• 1 Post
  • 11 Comments
Joined 5 months ago
cake
Cake day: January 14th, 2025

help-circle


  • I think tech is far along now that there’s a space for something that is “best of both worlds”. Something that Valve has been trying for a while yet was only successful with the Steam Deck because tech just wasn’t there yet.

    Think about it like this: instead of making a whole Xbox based build, devs simply make the PC version of their game and within that PC version they make a series of graphical presets that are the Xbox version, and another one that is the handheld version. This would lower costs for them while Microsoft focuses on building a windows OS that is gaming focused and suspends all the crap that hogs performance. For you the Xbox would work pretty much the same as it always has except you can now also play Steam, GOG or Epic store games if you want (with the risk of jank). The downside of this is that the next Xbox will 100% not be subsidized if it uses this model, so be ready to pay $700 for it.

    Microsoft’s track record is not great at this type of “fork” but I think for them as a company this path makes more sense than selling subsidized hardware that doesn’t move software because it doesn’t sell well. They can now sell software everywhere and if you want a more optimized experience you can buy their box.


  • You’re clearly not understanding Microsoft’s strategy. They are no longer interested in the hardware market that had been losing them money since forever. In fact Microsoft has been wanting to kill Xbox since like the second year it existed, so this is how they more or less managed to do it while making money instead of just losing all market share. Xbox is now a software platform, and the next Xbox in all likelihood will simply be a prebuilt PC running the Xbox app that they developed for this handheld. It wouldn’t make sense otherwise to be honest.

    There’s not many Xbox (console) only games either. And none come to mind that are from this generation. All of them are also on PC.

    I think this will play out well for them. What would you prefer, the locked down platform that also sells their games on PC (PlayStation) or the more open platform that lets you play anything anywhere?





  • Not really. You dream, even if you don’t remember it. So there’s some continuity there. It’s not the same thing as turning it off and on again. Like there will be a consciousness in your body, and it will be identical (at least for up to a second or two) to the consciousness you are now. But it won’t be the same consciousness. Or at least it’s not clear to me that it is.