I highly doubt that. The whole point of consoles is for 3rd devs to have standardized hardware to make games and for consumers to play those games for 5 to 8 years. If people don't like that, they buy a gaming PC. So a steambox like xbox won't really work or change consoles. 

Not in the way you expect it, you are Saying that Consoles, can run the same PC Games, with the same quality, but need less hardware than a Equal PC, and do you know why is that ?, is because Developers work more on The Version, they know what the Consumers have, 100% of the Console owners have the same hardware, so they can push the Maximum from it, and they know their limits, on PC, you have Multiple Hardwares, and a lot of Inssues about this, because of that, Players can Change the Settings, and this would be one thing that would piss off Console Gamers.

If you are saying that Microsoft, will release a New Hardware early, just to make it Powerful, and make a lot of Versions, so Those Versions will be More Expensive than a Regular PC, the Actual Core Console, would run the games Poorly, because would need to compete grownd, with their Own Brothers, no one would purchase, and would end up like Steam Machine, a Niche, Overpriced Product, and when we speak about gaming, the User Base, is all that matters.

The thing is, graphics cards come out every year. You don't want to have to buy a new console every year. The only way this works is to take the steam machine approach and use common PC parts for everything.

You know how Expensive one Smart Phone of this kind would cost ?, more than a PC, and would have worse games than the Consoles, people purchase consoles for Exclusives, and for Games, Releasing Middle term consoles within the generation will only make the Generation end, will never have a Jump from one generation to another, because the Tech aways would be too expensive for this, If People want this kind of thing, they go for PC, if want the Natural kind of things, they go for Consoles.

Microsoft will have to deal with the crappy fragmentation issues with an already lowered userbase ... 

If I wanted PC gaming I will go build myself a PC cause getting better Xbox One SKU is still just an inferior PC ... 

I don't like this PC and Xbox One "unification" plan their aiming for since Microsoft is failing to understand the fundamentals of consoles ... 

People would just buy a pc and just upgrade the parts as they go versus having to buy a console that's gotten a slight upgrade every year or so. Also, tablets and smartphones will never replace dedicated home consoles. The specs of those are all over the place. i doubt any dev would want to develope a serious AAA game for a phone or a tablet. 

Some people seem to want consoles to die but it won't happen because they still sell good. That's the simple truth.  People thought this same sort of nonsense when steamboxes came out. 

Exactly how i feel.

I was pointing out "similarities" ... 

This plan will backfire against Microsoft just like it did to Valve ... 

Seems to me like the only one that benefits from everything staying the same is Sony. Changing the rules of the game is good for Microsoft. 

Console owners have never been given a choice of having different hardware models really. Sega was all over the place in the 90s, that's not really a great example of anything, also there was no unification between platforms ... 32X couldn't play Saturn games or vice versa. 

Consumers accept multiple models of virtually every other electronics device (smartphones, tablets, computers, TVs, etc.) ... maybe it's time someone did try a hardware model that isn't stuck in the 1980s when video games were sold next to Barbies and He-Man. The world and consumer market has changed. 

Microsoft making propietary closed off console boxes was always kinda stupid anyway ... it's like Michael Jordan playing baseball instead of basketball. MS is the largest PC OS company, unifying the PC + XBox brand was always the logical way to go. 

That is what I am wondering. Will it be a PC nad be able to run PC exclusives? Or will it just be locked to things on Windows 10 for download?