Microsoft’s New Xbox Strategy Starts with Windows and Ends with No Console
Microsoft’s New Xbox Strategy Starts with Windows and Ends with No Console
Microsoft surprised many of its fans with a peek at the future of Xbox. Instead of announcing the new Xbox console, they revealed two powerful Xbox Ally
Their ultimate play is to turn gaming into the same model as Spotify. You no longer own games, but subscribe to a service that allows you to play them.
Reject it.
We already no longer own games. It’s been that way since the DMCA robbed consumers of digital ownership. If your game includes DRM or a EULA, you don’t own it.
So, Stadia then.
I’ll be honest: as much as I love Xbox—I still have my OG and a 360—PC gaming has completely leapfrogged it in terms of value.
The whole appeal of the original Xbox was that it brought PC-style gaming to consoles. I never liked playing FPS games on console until Halo came along and proved it could actually work.
But over the last 15 years, Valve has basically turned PC gaming into a console experience. These days, instead of hooking up an Xbox to my TV, I just connect a PC tower. Honestly, it’s way easier than it used to be.
The last console that really offered something unique for me was the original Switch, mostly because it made going from handheld to TV effortless. But with the new wave of handhelds running SteamOS or Bazzite, that same seamless experience is now possible on PC hardware.
If Microsoft can make Windows as smooth and intuitive as SteamOS, then maybe they’ll be back in the game.
It is such a weird strategy.
Valve isn't making their next Steam Deck anytime soon because the technology doesn't exist yet. You can crank up the wattage and put in a bigger battery, but those things make the handheld larger, heavier, and hotter, so they're not interested. This is a bottleneck from AMD and their R&D.
But especially due to live service anti cheat and Game Pass, I agree that there's a potential market for this strategy. There's certainly no way they compete with Sony by doing what consoles have always done.
They may very well be on to something (anyone who thought about this for a bit after the first announcement, could figure out this strategy, but it doesn't include an important factor). Xbox is predominantly a console that lives in the living room. The most expensive Xbox series x is currently available is $729.99. The handheld they modeled this off is currently $899.99. The price increase when this handheld and it's predecessor consoles have been popular in majority US markets, during a financially unstable time where there exist things like the switch 2 and the Lenovo Legion series of handhelds, not to mention ROG's other handhelds may make this untenable to consumers. It's a great idea for them to drop a handheld with an Xbox interface. It's not a good time.
Hell notice valve has made it very clear they are not making another steam deck anytime soon,
FFS. I don't care.
Eh, ditching a dedicated console is a bad idea, as I love the staying power and gaming power inherent in that form factor! Perhaps, if they have a docking method for this hardware, I'd potentially be interested in it. However, I'd still get a Steam Deck or Legion Go S before an Xbox Handheld. Edit: Not at the proposed price point, I would certainly not get this handheld...They are forgetting the reason why handhelds can be appealing, they're lower price points but decently powerful systems.
Legion Go owner here—well, technically my wife’s.
You can dock a Windows 11 handheld, but it’s not exactly seamless. You have to dig into Settings, disable the handheld’s own display, and tell it to use the TV instead. No problem for me, but most people won’t bother. Hopefully, the next "gamer-specific" version of Windows makes this automatic when you dock.
That’s why I ended up dual-booting the Legion Go with Bazzite. Navigating with a controller is just easier, and I’m not waiting six months for another Windows version I might have to pay for.
We paid C$900 for the Legion Go, and honestly, it was worth the premium for three main reasons:
I get that some people just want a cheap handheld. But my wife—who’s not a PC enthusiast (her favorite game is Little Kitty, Big City)—thought it was worth it. It was still cheaper than her iPhone 16e.
Seamless docking is what I am after, I will look into the Legion Go S and see if the docking in seamless for the SteamOS version. If so, that would be a huge selling point for me! To be fair the Legion Go S seems to have a better layout spread than the current Steam Deck (Valve made sure to make a Steam Deck Dock at least). The Steam OS version is also cheaper than my iPhone 15 Plus, so it also has that going for it and I can pick it up from Best Buy. Even if there is no docking, I might still pick it up for a better gaming in my apartment or out and about.
I came across something interesting with a FireTV stick. It's got Amazon's Luna cloud gaming service on it. It looks like it really wants to push Luna+, a paid subscription tier. However, they also have connections to several other gaming services, which supply games you can play outside of the sub. Most don't seem to supply many games (EA, Epic, Ubisoft). But GOG on the other hand supports many Luna games! I'm not even sure how many. It's probably not a ton, but still. My personal collection with GOG is only represented by a fraction that are actually playable on Luna. A bunch of games I've gotten free, too, since Prime Gaming has provided them for being an Amazon Prime member, along with helpful community members pointing these things out when they come around! GOG also does a pretty good job of displaying which games have Luna capability on their site. They seem to be leaning in on this.
For shits and giggles, I ran the Steam and Xbox apps also on the FireTV stick. I only gave it a limited run, but it looks like you'll need to keep your computer running to mirror Steam, while Xbox requires Game Pass to play games, even ones you own! Big thumbs up at least for the ease of Luna!!
All the fun of Windows gaming with the locked-down ecosystem of a console (no mods). What could go wrong?
It's Windows Mobile all over again.
I keep screaming about how the TPM 2.0 requirements of Windows 11 are insidious due to the ability to implement remote attestation now. I don't think they'll spring the trap immediately, but it's locked and set and you'd be a fool to believe it won't happen eventually.
Word from SkillUp is that you can still load the desktop experience the same way you can on Steam Deck, so that would make it neither locked down nor anti-mods.
Too bad there aren't existing platforms where Microsoft and other devs could just make their games available to play on and not keep trying to monopolize everything through their service
They added mod support to MS Store/Game Pass games ages ago. If locking it down like that was their intention they would've never even done that to begin with.
Xbox already supports mods. They have had mods support since like, 2015.
Mods on Xbox only exist for games where the game itself officially added mod support. I mean, sure it's great when a game maker does that but usually it's not as good as community-made mod support because community mods don't require approval and can't get censored/removed because the vendor doesn't like it.
Remember: Microsoft's vision of mods is what you get with the Bedrock version of Minecraft. Yet the mods available in the Java version are so vastly superior the difference is like night and day.
Console players—that are used to living without mods—don't understand. Once mods become a regular thing that you expect in popular games going without them feels like going back into the dark ages.
The next Xbox will simply be a prebuilt PC and it won’t be subsidized (or it will be subsidized less) so expect a $700-$900 price tag for the Series X, and a $500 for the Series S. It wouldn’t make sense any other way. Steam et all will be usable, as it is usable in the Xbox Ally as well.
Now tell me what would you rather buy? The PS5, which is absurdly locked down (even more so than the current Xbox when it comes to mods)? Deal with the gpu market shenanigans? Or buy the prebuilt Xbox PC that lets you play all your Steam games as well?
It’s fucking genius.