A little late, but I'll post it anyways. 

Good Lord, Lmao.

It's on Game Pass as well on both Xbox and PC.

Not the worst idea in the world. Valve really shot themselves in the foot by announcing Steam Machines at least 2 years too early imo. 

But at the same time, I can't help but wonder what would the point be? Steam Machines purpose was at least to provide affordable PC gaming that could potentially replace your console, but Xbox already has an affordable option and more a powerful one. Maybe to take off the pressures of manufacturing?

They have said they want to be more flexible with their next generation so this would be one way to do that. This approach could reduce the investment they need to make, while at the same time offering a greater number of hardware products at a variety of price points. It would basically be what steam machines should have been. Of course there's a lot of downsides also. Having many products of different specs can be confusing, games would likely be less optimised for the hardware as it'd basically just be like PC but hopefully with a console style OS frontend.

I don't think it will happen but I would be very interested in how it all works out if they did go that route.

However this could also be a backdoor into expanding their PC store presence by merging their storefronts for these new consoles and PC. It would mean every developer that wanted to release a game on Xbox consoles had to release it on the PC app too. So a lot more games would release on Xbox PC store and they could even enforce cross-buy for all titles so people will build a big library of PC games on their store. So this hardware strategy could in a way help in them gaining a better audience on their PC Store.

Well. Ignoring the reliability of the leaker, in this hypothetical I would ask, how does it make financial sense for the manufacturer? What are they getting out of it? I have to assume that Microsoft would still receive a 30% cut off all transactions as they'd be operating the store so how does the manufacturer make their money? Purely and only off the sales of consoles? They'd have to be really expensive in that case and Xbox isn't big enough for everyone to get a large piece of the pie, how will they differentiate their consoles from each other? The only things that really separate Xbox and PlayStation are power. In addition, Xbox could just undercut them and ruin them all, Lol.

I think it's more likely that Microsoft moves towards an architecture which is adaptable and maybe that's ARM. Maybe that leads to Xbox doing their own form of handheld and being fine with lower sales, I don't see how this manufacturer making Xbox consoles makes sense for the manufacturer though unless Microsoft starts sharing their 30% cut with the manufacturer in which case it no longer makes sense for Microsoft surely? Console market isn't like the PC market, it doesn't have hundreds of millions of customers, its peak is around 150m-ish and Xbox's even lower and it serves a very specific purpose, it feels like one manufacturer would dominate the entire market in this scenario and the others would die.

That doesn't sound good to me. id Software's next game has hardware selling capability most likely, so going multiplatform on it and other upcoming Bethesda games would be bad for them. 3rd party licensed Xbox consoles just sounds like it will be Steam Machine 2.0, PC manufacturers making cheaper, console form factor PC's branded with Xbox logos running a lower level, stripped down Xbox OS designed around controller useage. Steam Machine flopped spectacularly the first time around, they sold less than 500k of them across all manufacturers before it was cancelled 3 years after launch, and only a single model still survives to my knowledge (minus the Steam branding and OS, now runs Windows), and that is Cyber Power PC's Syber C series, which started as Steam Machines: https://www.cyberpowerpc.com/page/Syber/Syber-C/

I just don't see how giving away key system seller software to other platforms and making Steam Machine 2.0 would be a good thing for Xbox. Hopefully this guy just saw an early leak of the Developer Direct and then made up some BS to go alongside his accurate Indiana Jones details, it's definitely kind of sus that he leaked this only 3 days before the show, definitely seems like he may have just seen the show early somehow. 

Yes the problem would be manufacturers would either need to sell the hardware for a profit or they would need to receive compensation in some other way, else the pricing would be higher than usual and sales volume would suffer bigtime. One way I guess is MS could still subsidise the sales of consoles by other manufactures. It would basically turn Xbox into a line of mini-pc's but shipping with a console style OS. I guess manufacturers would have to differentiate themselves the same way they for that market. There are many gaming PC/Laptop manufacturers surviving.

Being more flexible could be the architecture, we know they're considering ARM which is very efficient and powerful on smaller devices, their plan could be to allow themselves to make various form factors of Xbox hardware. I think the stores need further merging, the Universal Xbox Store is in development but I don't know how much it will change things with Xbox/PC, for all the improvements to the Xbox App, it is still linked to the Microsoft Store which still has many issues on PC and I feel like they need to just completely cut themselves off from it and make a wholly independent Xbox Store universal across Xbox/PC/Mobile. As you said, they can streamline the process and make it so that you support one, you support all, ARM could be good for that too but it would kill B/C for previous Xbox hardware aside from emulation.

Wouldn't Microsoft subsidising multiple different manufacturers just bring them back to square one though? 

I'm just a little confused how it makes sense for anyone because Console hardware has a limit of 150m, Xbox hardware right now appears to have a limit of only around 50m, Xbox makes their money back via the 30% cut so manufacturers either would need to take some of that cut (and even taking a cut from Xbox's 1st party, and how does Game Pass work?) or they'd have to make the devices extremely expensive and the Console market is meant to be about affordability/convenience, if they become that expensive, people will just get a Gaming PC.

And we know Xbox is still making hardware already thanks to the leaks so I feel like if Xbox released a Xbox console alongside some 3rd party knockoffs, unless they were completely different, nobody will buy the 3rd party hardware, unless it's say, a handheld or unless Microsoft focuses only on power (super expensive hardware) or focuses only on affordability (weaker hardware, 3rd party does powerful hardware).

I'm struggling to wrap my head around the business, I think there's a scenario where it could work out for Microsoft but I can't see one where it works out for manufacturers, Lol. This market ain't large enough for more than 3 consoles, Microsoft would be adding dozens more (albeit, all Xbox branded, Lol) but still Xbox's market share is way smaller in the overall market. Maybe I'm missing something but it feels like a scenario where nobody would win because the market would be so small and fragmented per company.

Lets say Xbox hardware has a peak of 50m.

• Xbox releases an Xbox
• ASUS releases an Xbox
• Acer releases an Xbox
• HP releases an Xbox

I'm just listing random companies.

But now they all have to share a slice of that 50m pie. Unless they completely differentiate themselves, that pie ain't growing, it'll still be Xbox hardware.

Subsidies would surely have to be larger, revenue sharing would have to be larger, or the hardware would have to be extremely expensive that it becomes closely priced to a gaming PC and then, why would you bother getting a console when you could get a gaming PC for a similar price which does even more than a gaming console.

Does Microsoft really want to give away their 30% cut? Not only that but let people take a cut from the 100% of revenue they get from 1st parties? Okay fine maybe if someone else does Xbox hardware it cuts out all the money it costs Microsoft to make Xbox hardware but then that manufacturer isn't receiving a 30% cut of every transaction unless Microsoft lets them because it will be Microsoft's store the transactions are being made from, then Microsoft loses money from the 30% cut! Which we're talking billions here, and not only that has to give away more 1st party revenue.

Rather than being the only Xbox hardware on the market and taking it all for themselves.

Feels like they'd have to make massive changes to their business modelling, Lol.

Unless I'm being dumb and not seeing something.