Hmm. I'm just talking out loud here.

As I've said before, the main reason I stuck with Xbox ever since they started porting Xbox titles to PC on day one, was primarily a few things.

• Convenience - I like playing on my TV whilst having Discord and Browsers open on my PC by my side, I still want to be able to do that. 
• Price - Not sure how much it will cost me overtime to upgrade my PC but I don't really care about having the absolute best graphics or framerate.
• Lack of Knowledge - I know next to nothing about PC Gaming/Tech, I know nothing about upgrading my PC myself and have limited knowledge on the parts.

Having said that, I did buy a prebuilt/custom made PC back in 2021, the specs are the following...

Processor: Intel Core i5-10600K CPU, 6 Cores / 12 Threads, 4.1 - 4.8GHz
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Super 6GB Graphics Card
CPU Cooler: Corsair Hydro H60 (2018) CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste: Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Paste
Case Cooling: Quiet Cooling Fans Upgrade Pack
Motherboard: Asus TUF B460M-PLUS (WI-FI) Motherboard
Memory: 32GB DDR4 2666MHz Memory (2 x 16GB Sticks)
OS Drive: 500GB Samsung 970 EVO PLUS M.2 PCIe Solid State Drive
Secondary Hard Drive: Seagate 2TB BarraCuda 7200RPM Hard Disk
Power Supply: 600W 80+ PSU

As far as I know, my Xbox Series X is a lot more powerful in terms of graphical capability. From what I've been told, I would need to upgrade the Power Supply as well if I want to upgrade my GPU even further. Or I can just buy another prebuilt one but this time be more serious in picking out the parts with help from G2.

To illustrate how lacking in knowledge I am, I didn't realise in all the 3 years that I had this PC, that it wasn't actually plugged into my GeForce and the GeForce all that time wasn't in use, Lol. I had my display port plugged into my Intel GPU and my GeForce GPU was 3 years out of date, Lol.

I can work with the price though and I can actually educate myself on PC parts and stuff but I really don't like the idea of me going inside the PC to change parts or upgrade parts, I don't trust I won't fuck something up.

The reason I prefer Xbox over PlayStation

• The Games - I'm a bigger fan of Xbox IP over PlayStation IP, so I'd be happier waiting for PlayStation IP than I would be for Xbox IP coming to a platform.
• Game Pass - I've not purchased a single physical game since Game Pass, even on Switch, I love it and don't want to lose it, I don't buy 1st party now either.
• My Profile/Achievements - I don't really want to lose my achievement score, Lol.

I can take or leave my digital library, it doesn't bother me too much since I rarely replay my old games, I already got rid of most my old X360/Xbox One physical collection too, if there's a game I really want to keep though I'd rebuy it but it'd be few.

I could swap to PlayStation but I'd lose Game Pass, all my achievements and I'm unwilling to wait for timed exclusives. Now if Xbox released day one on PS, all I'd miss out on is Game Pass and Achievements. On the other hand, if I go to PC, I'll still have access to Game Pass and my Profile via Microsoft Store and day one Xbox IP.

I'd be able to get a decently powerful PC, alongside all that, I'd also have access to late ports of PlayStation IP via Steam, Lol.

The one downside, PC GP doesn't receive the same support as Xbox GP and I may miss out on some third parties, in which case, I'd have to buy them on Steam and start a new profile on Steam which is only for select 3rd parties whilst Game Pass will be for all 1st parties and whatever actually comes to GP PC.

PC also won't get GTA on day one but it's not worth ignoring it for a title which released once every 20 years /s.

Do I stick to Xbox until the end of the generation and see their future hardware plans, or do I switch to PC now and reap the benefits of Game Pass PC + Steam + Xbox IP + Sony IP. I think it would be pointless to switch now and instead I should wait this generation out? See what Xbox's next hardware plans are, then decide if I move to PC and by then, hopefully Windows Store will be further improved or they'll be some version of Game Pass on Steam, Lol.

Hmm. I'm having trouble deciding for myself, Lol.

Funny thing is I actually got a "gaming" PC to try out Steam but then never ended up using it for that. I don't want to lose Game Pass or my Achievements...But PC is enticing but I've heard horror stories about Windows Store.

You rushed out to buy next-gen at launch, patiently waited years for Xbox to deliver on any of their promises only to get here and realise they aren't delivering much of anything. Now you can't even wait a week just to see how bad the situation actually is, and want to rush out and build an expensive PC to start a new future there. For now and at least till the end of this gen, Series X will still offer you most of want you apparently want, so why are you already so keen to abandon it?

I'm frustrated at myself that I was patient for most of this gen, had originally planned to not buy next-gen right to this point as P3Reload was the last big cross-gen release I wanted (and until Dragon's Dogma 2 there's no next-gen only titles I've badly needed), but lost patience and chose to dive for the Series X before they increased the retail price late last year. So I just have to wear that decision.

But I'm also not about to suddenly lose all perspective and starting mapping out my whole future post-Xbox. At least for now it still serves some purpose and use. Later in the year I'll probably have a look at PS5 slim prices, PC part prices, and maybe there'll also start to be some news about a PS5 pro or the Switch 2. The lesson people should be learning is that there's usually more benefit to waiting and seeing what products will come out and actually serve your best interest at that immediate point in time, rather than investing in products based on hope and promises.

Xbox will still be releasing all those games they've shown this year, so nothing has really changed there. You still get to play those eventually and can finally feel like this generation delivered on something, hopefully. Then if you want to look for greener pastures afterwards there'll be more and better options at that point in time.

I would have loved to be fly on the
wall at Playstation headquarters right now 😅. They must be over the moon. 

Bro, I didn't even know it had a port in the GPU to connect the damn thing to my monitor, Lol.

Look, I'm a quick learner but the thing is, I haven't bothered learning, I bought a gaming PC but never used it for gaming, Lmao.

Then the fans weren't spinning on the GPU so we had a little concern but they span as soon as I booted up Minecraft on Windows.

I feel sorry for some of the smaller Xbox studios that were promised freedom and security, there are Bethesda titles that bombed/underperformed even when multiplat and available everywhere. Will Tim and Amy close studios when they crunch their numbers and come to the conclusion that some aren't raking in enough cash?

Maybe they can tell em to pivot to GaaS cause we saw how successful that was for RedFall, Youngblood and the world beloved Suicide Squad.

Playstation is in a shitpile of their own. When they said MS has moved past their pillars or something (too lazy to look up the exact wording), they weren't joking. Playstation wins in the console race (well, excluding Switch for now, but that may be a bit different). But what does it matter, if the market for console is stagnating, while PC market with Steam and the mobile markets have seen enormous growth over the past years. Add to that subscription services like Gamepass and Streaming, both of which may get bigger over the next years, and winning the console market doesn't feel so grand anymore, it's becomes more and more like being the winner in the arcade market: obsolete.

Let's take a closer look here what I mean. Let's look at the combined sales of the past generations.

PS2+Xbox: 183M

PS3+Xbox 360: 173M

PS4+Xbox One: 175M

You can see this market is overall stagnating. No big changes in overall users. Now I excluded here Nintendo, but this is down that they address more volatile user bases. Or more precisely: more different ones. This can be seen by the wild swings: Gamecube barely moved the needle, Wii was wildly successful, WiiU was worse than GC, Switch again is on Top. As you see above, the success of the Wii didn't draw away gamers from PS3/Xbox 360 compared to the gen before, the failure of the WiiU didn't let Wii gamers migrate to PS4/Xbox One. I doubt the userbase of Switch is overlapping strongly with the Wii userbase, obviously there will be overlap, but if that overlap is much bigger than the cross reference of die hard Nintendo fans which is clearly visible in the sales of the WiiU is highly doubtful. So the market PS5 and in future PS6 will move in has a potential ceiling at 180/190 maybe 200M.

On the other hand other markets are going great. In 2023 14K games released on Steam. The reason is obviously, that Steam has attracted enough gamers, that many devs hope to make some money. Other platforms try to gain a share of this pie, notably GOG and EGS. It looks like the PC market might grow further, especially in east asia.Sony is 3rd-party in this market and has a weak presence. Their games release there over the last years, but don't gain much attention and Sony loses out as they have to share royalties. MS may not be super successful, they don't have a strong shop to compete with Steam. But they do have successful games on PC (at least more successful than PS), they have an ecosystem with Xbox and they offer Gamepass on PC.

The mobile market has exploded over the past years. I think no one is doubting that. The presence of Playstation is basically inexistant. That was the case for MS as well in the past, but now they own Fallout Shelter, Elder Scrolls Blades, Hearthstone, Diablo Immortal and all of King. They have a strong presence. Also the current pressure on Apple offers an opening to establish their own platform shop. We don't know if MS is considering that, but we know that Amazon and Epic do. So the current market leaders Google and Apple may face more competition in the future. Playstation is nowhere to be seen.

Subscription services may or may not have a future. Netflix and Amazon are interested in such a thing, but XBox with Gamepass has here clearly the strongest entry. Playstation is trying to develop their offering, but they already feel like being far behind.

And Streaming possibly will grow over the next years, with a good chance to also zoom past console sales. I know Nvidia and Amazon are in this market, but probably much more, including MS with XCloud. And all these offerings are clearly ahead of Sony's offering with Playstation Now.

So in two markets that have already outgrown console or are doing it at the moment and two markets that may or may not be a big part of the future Playstation is far behind the competition already. MS actually is ahead in all four of these markets. They may not be market leader in everyone, but at least they are better than Sony.

So as you can see, there is not too much to gain from all this for Playstation. They are already winning in that market, but that market overall might become less and less relevant. So Sony actually has a lot to worry about.

There's from what I can see, two Mods in this thread today, Pi-Guy and Machia, the latter is a common poster in Empire and long term Xbox fan, in addition to that, I stated earlier last week that I'm considering making G2TheUnit a co-owner of the thread if possible and see him as my future successor/already defacto in charge when I'm not around so it's not like I completely abandoned you guys.

I've already said, I wanted to take more breaks this year, at least from Gaming, for the past 5+ years I've been posting non-stop in this thread, every single day, updating it with news, all for your benefits and because I wanted to discuss gaming news with you guys, but I realise now I've been long talking about games more than I actually play them. Sometimes I'd waste hours having debates about shit I really don't care about, I don't think it's my job to handhold every user in this thread or try to bullshit them out of feeling a certain way.

For the past 2+ years I've been non-stop keeping up to date with the Russia/Ukraine situation which is more important than this thread as well but I'm getting drained and have been coming close to abandoning this thread completely over the past few months. Or at least, abandoning trying to find news for the thread, and I'm not talking about today but often has the reaction to certain things been eyerolling dooming, clickbait trash and negativity bait.

Now we come on to today, the reason I took a break recently was because of layoffs, not because of the current news, but because it was just constant negativity about the industry I love and one of my few escapes which I find pure joy in, now I can usually deal with the hyperbolic dooming and shitty attitude of gamers but the layoffs have just been depressing and I wanted break(s), I just want to have fun playing a game and then talking about a game.

What guidance am I meant to give you? Lol. I genuinely don't know what you want from me. I understand why people are upset about the current news but as for me, I'll likely keep buying the console as long as they keep making them, Game Pass exists and the IPs are timed exclusive and then I'll eventually switch to PC, I know many will not like that response, what more am I meant to say? Try to shove it down your throats that it's how everyone should feel? Lol.

I've always doubted my tenure versus Jaywood's as well, I've always partly wondered why Jaywood was so good at garnering activity to the thread compared to ours where sometimes I will end up posting 10+ comments in a row with zero responses and truth be told, that did frustrate me and I felt at times why was I bothering, am I just being used as a news bot, I want to actually talk gaming with people, then the negativity news comes and the thread gets 100+ comments.

I have no say over Xbox's business, I don't know ultimately if this will be the right or wrong decision, I've a feeling they will make more profit from this move in the long term but it may come at the cost of Xbox hardware but I've been preparing myself for that eventuality for years now, I do still expect another console for next gen but maybe not one after, ultimately, I care most about the games themselves and will go where they go (followed by Game Pass) and have cared less and less about dedicated console hardware overtime.

Nevertheless I felt guilty about abandoning the thread, I've always felt guilty about considering taking breaks, because I felt like the thread would need me, to keep the peace, to keep spirits up, to post the news, but shit I've been doing this for years and if I don't take a break then you'll definitely lose me permanently and that's exactly why I've positioned G2 as a co-owner, partly because I would feel guilt about taking a break.

We still know so little about Xbox's future plans, what titles will be multiplatform, how long they'll be exclusive, what their future hardware plans are, etc. Personally, I'd love if they made a sort of "mini-PC" box which runs a stripped back Windows OS focused solely on Gaming, finally combining the Xbox Store and Windows Store as one, making it easier for developers to port to and support, allowing me to buy a "PC" like device without having to educate myself on a bunch of PC specs, tech, etc. Microsoft does it for me and maybe even opening it up to Steam Store.