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Kyuu on 27 February 2025
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BasilZero said:
only777 said:

I can't see how that matters.

You can both right now, but instead most people are choosing neither.

For the few that do, they can buy them for as around £150-£200 on the 2nd hand ebay market:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_nkw=xbox+series+s&_sacat=0&_from=R40&rt=nc&LH_Sold=1&LH_Complete=1

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So if Microsoft can't sell a cheap console and they can't sell a normal priced console.  I can't see why they would choose either of these paths again.  Surely the premium console market (even though it's small) would be the only place left to go.

The reason why no one is buying an Xbox Series S is because the Series X exists.

The reason why people arent buying the Series X is because the games are being released day 1 on Steam.

If they had one SKU that wasnt as weak as the Series S or as strong as the Series X but in between and that was not as powerful as the competitors but powerful enough to be able to run the games at a decent performance/visual resolution without it being too expensive (i.e. a $400 SKU instead of it being a $300 or a $500), they would absolutely do a lot better than a premium priced Xbox which more than likely would be ignored considering you would likely be able to get a mid range desktop that would be more bang for your buck than a standalone console.

They are already bleeding money with what they are going through, making another high premium console would make things worse since it looks like they are pushing into becoming more of a service than a console maker (like Steam for an example).

Making an expensive Xbox console would stop the bleeding from hardware but greatly diminish brand significance and revenue.

Xbox as a platform is disappearing anyway due to Microsoft's multiplatform policy. Valve has a massive service in Steam, Microsoft really has no equivalent to that. The near future looks like this:

Nintendo: Console maker, 99.9% self contained platform holder.

Sony gaming: Console maker, 95% platform holder.

Valve: Hardware-less platform holder. Their own hardware are primarily accessories and not required for their services.

Microsoft gaming: 90% third party publisher, 10% platform holder. Soon their platform/services might become hardware agnostic (GamePass has been available on PC for years and they're trying to get it on Playstation and Nintendo platforms). Their platform will be tiny compared to the new "big 3". But their software is in a league of its own.

Tencent gaming: 80%~ third party publisher/owner, 20%~ platform holder. Is it just me or is Tencent the closest company to what Microsoft gaming is turning into?

Last edited by Kyuu - on 27 February 2025