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Machiavellian on 11 January 2024
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PixelPirate said:
Machiavellian said:

Why would Xbox hardware make or break MS if they are hardware agnostic. If that was the case MS would be losing hand and fist today but the company still makes a pretty good profit.  MS does not need Xbox hardware for streaming because just about everything can stream, from your TV, Phone, other consoles, tablets you name it.  Actually I see the same amount of developers skipping Xbox as they always have.  I also see a lot of developers still putting their games on GP.  Maybe we do not see the market the same.

Microsoft needs hardware (with xbox series x chips / azure) to stream. I can only stream games to my tv if somewhere in the world a server or whatever is actually running the game. A game still has to be made for a platform, whether this is Xbox architecture or PC is still relevant. If Xbox hardware sales keeps declining, this would eventually mean less Xbox titles and therefore limiting GamePass titles. Unless the future is streaming xcloud based gamepass PC titles, they will need Xbox-like hardware.

Edit: so far cloud streaming still seems to be very niche. Maybe in 5 - 10 years this will be more serious.

Edit 2: As Klobrille and Jez also point out, if Xbox kills their hardware, my digital xbox game library will be worthless. I can't just take my Xbox library to PC or cloud which is a great concern to me and other people invested into the ecosystem.

I guess we are going to have to disagree with this one.  While MS will continue to make Xbox hardware just like they continue to make surface PC, its not going to be their main focus.  MS main focus is Gamepass and it is a agnostic service when it comes to hardware.

Not sure why you are talking about cloud streaming.  MS moved focus away from that a while ago.  The big money is in mobile because currently people spend the majority of their time there.  You only have to look at King for ABK and see by themselves they are more than half of ABK revenue.  Even still if cloud takes off in 5 to 10 years MS will also be in position to take advantage of it since they have probably the 2nd most servers across the world.

I really do not care about what Klobrille and Jez say because I feel they have no clue of MS direction or understand their business model.  The thing is as I stated we have been down this road before when MS decided to publish all their first and 2nd party games on PC.  People always make big deals over stuff that really have no real impact on what the company is looking to do.  Crying over a few games going to switch and PS is just another example of people crying over something that as I see it will be nothing in the future.  If MS fully goes multiplat then we will have a different discussion but I doubt that as well.  I just see moving particular games to broader markets than anything else.