| Kyuu said: I can see them releasing a very high end console, but will it even be a "console"? If it is, then how many will buy it? Wouldn't that just straight up kill Xbox as a platform (15 million sales max)? If it's just a highend PC with an Xbox logo on it, that would be a cool device with the best library of games in the business, but it would sell even less because there is a lot of competition in the PC hardware space. They would be sacrificing too many subscriptions and software sales (the 30% cut off every 3rd party dollar sale) for a small return. I don't l know if Microsoft cares all that much about the Xbox brand anymore. They'll sell huge amounts of software and maybe they're happy with that. Everything else they're doing is experimental/optional, they'll keep throwing things at the wall and see if anything sticks. Microsoft gaming before and after the ABK acquisition are entirely different things. Edit: one thing people aren't paying attention to, is how Microsoft going "3rd party" may enable them to make more acquisitions like ABK. Imagine what they can do if they got EA and Take-Two. Pretend to be an innocent 3rd party publisher, then return to partial or full exclusivity to promote your platform when you're done with acquisitions. I'm not saying this is what they're doing, but anything is possible and this would be a mega smart move. |
The thing is, the xbox platform isn't big enough to support the current studios upkeep costs.
Ei. things don't sell enough on there, to allow them to keep making games, without losing money.
The more studios and bigger they are, the higher the costs of keeping them operational.
If they were to go exclusive suddenly with all these big studios, yes, it would force people to switch (for the games, and some would).
But that wont happend all at once.... in the near term, that would cause massive losses on games from these studios.
You would have to be willing to eat large losses on software development.... for a gain on console sales, which themselves are usually sold at a loss. That is unlikely to happend. (its a gamble if it would even pay off... and you don't gamble billions for fun)
Ontop of that, they made certain commitments that for x amount of years, they have to put their games on other platforms.
It was part of what allowed the transaction to go through.
The thing is.... what does xbox look like 10years from now, following their multi-platform strategy?
It's likely smaller than this gen's xbox numbers (their next gen).
If the following gen (not next, but one after), they choose to do another console, and attempt what your suggesting...
its more costly (the smaller their user base, the bigger the hit).
Microsoft would need to grow xbox user base, before attempting such a thing imo.
If done successully that could be massive power move.
The thing is.... how do you "out console" Playstation (with multiplatform strategy), to then go full elusive afterwards?
MS would need to be in the leader position, to play that card imo.
And thats easier said that done.
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