- They already have that advantage, yet now they'll need to optimize / adjust the game for even more configurations. On PC it was always the user's responisbility to meet minimum or recommended specs. With being forward/backward compatible consumers will expect the games to be adjusted to each configuration.
- Less income for publishers, less reason to add extras to make a game interesting again.
- True, yet that will also put pressure on prices, lower margins on new games. (just wait for the 'steam' sale)
- Depends on entry fees for publishing on the win 10 store.
- Subsidized hardware will also be a thing of the past.
- At the cost of a split userbase in competitive online games or needing some kind of equalizer.

Hardware upgrades sounds like a good idea yet making an box that you can upgrade is a lot more expensive than one with a tailor made motherboard with everything on it. Plus you introduce extra bottlenecks and weak points where the replaceable parts have to connect. It's not going to be a roomy pc tower where you can easily plug in a new gpu.

Building and stocking several tailor made boxes is not cheap either. Subsidizing different hardware models that cost extra to make means lower margins on each model. Plus people expect the price of older models to drop faster. Instead of a revised slim version with a few tweaks for less you now get a better version for the launch price and can buy the old version for a bit less. It will make the whole thing less attractive for people jumping in mid cycle. Waiting for the slightly improved sleek slim model now becomes, do I pay launch price for the beefed up model or buy a second hand chewed up old one.

And yep, plenty of second hand models entering the market as soon as the hardcore follows the upgrade cycle. Another thing that will keep these upgrades costly as margins on the older models will shrink faster. It'll become like buying the latest iPad every year or two. Converting to Apple's business model while trying to take on Steam with an audience that is mostly interested in buying a console that ensures 6 years or more of games getting the most out of it. Whatever can go wrong :)

- Nope.

- So you want to keep on going with remasters? And less remasters is a bad thing? I wonder how you (and according to your logic every publisher / developer as well) survived every generation before. Remasters sold for full price need to die.

- competitive prices are bad as well?! WTF is wrong with you?

- Apparently that wasn't a problem before, so why should it become one?

- How so? I think more manufacturers would make the prices really appealing for consumers. And Sony, MS and Nintendo claimed to have a profitable hardware at launch this gen. So there was no subsidized hardware this gen either.

- How is the userbase split? You can still play your games against other players, it is just that you might run it on ultra settings while the other player uses mid settings.

"Waiting for the slightly improved sleek slim model now becomes, do I pay launch price for the beefed up model or buy a second hand chewed up old one."

Absolutely not.

If the scenario turns out like that you have way more options than before. You don't have to wait for a redesign to happen. Look at the smartphones. If you want an Android system, you have dozens of options out there. If you get the latest Samsung Galaxy S7, you know you will be fine for years to come and, for consoles speaking, you can play the latest games at maximum settings.

If you just want a nice gaming experience and to get the latest games, but don't care much about visuals you can pick up a Sony Xperia Z4.
If you just want a second console for your bedroom to watch Netflix and maybe play some more casual games, get a HTC Desire.

I hope you get the idea.

If that is what Microsoft is aiming for with Win10 / Xbox, I will give it a warm welcome.

- Yep. QA for every configuration. No matter how 'ensured' compatibility is, it still needs to be tested and the proper settings applied to ensure a baseline performance in each section.

- Game prices have remained stable for a long time, partly thanks to a growing market, partly also thanks to extra income. Remasters do provide extra cash to apply to the next version. Anyway nobody forces you to buy them and plenty people like an enhanced remaster.

- Competitive prices already killed most between AAA and indies. There will be less and less room for 'niche' games.

- Why would it be different now? Don't you think MS will want a cut for publising on the win 10 store?

- Ofcourse the hardware was subsidized. Sure the price of the console covered the production cost (or maybe with a game) Yet you forget about the R&D costs, setting up the production lines, marketing, etc.

- Competitive online gaming is competive. Would you like to play someone in an online shooter that runs at higher fps and higher resolution. Do you not think they will have an advantage? Do Xbox 360 Cod players play agains XBox One Cod players?


You give it a warm welcome. I abandoned PC gaming for console gaming exactly for the convenience of having fixed hardware. Not worrying whether something will run well enough, whether I should upgrade, not having to bother with settings. It just works, all scenes and areas have already been optimized for my experience.

And true I don't bother upgrading my phone as I don't have one. I don't bother to upgrade the kid's iPad (nor did I buy the latest model, the much cheaper previous model on clearance sale) as they prefer gaming on console anyway. Oh well, MS had a good run with the 360. I fondly remeber the pre Kinect era.

Kaz mentioned that they might release a version of the PS4 that will play, and output videos at 4K resolution. Not games - videos. I guarantee Sony isn't dumb enough to segment their userbase like that.

I'm a bit lost in regards to what some users on the internet think is happening. Especially hearing some say they take this as Microsoft leaving console gaming. From what I understand after looking through a lot of info and what Phil Spencer actually said, is as follows.

PC and current Xbox One share a lot in common for software. Particularly games made for the Windows 10 store. Both current Xbox One and Windows 10 PC will have a unified store and both use Direct X 12 for games. Designing a game on Windows 10 PC can be easily ported with just a few tweaks and downgrades for Xbox One. The Xbox One as of November 2014 uses Windows 10 with the exact same Kernel as Windows 10 PC and Mobile.

Now as for Xbox being upgradable :

It will NOT be an Xbox where you physically upgrade components.

Every 3 years a new model of Xbox will release. For example 2016, 2019, 2022, 2025. And so on. This does NOT mean people who bought the Xbox One in 2013 HAVE to upgrade. Because it will still play every single title released to roughly 2021. Albeit at a weaker visual clarity and framerate alongside the existing PS4. People who don't care for cutting edge graphics will stick with their Xbox 2013 models or their PS4s.

Lets say this year the Xbox version 2 is released at xmas. With 12gb DDR4 ram, 2 x generational better GPU over 2013 Xbox model and the same CPU just clocked higher and more CACHE. It might have 2x HDMI in ports and be able to stream Netflix at 4k as well as Blurays in 4k etc. Visuals will be able to maintain 1080p @ 60fps with any title and be far far closer to top end PC games.

Its entirely the consumers choice to upgrade if they want. Because every iteration of the Xbox will have exactly the same Windows 10 dashboard that exists right now on Xbox One. Connect to the exact same Xbox Live. The only difference being that version to has better hardware to run games better and have more PC settings turned on. Also gamers don't need to be the ones to turn settings on and off. That's done by the devs.

For example. A developer creating a game in the Windows 10 ecosystem today only needs to modify small variations of code and change design inputs for each device. Touch, Mouse, controller. The dev creates the game at full spec for PC, then scales down the visuals for box version 2, then scales down for Xbox version 1. No extra multiple years of development like some are claiming. Microsoft designed Windows 10 for developers to be able to do this. Another reason why Xbox One got Direct X 12.

You cannot play PS5 games on PS4. Likewise eventually Xbox One 2013 will not play newer games say 2021 onwards. The difference is Microsoft is changing the game here and giving console owners a choice when they want to upgrade. EXACTLY the same as Smartphones, Tablets and even PC to a degree. Albeit PC is individual parts.

I do not see Microsoft releasing a new model every year or even 2. But I fully expect an announcement of a new model at E3 or just after for release this xmas. Then again every 3 years. There will be no interchangeable parts. This makes perfect sense. Hurts absolutely no one, and also means along with full mouse and keyboard support later this year Xbox console will get all Windows 10 PC exclusives with a unified store. IMO this is a game changer.

It hurts gamers. It segments Microsofts userbase. You no longer have "Xbox users". You have "Xbox 1A users", "Xbox 1B users", and "Xbox 1C users". Every game will run differently on every console, multiplayer will need to be balanced to account for these differences. Users then have to worry about whether a new Xbox 1 game will be compatible with their Xbox 1, especially if their X1 is 2 or 3 hardware generations old.

It hurts developers. Every single hardware specification will need to be QAed as if it were a seperate console. Every single one. This will drive up development costs. PC games are not going to "just work" on X1. They will have to be reworked to work on X1, and then QAed which means the PC while, while looking the same, will have games not found on the X1 store and vice versa. Also, if the store fronts were to be unified, it would mean that they lose on on every user that would have bought a copy of a game both on PC and X1.

I can pretty much guarantee that every single person that thinks this is a great idea has zero idea what its like to make a video game, much less a console video game. It is radically different than most people imagine, and people have absolutely no clue how much time, moeny and effort is put into QA. It's a huge deal to increase that cost.

But noone will be segmented. V1A can play all the games v1B can play. And play multiplayer with them to. Its exactly the same console but with better specs. Right down to the Os being exactly the same.

Theres already many videos from developers showing a game built in Windows 10 ecosystem running on PC, then in less than 24 hours running on Xbox One and even Mobile. We have known for over 2 years from developer conferences and multiplatform devs that designing games for Windows 10 and Direct x12 makes game design across platforms far far easier.

Its a unified platform. For example see this video from a developer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzZaGdxARyw

Can V1A games play all games V1C games? No, maybe some but not all. That's an enormous problem. Maybe multiplayer can work, but if V1B users have a fundamental advantage because they're playing at 60 fps and V1A users are playing at 30 fps, then again, that's an enormous problem. That's why when you have competitive gaming competitions, everyone plays on spec PCs. They don't bring their own.

Also "running on" and "running acceptably" could be months and months and months of work. I worked on porting a PS3 game to the PS Vita before the Vita was released and the developer kits and tools weren't finalized. We had the game "running on" the vita within a couple months, running at less than 1 frame per second, but it was technically running. It took another 6 before we had the game at a level that was "playable" (about 20 fps), and another 2 before we had the game running at 28 fps. See optimization, and tweaks to account for things like different screen resolutions, control inputs, etc. all take time, and they all need to be done. Also there's a vast difference between porting a simple pacman clone and porting say, Halo 5 to work on a tablet.

The xbox 360 ran games in 2012 that PC was running at much much lower specs. As I said in my initial post. PS4 wont run any PS5 games when PS5 releases in 6 years. So it will not be unusual for Xbox version 2013 not to run games by 2020/2021. The same way Iphone 3g cannot run apps from IOS 7  or higher. But say Version 2 from 2016 will be fine for games till 2025. The choice becomes entirley the consumers instead of being stuck with hardware for 6-8 years which is weak by the 2nd year. Consoles are the only tech the exists well after its obselete.

As for online play. If version 2 is running 1080p 60 fps multiplayer, version 1 just drops to 720p 60 fps. By the time Version 3 is out the first version is 6 years old and will be close to not playing new games. Just like PS4 cant play PS5 games when it releases.

As for the video. They showed a simple game because clearly they had limited time. Epic already have showed the same with Unreal Engine 4. Fable LEgends and Sea Of thieves are using the 1 code method which is being called UWP. ( Universal Windows Platfrom ). And Sam Lake recently talked about how easy it was to get Quantum Break up and running on PC. So much so, PC version is releasing same time as Xbox One. And PC didnt start development till well into Xbox One development accoding to Remedy.

I guess it is true and it is certainly not a discussion that I want to have now but I am sure you saw my post in your 8th generation thread and I really enjoy playing with VR and I was astonished that when I tried MineRift with the DK2 that I had to make my settings lower because even a simple game like Minecraft with VR needs some horsepower.  I also linked a twitchstream guy and I belong to his community, we are basically a community of pc gamers and some console gamers who are very interested in VR and most call me kind of crazy when I told them I was the first one in Belgium to order a PSVR because the console is kind of to weak and their is not a day that I not wished that PS4 was more powerfull because I know it would attract more of those guys to also a get a PSVR but then again I did not pre order the Morpheus back in time because I am expecting a experience that will be better then what the Rift or Vive will give me but because I am a vr fan and like consoles and I really want vr console(s) to succeed.