Converging Xbone and PC kills the console... or does it?

[Scisca]

Protendo said:
Xbox the console will lose sales.

I only bought an Xbox for the exclusives that wouldn't come to PC, and I have many friends who said they would have just got a PS4 and PC instead of getting an Xbox had they known so many first party games were coming to PC.

Like it or not. The PC and consoles do compete. PS4 and Xbox One compete. Xbox one and PC gamers are going to become PS4 and PC gamers.

Best case scenario, only Xbox One sales will go down, but does that really matter? If the games still get released, who cares if sales go down and more people are enjoying the alternatives? If support starts to twindle, that's when you worry.

To be true, MS doesn't care about the sales of Xbone, they want the games to sell. Hardware isn't what makes money for MS, they earn cheap change or even lose money on it. This move would allow MS to turn the Xbox brand into a huge sales pitch for their tablets and phones and an extra incentive for PC gamers to buy games from MS rather than Valve. And Xbox consoles alone would sell well enough to keep them on the market, cause some people just want a console and they'd get a great one, while MS won't have to win the console race anymore. Xbone would basically be the ultimate Steambox and I'm sure MS would be fine with that.

PCs and consoles do compete. But by doing this, MS turns Xbone into just one piece of a bigger puzzle and gives gamers more value than anyone else. Tell me, what does it matter for MS if instead of going PS4 vs Xbone, gamers go PS4 vs PC and they buy PC games from MS? It's only better, cause they have to buy Windows in the first place, which gives better profit margin than an Xbone unit. Also, it is impossible for MS to win with Sony. They will always lose in EU and Japan, while NA is up for grabs - not what MS wants, they don't want to fight a war that's impossible to win. Now they could sell Xbone to people who want the Xbone experience and give them the added extra PC support for free, but most importantly, Xbox would be a huge, huge, huge selling point for their mobile division - the place where real money's at. Their tablets and phones are struggling, but if MS gives me a tablet/phone that allows me to play my whole PC library with an Xbone controller, I won't consider the competition for a split second. And tablets/phones cost more than an Xbone with a better profit margin and people buy them more often. Pure win. The only people who lose, are forum MS fanboys involved in the console war - who cares about them?

Moreover, look how it changes the value of games and the argument for 3rd party games - the real moneymakers. Right now PS4 wins, because it gives you slightly better graphics. With unified W10 MS gives you the best graphics on PC, so Sony loses that argument, and you get a comparable Xbone version on top of that. Basically, PS4 loses its appeal when it comes to 3rd party games, since MS gives you more for the same price! Why buy a 3rd party game for PS4, if you can get the PC and Xbone version for the same price (and possibly a tablet one down the line?).

 

PS. Xbone is the last console I'd buy - for me it's PC>Sony>Nintendo>MS. But when they release their exclusives on a PC, I'm going to buy these games - so they get extra sales they wouldn't get if they kept the games on Xbone. And when the Bone gets cheaper I could see myself buing it for the other room if I already had a great library to transfer from PC.