Roundup: Here's What Was Revealed At The Xbox 'Business Update Event'

Why didn't I just wait for Pure Xbox to just put this all together in an article? That was such a boring conference.

@HotGoomba and very short

A whole bunch of nothing

@rustyduck Didn't feel short lmao. Longest twenty minutes of my life. That's on me though, I don't know what I was expecting.

I'm English. when is 'holiday' ???

I'm excited for plans to make a much more powerful console. I think having a premium console would do much more to win over PS fans than a budget console like the Series S.

Another big thing was them reiterating that all first party games will be on GamePass day one, unlike all the doom and gloom rumors saying that was ending. They not only said it but said it multiple times.

@Dimey Y'all don't celebrate Christmas and New Year and have a winter break?

Wow, was expecting more

@awp69 Only Day One if you pay the 30 quid upgrade fee for the deluxe edition

Pretty content with today's information. Gaming continues on my series x as usual.

What a surprise. Social media and news sites went into a frenzy for 4 games, which are likely smaller games and/or games that will benefit from having more players anyway.

I did say before the event that gamers overreact to every single rumour, especially if it is about Xbox. It seems they have overreacted yet again. This news changes very little.

34 million Gamepass subs is pretty bad considering thats lumping in the converted gold members to gamepass core. Seems like the true ultimate number from that 25 million 2 years ago had actually decreased

@RBRTMNZ oh course, but we don't call it 'holiday'... we have an easter break too! we call it 'Christmas and NY'

@HotGoomba It could’ve easily been a press release. As it is, we basically got a press release in video format.

As I mentioned in chat though, it’s interesting that they confirmed new hardware is coming within the year, even if we have no context of what type of hardware it is. Probably a Steam Deck competitor, now that I think about it…

Actually, I don’t think that’d be a terrible idea: take the hardware chops that the Surface team absolutely has, and repurpose the division into an Xbox arm. It could even be the next generation of ‘S’ console, with the flagship console being the much more powerful one.

So basically, they want to grow XBox hardware and Gamepass subscriptions but don't mind slapping the live service games and smaller niche titles that probably didn't hit their targets on other systems. The goal posts probably have wheels fitted so they can be moved as they learn and I'm sure their ultimate long term goal is to have everyone tied to a subscription service somewhere. They get to play the magnanimous card while we are all being herded.

I'm glad everyone expecting Phil to come out and say..."Xbox is dead, we're putting everything on Playstation. You're losing all your digital games and I'm headed to the server farm next to pull the plug, then I'm coming to the homes of each and every Xbox console owner to personally smash their consoles with a hammer"...got, uh, the exact opposite of that and all those "leaks" were entirely fabricated ragebait BS.

if you want to find bad news you can (and people already are) twisting the words. was just about best case compared to all the doomsayers

@Dimey Here we refer to the time period from Christmas through New Years as the holidays. I think we make a lot out of that time period because it is the only time most Americans have any days off work.

That was a complete waste of time, could've been done in a tweet last week and the rumours wouldn't have festered.

@RBRTMNZ all good, just genuinely I never knew what 'holidays' meant, could have been thanksgiving? who knows, ha!

Just as very few people predicted, smaller (in the experimental category)games, games that thrive on a healthy number of players. All decided on a basis of what makes most sense for Xbox and Microsoft.....and whole lot of free publicity.

I think Sammy pretty much nails it on the head with this comment

"This is bizarre, honestly. They say it's just four... But then they say maybe it's not... But then they won't say what the four are... But they say it's definitely not Starfield and Indiana Jones... But then they're not ruling anything out.

Some of the worst messaging from a major company I've ever seen."

@Kaloudz
Stop rubbing it in, I got it wrong 😂
So glad I did though.

@Grumblevolcano social media and news sites always get into a frenzy, especially about Xbox. There's no need for businesses to immediately react to this sort of thing the vast majority of the time.

Even now, people are twisting what was said today into new rumours. There will always be rumours. If they tweeted everytime there was one, they'd never stop tweeting. Xbox is right to wait and announce things when they want to.

Right then. So business as usual. Who'd have thunk it.

@Yozora146_ It is 4 now and that might increase in the future. It really isn't that confusing.

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2024/02/15/xbox-promise-bring-more-games-to-more-players/

Of the 4, I think the following would be good candidates for guesses:
Hi fi rush
Sea of Thieves
State of Decay 2
Killer instinct
Redfall

90 percent propaganda, 10 percent answers

@Kaloudz Sea of Thieves and Hi Fi, totally agree are most obvious candidates.

Others I’m not so sure on

Glad they confirmed that Starfield and Indie are staying Xbox only

Can someone from the US please give a hint as to when Holiday 2024 is?

It wasn’t what the doomsayers predicted, but very much felt like firefighting and trying to make a bit room to adapt their plans.
We’ll most likely never know but I got the impression they wanted to spin the rumours as much as they could without confirming anything they actually have planned because of the heat

That was the world's biggest nothingburger.

Here's hoping they put Redfall on PS5. Maybe they'll actually fix the damn thing.

@Kaloudz
It is actually pretty obvious that the next gen will be a large leap. I would expect the tagline to be AI related. AI built into the hardware, the OS, and then in games.

@Xbox_Dashboard The biggest nothingburger was all the ragebait articles since this all started.

@Lightning720 I think Sammy's comment is referring to why go to all that trouble to appear on a podcast to quell rumours but don't bother to state which 4 games, then proceed to not rule out other games when it could've been done in a tweet or something.

@Rmg0731
2 years ago was different environment. Pandemic was still a thing and killing people.

Wtih subs, there's a natural limit. The people who want Netflix would have bought a sub now or in the past.

@LordFunkalot except they only confirmed that they're staying xbox for now I'm afraid. Phil has been releasing statements later that others have posted here if you wanna check them out. Of course he could be just covering his butt but who knows

@Sol4ris he's not half wrong though, Spencer has released more comments stating that he won't rule out other games so idk.

@Sol4ris gotta admit they did get a lot of publicity and possibly some info on how people feel about the idea so your not wrong there.

It was so many words for so many minutes to say next to nothing at all. It was like watching a political debate but with less hair gel, and an absence of power ties.

How did they let the spiral of rumors get out of control and collapse their brand image for this? The only purpose of this presentation seems to be to inform investors and brass about the structure of the Xbox business model and overall forward strategy. It has nothing to do with anything relevant to consumers at all.

We learned more of more value about the product from the ABK hearings.

@Sol4ris naughty boy 😂

I’m glad I didn’t watch, it sounded like a snoozefest. The games they’re releasing make sense. 2 popular live service ones they’ll potentially rake the $$ in with and 2 smaller titles that deserve more exposure.

Let’s see what the future holds but for now it seems Xbox hardware is safe….

The most important things they said have been ignored as fluff and stuff no one cares about. Meh when they dump the mandatory ads on the dashboard then I’ll come back. But I think they will actually get worst in that department, and change Game Pass subscription levels.

@Kaloudz
You deserve it, enjoy 😊
I actually really enjoyed that today, it’s was great to get some confirmation of things.
Hopefully the haters and some of the media will move on now.

So now the moderating team is deleting posts that point out rampant speculations from game journalists over at PushSquare.... Never change PX😅

@BundyDanger Holiday in the games/retail industry generally means "Nov-Dec timeframe."

@NEStalgia Thanks for that 😀

@Fenbops

Let’s see what the future holds but for now it seems Xbox hardware is safe….

Indeedy my fellow gamer , and am I happy about it?😊....yes, yes I am.

@Wouldzey But I'm a doomsayer and this is exactly what I predicted and I'm far from alone. One caveat, we're all assuming many more games will go multiplatform as time goes by and these 4 are simply the first. Anyone in denial and thinks they're porting 4 games and this is the end, there's not really a conversation to be had. They should continue to live in bliss, it must be nice.

Most people's position on this who are "doomsaying" is a little more complex than MS is going to stop selling hardware imminently. It's about Xbox choosing a path that devalues their console hardware even further (which is inexplicably already selling even worse than Xbox One). It has to do with what this will do to next gen console sales, and what that will do to third party support. It's a doom loop.

One thing I didn't expect to hear today (although knew to be true) was them reiterate over and over that everything is about growth. Xbox One sold less than Xbox 360, and now Xbox Series consoles appear to be selling less than Xbox One. Putting their exclusives on Playstation will further devalue Xbox consoles, leading to many Xbox users swapping to Playstation next generation. They just told you publicly in this podcast, meant to make you feel better that everything, is about growth. What happens to Xbox consoles when they sell less than their predecessor for 3 straight generations?

I'm coming at this as a huge Xbox fan since 2001. I've seen people here try to brush off any negativity as Playstation fans trolling. That's not it. The critical thinking is coming from inside the house.

So basically the EXACT opposite of what the rumor mill reported lol!? This is great news!

I can’t complain about these titles going multiplat it does make sense but I do wonder if they toned it back a little after the backlash and uncle Phil has still been a little vague on future releases. We’ll see

@Sol4ris my advice. Don’t visit that den of filth 😂 then you can’t get in trouble for what a fanboy ‘journalist’ has to say about anything Xbox related. 😉

@BowsersBuddy I didn’t even consider that such a device could be streaming-only, thanks for the reality check.

It would make sense to me that an ‘S’ console-like portable could start at, say, $299 for 512GB, potentially having a 1TB model for $349 or $399, with the flagship ‘X’ console remaining $499 for 1TB, just with better performance and graphics due to essentially being a desktop PC.

Furthermore, to fulfill this idea that backwards compatibility is part of Xbox’s strategy for “Play What You Want, When You Want, Where You Want”, the new portable could have a slot for the existing storage cards, while the flagship console could have more than one slot, but not at the expense of USB extended storage, I hope.

@Yozora146_ True and I know things change but if in 4 years they said Starfield and Indy were going to Ps5/6 it wouldn’t be that bad as they’d be older games by then. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

I thought they came across well to be fair.

Would have loved a random shadow drop of some Crash games on gamepass or something to surprise us. That would have been cool

It was nothing that people with their feet on the ground didn't know. I dunno what you all people calling it boring expected. We even got an announcement of Diablo 4 on Game Pass. I don't care at all about the game but that was more than ai expected.

@Kaloudz
Believe me go to a few other websites right now and you will see it already.
People and media taking out the good and spreading bad rumours already.

@Jenkinss Growth for XB doesn't mean increased # consoles sold. Growth for XB means increased number of ecosystem consumers. I.E. more GP subs, more players on cloud, mobile, PC, the streaming stick if it ever happens, the rumored handheld if it happens, and yes, consuming XB games on Playstation and Switch.

Not really different for PS, they're "growing" their market by selling on PC and making movies for all their games. Even Nintendo's dipping their toes in the movies thing. The console market really is stagnant, it's pretty much plateaued. Doesn't mean it's shrinking, just means there's no more growth in it for businesses.

There's no news there really, that's what's already been known since before current gen. What I'm most pleased with is the commitment to library preservation. That's how they won my business as my choice for all 3rd party. I feel like other than Steam, XB is the safest choice for investing in a digital library. And Nintendo the least safe.

@Fenbops

Point definitely taken 😉.

And here were are, one week later and nothing has really changed. It was always a case to case basis for FP games and it looks it's still the same. This is good for all gamers in general I think.

I'm really passionate about games, but I can understand being passionate about one platform too. Must be that I'm from a much older generation now (well into my 40s) but over the last week it was incredibly sad to see people on the "other side" mocking xbox fans and truly hoping for an "end to Xbox" and equivalent behaviours on this side.

Regardless of your taste in games and platforms, I truly hope you all enjoy gaming guys and keep on doing so, it's a truly beautiful hobby, but please, every now and again, do remember what is truly important in life. Regardless of how important you think gaming is to you, I do think it'll be strange if Xbox, ps, switch, pc or whatever will be the thing you're thinking about in the real key moments of your life.

Off to play some quantum break and Metroid now, good night all.

@Sol4ris just curious, can you name 1 game that would thrive on a low player count? You make it seem like hi fi rush makes sense cause itll thrive on many platforms, but it is single player. So you must mean it'll thrive because of sales. Which, wouldn't all games thrive because of more sales?

Hmm, I've been an xbox owner from the very begining , and I've kinda heard it all before , meh I'll just play the games don't care what platform there on, but this corporate nonsense does my head in

Preservation of their licensed maybe for how long in the trademark/access or subscription future.

A slim maybe.

Do they know how we think yes. Will much change don't think so depending on what aspects of their current games are.

What business focus. Me I have nothing that will change my Xbox is a CD/Blu ray and back compat or Xbox One old games machine and nothing will change but I'm not their target audience anyway at this point. No games really do much for me.

Titles from the last few months. Sure grounded and Sea of ztheived for live service/multiplayer. Diablo is coming sure. Pentiment or Hi Fi Rush as all titles.

Not bad but nothing that exciting.

Physical of hi fi rush and I'll buy it I do want to play it. Otherwise no thanks. The others are fair titles.

Thing is I didn't know Pentiment was on Xbox One till a quiz game told me their messaging for games Xbox One or Series has been quite eh for me at least.

Let alone I forget what they release I go oh Minecraft Legends, Grounded, Age of Empires, Forza Motorsport, Halo but then forgot of anything else on and off compared to other platforms.

Even Nintendo I only somewhat pick up their titles and they feel like they have a lot but I always know every Sony title and I don't even play or buy them whether marketing or family that do play them.

So their messaging for games is so bad I forgot their titles so much. Do I play or buy any of them no but I still pay attention and like to know exclusives or what games the companies put out regardless.

We hear the big games but whatever marketing stuff as usual.

We hear many places to play and that's fair.

We don't see many TV or books of certain ones other than the major IPs.

Nintendo and Sony have TV or theme parks. Microsoft doesn't need to but I mean I am playing Crackdown 3 on Xbox One X and it's fairly fun. I give any game a try. I have prototype 2 for 360 back compat. There is ma y I'd like of ABK but that won't happen.

Indy will be on PlayStation eventually a Rise of the tomb raider 1 year exclusive I assume or like the Ghostwire and Deathloop.

ABK games yep King will be their mobile division. Great now Candy Crush doesn't need a license for bloatware on Windows now they own it. Will we see more maybe. I'm not interested.

I never touched Wipeout Rush and thanks Sony for a crowded place and a idle game when a better management game in the Wipeout universe or just a typical format game would have been better. Sigh. Omega collection or Redout/other sci fi racers to play instead and support.

Sony can have their Fate GO money but RIP Wipeout Rush you weren't what we wanted.

Will we see Halo games or others like the Spartan mobile games, other IPs.

I barely hear about certain mobile games from these platform holders. Even besides not caring for mobile they have a place.

Have I myself bought a single Series console game no. Forza Motorsport would have but they messed it up in marketing and execution so no play or even launch of the game for me.

I don't use Gamepass (access sure used it once for Psychonauts 2 and that's it, good game but not interested to keep using the service or had too many games to play, still do retro and current just not 2024 because nothing appeals to me not into those types of RPGs got ma y from 1023 to buy like I did 2022 games in 2023).

I own Demon Turf physical as it's the only physical option and that's fine by me. Other than it or Project Cars 3 I only have those smart delivery games.

So physical hmm when for some.games. Will Forza Motorsport offer a offline patch like GT Sport did? The position selector is cool but the progression is kind of boring and the upgrade system was tweaked so there is that.

@FatGuyInLilCoat

just curious, can you name 1 game that would thrive on a low player count?

No I can not. It was worded poorly(apologies), I meant live service games a la SOT or to a lesser extent Grounded.
If Halo wouldn't be such an Xbox mascot, the MP part of Infinite would benefit from going multiplatform too. Just my opinion of course.

What melt down ppl off the internet?

@Fenbops Very good description of the "den" and the "journalism". Ask me what you want about today's podcast, but the main takeaway is:

1) Next Xbox will be the largest leap you will have ever seen in a hardware generation. Note that the hardware that will be revealed this year is not the next Xbox, so the hardware that will be formally announced or sold this year would be a handheld Xbox or Series X All-Digital Edition.

2) 34m Game Pass subscribers.

3) More developers than ever before are working on Xbox now.

4) Highest number of active players.

5) All Xbox games will be on Game Pass on day one.

They started explaining that four games are going to other consoles. Some people "don't understand" why they didn't say which ones LOL. Phil Spencer literally said that he wants those studios to announce their launch plans and hype them as they please, so I'm assuming that Tango is going to announce Hi-Fi Rush on a Nintendo Direct, if it's one of the games. He confirmed that Starfield and Indiana Jones are not.

Looking forwards, the kind of games that will be multiplatform will likely be community-driven games such as Minecraft that was mentioned several times and small games made with passion (great not great-selling games) that will find a new audience that will help (fund) sequels or new projects.

@LordFunkalot I agree, I liked the podcast. Phil nice as always and Sarah was more straightforward and confident than ever, so don't worry about her @Utena-mobile, she doesn't suffer because of the trolls and fanboy "journalists"! (Also, aren't they filthy rich? 🤣)

But I agree with you, a shadow drop of any kind would have been a fun closure for the people watching. They confirmed Diablo 4 for very soon, though!

@NEStalgia "I feel like other than Steam, XB is the safest choice for investing in a digital library and Nintendo the least safe."

Absolutely! That's why I stopped buying digital on Nintendo. That and their ever-exorbitant prices.

Woulda been funnier if they inflicted Starfield on PlayStation, but seems like there's a chance they're putting their actually good but low-reach games out there. How Xbox handled this is completely abysmal, this only needed a tweet.

So it sounds like this announcement was not nearly as massive as we had been led to believe. My main concern is the possibility of Halo and Gears, Xbox's flagship franchises, going multiplatform.

While nothing's been confirmed yet, from what they've said about the games making the jump it sounds like it will be smaller scale service-based games. Let's hope it's limited to just that. If Xbox truly understands the importance of exclusives, as they claim, then iconic Xbox first-party franchises need to stay exclusive at all costs, regardless of port-begging from PS fanboys or demands from shareholders with no passion or soul who care about nothing but money.

Diablo IV coming to GamePass is a sweet surprise! I'd been thinking of picking that up, so I'll definetely check it out.

The other concern I have with this is the talk of next-gen hardware. It still feels like we're too early in this gen for that. I feel like at most this gen is only halfway over and it still feels like it's just getting started.

@RBRTMNZ we do but just don't call it holiday season.

All those scare mongering, rumour-videos saturating the internet right now sure seem pointless, embarrassing and a waste of time.

I liked this podcast. It was chill and business as usual if you ask me. I'm quite excited about this year and seeing what unfolds.

@Kaloudz
One thing I did get right sort of yesterday was a stealth Series x price drop.
It’s now £409.99.
I was slightly wrong I said £369.99.
But I got the price drop.

@Banjo-
One thing I did get right sort of yesterday was a stealth Series x price drop.
It’s now £409.99.
I was slightly wrong I said £369.99.
But I got the price drop.

@OldGamer999 I see, but wasn't I right as well about everything I said? 😜

@Banjo-
Yes and I said well done to @Kloudz as well
But you know I’m glad you were both correct
So I’m very happy.

@Banjo-
And Sony have done the same with PS5 slim disc edition £409.99
I love a bit of price wars for the customers.

@Kaloudz
Not sure as Sony have this minute just copied
PS5 slim disc edition £409.99
So probably not permanent
I love a bit of price wars for the customers.

@OldGamer999 😊👍🏻 I didn't know about any price drop, though.

@RetroMan71 I agree, it's been a waste of time, especially because the common sense like trusting official sources and most of all what the logic says after growing so much is something that 99% of the internet posters won't give any attention to.

Communication only works in toxic ways here. People now even complain about it not being a tweet. A tweet by them would have meant two weeks of analysing and twisting words again. They pay more attention to Nate the Hate or Jez than to Microsoft about themselves.

@Banjo-
Still to much money though for both series x and PS5 disc.
They should permanently be at about £350 by now.

@Banjo- ...and guaranteed if it was a Tweet, the internet would've accused them of hiding behind a quick text message and not caring about the customers.

@RetroMan71 Exactly.

@Kaloudz
I believe it might have 2tb of ssd so I can’t see it being cheaper than series x disc edition which only has 1tb ssd.

@NEStalgia Exactly right and exactly what I'm saying, just from a different angle.

I'm an Xbox console consumer. What they've morphed "Xbox" into, I couldn't care less about. I don't play cloud games, I don't play on my phone. Anyone like me, the "old guard" who just plays console games, should see the writing on the wall here. Every move they are making is devaluing Xbox consoles, and strengthens "Xbox" as in bringing in revenue, and getting ready to push into mobile. I'm not a fan of Microsoft making money, making mobile games, etc. I'm a fan of Xbox (consoles).

And as far as the console market plateauing, that's an absolute joke reason for Xbox to devalue consoles. I keep seeing Xbox youtubers like Destin pound that point and it's embarrassing. Sales of consoles plateau around 150 million, and Xbox is about to go 2 generations in a row selling 50 million. TONS of console customers that Xbox isn't selling to in distant 3rd place. They're just throwing in the towel and it's sad. No fight in this company.

@Kaloudz
Correct if they don’t sell the all digital series x at the PS5 digital £389.99 or less it will be dead on arrival for sure.
Even though it might have double the ssd size at 2tb, general public don’t see that and paying more money won’t appeal to anyone.
But this Microsoft we are dealing with here who seem not that interested in console sales.

They made it pretty clear that this is just the start and more games will become multiplatform. This is the start of a big shift in the industry. PlayStation is putting its toes further into multiplatform too, with PC.

@Jenkinss I don't think it's so much about "no fight" so much as it is about business rationalization. The games industry is radically transforming, rapidly, not just Xbox. "Consoles" I'm sure even Nintendo knows are kind of a relic of a past physical media world. And Xbox is last place in that legacy market by a large margin.

Against that backdrop, what company that's already trailing heavily in the console market, a legacy market with zero growth potential and likely future market erosion, would actually invest heavily in making a concentrated push to become #1 product in a dead-end industry?

Sony also sees the writing on the wall, they've said so while trying to tiptoe into the future products. But they have more incentive to put an immediate focus on consoles as the remaining leader.

Thing is everyone knows that consoles are a zero-growth, dying legacy market that will be replaced by other technology in the coming decades. But nobody including MS has quite figured out WHAT will replace it or how that will unfold, so they're all trying to feel around for how to safely land and/or come out ahead.

MS made their bet in "platforms" which makes sense, and their idea seems pretty Steam-like, really so it's not that radically new. Doing something "new" isn't really the MS way anyway. They're basically making the bet that the future of console gaming is like PC gaming. Maybe cloud based like the future of moives/music, maybe not, but at least PC-like and they're the best positioned to go that route. Sony thinks that future is a melding of cinema and concerts, and gaming. I kinda like MS's idea better really. Nintendo will have a pink jumprope that talks to us and plays SMB3 by sonic vibrations that simulate mental images of tanuki plumbers into our cerebrums because Nintendo.

I think the whole industry, not just MS is just scrambling to find a footing into what the non-console future is going to look like before knowing what it actually will be.

None of that means they're going to stop offering consoles though or that consoles don't matter. I think, they see that as a significantly used hardware onramp to the ecosystem. They just don't see the console itself as the entirety of the ecosystem, simply one segment of it. Like Steamdeck. Steamdeck isn't Steam. But it's a big selling point to engage with Steam. I think as long as consoles contribute to the overall ecosystem market, the consoles will still have a place. They're just reduced to being one product in the family among many rather than the only product.

One thing Phil said that surprised me because it addressed, directly, a thing I've mentioned many many times across the forums here, the industry's penchant in the stagnated console market to simply try to extract more and more revenue from the same customers (Atlus Tax! Sony Tax! Switch Tax!). The size of the market hasn't really grown but the revenue has grown many mulitples. Meaning they're not getting more customers, we're just spending more and more and more. That to me says they do intend to position themselves as a value leader, by way of growing the platform beyond the consoles to tap additional customers for revenue, just as GP has done. It also suggests it would benefit their console position heavily but not needing to just keep gouging as they can spread those costs out to a larger consumer base on other products.

I can't say that strategy will or won't play out well, but it's one I can't find disagreeable.

Oh boy let me run out and buy the next generation Xbox after this glowing take on MS's outlook.

Again, I'm going to disagree about the console market stagnating being a real problem for Xbox. That could be an issue for Sony or Nintendo, who sell to a huge amount of that audience. Pretending that Xbox has had any issues with this is just not reality. They're selling 50 million consoles per generation, leaving 100 million on the table. It's their failure, for whatever reason. They're pivoting to multiplatform because they failed, and are giving up. If Xbox Series had 50 million in sales right now like PS5 does, none of this would be happening right now, I absolutely guarantee that and cannot be convinced otherwise. Instead the Series consoles are inexplicably underselling the Xbox One at the same point in its lifecycle. It's not because the market is stagnant, it's because Xbox has failed once again.

They just spent 80 billion dollars for ABK and people here cheered it, not realizing barely any of that had to do with Xbox console owners. Call of Duty on Xbox, Playstation, and PC combined have less players than Call of Duty on mobile.

@Jenkinss "Buy a next generation Xbox" - The question is what's the point of focusing on the console itself?

Ever see a Bose sound room demo? Picture the same kind of setup for Xbox. You walk into a room. You sit on a couch. You're handed a familiar Xbox controller, you hit the Guide button, and on the screen you see your Xbox dashboard, complete with 15 Game Pass ads and an Old Spice ad, complete with your organized library manager, you load a game, any game you've bought in the past 20 years, your save games are ready for you, you play your game.....

So at the end of the session, they open the cabinet. Does it actually matter what's in it? A black xbox, a white PS, a Surface Pro, an LED glowing dual SLI beast windows box with windowed side panels, or a Steamdeck? You play xbox games on an xbox controller and log into your xbox dashboard. The SoC firmware on whatever it's running on doesn't really matter, does it?

I get not wanting consoles to go away, it's obviously my access method as well, but in 10 years, 20 years will that be how either of us expect to play our games? 20 years ago I didn't think I'd have a 7" glass rectangle in my pants that's more powerful than my screaming Opteron based gaming rig. And that the blue cold cathode light in said rig would be obsolete and replaced by LED. or that my 1337 4:3 square Agtron aperture grille based 22" screen that weighed in at over 50lbs and 19" deep would not be the peak of gaming bliss. But here we are. Will anyone expect to buy a dedicated plastic gaming box at a mere $500 20 years from now....surely not.

That's what MS is trying to position for. No they're not abandoning console, at least for a while. They literally announced next gen hardware yesterday. 4 years away likely. So we're looking at another decade plus of consoles minimum, they're not walking away from that. But are they going to put all their investment in that? Probably not. Are they trying to figure out how to migrate those console customers into whatever comes after? Yep.

Mostly they're positioning to be in the lead at that time when consoles are less desirable. Sony and Nintendo have to work from behind on that front, because they don't really have any other angles up front to come from. They're basically playing the future game today, so that when the present game ends, they're already where they need to be and everyone else has to catch up. As a CUSTOMER that's going to make the transition easiest for xbox customers than other platforms I think.

You are right though, if they had PS's hardware sales right now this wouldn't be happening. They'd be in protectionist mode just like Sony is today because. They're doing what they're doing because they don't have anything to lose by making the gamble on the future, since they have only a small foothold on the present. Just like why they made Game Pass. A gamble that the future of games is centralized distribution platforms to a generation that grew up on iPhones.

That's all business strategy and speculation on the future of gaming though, but the point is, as a games customer, the whole industry will change in terms of what platforms look like. Even Nintendo. We know Xbox's strategy and it's a pretty good one for us....same old consoles now, intended to seamlessly roll into whatever is there later. Their focus is on the library of games we buy. Which I'm glad about because i have thousanands of $ in games in that library....so they do happen to be saying the right things for me.

If they had said they intended to become the premium luxury price point platform that makes us rebuy stuff over every tech transition....yeah, I'd be jumping ship now.

At the end of the day we have quality hardware to play games on with a quality service, a......serviceable.....storefront (lets not kid ourselves) and lots of convenience QOL features, and a mission statement focused on maintaining value and preserving our purchases for the long term and lots of new market growth BS that doesn't really impact us negatively and theoretically subsidizes our GP and gaming. What exactly are we complaining about? if they start locking things away behind paywalls and price hikes....that's when we should raise eyebrows and pitchforks, though...which they do have a habit of doing.

What about the ***** accounts!? Why is MS still keeping 3 separate account systems now that they own these companies!? Get rid of the ***** Bethesda and Activision accounts.