Rumour: Xbox Planning To Bring More Games To PS5, Despite Some 'Unease' At Microsoft

I think it makes business sense to bring more Xbox games multiplatform but some exclusivity make sense to make the platform attractive. Then again, the trajectory of Xbox today tells me that the platform is dead.

Why even have an "Xbox Leadership" at this point if these decisions are just going to get dictated by Corporate?

Another day another 'Rumour' from someone who is nothing to do with Microsoft or Xbox. Congratulations.

This is a huge educated guess from Jez. We all know this is what Satya wants. So he wrote an article about it since he has a platform. Everyone is just running with it.

@GamingFan4Lyf Phil’s job at this point would be to push back since he understands the industry better than Satya. Let’s hope he is doing that.

But this is just more BS. Not saying other games wont go multiplat because they probably will - but this isn’t a story. Jez doesn’t know anything. It’s a story when Xbox confirms it.

While it would not be surprising if this does end up true, why are we following rumors again?

The guy “leaking” this appears to only be guessing and flip flopping back and forth with his statements, saying there is no red line for Xbox games going on PlayStation before seemingly backtracking and going “oh I don’t actually know if there is a red line in place or not.” I already have seen others go with the guy’s guessing and treating as if it is real. I think the best approach to this is waiting until this is actually confirmed, even if multiplatform is the most obvious route Microsoft wants to take after the successes of the four games they ported to other platforms.

@K1LLEGAL Yeah, I am not sure who should be doing the talking now, though.

Sure, Phil is the CEO of Microsoft Gaming, but Sarah Bond is now the head of Xbox.

There are just too many [expletive] CEOs in Microsoft right now! LOL!

But yeah, there needs to be some old-school "behind closed doors" screaming matches going on at Redmond.

I have nothing against Satya. He's certainly moved Microsoft in positive directions (even if those positive directions are nothing more than opportunities to get more people rich), but he has got to let the Xbox people handle Xbox things.

Kinda glad I invested in that giant SSD for PS5. I can finally have that all-inclusive console I've always wanted.

Is there like a deadline that Xbox can’t exist in 2025 or why the f*ck is Microsoft rushing so much to get rid of Xbox?

Not sure that's "rumor", didn't Phil and Matt basically already say exactly that in the emergency podcast when they talked about "only 4 games, but it's a test for other games, but it's not starfield, but we're not ruling anything out"? It was pretty clear in their murky unclear official statement that no game was exempt from going to PS. PS fans have been salivating at that ever since.

@GamingFan4Lyf Standard big business. One executive to make decisions, 5 executives to carry out those decisions, 15 vice executives to manage meetings to talk about those decisions, 35 action team leads to hold meetings to talk about how to manage those actions, 115 project managers to maintain spreadsheets to track goalposts on those actionables, 217 relationship managers to handle the contractors from outside who will actually implement the projects, 415 implementation managers to take the projects implemented by the outside contractors and rework them to fit into company structured methodology, and between the start and end of that process the satellite that was supposed to do the work was closed, so then the whole project is cancelled.

Calling everyone "CEO" is hilarious. How can you have nested layers of "Chief" anything?

Disagree on Nadella though, I mentioned someone else that Nadella is pleasing shareholders by making money, yes, but he's basically running microsoft like a giant hedge fund and VC firm than a tech company. He's making money by investing their considerable money in places it will generate more money. But he's tanking all their business lines. Even Windows is in peril under him. He's annihilating MS and replacing it with the world's largest hedge fund and capital investment group. Microsoft became a finance company, not a tech company, under his watch. He seemed really good when he first started. IDK what changed. Maybe Hood's the real Palpatine.

@K1LLEGAL I get the impression Phil's been pushing back and that's a big part of why hes apparently completely missing entirely. I also get the impression Satya is not someone you push back on, but more of a "living-god" figure. Like most silicon valley CEOs. And I get the impression no matter what Phil might say, Amy Hood just holds up a spreadsheet and he knows to shut up. We really could tell what direction things were going when Hood sat there at the trial with a straight face and stated they intend to bring Xbox in line with their other divisions for profitability. Because gaming and an enterprise cloud services division with the US military as a customer are easily equally profitable.

They can still have Exclusives to get people into their ecosystem and use their 'IP's' like Sony do. Sony have 'timed' exclusivity on some of their games - like Spider-Man, R&C, God of War etc. Once these games have been used to sell PS5's and the sales have dropped, they are released on PC to extract money from a different group of gamers.

If they port Starfield to PS5 after a year or two 'exclusivity', that game isn't bringing people to Xbox anymore, its whatever game(s) are out around that time - Fable, Perfect Dark etc. Its not bringing in Gamers and not making MS money. They only have 'Playstation' in reality, maybe Switch/Switch 2 IF they can run it well enough on that hardware to extract money from as the game is already on PC/Steam.

Sony has used 'timed' exclusivity to get people in - either with their 'own' games before releasing to another ecosystem (PC/Steam) or with 3rd Party games (Deathloop, Ghostwire, Final Fantasy, Forspoken). Yes you 'could' wait for those games to release elsewhere, but to play Day 1, you have to have a Playstation.

Another 'advantage' for MS and why people may 'choose' to buy Xbox over a Playstation is that those games will cost to play Day 1 - pay £70 to play CoD on PS5, but its 'Free' with Game Pass, pay £70 to play Starfield or £70 to play Doom, but can play 'free' on PC/Xbox with Game Pass...

I know that some may well choose to buy on PS rather than play 'free' on Game Pass or would rather 'wait' for whatever games MS choose to bring to PS eventually, but I still expect MS to have 'exclusives', even if they end up only being exclusive for a year or so.

After seeing what the new Xbox is shaping up to be, with a focus on big franchises to the detriment, disrespect and closure of smaller teams they themselves bought, I'm not interested in supporting Game Pass or Xbox anymore financially. So even if they do come to PS5 or Switch, I won't be bothered, I'm afraid Satya.

Short term gain in place of long term ambitions. Yes, a game like Grounded or Pentiment would not have been console sellers by themselves, if they make up part of a list of like 50 great games that you can't play on PS or Nintendo, then that makes Xbox much more tempting, when people will feel like they are missing out on so many interesting exclusives by not picking up a Series X/S. And of course, more Xbox gamers means more Game Pass subs, as well as more people buying games on the Xbox store and therefore giving Microsoft that sweet sweet 30% cut (at least I believe it's a 30% cut that they get?).

Yeah sending over some first party games will get you a few extra bucks, in the case of Sea of Thieves probably quite a bit of money quite frankly, but now your platform is less attractive, which to me seems to run contrary to Microsoft's ambition of maximizing their number of Game Pass subscribers. And again, never underestimate the power of that 30% cut from digital purchases, that's where a lot of the money really comes from.

Now, of course, these are all rumours. We don't know if this is true or not, and if it is true, it is still possible that they could just decide against doing it. But it was true at least that one time, and I'd like to think that my point still stands with respect to that time.

Of course I expect this. They will be games like Pentiment or Hi-Fi Rush. Just don't ever expect to see the next Halo or Gears on the PS5. Just like Uncharted 5 or the next God of War will never be on the Xbox.

This Jez bloke is an utter clown. Stop giving him more publicity he just guesses and then retracts, just like he has done here!!!

"there's no confirmation yet whether there is a red line or not"

unbelievable

No one will be surprised, having viewed my previous comments, to see me pop up now and say, told you so!

This is the reason we have seen neither hide nor hair from Phil Spencer. He clearly does not support this move, and is remaining silent because he does not want to stand front and centre and tell us what's going on when he simply does not agree with it.

It is also why Spencer looked so uncomfortable during the podcast in which the first 4 games were announced, and why he was so careful in his choice of words when responding to questions regarding Starfield. He said, should anyone not remember, that Starfield was not one of the first 4 games going to the PlayStation, and, when pushed further, that no game would go before it had been on the Xbox for at least a year. Starfield, let's remember released in September last year, so expect the announcement of its port sometime around then.

No red lines also plays into those very early rumours of Halo, Gears of War and Forza being considered too, and with Nadella calling the shots now, I would imagine that will happen soonish too, though whether the PlayStation will have to wait 12 months now is another matter entirely.

This is also likely why Xbox did not (and have not) answered the question regarding Blade being an Xbox exclusive. I would not be at all surprised to see this game being a simultaneous release on both Xbox an PlayStation.

This all then brings us back to the fundamental question of why buy the next Xbox? If what are (or were to be) Xbox exclusives are going to be on the PlayStation day one, or even 12 months later, is there any point in owning an Xbox? Why limit yourself to the library of one console, when you can have access to both if you buy a PlayStation instead.

Sure, you could save money via Game Pass, but to do so excludes all the exclusives that are available on the PlayStation, and if you only plan to play a couple of Xbox first-party titles a year, then it probably makes financial sense to invest in a PlayStation instead, particularly so if, like me, you only have Game Pass so that you can play online games.

I remain unconvinced at this point that there will be true successor to the Series X. I think a hybrid handheld will come out either this year, or next, but that is it. In all honestly, it's a truly bleak time to be an Xbox gamer...

Is this the new story equivalent to the abk legal battle? Publications are getting a lot of milage while saying nothing at all.

If that's the case I much rather Xbox get out of the hardware business, you just can't have your cake and eat it too.

Microsoft has these crazy expectations of Xbox hardware sales, and game sales but also putting the only reason to buy them on other systems, you just can't have it both ways.

@Gamer_X what are their crazy expectations for hardware sales? Haven't they been saying play their games wherever for a long time now? They don't need to exit the hardware game, it is still lucrative to have as is.

The media might have crazy expectations as they continue the backwards thinking of console war comparisons....playstation sold x times as many as xbox.

I’m not against this, it will be what it will be.
But I think for customers sake and looking at console sale, they might as well just be a publisher.
I have not bought a new third party game yet this year and always went series x.
But I think my next third party purchase will be PS5, I have no console faith going forward in Xbox consoles now.
Written with a heavy heart.

@NEStalgia Even so, Microsoft's research in AI, Quantum Computing, Cloud Infrastructure, etc. etc. are all getting used by researchers to help tackle modern problems - including medical research, pharmaceuticals, and tackling even logistical issues and humanitarian necessities.

Sure, it's all for the sake of money, but it's still making a difference where it matters.

To me, I personally don't care if people make donations to causes for tax reduction purposes or invest in technology to better the world just to make more money, it's the fact it is happening at all that matters to me.

The world isn't going to change by poor people with great intentions. It's going to change by rich people clearing their conscience.

Phil getting blamed for all this, sitting in his room, playing Fallout, preparing to nuke everybody..

Someone who knows nothing about gaming making the decisions ....defo see the next Xbox being the last ...sigh.... making it seem like the obvious choice to buy games now to be playstation....cause I won't be setting up my series X in 10 years time to play old games...it will be on a new console through backwards compatibility (obviously assuming playstation embrace that...which is debatable )

He may well be being blamed by some, @Cikajovazmaj, but I suspect the reason we have not heard from him is because he does not support what's going on, and does not want to stand up front publicly and pretend that he does...

Really don't care anymore about this s**t

The second is something like Halo, Forza, or even Fable hits PS, Xbox as hardware is done. It doesn't matter how they frame it, what claims of new hardware they have or even if it's confirmed they won't release any other games on PS afterwards, it won't matter the consumers will just see "All Xbox exclusives will come to PS"

Doesn't have to be true, just has to be convincing enough and Halo on PS5 is pretty convincing.

If true, then, why buy the next xbox, if there’s gonna be one? 🫠

@GamingFan4Lyf as a Mac user we love ole Satya. He gave us the only useful things a Windows PC has and thats Excel and PowerPoint. With those on Mac under his leadership i now have the best PC (Mac) in the world software wise. Well not counting gaming cause we know Apple isn’t going to do that. But my point is you are right Satya loves to sell software and doesn’t want hardware to be the divide between a customer. MS is playing the long game of Mobile, PC and Cloud. They know they aren’t going to move the needle much in the console space and the console space is having the leader Sony run at 4% profit models and running to PC. That shows MS all they need to see. Cause they know they aren’t going to sell PS numbers and yet with those results it wouldn’t matter if they did.

@Savage_Joe cause you like the ecosystem, controllers etc etc and if not run to PS, they get your money there. Don’t like PS, run to PC, Cloud or Mobile, they got your money there. This is no longer about the console for MS and starting to become the industry as we seen Sony and Square say this week they are going to PC sooner and for good. In a decade we will be looking at Mobile, PC and Cloud as the growth and software leaders. MS will continue to keep Xbox around for it’s 40-50 million player base and the gaming world moves on to where the next set of younger kids becoming adults want to spend their money on and it’s likely not console.

@BacklogBrad : A company wouldn't be making hardware if they wouldn't have sales expectations, just because they are ashamed in putting their hardware sales out there it doesn't mean they don't have sales expectations.

Xbox has the too many "cooks in the kitchen" syndrome and nobody knows what the real priorities should be, hardware Sales, Gamepass subscriptions, or software sales....which brings the other issue at hand in which you just can't have successful game sales when you have an all inclusive Gamepass model.

Phil Spencer knows the importance of keeping titles exclusive, but then you have Satya pushing for more sales regardless of the consequences with the fans.

@OldGamer999 Buddy. The writing is on the wall, MS will keep Xbox around for the 30-40 million players that want it. But they are chasing the big money on Mobile, PC and Cloud. Yes Cloud in the future will be big money. I think after this Gen or slightly before it ends, i will Grab my Switch 2 and head to PC. NEVER did I think i would go to PC after being a console guy for 30 years. I still want to wait until this May show where Sony say’s they will lay out their plans for the next 3 years. Want to see what their PC plans are first.

Gonna have issues moving hardware if everything goes multi-platform, at this point I believe nothing is off the table, even Halo/Gears.

This is Microsoft gaming, Xbox is dead.

It's pretty obvious Satya Nadella and Amy Hood have taken the wheel, Phil Spencer and the rest of the people at Xbox have no say in the matter they probably were ordered to just stay home 😐

The blank checks days are over and Satya will get Xbox profits at any cost. Some Xbox fans will try to look at the positives but I don't see any, the suits have full control of Xbox and if they have to turn Xbox into Sega they will.

This does make business sense given the article from yesterday about PS5 outsold Series X/S almost 5:1

@Savage_Joe I’d still invest in a new Xbox console because I’ve built up my library of games since the 360, I must have about 800+ games. My worry though is that less people will be online on games that don’t have cross-platform and that developers deciding not to bother making an Xbox version due to poor sales because of a small player base, thus lower/poor sales to not making it worth it for them.

Come here Halo MCC! Could actually get a team together for online if it went over

Satya Nadella needs to go. He means everything bad Xbox is doing right now.

Nadella is not capable of handle gaming.

I Let gaming to Phil, Nadella can take care of his beloved B2B businesses.

@NEStalgia oh man I get what you are saying regarding him being someone you don’t push back on. But that is why i’m not suitable for that position. That is Phil’s job; at least to push back as much as he can.

I think the 4 games were agreed as a test, and a compromise between Xbox and Microsoft. So thats good that he limited it to 4 to begin with but if he can’t push back further what is the point!

Also an aside - Activision just opened up a new studio in Poland called “Elsewhere”!?

Xbox was a nice console once.....
Pretty much no point to it if they put all their games on PlayStation.

The fact that Phil is pretty much the last person we hear about the future of XBox these days is rather telling (and imo definitely not a good sign for the future of the platform).

Of course it makes sense to bring the games to PS in the short-term, especially with XS being that far behind. But every game is already coming to PC day one and without any exclusives their platform will be left to die. Sony will be happy about the cut they get for every (XBox) game sold on PS.

It's one of Xbox's many issues: Natya doesn't give a damn about Xbox. In 2017 he was ready to close it completely, and he refused to greenlight anything around that time, which is why there was almost NOTHING coming out for a few years. Xbox is just a source of revenue to him, and he'd close it today if it would make Microsoft a dollar.

@Gamer_X I disagree strongly with the take that they cannot be successful without only prioritizing one of having hardware, gamepass, or software sales. Going all in on one would be a terrible strategy. There is a reason that Sony is suddenly concerned with getting their games on PC and mobile. They know that having all their eggs in one basket is not a strong strategy. If something were to happen to the home console market (which appears to be happening) they would be screwed.

C'mon guys, let's start the revolution selling our Xboxes right now! If Xbox is already dead, let us bury it!
Or maybe we can keep coming back here week after week, year after year to moan and pretend we've cancelled our subscription, pretend we're about to sell our consoles and pretend we're not going to buy the next console.

@Foxx_64740 as long as there is Xbox hardware i’m in on it. Even if the games are on Playstation.

Just don’t tell Xbox that.

@BacklogBrad : The only reason why Sony is pushing for PC ports is the same reason why Microsoft is doing it so...The Investors!

Sony on this path will soon find themselves in the same Microsoft situation in which if there's no fan loyalty, hardware sales will keep declining and blame it on the fans.

Nintendo on the other hand is successful through and through because they know fan loyalty is paramount.

@eduscxbox Satya needs to go?!? He literally transformed MS into a 3 trillion dollar corporation. He thinks business & only business. And it is only wise to release Xbox first party games EVERYWHERE (switch PS PC) since xbox sales is far lagging behind.

@Gamer_X there are two things working against the typical console model. The majority of the top played ps5 games are actually ps4 games. There is no need to upgrade if a lot of people just want a way to keep playing roblox, fortnite, destiny 2, gta 5, apex legends, etc.

The second is that younger generations are not buying into the home console form factor. They are growing up with their gaming library on phone,tablet,laptops, or switch. Sony and Xbox can continue to sell their home consoles and games to old timers but that is not a successful formula.

Sony and Xbox are not begrudgingly following shareholders orders. They are adapting to changing market.

Really goes back to what said years ago about nadella (and week or so ago here) he's INCREDIBLY BAD for Microsoft. All he wants and cares about is cloud and making everything possible subscription based.

Cloud infrastructure is just terrible since it has many issues and not sure about rest of the world but people in the US are ABSOLUTELY tired of and had enough of subscriptions.

@NEStalgia Thank you for saying this about nadella. He's a complete disaster. The idiot has turned Microsoft into house of cards that is waiting to tumble.

The guy is completely clueless. Nadella is the classic case of living in the ivory tower and being completely out of touch with reality and people.

@HonestHick
It’s a terrible shame as have been with Xbox consoles since day one.
But I have the PS5 and Switch and soon to be Switch 2. So plenty of consoles to be getting on with.
I never PC game anymore and don’t even own a PC.

@Dr_ENT Yes, he needs to go. I don't care what he do to azure or Windows.

But he knows nothing about gaming.

The least MS could do is let Nadella off of MS Gaming, he can do whatever he wants to the rest, but has no say in gaming.

This alone would improve Xbox a lot.

Should change the name of this site to pure Xbox rumours

@BAMozzy "Sony have 'timed' exclusivity on some of their games - like Spider-Man, R&C, God of War etc. Once these games have been used to sell PS5's and the sales have dropped, they are released on PC...."

But are they released on Xbox? That is answer is, and I truly believe will always be, no.

Only reason The Show is on Xbox is because MLB said, hey you need to start bringing us more money if we are going to continue to grant an exclusivity license, and by that that we mean you need get The Show on other consoles.

@abe_hikura There are still people out there believe Xbox can't play used games. This is a myth going all way back to Xbox One. So absolutely agree with you that people will think all Xbox games go to Playstation.

@GuyinPA75 but what if Disney decides to do the same thing that MLB did with marvel franchises? They could give Sony the same ultimatum and say put spiderman on pc,switch and xbox or lose the rights to make those games.

I personally believe sony will willingly put some games (not all) on switch and xbox in the future. They are already discussing the possibility with heckdivers 2.

@BacklogBrad You might be right, gamers like myself on consoles are dinosaurs on its way out.
😔

@BacklogBrad
Not gonna happen. Sony hold the movie right to the Spider-Man character and have Disney over a barrel. A while ago Sony threatened Disney they would remove Spider-Man from the MCU over a spat about the franchise. So Sony would simply use their leverage to make sure that never happens. Meaning Disney can't use Spider-Man in the movies without Sony's approval.

@GADG3Tx87 I don't believe they have Disney over a barrel as Disney ultimately has the final say if sony gets to keep making the biggest franchise in playstations history.

And remember this would make more money for Sony anyway. Just like the MLB mandate ultimately benefits Sony more than keeping it exclusive. It even let's them pretend like MLB is is the bad guy to the console warriors that act like other people playing the same games they do makes them less of a person.

@Savage_Joe The reason would be that you like Xbox. I would also be happy if the rumor that the next xbox will not only play your xbox library natively but also will sideload Steam/Epic games is true. I have a Pc that I play games on but it is getting old so this would be right up my alley. I think Microsoft will both sell games everywhere but also keep the Xbox ecosystem for fans of the platform. Sure, the console won't be in contention to be the biggest but it will be there for fans of Xbox while they also are making lots of money everywhere else. A win-win for everyone.

@BacklogBrad
They literally got Disney to back down over a dispute they had 2 years ago by threatening to remove Spider-Man from the MCU. And the revenue that character brings in from the Marvel movies is a much bigger risk than pushing for Spider-Man on Xbox. Disney make way more money from the character being in the movies, which Sony have the control over. Sorry, but it's highly unlikely to almost certain the Sony's Spider-Man games will ever appear on Xbox.

@GADG3Tx87 I disagree and believe it will be on all platforms eventually. Sony doesn't have the incentive to fight them on this when they can just make more money on switch 2 sales.

Sony also loses money without the mcu movies. Keeping spiderman out of avengers movies and losing the gaming rights is way worse for Sony than disney.

@tho_mi @K1LLEGAL I do think Phil is pushing back. I suspect closed door conversations are.....impolite. And I suspect that's why we don't see Phil and he seems to have a whole lot of time playing Fallout. I'd be surprised if Phil is still there by January. The only question is if he walks out or is thrown out. I think Sarah Bond goes with him. She's been put in an untenable position of steering a ship without a rudder. And they sure like replacing their executives every few months at Xbox these days.

Phil is famous for his eager, enthusiastic, candid statements about his plans. The fact that he's awol, and when he does talk he looks awkward and uncomfortable, and now Sarah thrown in his place looks equally uncomfortable, and both are stammering and circling in vaguery tells us they're not speaking truth from the heart, they're reading a script they don't like bound to handlers.

@HonestHick Cloud's dead in the water for the forseeable. I mentioned it in the other thread, but the big players failed, the small players have no penetration, MS said "cloud cloud cloud" but what they really meant was "mobile mobile mobile" which with King they don't need cloud or it's ungainly expense for anymore, and they're not pushing or investing in it's expansion anymore. Sony has the best cloud in the biz right now and they have every incentive to hold it back. And it only works on PC and PS. Cloud is on indefinite hold. It costs a lot to roll it out and needs to have LOT of buy-in to work, and GP stalling numbers even with being on mobile with cloud tells you everything you need to know about why it's stalled. It's there, right now, and it's on mobile, and it's cheap.....and nobody's buying it.

@GamingFan4Lyf If MS didn't invest in those things, some finance firm would. MS is ignoring their own core products and letting them wither. They're not making advancements in AI, they just dumped tons of cash into someone elses AI and integrated it, badly, into their own products and flog it to upend the labor force, and therefore the entire global economy, in order to make other investors temporarily richer. They're not doing it help real world problems like some odd altruistic utopia. They're doing it to help accelerate the division into new feudalism for their fellow-travelers, and to make a quick buck off them.

@Dimey Jez is definitely a clown, at first he was the biggest Xbox anti-PS cheerleader, and now he's the source of grape vine rumors. But I have to reiterate, there's no rumor here, The podcast had Phil and Matt directly saying that nothing's off the table for PS ports. There isn't a red line. It was already confirmed, directly, in February, in the same sentence as as "only 4 games." This isn't new news. Only the rumor that it comes directly from Nadella is interesting as a news item, even if we could already guess that.

@BacklogBrad
Agree to disagree. But I think you'll be disappointed because where Sony have leverage over Disney and are very protective over keeping big games that will bring in hardware sales as console exclusives.

@NEStalgia Yea I agree Sarah didn’t exactly look on-board when she did that Bloomberg interview. I’m sure Phil isn’t either. Going to be an interesting showcase. I can’t wait.

@GADG3Tx87 it was just a couple months ago that playstation dropped the quote "if we have strong first party content, not only with our console, but also other platforms like computers we can help operating profits grow"

Doesn't sound very protective to me. Sounds like they just want to maximize profits not fight some imaginary console war.

I can see Microsoft selling off the XBox division
That way MS become software focused & can still sell Game Pass to XBox users. Sony & Nintendo may allow GP on their consoles as MS would no longer be a hardware competitor
MS could possibly get away with having to have games day 1 on XBox and then sell copies for 6 months, say, before adding to the service - that would avoid the would CoD issue of losing sales from day 1 on XBox
Also, how long until Phil is on "gardening leave" ??
I would have him down as heading up investors if XBox were to be sold off

@BacklogBrad
PC doesn't compete with PlayStation so putting their "first parties" there doesn't affect their console business. Xbox is a competitor. And Sony don't publish first party titles on Xbox.

@K1LLEGAL lol me too. As long Sony, MS and Nintendo release consoles I'll follow.

@MrBook Of course it counts. My critic is for those who only complain and don't act on it.

@GlasgowGuy I don't see the reasoning to sell the Xbox division. What would the buyer get in that case? The right to make a box called xbox and zero studios or IP? A box that is usually sold at cost or at a loss.

Xbox could just keep making hardware and software without focusing on our console sales figures versus their console sales figures. Xbox gaming revenue for q2 24 was up 49% after adding abk. Xbox hardware revenue was up 3% year over year. It's not like they are bleeding money with xbox. It's actually profitable. People are just stuck in this mentality that it is xbox versus playstation in a death match. Valve didn't make the steam deck to force someone else out of the market or take gamers away from other hardware manufacturers. It was just a way to expand their brand and put the steam store in another place.

im jumping to ps6 next gen anyway. hope all xbox games go there.

@GADG3Tx87 so why were they internally discussing the possibility of heckdivers 2 on xbox recently if they are completely closed off to that idea?

@OldGamer999 just hang in there with me buddy, if we are going down we are staying on the ship to the end. Thats what fan’s do. I think we will be ok. I still think they see the money in gaming and know they need to stick in this business and not leave it like they did mobile phones. But I’d be lying if I didn’t say i am getting concerned and annoyed with all the bad news lately. They must really have a heck of a showcase coming trying to get all the bad news out first haha

As a true gamer I own PS5 and Series X (Switch too) and my most played console is Series X. I don't get all the drama.

If Microsoft decides to port some Xbox exclusives to other consoles after a certain amount of time (1 year or so), why is it that a big of a deal? More people enjoy the game, devs get more appreciation, company makes more money - a win for everyone.

In the long run, probalby all the console companies will do it, since it's more bucks for shareholders.

@MrBook sony only has the movie rights to spider man. Disney licenses the rights to sony to make the game. The original licensing deal was actually for any marvel property and Sony left it up to insomniac who coincidentally chose spider man to base a game on.

@HonestHick
I sort of look at it like this. I don’t do PC so my only access I want to my massive Xbox games and third party games is an Xbox console.

Now at the minute I don’t trust Xbox at all, so if they stopped producing consoles end of 2024 then my series x breaks.
Then what, I don’t want to cloud game I want the best console experience so my massive Xbox and third party Xbox games have gone and are lost forever in the Xbox digital world.

So do I stop investing in my Xbox digital games library now third party and start investing on PS5 with third party games, have GP for Xbox until May 2025 so that’s ok for Xbox exclusive.

I mean when you look at Xbox console sales, especially outside USA, it must be on Xbox mind to maybe pull out of consoles.

Anyway that’s my dilemma 😊

@GuyinPA75 Not the point - they are still releasing their games on a 'different' platform so no longer EXCLUSIVE to just Playstation and can be played on 'another' console (steam-deck).

Why buy a Playstation when their games are playable on Steam Deck, Handheld 'console' PC's (like RoG Ally) as well as the high end Gaming Rigs costing thousands? In fact, buy a Steam-deck for 'less' and get to play ALL the Xbox and most Sony games.

MS already has the PC market - you would argue that it affects sales of Xbox hardware because Xbox has 'no' exclusives but that's different for 'Sony' because PC doesn't count for them. Only Console versus Console matter to Sony fans.

The same principle applies - Sony doesn't have 'exclusives' because you can play them on another Console (steam-deck), letting 'more' gamers than just those locked into Sony's ecosystem/network and why they want to push 'PSN' onto PC.

Sony 'could' release their games on Xbox if they wanted to tap into those gamers - but choose not to. MS can choose 'not to' release games on PS too although that is just petty behaviour when there are Gamers on that platform, money to be made - just like Sony are tapping into the PC market to get those gamers money too, People who don't/won't buy their Console!

I find it funny anytime this topic comes up the comment section blows up. It's as if others just come over to fan the flames. Do these decisions really impact your lives this much?

It is wild to think that in just a couple years the generalized sentiment went from "xbox has no games" to "xbox should only be a game publisher." Talk about one extreme to the other. (I don't agree with either)

Been saying this since Satya axes Windows Phone despite grown, especially in places like India.

Satya simply wants Microsoft to be software only and is slowly gutting hardware.

@MrBook I would argue that's its mindless console war fodder on both counts but that's just me.

Its the same weird versus mentality. One console has even more games, that means the other has zero. One console sells even more units that means the other shouldn't even exist.

Your headline seems back to front, @FraserG! Surely it should read;

Rumour: Microsoft Planning To Bring More Games To PS5, Despite Some 'Unease' At Xbox

Just saying... 😉 😂

@BacklogBrad the catch with this is Sony owns the rights to Spiderman, not Disney. Now the Wolverine, fantastic four, etc. Games they are making, completley different story as they are all Disney ip now.

Edit: Apologies, Sony only own the movies (which they have to release every five years to retain). You sir, are correct.

@BacklogBrad
Source? Because I've literally not heard anything about that other than wishful thinking. And it's HellDivers not heckdivers.

@Weebleman Disney/marvel owns the gaming and print rights to spiderman. Sony owns the film rights. If you want to make a spider man movie talk to Sony if you want to make a game, book, comic, etc you gotta talk to disney.

@BacklogBrad
Again, Sony holds the movie rights against Disney as leverage and if you do a search from two years ago you'll see they use that leverage. So it'll be that easy to keep Spiderman exclusive because Disney won't want to lose the biggest character in the MCU. You don't seem to understand that. I'm sorry man, but the Sony Spiderman games won't be on Xbox. It's literally a system seller.

This is clearly happening (Jez doesn't know anything we don't)

The Xbox community is all over the place but I have to say I morbidly "enjoy" reading the posts and determining what stage of grief each Xbox fan is at (more on reddit than here). More and more people are reaching acceptance. Denial, anger, and depression are still all very present... but I have to laugh at the amount of bargaining. Fire Phil! That'll save Xbox! Fire Satya, the real reason for this! Let's start a petition to get Helldivers 2 on Xbox, we just need to start trading exclusives with Sony!

Surely there is something I, a guy with a $500 console and a $15/mo subscription, can do to stop a 3 trillion dollar company from turning my beloved Xbox division into a mobile game s**tshow over the next 5 years, I just need to think harder.

Ugh, this is getting exhausting. I have no clue what's going on over there. Sounds like xbox doesn't either.

This all boils down to money. Xbox is a failing platform and they shot there selves in the foot by pushing for the acquisition of Bethesda and Activision. You pile the failure of Xbox with the combination of the acquisitions, then that equals Microsoft getting involved and pulling the strings. I think Phil thought MS would buy these companies and let Xbox keep losing money for 3 to 5 more years and hope that it would blossom into people flocking to Xbox. That's obviously not happening and now Phil is paying the price at the cost of Xbox becoming primarily a publisher in the future.

@OldGamer999 yeah i understand that completely. It’s a tough call and you have to do what’s best for you. I just don’t see them leaving the hardware space. They have a handheld coming up, next gen console likely. I think they stick with a PC small form factor Xbox hardware for a long time. I also don’t think we will see Gears 6 on PS5 soon. They will use those games to keep hardware sales and GP going. Gears collection on PS5 could be day 1 from what i am seeing and hearing. They really open their mouth too much and make us players question everything instead of just enjoy the hobby.

Has anyone been round to Phil’s gaff to do a welfare check? Guys been mighty quiet recently.

Not even bigging up the upcoming release?!

@OldGamer999 FWIW, I say this as someone going through the exact same mental process and debate with the same concerns as you, I'd put a little different perspective on it:

Most likely MS will continue making hardware, but most likely the hardware will morph into being a Surface Laptop in an Xbox box. I mean Phil even talked about other stores on there, so that's kind of a given at this point. You've got 7-10 years left with Xbox hardware minimum with a handheld/other gen out there even if it's ignored and fails. Do they stop producing them at that point? Maybe? We do know it will be more expensive however. How much more, we don't know. If it has other stores it's not guaranteeing revenue so it's going to have to be profitable hardware. Like a Surface. Or PC gaming hardware, which isn't cheap. But also rest assured without price pressure, PS is going to Ratchet (pun intended) up the price as well.

OTOH, I also considered switching 100% to Sony. But the rub is this: If MS stays in consoles/PC-ified consoles forever and ever you'll probably regret that. And even if MS doesn't stay in consoles I expect MS probably has a better on-ramping plan for Xbox customers libraries at least onto Windows in terms of digital library than what PS will let you have if they're suddenly a console monopoly. Sony's the company that may or may not be gearing up long term to try charging monthly online fees for PC games....I don't trust them as far as I can throw them either.

I briefly flirted with the idea of PS5 Pro and just live with PS-only, but the thought of what Sony will or won't do is actually no less worrying than the thought of what Xbox is going to do. So I don't know I'd feel any safer jumping to the other side for third party. Sure Xbox may bail from hardware. Or they may not. Sony may allow BC forever. Or they may not. Either way you're rolling the dice on an unknown. And if anything major changes with Xbox in the hardware space, the disruption to the balance will ripple through PS, too in unpleasant ways.

I think the answer I've settled on is that rolling the dice with the hope that Xbox continues to provide a hardware option, the same way they provide sales failure Surface hardware options to Windows users is no less safe a choice than hoping Sony doesn't abuse near-monopoly power in the console space if MS doesn't.

-OR-

If jumping ship, there's only one harbor in swimming distance without sharks and pirates circling it, and that's to go all the way to PC (again.)

Which way do I go? Haven't decided either. But the PS oasis is just a mirage. It seems safer for now while Xbox is still here as its lighthouse, but if that changes, it'll suck being caught in the vortex of either of them. So I think stay the course and hope for the best, or shift to PC are really the only realistic options.

PS may be safe for a digital investment. So might Nintendo. Or they may not be.

@MrBook Spiderman games: It depends you you ask. If you ask the average PS fan that loves over the shoulder action adventure cinematic movie games they're the pinnacle of video game perfection. If you ask me, they're bland Arkham-lite games with the most repetitive, boring stealth play I've ever seen, repetitive swinging with no physics whatsoever, in a bland open world that doesn't exist except to travel from point to point with recycled "stop the robbers" quests pasted into it.

I don't care about Spiderman at all but I bought into the first game because Insomniac has never let me down. Until then. I bought Miles to have SOMETHING to play on PS5 that felt like a launch title. I didn't buy 2.

It's not BAD, but it's very....generic...safe...and kind of.....focus tested? I think they'd be better games without the open world that feels pointless and tacked in with nothing in them. But then they'd be short interactive movie games. Decent ones though I guess.

Truly then, there will be no reason to even have Xbox hardware. 😢

@GamingFan4Lyf Positive directions for execs. It's definitely not for consumers.

@BacklogBrad Microsoft had a chance to get rights to a Marvel IP, but they passed.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/history-of-video-games-vol-2-early-history-of-marvel-games-included-discussions-with-activision-microsoft-sony.586217/post-86984468

Tbh, nothing shocks me here in the slightest. It's been gearing towards something huge for quite some time. I think people forget the One announcement and how they wanted it all digitally and everyone went nuts. They just shot too early and now it's happening, but slowly. I've been using the cloud software on my deck, and for me.. it's quality. Runs perfectly and you wouldn't think it would. So for me, that's the future, wether we like it or not.

@HonestHick @NEStalgia
Thanks for your reply’s it’s a tough ole choice or mind process to go through.
I’m definitely not interested in any hand held, only have Switch to play docked.

It’s a strange old gaming world at the minute, as not long ago we all knew exactly what was happening and what the future held at least one generation ahead.

I shall wait as no rush yet though Star Wars Outlaws is out in August.
But we should have all the showcases by then, so maybe I might get something from those to help.

@OldGamer999 Yeah I've been going crazy plotting and planning what my PC future would look like... And cost..... And alternating between expecting it and avoiding it and staying put.

I did take the plunge and ordered a Lenovo legion after debating. A pc handheld can't hurt. Play with modern PC gaming and see if I hate it as much as I used to lol. Comes with a month of game pass so it offset what I'm already paying there. I'll just keep playing p3r on gp on it, play with steam and epic. Start collecting freebies. If I decide I hate the pc gaming it's still an awesome 9 inch remote play and gp cloud streaming handheld for my xsx and PS5

It really is a weird moment in gaming. Nintendo and PS5 are fine for a good while Xbox who knows but it does feel like the console era is winding down after 40 years. Or are PCs finally just replicating consoles? Hard to tell. Is deck a PC or a 4th console? Yes

Came for the "world is ending comments"...not disappointed. 😂

The sky is not falling and MS gaming isn't dying. THEY MAKE MORE MONEY IF YOU DON'T BUY A CONSOLE. Even though they've already committed to making consoles and are working on their own portable, consoles are sold at a loss. How dense do you have to be to not get it?

I'm eager for more devs to jump on the cross platform bandwagon so exclusives can die off! Worst idea for gamers ever. MS is making it easier for more people to play their games (aka buy their games) and y'all are losing your minds. That's like winning the lotto and then refusing to collect because they only offer it 100 dollar bills. 😂

@Fiendish-Beaver You wrote all of this when it's still just a rumor.

@OldGamer999 @NEStalgia I see Nintendo and Sony as likely to abandon the console market as Microsoft, because of how similar PC and consoles have become, Play Anywhere and same OS, all benefiting Xbox, not to mention that there is another generation of Xbox confirmed. Yeah, you're thinking that Nintendo is doing great and they are, but not last generation and who knows in the future.

Like somebody said above, Xbox is not dead just because Sony sell more consoles. It doesn't matter. Xbox consoles are highly profitable for Microsoft because of the store and subscriptions. Plus, the Xbox business is more profitable than the PS business, that is why Sony is slowly becoming a multiplatform publisher. As long as there is a console market, there will be Xbox consoles. I assure you that.

People believing that Xbox is endangered are paying too much attention to the "analysts" (aka fanboys and click hunters) and too little to Xbox's business reports. Worst case scenario, the console market disappears. You'll have your digital library available on PC, whatever PC means by then. At least your Xbox library, the other two I'm not sure. Nintendo would rather destroy the world than letting anyone take control of their games, even the NES titles.

@NEStalgia @OldGamer999 the one thing the video game or tech industry should teach you is a min is a hour and a year is an eternity. Things happen and change so fast in tech. Console’s and mobile phones are tribal tho. Hard to get users to uproot. Rightfully so. I just for the love of me can’t believe MS plan is to just buy up ABK have no plan for its budget and expense and leave the console market. MS and Apple has some of the best people on earth giving them trends and info along with financial reports. I don’t get guys. I just can’t make sense of what they want to do outside of wait out the future for PC, Cloud and Mobile. It’s well written MS wanted ABK for PC and Mobile. Console wise they wouldn’t have done it, and even the strict and uneducated European courts were like we clear this deal on the console side. It’s Cloud holding us back. MS fought it and i knew at that point they are look Loooooong down the road with this deal and even short in the sense of getting a mobile store front out of it. Damn i wish i knew where this ended up. Gears of war is my top 3 franchise all time alongside Diablo and Red Dead. This showcase next month is suppose to be Gears heavy. Maybe this is my swan song exit but damn it i am going to enjoy it. No internet rumors or MS idiots are going to stop me from seeing Gears back on stage something many years ago brought me and my cousins online together over Xbox Live to play together and countless friends chainsawing hordes. Outside of getting super Mario Bros 3 for a birthday gift has any game meant so much to me. To see it on PS potentially is just insane how the tech world can change on a dime.

no matter what don't expect waking up tommorrow where xbox sells all their titles like hellblades 2,Fable,avowed,indiana jones,contraband and so much more i think we will start slowly to see their old titles been slowly release yes on ps5 or switch but do not expect them to drop everything on the floor ready and playable, i trully believe phil when he said don't expect every game to come to your console of choice but overtime i expect more and more older titles being bring up as ps5 titles expect two three year to have the complete picture it's what i mean, for now indiana jones,avowed and so many new games in production will be xbox/pc exclusive.

@Banjo- agree on much of that. Though I think you have to think like nadella to understand the concern. Nadella thinking would usually be along the lines of: softwares making the big money, we're making next to nothing on the console, why are we selling this, just kill it and put the software where it sells. That's very much his mo. Which brings us back to jumping to PC.

The big problem there is most of your library right now is not on PC. I went through my 700+ game library. About 20% is. Most publishers aren't in PC anywhere. Oddly Bethesda isn't at least before starfield and redfall. Sega is all there (of course who would be the one to get it right on the whole going third party front but Sega? 😆) but some titles like judgement, old Yakuza aren't on PC at all. Bamco, square etc aren't on the windows store so they're a no go. Cdpr, no go. Most things don't go with you to PC right now. That's the really big problem imo. If you're switching best to do it now because the library as it is definitely mostly won't go with you but some will. And you can't stream it right now either so that's out too.

Theres too many gaps in their PC + did strategy right now and seriously wtf is the windows store missing 70%+ of Xbox games?

@HonestHick Well, the one weird part of all this is with Microsoft, whether you're on console or PC their show is equally Relevant. Same platform really.

I mean I'm an old school pc gamer. I remember the era before Xbox was a thing and Microsoft Game Studios was buying up tons of studios, and everyone knew they would ruin the games and they did. Microsoft Gaming has always been there in PC under various names and even then everything they touched turned to poo. Except AoE. Then they closed that. (See the pattern?) Then they shifted all their focus to their new console thing, Xbox, tried to stuff Xbox into Windows, and screwed over their PC gamers with the consolification of their games. Everything was Xbox first. And now they're reversing that. On 2000 I was a PC gamer screwed by Xbox. I'm 2014 I'm an Xbox gamer screwed by Xbox.

Oh and Xbox ruined a PC build because a generation of Nvidia cards were screwed up because they spent the time designing the Xbox GPU

So I feel like the past 24 years have just reversed. 😂

I really think the strategy problem is there isn't one. Nadella makes money by short sighted balance sheet initiatives. He guts the future of every product. Internally it's destructive.

Years ago, Apple decided it would be a good idea to allow other PC manufacturers to build Mac clones in an attempt to expand the Mac OS market share. All it did was eat into Apple’s sales and nearly killed them. When Steve Jobs was rehired, one of his first decisions was killing that programme, look where they are now. MS might have to find this out the hard way.

I think everybody who has been posting about this article should go and read it. He didn't just talk about Xbox but a series of wasted cash and huge mistakes Microsoft has made over and over.
right now their fighting apple and Google so they do not have to shqre 30% of their cut on those app stores. if they had their own ecosystem they wouldn't have to.
look at all the the studios they closed over the years just to buy more studios. fable is the greatest example lionhead had a vision for fable 4
Microsoft waned a microtransaction heavy live service game instead. they spent millions like 75 million and then just closed lionhead. now they are spending millions to make fable with a new studio.
their worth 3 Trillion now but for how long case in point look at Boeing the all mighty dollar isn't looking so glorious now for those guys.
so their books look good now but when you plan for tom but not for 10 years from now you look kinda dumb in ten years.

Never listen to Crap Gamer, he's the laughing stock of the Xbox fans - even Phil Spencer himself ripped a new 1 into him on Twitter

@NEStalgia "we're making next to nothing on the console"

This is the problem, when people believe that and reach conclusions based on that. Microsoft is making a lot of money on consoles. It's a fact. Active players, subscriptions, digital sales of first and third-party games... They just don't sell as many consoles as Sony, but as have been proven, that doesn't mean that Sony's revenue is extremely good and Xbox's revenue is not worth it. That's a terrible mistake that leads to wrong conclusions. Financial reports are the only thing worth considering when reaching such conclusions. Even official statements have to be carefully read. Do you believe Sony when they say that the have suddenly sold millions of consoles, when the truth is that they just shipped their latest bunch of stock? But sure, yeah, sensationalist articles will tell you that they have outsold Xbox 5:1. First it was 3:1, then it was 4:1 and now is 5:1. The truth so far is 2:1.

You are right about not all titles being available on PC, but Nintendo doesn't have any at all. That was the worst case scenario I mentioned, but it's not happening. On top of that, don't you think that if Microsoft's engineers made Xbox 360 games perfectly playable on Xbox One after a lot of work, they are perfectly able to make games playable on PC if they got rid of consoles? I mean, it's Windows! It's x86! The tricky Power PC part has been done.

I don't think that their priority is PC now. Of course PC is progressively more important, like Cloud and mobile, but consoles are already established and, while limited in reach, a big part of their business, their third most profitable business. They won't kill Xbox just because Sony has more console fans, console fans that are not buying games.

You are completely right about Nadella, but you have also to consider the shareholders and the whole business. There are many people involved and too many billions for him to do things without asking anyone else. Believe me, Xbox won't drop the console market as long as the console market exists and if they did, they'd made all games playable on Windows. Sony and Nintendo, who knows? Nintendo would very likely have a (new) mobile store that requires players to be online to play, because of their obsession with piracy. Sony would probably start porting all the remaining games to PC and charge an upgrade fee (at best).

@NEStalgia MS screwing something up isn’t surprising news to me. Even Halo was a Mac and Apple thing they bought. They just don’t do creative and entertainment well at all. Never have. That’s more an Apple, Samsung, Sony and others thing. Look at Google they are like MS in a lot of ways with their Apps. They try something hoping it will be big and then a year or so later they closed it down and move on to the next. Google has closed down more apps than they have kept open. They have some MS in them. I think the Xbox 360 fooled us into thinking MS is going to be a major player in console and then they screwed it up. Now it seems like it going to take forever to reverse their mistakes and what do they do? Make more mistakes. Can’t make this stuff up i tell ya.

I agree that Spencer lost his fight to let his vision go forward inside MS. But tbf, I think his window to make GP the biggest gaming service has passed and didn’t fully succeed. GP is stagnating and then the numbers/profits come in. Nadella is the Jim Ryan of MS/Xbox (I’m not so big on MS but I liked Xbox without corporate meddling too much), and Xbox is doing very bad in comparison with PS! Instead of waiting to see how COD would/could play a difference, they chose the pragmatic route (Nadella & Hood vetoed against Spencer). Also, Cloud, AI & Mobile (biggest reason they bought ABK) are factors where MS is all in.

MS is really doing a 180 and seem to want turning things around fast instead of doing the waiting game. No heart involved in closing awarded studio’s, bringing their games to other platforms, … but I think they will keep GP alive! MS is greedy like the rest of them but after seeing the 5 to 1 hardware sales, something has to be done about it and a certain changes are needed.

As a consumer it’s easy to think they just should use their war chest but I think they don’t have a lot of choices if they want to keep that trillion dollar company the success it is. MS had a major win with the Xbox 360 and kind of gave up with the Xbox One in comparison. I do think Spencer did turn it around a bit but he’s no magician either.

I also think they are going to keep their best games on Xbox for now. Like older Halo, Gears, … titles yes, but no to newer versions. To not alienate their fans (people with a huge library for instance) they have to keep making some games exclusive! If not, the brand is gone, I fear … I hope they know what they are doing because I like the Xbox platform. It’s a numbers game now!

@Banjo- Phil already testified they were making single digit percentage profits, under oath. If you don't believe him, believe Sony who reported they're making single digit percentage profits. Consoles just aren't turning huge profits, full stop. Winner, loser, doesn't matter, if you don't have a yellow mouse and red plumber, you're not making large profit percentages in this business. It has large revenue but also large costs.

The money comes if you can get that revenue to extremes so that a few percent is still huge money. That's where Xbox as a console isn't doing so hot. It's not that huge a number, and it's not that huge a portion of 3rd party sales, which means even at the same percentage of profits, they're just making a trickle off their console. That's not my words, that's theirs.

We also know that Sony projects a hardware sales DECLINE for the rest of the gen. That includes the GTA6 spike and PS4 Pro projections (assuming they haven't quietly killed Pro post-Jimbo.) If you're Xbox, and you see the market leader projecting a decline, and you know you're way behind them....how are you feeling about your console business right about now? Is it a growth area? Is it where you invest? Absolutely not.

When you have PC in your pocket and now mobile in your pocket, and now can also cash in on your cometitor's hardware too...... You really have to be looking at your single digit percentages on your low revenue console-only market and asking some questions.

Does that mean they won't make hardware? No. Does that mean the PC plan is dead? No. But it does mean that the feeling of second class players and a constant air of uncertainty persists as they do. And they're not going to invest huge initiatives into the consoles or take losses on them easily. I think they're going to focus on mobile and PC. Make some money from PS. They may still make Xboxes as a path to play those PC games for less. But I think the marketing mood will be very much that the console is the pleb PC and not it's own thing. Which isn't entirely bad...but I think that's where it goes.

Now as for Windows, I think the problem they will have with Windows Store and converting Xbox games to PC, is going to be licensing. With an "Xbox console that's a PC" they'll have to get clever with legal fights to retain the "console license" they have with publishers on a PC. For actual PC conversion I think that get's legally hairy. I'm sure there might be clever ways to do it, maybe run it through an emulator on the actual hardware firmware ROM dump or something to somehow make the legalities work. But that's where that's going to get tricky.

They REALLY need to fix windows store though. How is Elden Ring not even on there? Let along not being cross buy. How is freaking SKYRIM not crossbuy, and the Windows Store version doesn't even support mods, the main reason to play Skyrim on PC, no, you need to get the Steam version for that. Truly awful.

Note that CONSOLES are not the third most profitable part of their business. Gaming is. PC gaming, Mobile gaming. Cloud gaming. Even PS gaming. The console isn't making up that third. I do see them focusing on PC mostly. We'll see how they word things in June, but I expect to basically see a PC showcase from MS that's also on Xbox. Heck most of their big brands they've bought and their big studios (Blizz, BGS) are PC-first studios. Again, not a bad thing, but not really screaming "console priority" to me.

Agree on the latter though. MS has a cluster on their hands with Windows Store, but PC always was and always will be their focus. Xbox exists exclusively to stop Sony siphoning Windows games. That's why they built it to begin with. Sony, I see them shifting more and more into PC, and if console dies, they'll be there on PC. They've been on PC before. They made "computer games" before they made consoles as well. They had their own computer format at one point.

Nintendo, they'd absolutely go mobile. Furukawa did talk about that they consider the possible "future without hardware" so that's very much contingencies they have going, and Nintendo is perfectly fit for the mobile market. Heck, they'd get even richer there.

@HonestHick I still say Myth was the best game Bungie ever made. I'll die on that hill.

360 was a weird anomaly. it's their one success and also a step in the wrong direction. Xbox was supposed to save PC gaming from consoles by bringing PC gaming into consoles on MS's terms. And it did. Then 360 happened and they made this weird "better playstation than playstation" Great, it was cool, it sold well...but why was Xbox suddenly a PS/Sega style console? It was supposed to be a consolified PC to bolster PC gaming? Then they did the X1 which wanted to be a home theater appliance? Two steps in the wrong direction. Then X1X finally started bringing the PC back into the XBox. And just as they release Series and get on track a little, they flip to cloud (read: mobile) and then just bought candy crush for $80b. Finally they'll land back on an actual PC, call it an xbox, and whatever... Can't make it up. 50 cooks in one kitchen trying to make toast.

@NEStalgia if Nintendo was on mobile the world couldn’t print enough money fast enough to keep up HAHA.

Well i would say the 360 did a little bit of what Xbox was hoping. Remember it was the console that had PC architecture over the cell. It was responsible for bring COD and others from PC to console. While the cell was a mess for it. Hence Sony’s switch with the PS4. 360 was bringing games only ever playable on PC. Plus they had great deals with dev’s to make sure they had big releases when they needed the,m. Unlike the Xbox One that went on droughts like the Texas rain. So i think the 360 did a lot of what they built it to do. Even if the strategy did change some. OG Xbox changed gaming on console in a really great way also, at least for me. But dang it.. the Xbox one was my console purely based on liking the controller mostly. Later it was because the One X ran RDR2 best. Series X i am still wondering if i really like it for more than Ui and controller over PS5. We need a reason and GP isn’t for me or shall I say does much for me. It’s good for what it is. Hoping this showcase gives us great reason to be excited for it and not just hey it’s here if you want to use it.

@Banjo- I just want to say that the Play Anywhere program is highly underrated and one I would like to see expanded (but I think most publishers won't play ball with it).

@HonestHick 360 was IBM PowerPC RISC architecture, not Intel/AMD x86. Same architecture as GCN, Wii and WiiU actually. x86 wasn't until X1/PS4. Yeah, Cell was REALLY weird and problematic and Xbox was more sane (and oddly more Nintendo) to develop for by a landslide, but it was still miles away from PC architecture.

Which, again, was a REAAAALLY weird thing for Xbox to do.The OG Xbox was a bog standard Pentium 3 and Geforce 3 running NT. Why did they change their entire design over to copy Nintendo's? It was a weird move. A success...but a weird move, and is I think part of why Xbox flounders today. Despite the 360 being a success, it also brought them so far away from where they wanted to be by going 100% down the consumer electronics rabbit hole it did zero to do what they wanted to do with making PCs standard.

Technically, if we assume the ORIGINAL goal of the Xbox console in 1999 design is still it's real purpose, which was to prevent PS from pulling game development from DirectX and thus windows dependency for the lucrative game PC rapid turnover sales market, I'd say now that we have handheld Windows PCs on the market and growing, mission accomplished, the box is not needed anymore. It did what it was meant to do. It secured Windows PCs and the DX SDK as the platform devs develop on, and thus consumers play on and buy more Windows PCs for. It fulfilled its mission statement. It was a success. The 360 was an awkward detour though. It did help bring PC games to console (and ultimately replaced console games with pretty much all PC games) but it was an architecture side adventure that led nowhere.

But yeah, the problem with the Series is, I also prefer it's UI, it's digital ecosystem, and its controller to PS5. But that's hardly a hat to hang a platform on. I like GP, but, GP is on PC too. And has more games on the PC version for less money.............. I bought back into Xbox on the OneX because I wanted to dip into a digital ecosystem, and it was more powerful than the PS4 Pro I had. I debated between going PC and Xbox at the time and valued the lower price and the much less hassle of XB while getting some benefits from PC. But if I were just buying into this gen now? I honestly can't think of any reason I'd pick XB as a first timer. It comes down to if you like Fallout vs God of War I guess, but opening the hint of "maybe anything comes to PS" makes that an awkward carrot for the stick too.

@HarmanSmith yeah, it's arguably the best part of the ecosystem, and is practically non-existent. Almost no publishers have any interest. Honestly I'm not sure if it's because they don't want to give a 2 for 1 licence for PC or if its because they don't actually have an interest in listing their games in the PC Windows store at all. Because most that don't do Play Anywhere, also don't list any PC version at all.

@NEStalgia i hear all those points. Just not sure what direction i want to take for the rest of this gen and next. The upcoming game shows in May and June will hopefully help some. Sony say’s they will show their 3 year plan. Which i think we can all guess is more PC and first party games. Xbox will show some great content i have no doubt but how much of it is coming soon and is it all going to PS5? If so that makes their show as much a PS show as a Xbox show. Takes some of the excitement away from it. At least for me it does. Time will tell, i do hope MS get’s back to console like the OG with a handheld on the side cause doesn’t that just seem safe? I mean the devs will just port the PC version over would be my guess. That seems like a win for all parties included.

@HonestHick Yeah I'm in the exact same position. A few weeks ago I knew I was getting an Xbox handheld, playing my library, getting next Gen pcxbox, skipping PS5 pro. And here I am shopping Newegg. Not sure if it makes it better or worse that I'm not a PC noob, I'm a jaded vet who left for good

I decided to skip the Xbox handheld and dip my toes into PC with a Legion. That's going to be my test for if I can really tolerate replacing my Xbox with a big rig. I'm still patching windows, configuring windows, installing steam and gog and epic and managing all the passwords and is so much "fun" and that's without worrying about the build. Otoh I got dragon age inquisition free, hit sleeping dogs for $3, Witcher complete, drm free for $10, cp2077 for $24, Skyrim for an effing 6th platform for 16 (was 10 for non anniversary) and judgment 1 and 2 and dlc for $33...... So theres Perks if you just wait to buy games older. Hogwarts is already 30.

But.....I can't play any of it because..... I'm still configuring windows and managing passwords and security verification....... And on and on. And even if I do a big rig it's still 1500 or more just to slightly beat the current consoles. No way I'd approach next Gen for another 8 years.

My personal theory for June is it'll feel like a pc show. It'll have great games. We won't know if they're soon. They'll talk about call off duty a lot. They'll talk about wow a lot. They'll talk about mobile. D4 will get time. They'll avoid taking hardware or plans. They'll talk "every screen" but not clarify. I'n reality I think most games will be timed exclusive (including PC and game pass) eventually most things go ps. They'll probably retain a few true exclusives, no idea what.

The real problem is I think the show we need to know where we stand isn't until June 2025 or 26.

I think Xbox itself may go on for a while but what I don't know is if it will be exciting or will live as a zombie. 50/50. My next 2 Xbox purchases are atlus games which are among the only play anywhere, so I'm covered either way for a while. My last 2 were infinite wealth and man who erased, so covered there too

Fwiwi suspect the next hardware will be cool. Ms hardware always is. I just don't know if they'll drop the marketing ball. We know it'll be expensive. But it may be cheaper and better than any rig under $1800. But then you can't buy sleeping dogs for $3. 😂

@NEStalgia yeah man windows updates and passwords all sound like hell to me. But it is part of playing on PC. I think Xbox lives on i just need to know why i need to own it outside of controller and Ui. But maybe it’s just cause i like it better and not worry about if Gears is coming to PS5. Let that be good and exciting for those that don’t want a Xbox. PC is my last resort. Xbox and PS will have to really suck and it’s possible they will. I think Xbox should say you know what we aren’t going to sell much to causals and the ones we do we could get them in on a handheld that docks to the tv so let our console be insane expensive and powerful for the hardcore group and let Sony be more console power and form factor. I would go for that. I would and i ain’t saying everyone or yourself would agree, but i would pay $700-$800 for a Xbox that is capable of being a powerhouse that avoids updates and drivers and all that PC stuff. Sure it might only hit 25 million in sales. But thats not to far off from where they are now and the rest would be happy with the docked handheld experience. If it were to live on like that I would be all in. Dev’s won’t care if it has low install numbers cause they are porting the PC game. The handheld software would fall somewhere around PS6-Switch 2, so that would be the real work for the devs. Not saying they will, but anything to keep me off PC would be fine. Also if it uses windows and PC software mouse and keyboard should be a option, so many WOW comes out to it and i would jump back into that. Throw the mobile store on the handheld and now they are selling to their full strength of the ABK buyout. They would have a place for WOW and Diablo, COD and Candy Crush. On thing is for sure and thats somewhere JIMBO is asking why you didn’t just buy a PS Portal and avoid the windows updates.

@NEStalgia Considering how much Playstation/Microsoft are struggling with costs and profit margins, it really is hilarious how enormous Nintendo's profits in the Switch era are.

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2024/05/nintendos-profit-during-the-switch-generation-is-absolutely-wild

People laughed at them for years for developing cheaper games on underpowered hardware that doesn't lose them money, but look where we are now.

@Ralizah Nintendo kind of confuses me because they're kind of the opposite problem but still a problem. No doubt they're making money, they're making in most cases incredibly budget products and selling them at luxury prices. The rest of the industries spending 3x more than they can hope to earn notwithstanding, the idea that Nintendo pumps out what in any other view is a $20 indie game at Best, a $7 mobile game at worst and charges $60 for years and people actually buy it is fascinating and kind of horrifying. I both love and hate Nintendo because of this. It was charming in the wii and 3ds but starts looking egregious now. Plus the games were priced appropriately back then.

I think a happy medium was a necessity and somehow it just never happens. Kudos to Phil. He tried it with the series s. Consumers mocked or by ignoring it and the industry hated it openly. But I think if Sony has released a PS5 lite along side series s in 2020 the industry would be in a much better place.

This is the 1st and last gen I get an Xbox.

Got a series s so I play xbox exclusives for the first time ever.

Why bother if i can play most exclusives on a PS5 AND sony exclusives.

@Netret0120 To be fair Ms is vague about what goes to Ps and always will be. Getting ms games on ps will be like getting square games on Xbox. It might happen. Someday. Or might not. I.e. until now if you cared about square you still needed a ps. Same with Ms games, if they're important to you you'll still need an xb or PC I think Rather than deal with the maybe, someday path.

@HonestHick day 1 with PC.....I spent hours and hours troubleshooting a problem with the hardware id not matching the license server on a new machine and it still isn't resolved and will take many more hours. That's the pc having I remember!

Otoh, steam, gog, epic all work just fine. The problem then? Xbox! It's only game pass and Xbox purchases that have this problem, so my whole PC problem is moving from Xbox. If I ignore Xbox purchases and game pass everything is rosy. Maybe it's an omen.

Yeah I can see Ms having a win with that strategy. Only thing the have to watch is if the price gets high enough, but the hardware isn't overpowered for the money, how many people will buy it instead of just pc? Though for me there's the issue that Microsoft games don't actually run on Windows even though it recognizes my gp sub.

Lol I actually considered a portal. Then realized it streams worse then 3rd party remote play software, doesn't support their own cloud, and requires proprietary earbuds because Bluetooth is just to hard to comprehend apparently.

@NEStalgia you couldn’t give me a portal cause it’s the one thing i don’t love about PS. The controller. I mean it’s an ok controller. Honestly if the triggers were better and they shrunk it down in size by removing the touchpad, I would be fine with the dual sense. Yeah man i just don’t know if i want the headache with PC. I am playing a lot right now of the new season in diablo 4 and there is a warning on it with NVIDA, saying they are aware and to disable something. Meanwhile i am playing and it runs smooth.

I agree big time and you hit the nail square on the head by saying MS games on PS will be like Square are they coming or not and if so when. That was a money and a half statement.

@NEStalgia It would've made the PS5 an optimization nightmare like the Series S has been lol.

Nintendo is a demonstration that brand integrity and strong game design are more potent than inflated budgets for getting people excited about premium-priced products.

@NEStalgia I'm not saying that I don't believe you, but you are considering only part of the big picture, comparing even PS5 and Series S|X sales. I just don't get it. Very importantly, Microsoft spends one billion on third-party deals for Game Pass every year and they earn around five billion just with subscriptions every year, then add digital sales of first and third-party games and DLC. Xbox and Game Pass (consoles and PC) is a huge business, even if the consoles market is limited (as I have said before). The console market being limited is a smaller problem for Microsoft than for the other two. We see the future and hypothetical future of the three the same and I also see the future of Xbox the safest for consumers, all things considered, but then you are worrying for no reason.

No doubt they're making money, they're making in most cases incredibly budget products and selling them at luxury prices. The rest of the industries spending 3x more than they can hope to earn notwithstanding, the idea that Nintendo pumps out what in any other view is a $20 indie game at Best, a $7 mobile game at worst and charges $60 for years and people actually buy it is fascinating and kind of horrifying. I both love and hate Nintendo because of this. It was charming in the wii and 3ds but starts looking egregious now. Plus the games were priced appropriately back then.

I couldn't agree more. As a life-long Nintendo fan, the Nintendo of the Switch era is kind of repulsive if you also add the lack of any digital cross-buy even after merging the NNID and Nintendo accounts, the expensive ports, the lack of Wii U pro controller support, the quality of the hardware and the illegal practices in this part of the world such as non-refundable digital pre-orders and no proper guarantee for the hardware. It never ceases to amaze me the amount of praise they always get online, precisely now that they are their worst version.

@HonestHick

insane expensive and powerful for the hardcore group and let Sony be more console power and form factor.

What you're saying makes a lot of sense for Microsoft: a high-end, really high-end console that will be basically a gaming PC with Xbox/Windows PC games for the Xbox hardcore crowd and the hybrid console that is a lower specs handheld Windows PC with an Xbox user interface and the best value for the masses. Then, there's PC for those that don't care about investing time and money in configuration, upgrades, etc., and mobile/Cloud for the casual players, the majority of the players.

@HarmanSmith Play Anywhere should be expanded, indeed. At the very least, include all first-party games. For instance, they added Spyro Reignitied Trilogy and Crash N.sane Trilogy to the Windows store very recently, but no cross-buy yet.

@Ralizah Brand integrity, yes, but when I think premium pricing Nintendo is the first name that comes to mind. I see them more like Apple. They can charge anything for anything and they know it because BRAND. Sony at their worst is just imitating Nintendo.

@HonestHick Yeah, if even considering PC you really need to know what you're signing up for. Maybe it's less bad than it was long ago, but you're still signing up to maintain your equipment as much as to use it. Like your gun hobby, if you're not going to enjoy cleaning and oiling as much as going to the range, it's a bad hobby.

I'm still kicking it around and experimenting and may or may not choose that direction, but I do fear between hardware cost and lack of real game sharing etc the cost of going that way is far more than can be justified.

@Banjo- GP revenue seems good though on a corporate level I wonder what the opportunity cost is. If they're giving up greater potential sales to capture a market that's not growing well don't know what they'll do.

We do agree Xbox is still the best bet for longevity sink or swim if the consoles. Just can't help but wonder if going pc now instead of later if it all ends up pc anyway makes more sense. But with. Ms you never know. In a few years they may try to force the console and lock out PC, you never can tell with them.

Otoh. Windows store, thus PC game pass and play anywhere is a joke and a disaster. I honestly can't imagine why anyone on PC would put up with their convoluted broken store when you have like 5 other stores to choose from. The Xbox store is fine. The windows store is a dumpster fire dosed in tar, hit with a welding torch then thrown in an active volcano.

Agreed on Nintendo. I really don't understand why switch era Nintendo is so wildly praised in the Internet. It's had highlights absolutely, but compared to the past several months generations it feels soulless. Switch is what drove me after being nearly all Nintendo for generations to focus mostly on ps/xb most of the time. I think the problem is that to anyone that didn't own a wiiu or a great console. To anyone that did own a wiiu it's a wiiu Pro and most of the hits were front loaded 7 years ago but nobody owned a wiiu.

@Banjo- im glad it made sense, cause sometimes i am overthinking what they could do to get hardware moving and maybe it’s GP having more big titles over time but maybe it’s not. I do think the S will be the Handheld and the X will be the under the TV console and thats a good strategy. However build the console really powerful and make sure it’s a 60fps machine for unreal engine 5 games.

@NEStalgia "I really don't understand why switch era Nintendo is so wildly praised in the Internet."

I mean, it's probably going to rocket past PS2 lifetime sales in, like, half the time, so it's not really a matter of the console just being popular on the internet.

On my end, I can't think of a console I've enjoyed more. It's an explicitly Japanese device with decent third-party support, tons of high-quality exclusives, and a concept/gimmick that amazed at launch and continues to be useful and make the console more accessible than its peers. Most of the games on it are lacking qualities that plague AAA titles on other systems.

It's honestly the first Nintendo console I could have absolutely mained on its own. There's always something fun to play.

@NEStalgia I really don't know about the Windows store because I don't game much on PC. Many people complain about it, but don't explain why. Play Anywhere is an excellent idea because you get games for both console, desktop computers and of course laptops, but it should be expanded and cover all first-party games since they started it. Third-party games are trickier to get. This, FPS Boost and free enhanced backwards compatibility make Xbox too good to ignore and it has become my favourite gaming platform since Xbox One. Switch is my least favourite Nintendo console ever.

"Soulless" is an accurate definition of today's Nintendo. In my case, it was the Wii U and Switch transition what made me reconsider and so I bought the PS4 and later the Xbox One. Looking back, Wii U had a short but sweet life until Nintendo killed it and abandoned its supporters.

The thing about PC and laptops is that I find myself only playing games when I'm home and I prefer the console experience. I don't take my Switch with me either. I have only used it on one vacation, when I started Tears of the Kingdom, not being able to read most of the text. Screens are super important for me. The 3DS, on the other hand, is fantastic and I still think that it has a better screen and also it's Nintendo's best handheld ever. The screen of the Switch Lite is absolute rubbish, the screen of the (v2) regular Switch is okay, at best. We discussed about this time ago, don't ask me why, I think the smaller New 3DS is the best, screen included. Of course, the resolution is low but the video looks perfectly fine, not blurry like on Switch and the games are designed for it.

The Switch OLED should be better but I decided to sold my Lite and get the v2 instead and I paid nothing because I also sold some games. The Switch OLED is overpriced and I knew it would stay plugged into the TV. If I skip Nintendo's next generation console, it would be the first one I skip since I was a kid and my parents gave me the SNES, excluding Virtual Boy, that wasn't released here. That gives you an idea. By the way, there is a new Virtual Boy emulator for 3DS, Red Viper, that works perfectly fine. Wii U, well, it plays Wii games and even GC games natively (soft-modded) and of course it has the Virtual Console of Wii U and Wii, plus Wiiware. I'm not paying for renting roms of games I own from 30 years ago. Nothing of that works for me, and even the new first-party games have been watered down and casualised. Mario and Zelda have always been my Nintendo quality benchmark and have failed with BotW, TotK and SMO. SMO is my disappointment of the generation. Then you have the weirdest Animal Crossing. Do you remember our tracking of new first-party Switch exclusives? 🤣 Thanks for your support then, in between.

I bought Luigi's Mansion 3 and Link's Awakening when I traded the Lite, but I haven't played them. I played Link's Awakening on Game Boy, though. I will get Pikmin 4, also second-hand. I'm not buying the Wii U ports again. The only Wii U port I got for Switch was Mario Kart 8, that it's also my least favourite Mario Kart game ever, but I wanted to have the fixed battle mode. The funny thing is that the game I was looking forward to the most when I got the Switch was Metroid Prime 4 and it hasn't been released.

@HonestHick It makes sense because of handheld PCs and Switch, but both the high-end console and hybrid console must be computers with an Xbox UI to make things straight-forward and easy.

@Ralizah Sales of switch/switch popularity can be atributed to quite a few things, including the 2020 bump, and zero stock on other consoles. A lot of it is marketing. people bought it like it was the first handheld gaming system ever....as though GB, GBC, GBA, DS, 3DS, PSP, Vita never existed. That's just marketing power and nothing more. The docking gimmick is great, but it won through marketing more than anything. For the casual market, mobile gamers, etc, I get it.

But for enthusiasts, internet people, existing Nitnendo handheld customers.....I don't get the hype on the internet. It's Japansese, but not nearly as Japanese as the 3DS before it. The third party support is by nature just a worse version of things on other systems, the price is high for the hardware though it fits a role, and the exclusives, IMHO most (not all) Nitnendo excluisives went downhill on Switch. It's telling that the biggest ones are, by far, ports of superior WiiU games (including BotW, supposed to be WiiU exclusive, delayed for NX when WiiU cirlced the drain), direct sequels to WiiU games (Splatoon 1.5 and Splatoon 3), or, in the case of Pikmin 4, a game designed by Miyamoto himself and said was nearly finished back in the mid-WiiU cycle, but they held in the can until last year. Virtually none of the handful of actual Swithch games have been nearly as impressive. Yes, there's a few standouts. Worth bying the system to play? Maybe. But making it one of the best platforms? Not really, just worth buying for select games or uses.

For me, personally 3DS managed to top SNES as my favorite system of all time. It was special. Somehow it just had EVERYTHING going on right for it. Switch has felt comparably generic. And when it laucnhed I expected it would easily surpass 3DS. It surprised me in the wrong way. Would a dockable 3DS have been an even better 3DS? Sure. But Switch somehow fell short of being that.

@Banjo- The Windows store isn't bad in just one way but 100 ways. The worst is how finnicky it is and how the "licensing" works which is what is giving me a bad time, it ties to the hardware id, but that can get broken by itself, in my case apparently due to having 10 MS devices already on a somewhat hidden hard to find list of MS devices tied to your account for the store (Separate from the list of devices tied to your account), but it doesn't tell you you've reached your limit, it just happily goes through with a non-existent hadware license. And then when you figure it out after hours of troubleshooting, getting it to correct itself is virtually impossible. On top of that the store doesn't recognized that a thing is already downloaded, so it makes you download the same thing over and over across user accounts. Everything is presented in a horrible list that makes finding things impossible. It feels like it's a product of 1999 with a modern skin. They then "fix" this for gaming, by having the Xbox app act as a second app (that you get from the store but comes in 3 parts), that then is a second interface to download (but not buy?) games, but it goes through the MS store for its backend, but can be logged in as 2 different users which causes errors, but sometimes NEEDS to be logged in as a different user for permissions, but that breaks it.

Mine's in a state that the Windows Store and Xbox store both recognize I have GPU, shows the GPU icon, lets me download and install GPU games, but if you run them, errors out because the "device id doesn't match" the license server, but after I removed devices (X1, old laptops) from the 10/10 max devices store list, that you have to search to find, the machine won't proprly register itself to the list, showing up as a generic line "PC" instead of it's serial, which doesn't work. In time it did add itself with its real serial from the Windows Store, but then the Xbox store re-added it as "PC" and still didn't work because of the mismatch. It's a trainwreck. I logged in on a different machine, that doesn't actually have gaming hardware, so it can't run the game, and on THAT machine I got it to recognize it and start the game! But that one was already in the list. It's a menace. If the store sees my active membership, or ownership...that should be the beginning and end of it.

Yeah, there's...something....missing with the recent Nintendo output. Maybe it's the young devs they've turned it over to just don't have the spark. Maybe it's because most of it is outsourced. It feels mass produced and factory line. People talk about the Nintendo charm, but a lot of their games this gen don't have that charm to me. It's telling, one of the few recent games that as a ton of real charm is Princess Peach Showtime. Unsurprisingly the credits list the Senior Supervisors: Miyamoto and Tezuka. of course. Only the game overseen by the OG's has that spark. It's a short game, but it could have been an SNES game. Unfortunatley for the future, Miyamoto + Tezuka = Nintendo (special mention to Koizumi.) Anything not touched by them misses the magic. I include Aunuma in that list, he made some great Zelda games, but the classics, 1, ALTTP, Ocarina, BotW, all have Miyamoto involved directly.

WiiU was such a great console. It failed for so many reasons, and they didn't have a choice but to kill it, its disaster makes Xbox look good.... But ending it the way they did as this half-console will always feel dissappointing. I still feel, missteps and "wii accessory" aside like if they hadn't launched it mere MONTHS before the X1/PS4 hype started ramping up it would have had a different life. The industry went x86 just as it launched, and that killed it for 3rd party.

YES! We both agree on 3DS! We're definitely in the same Nintendo mindeset. That 3DS screen was so tiny, so low res, but it worked super-well. The 3D helped, too, the little screen felt bigger than big screens.

Technically I think the Switch screens are ok, and especially OLED, the problem is the games are running such low internal resolution that it can't not be blurry.

I have to say I did enjoy SMO, I thought it was great fun, and one of the few actually great exclusives on Switch. BotW I thought felt great at the time, but aged quickly as other games caught up to it and did it better. ToTk is just....I can't. At least it took risks though. And I stil still say it would be a great game with different control inputs. That Animal Cross is horrendous in every way though. It's a mobile game top to bottom but without monetization (this gen...) 3DS maybe the last great console platform. LOL on Metroid Prime 4. That thing is in worse development hell than Perfect Dark and Fable at this point

As for PC, it's.....it's a thing. It definitely is a different world and I don't see any way to manage it without a keyboard and mouse handy (or touch screen, the laptops/handhelds are easier.) Steam-only can bypass that but then if you're Steam-only you're still basically making a glorified console. I still don't know if I'll try to switch or not. Windows Store is a mess. Some other things are a hassle. Keyboards are a pain. A million logins are a pain. Hardware costs 2-3x more just to get the same performance. OTOH as I mess with sliders to dial the graphics exactly where they need to be to get 60fps....I can't say I couldn't get used to that

@NEStalgia

"Sales of switch/switch popularity can be atributed to quite a few things, including the 2020 bump, and zero stock on other consoles. A lot of it is marketing. people bought it like it was the first handheld gaming system ever....as though GB, GBC, GBA, DS, 3DS, PSP, Vita never existed. That's just marketing power and nothing more. The docking gimmick is great, but it won through marketing more than anything."

This is pure copium, come on. Obviously the strong concept and marketing were important, but people have to like the thing you're marketing in the first place.

Did Switch get a bump during the height of the pandemic? Sure. But it sold well before, and it sold well after, even as other consoles have become obtainable again. It has been consistently popular.

Switch isn't the first console that can be played as a handheld, of course, but it's the first major one that has allowed the user to play home console-quality games. Something Sony promised with the Vita, but which never materialized.

You don't have to like the platform, but acting like it's the beneficiary of some random level of popularity with casuals like the Wii because they couldn't buy PS5s is being deliberately disingenuous.

"The third party support is by nature just a worse version of things on other systems"

On the AAA front, sure. This isn't true at all when it comes to non-AAA software.

Notably, though, the third-party support is the best Nintendo has enjoyed since the GameCube.

"the price is high for the hardware though it fits a role"

The price was high enough for Nintendo not to lose money, but low enough to appeal to a market filled with more expensive hardware. The Series S is comparably priced, but the Series S is also almost nobody's first choice for buying a console. You want an example of a console people bought almost exclusively because the bigger ones were inaccessible? Here you go.

"IMHO most (not all) Nitnendo excluisives went downhill on Switch."

This is an extremely unpopular opinion. shrug For most series, many gamers, myself included, think the Switch entries represent the apex of those respective properties.

Also, I have news for you: BotW, Pikmin 4, Splatoon 2 & 3, etc. are also "actual Switch games."

The Wii U was a misfire from the start, centering all its resources on the stupid, expensive tablet controller almost nobody cared about to begin with and which the system wouldn't function without. It had some excellent games, but that's because it's Nintendo and all of their consoles (sans maybe the Virtual Boy) have some world-class software. I use mine mostly for its bc Wii games.

You asked why people like it, and I answered. You don't have to like it, of course, but for most people, Switch-era Nintendo is the company's new golden age. The numbers back this up. Nintendo has raked in more profit during this console generation than their other ones COMBINED, even adjusting for inflation.

@NEStalgia Wait because PC barely beats high-end consoles in graphics and we will know about the next Xbox soon. Play part of the consoles backlog, although I read that you are already going through the PC process again.

I haven't played Princess Peach Showtime, it looks a bit like Mario Party for one player. I will try the demo if there's one. I was Nintendo only until the last generation, so I've played the whole Kingdom Hearts, Gears of War and Halo series among others in recent years. I have also played Assassin's Creed I, The Ezio Collection, III and Liberation so far. I read that Ubisoft is supposedly remaking Black Flag, so I might wait for that and play Rogue and other IPs in the meantime, because Rogue and Black Flag are heads or tails.

Back to Nintendo, I completely agree with you and the reasons that you have provided for its current success are solid. I have talked with people that feel exactly the same about Nintendo games no longer being magical but boring and silly. No fun in replaying them like the old games. It makes sense, since the majority of original designers and directors are not working on the new games. It's as simple as Nintendo is not Nintendo, but a new Nintendo. A new Nintendo that is more marketable and aimed at parents buying for children. Just watch the film. Mass-produced casualised games with linear gameplay, heavy controls and tacky music. Miyamoto and Tezuka are missing. Just a look at the credits of Super Mario World, the director is Tezuka, the producer is Miyamoto, the designers are Katsuya Eguchi and Hideki Konno and the composer is Koji Kondo. Look at what happens when the new staff make a Mario game: New Super Mario Bros. 2. Even the critically acclaimed Super Mario Bros. Wonder is very tacky and has been casualised. The original Nintendo became famous because of what the original staff did, the new Nintendo is famous because of the brand and the IPs and just replace people and outsource games as needed. They don't make masterpieces like before and I don't care what Metacritic says. Actually, I no longer read "professional" reviews. 🤣

@NEStalgia yeah thats a great point about having to enjoy all of the hobby and not just the fun part. I am still not sure i want to go PC and it’s because i know i would want high end specs to just run everything much better than console, plus i see a lot of ports on PC not run well on medium settings cause the port teams don’t know how to optimize for PC as well as they do console. They just assume the extra power will be enough to run the game. Last of Us was a mess on PC at launch as an example. Not sure i want the bad ports and have to wait for them to correct it when i spent that kind of money. Gears of War on a high end PC will look so good it will tempt me. Otherwise i am fine with console most of the time.

@Banjo- Well it depends on price. A $1000 PC matches or lightly exceeds current consoles. 1500-1600 can beat them decently, and then $3k curb stomps them. But yeah $1500 to get something better than current gen but then will get beat by next Gen. Then again Phil already suggested next Gen will be more expensive, and we don't know how much. So it may start closing the gap. I doubt it gets 4090 equivalent for under 1k, so hard to say how they do it.

Not sure yet what I'll do. Messing with the Legion handheld PC. Kind of impressed minus game pass and Windows store. Might I go full PC? Not sure yet. There's good and bad.

Peach is relatively short but it's a lot of variety which keeps it engaging with enough collect a thon to give some replay. But it's also Kirby type easy. Certainly kid oriented. Very charming though. You can tell miyamoto was involved.

Exactly about Nintendo. They do have some great games still but they're far and few between. The new Nintendo is Disnified Nintendo and just as fiercely loved. It's McNintendo. Fast food factory made fixes for when you just need your Mario exactly as you remember it. The total random creativity is a dried well, and the few great experiences were bottled from the old well.

@HonestHick Yeah, I mean, I'm considering it...I may, or may not go that way, I'm half into it now, but it's a little different for me because I'm returning to it, not new to it. It's revisiting a past life where I didn't mind living at a desk. And even when I re-entered XB with 1X I was 50/50 split between going PC or XB but settled on XB as a happy medium. So I already know "the lifestyle" of PC gaming, both the good and the bad. Lived it for over a decade already. Mostly the bad lol.

I still would never recommend "high end" on PC. Some will disagree. And obviously "get the best you can afford" always applies, but high end, generally means extreme price premium. Paying 2x the price or more to get that last 15%. And it's great if you've got that cash, but it'll be obsolete just as fast as the weaker part. Just going on RTX prices you have the true midrange 4060's which are "XSX equivalent, maybe marginally better", for $300. Next real jump up is 4070 Tis for like $600-700. Then you get to the 4080s for over $1k. And then 4090s for lolwut. But they'll both be as obsolete for say RT functions when 60xx comes out in a few years, etc. If you're a hardcore PC hobbyist with so much excess income you just need to find something else to put next to your Rolex and Bimmer, then 4090s are for you. Unlike the Rolex and Bimmer, though, it's a totally disposable waste of money worthless in a few years.

OTOH I think one of the appeals (or lack of appeals) with the current gen is, the same lack of optimization goes into the console games these days and your "performance" mode option often isn't. At least in PC you can dial back shaders and reflections shadows and internal res and everything until you can get to an acceptable fps, or just max the gfx and run a 15fps. That's the one place that's great. But there's also the disaster optimizations too.

That said these days most games are really PC-first, and the consoles are a port, at least the "special" ones (Bethesda, CDPR, most Sega stuff, etc). Sony's problem with their ports is their studios are so used to being so close to the metal, and design things so specifically for the hardware (perviously their main strength) that they really are lost when it comes to trying to port to general purpose, it's not how they engineer things there. But it will be going forward. Totoki's doubling down on "other platforms" (clarified to be PC, but who knows), so I'm sure studios will be aligned to do things in standard multiplat methods (but the first party performance will suffer for it.)

But generally, yeah, PC means pay a lot more for hardware for not much more (or possibly worse) performance, wait for ports of console-first games (if they come.) But also pay less for them. Tweak each game to work at the performance you want but hope it's not a dodgy port. But it depends on studio. Anything Todd Howard, expect PC is the best experience by far, it's build for PC, it's build around mods that don't exist on console (or even on the PC version through the Windows store (W T F?!) But many other games? Not so much.

It's absolutely a frontier. Trilling, nerve wracking, and you really do need to plan to "run the machine" and not just "play a game." I both want to, and very much don't want to get back into that. Despite what people say, just dipping into it with a premade PC handheld, yeah, things are better than the AGP days when USB1.0 was dodgy and driver dependent and RAMBUS made a mess of everything. But its still not "plug and play". SteamOS probably is. But going the normal Windows route, if you're considering it seriously, know what you're signing up for.

Even minor differences like FFXIV, on XB, PS you just log in once, and then click the green login button every time you play. PC? You must type your password every time you launch it. Which is fun if you have a 20-digit random string for a password. Sometimes it's the stupid inconveniences that irritate more than the big things. Means you NEED a keyboard to launch the game, no exceptions.

@NEStalgia those are a lot of the points that i don’t like about PC. I enjoy my Mac computers even less and less over the years, why? Cause 98% of what i do when i leave my work computer (windows) i don’t do at home on my Mac and iPad. I am not some computer science major, i know enough to make a living using one. I know maybe enough to sound smart to the average user and thats it. So all the basic functions i use at home. I can do quicker and easier on my iPad. Sure i think Apple gimps the iPad so it don’t cut into Mac sales and yes they have a point that a touch based Os on small screens isn’t a great experience. But i love my iPad with the keyboard and mouse. I am not saying to anyone it’s a PC replacement, it’s not. But for 90% of people it can be. I won’t go into how expensive iPad is cause it’s insane. So back to PC gaming. I am not going to be good at most of what i would need to do outside of gaming. Let’s be clear on this, i don’t know how to build them, i am unaware of compatibility and certain updates needed. I can’t use mouse and keyboard for games. I would want a controller, yes even for Diablo 4 on PC i would play it with a Xbox controller and i haven’t even gotten to price yet which is more than I’d like to spend. My work office/desk from home is small, so i would need a new desk, chair, monitor thats another expense. I already have great audio/ video setup for my consoles. I took the bait from the Tango closing and Xbox games coming to PS5 and ran with my favorite console is dying, i better run to PC. But is it dying? Not really, sure MS could do better but i am not convinced Xbox hardware is getting the plugged pulled anytime soon and if it does there’s still PS6. Sure it’s not my favorite but it works. I don’t know. You have a more sensible approach to what PC gaming is like, the videos i watch online try and disprove that notion and make it seem like it’s plug and play. I trust you over someone looking for clicks and free PC parts hahaha those YouTubers are about as truthful as ole JIMBO.

@Banjo- i agree and think that would be the best fit for them. If they can turn their hardware around just enough to make it competitive and good business for them they are set. Cause they are raking in cash on software.

@HonestHick That's a lot of good points. And again, you're going to hear other people say "oh, it's easy now, it's just like console, oh you don't need to worry about any of that, steam big picture mode just loads up and everything is fine."

Which can be true. Except when it isn't. And that's when you run into frustration. Sure, Big Picture helps. Assuming you don't want to use anything but Steam, never want GP, don't want DRM-free games from GoG, etc, etc.

But at some point in a PC gaming experience, one way or another, you're going to be digging into control panel, adjusting permissions, setting some flag on a chipset driver somewhere, adjusting power options, troubleshooting network connectivity, doing, SOMETHING. At some point getting a game to run, or fixing a driver update failures, or a store troubleshooter, you're going to get familiar with powershell or the commandline. At some point, every troubleshooting journey leads there. If you don't live in a world where that's normal, that's going to be headache

Building them isn't trouble, I mean if you can build legos you can build PCs. There's less parts and theyre bigger (ignoring the ****king 2 and 3-pin USB/light/and fan header pins.) Parts selection can be baffling but there's enough guides, lists, and "select the parts" lists out there it's no trouble other than the community wisdom of "don't buy this memory if you have this mobo it inexplicably doesn't work."

Controllers for games is fine these days on PC, but you do get lost in troubleshooting at times a controller spontaneously doesn't work. Sometimes it's because it's a non-steam game and steam is hogging the controller unless you exit and kill it. Sometimes it's because of evil pixies that live in your USB port, but you always need a keyboard and mouse to get back to the desktop and FIX whatever pixie is interfering with your controller. Alt+F4 is your friend.

You can setup on a TV, you don't need the desk, but it's a pain having to have a wireless keyb/mo or minikeyb+trackpad stashed away at your couch to work it.

But.... yeah, with that description....I think PC gaming might be a very bad time for you. Steam Deck would be fine. Everything's good when it works, but when it doesn't.....stuff gets ugly.

Yeah, it's been the long pattern from MS that we just don't know where they're going with the hardware. We still don't know, it'll still be good for a while yet, maybe forever, maybe not, though the next xbox will undoubtedly be a PC anyway, you probably won't need to mess with powershell that way

I mean I'm on a looong hiatus from PC gaming since, what, 2010 or so? It's change a lot and also stayed the same a lot. But I was primarily PC from maybe '97-2009. I know the drill. Anyone that tells you it's plug and play is flat out lying, or just hasn't run into trouble yet, or doesn't recognize that what's not trouble for them living in breathing in and getting paid for being a PC gamer is trouble for everyone else. It can be plug and play. It's sometimes plug and play, it's even usually plug and play. But when it's not, it's not, and then you have to roll your sleeves up and work on it. That Bimmer might work off the lot, but eventually it's going to need brakes.

Now do cheap games and the ability to tune them to run as well as you want have advantages that might be worth it? And DRM free games (sometimes) etc? And being able to play Skyrim, Starfield, FO, and TES6 the way Todd intended? Depends.

Myself? I'm still on the fence. I half wanted PC, half wanted convenience, landed on XB, but it was anyone's game back in 2018. Is this a good exit point to make the jump? Maybe. Might also regret that.

You? Based on your overall setup and outlook? I honestly wouldn't recommend it. You're thousands in the hole before you realize you absolutely hate it, and have wasted days you could have been gaming, trying to fix problems. Steam Deck though? Yes, that would work. It's basically a console that happens to be a PC. Linux, not Windows (as Mac is BSD, not Windows, different *NIX flavors. Yeah, MacOS really isn't Apple's it's just SDK's built on top of a free open source OS. )

@NEStalgia yeah i have lately been talking myself out of it with our conversations and just my own thoughts. I give Sony some heck cause of the controller. But outside not loving their controller i would be fine using a PS5 Pro and PS6 as my main driver. The Ui while not my favorite is still decent, even if it does take 6-7 clicks vs 3-4 on Xbox. Even more if you want to get to the games app. WHY is that on the very end and not front row Sony? But i know those YouTubers aren’t saying it all. I have friends that play on PC. They love it and make fun of consoles and it is what it is for them, they are also more in the rabbit hole on PC’s then me. I am not here trying to sound smarter than i am. I over pay for Apple products because they are intuitive and easy to use. I like consoles because when i ask them to do their job it just works. Does that sound lazy to PC users and gamers? Maybe, but i fish and hunt, i try and spend time with family and friends. I am not saying i don’t have time to game, trust me i do and I make time for it. 800 hours on D4 in a year. But my point is i don’t want my time to be learning how to fix or update something i spent all that money on when i could be gaming, then i am going to be frustrated and hope into a game not relaxed. That just don’t sound good for me. I would take a PC that is a Xbox like you have detailed they might do. That sounds excellent. Trying to remember if i know how to use Legos HAHAHA. I’ll get back to you on that.