What are your thoughts on this? Are you happy? Sad?
I’m extremely curious. If you asked me this as a kid, I would have been celebrating. I always thought games should be accessible to everyone. But now I’m questioning if Microsoft plans to keep the Xbox ecosystem alive.
Exclusive titles are/were the incentive to keep people on certain consoles. Currently, I think only gamepass and digital libraries would be the only reason to stay with Microsoft if they continue to make systems in the future.
Additionally, I’m curious as to how this could destabilize the market. With no direct competition for high end hardware (other than pc/the steam deck), Sony can kinda do whatever they please.
I’m glad that PS5 owners get to play Forza, but overall I don’t have a lot of confidence in Microsoft’s ability to stay in the hardware market, which is concerning for everyone as I think Sony will leverage that position to raise their prices on their hardware and on PSN.
Xbox has said it will be producing a new console next gen with powerful hardware, but I will probably stay away, despite owning a Series console this gen.
I think this is a great move. For context, I have the Xbox consoles, but play mostly or almost exclusively on PC. I think more people can play the games, its better for the gamer and for the publisher too. Xbox has too many good franchises and games as to hold them hostage on their platform (besides PC). This is one of the best moves of Xbox in my opinion.
However, there is the other side of the coin. Because this means less incentive for gamers to buy a dedicated Xbox machine. Which first doesn’t sound bad, because you are not forced into a hardware and eco system you may not want. The implication is, that the Xbox consoles will sell less and Playstation sell more. And its already a huge difference. Sony already show that they can do what they want, publish cheap remasters and sell expensive PS5 Pro and some other stuff I am not mentioning here. This will only get worse, the weaker its competition gets.
My hope is, that Valve will take its place of Xbox and Microsoft publishes for Valve consoles (based on PC technology and software of course). However this can take a decade maybe, we need to see if Valve is interested into a home console like system and what Xbox will do with their next generation. Nintendo is doing Nintendo stuff and Playstation, well we’ll see too.
I own Forza 5 on the Xbox, and GT7 on my PS5. Historically, I’ve preferred the Xbox over the Playstation, but my experience on GT7 with VR on the PS5 basically killed Forza 5 and the Xbox for me.
So if Forza 5 comes to PS5 with VR support, for me, this will be good news. But if it doesn’t come with VR support, I won’t bother.
And I guess, ultimately, it’s bad news either way, because I probably won’t be going back to the Xbox whatever they do.
Microsoft said in the past (around launch of Xbox Series) that they are not interested into VR. And given that the VR2 headset didn’t sell too much on the PS5, I don’t think that Microsoft goes the extra mile to implement this feature to a game that is not even build around it. Not saying it won’t happen, but its unlikely. Hope I am wrong though, for people who enjoy VR. Maybe this could be used as a “training vehicle” to port to VR, then port it to other VR platforms as well on PC.
I personally wait until Valve makes a VR headset for cheap price that can be used without cables, something like the Meta Quest but for the Steam eco system and by my trusted Valve.
For the most part, VR is a toy at this point. Interesting, but not compelling. The single exception I would say though, where it is genuinely transformational to gameplay rather than just gimmicky, is car/racing simulators and games. Most things, I can take or leave VR. But I can never play a racing sim again if it doesn’t have VR. But, even if it doesn’t come to Forza, it’s no big loss, as there are plenty of VR enabled alternatives out there (though mostly on PC to be fair)
I’m more interested into single player games like the Batman and Half-Life games. Otherwise there is not a lot to me.
I definitely think Microsoft is going to abandon Xbox because I think the see the writing on the wall in so far as why they are in this market. I think there will always be a place for dedicated gaming hardware like the PS5, but I think it will become more of a niche purchase as time goes on and I think Microsoft does too. I think they don’t like the numbers they are predicting for future console sales, but they do like the ones they are predicting for cloud gaming, since, in theory, anything with a screen and an internet connection could be a console these days. I have no clue if it will pay off for them (personally I hope not), but as technology gets better, the more space for people to settle throughout the wide spectrum of compute power. Microsoft I think wants to try to fill as much of the space as possible.
Just as a final note, that is a touch on my more personal opinion. I hope cloud computing is seriously considered as a huge source of the carbon footprint of the world with how much power it consumes.
