

@uptownsoul "I think this means Microsoft might start pulling away from the console space"
Microsoft: don't worry this doesn't mean we're pulling away from the console space
"Yeah but that's BS"

You can't point to the few times Microsoft said something was coming and it didn't happen, in the face of all the things they said would happen and those did, as if that proves your point. It gets to the point where you're just being obtuse in the face of facts and can't accept that your opinion might have been wrong. Just be a big boy, accept it and move on.

@Snake_V5 Sure, of course, but if they need to make a console for the server blades; it only makes sense to make that console available to consumers as well.

@uptownsoul That's not "the fact" and you know it, you're jumping through hoops to avoid what I mean. The "fact" I was referring to is just the act of them just saying it; the fact is they're saying they're committed to consoles. I'm fully open to the possibility that you might be right, however in this case the evidence doesn't support your claim that MS will be winding down on consoles.

@uptownsoul And that's fine, and if it was profit per console that was the deciding factor then I might agree that they might wind down. But there so many more factors that go into, like:

• people like consoles, they just do
• console performance > streaming performance; it's not apples to apples comparing the two and that matters to people.
• consoles have other benefits that a streaming stick likely wouldn't have (apps, party etc) assuming the stick is a streaming library only
• more Xboxes out means more games purchases (people with game pass spend more on games and/or doc for their consoles, this have been evidenced over and over).
  So there are intangibles that suggest that MS is in fact reliant on consoles for it's games model. They can afford not to make a profit because the overall ROI is there.

@uptownsoul You know Xbox is already working on Series 2. Give it a rest already.

Guys, I can't get my Bravia to connect to Game Pass Cloud out of the box!!!

@Xiovanni By working and improving on it? How do you think anything got done throughout history? How do you think we got here?

@Xiovanni Speak for yourself.

Whether Microsoft wants it to or not, this can't possibly replace traditional console gaming anytime soon. Until everybody can get access to internet good enough to be able to stream games, especially new gen games, this will just be a nice service that is being praised by people (including some in the media like Destin from IGN) without putting enough thought into it to realize that it's just an alternative option and not the next big thing.

I don't have a problem with them offering this as long as they continue to make console as well, which obviously they will have to for the foreseeable future because of this needing really high quality internet to be viable, but the excitement for this by some is ridiculous.

I finally have enough bandwidth to make this worthwhile and have been hoping for this for years. My Steam library makes me realize that "ownership" of physical things is kind of stupid when I can take my library from PC to PC. Being able to simply stream to a low-cost laptop of MS Surface is the dream there. Something similar for my Xbox game library and Game Pass would be amazing. I don't need a big stupid box next to my TV to feel happy. I just need good bandwidth, low latency, and all my games. Consoles are over within 10 years.