I actually got a pretty decent gaming PC. I just never use it for gaming 😅. Playing games from a couch on my TV just feels more comfortable.

I never cared about the smaller titles going multiplatform you can go back to my history of posting to see my perspective on games like Sea of Thieves, Grounded and Hi-Fi going to other consoles, we were sold for years on how Gamepass is what allowed those small games to exist in the first place and how good it would be because it would allow them to be played by millions of subs, its not like Grounded, Pentiment or Hi-Fi are breaking the bank in terms of budget in the first place.

Those studios knew the what the deal was when they got purchased back in 2018 that they were bought for the sake helping Xbox compete and you compete by having exclusives that would make you stand out from the competition. Xbox are giving up just as those XGS studios are starting to bear fruit 6 years later, and only into your third Bethesda AAA exclusive.

If it's purely about extracting as much revenue as they can then say goodbye to any hope of those CoD support studios getting released from the CoD mines.

My Exit-Plan is doing exactly what I already did: I play some games on Xbox, some on PC and some on Switch. Nothing changes.

Same here, except for the switch. Xbox is my game pass TV box, it's great for playing all the game pass games on the TV (specially those play anywhere games - great feature). Only purchased two games for it I think (EA FC 24 and like a dragon 7  - enjoyed it so much on game pass that ended up purchasing it).

I don't think it's so simple that Sony will be over the moon they will be looking at both good and bad things the console market has stagnated and is behind both mobile and PC in revenue and a long time competitor could hurt the sector over all with Xbox leaving the console space and Switch 2 coming soon is an unknown to if it will match the Switch and could leave to a big shrink in the console market overall, Some Xbox users would go to Playstation and some to PC but there could be potentially millions just move on from gaming.

That's the joy of PC's these days I retired from gaming on a mouse and keyboard 3.5 years ago now and plugged my PC into a 50" TV and sit back on my couch and play.

I see a few posts about gaming PC's but people really shouldn't worry about building and maintaining etc you can buy a prebuilt PC or select the parts you want and many stores will build it for you and then just plug it into a TV and forget about it for 7 years much like you do with a console you can really make PC as complicated as you want or as plug and play as a console.

Been on forums too much these last couple of days, seen so many bad takes it's exhausting. From all your xbox digital libraries are going to disappear, to PS6 is going to cost $800 and have $90 games because Xbox consoles won't exist and then other random nonsense even unrelated to the current Xbox questions.

My brain can only take so much flooding of this kind of stuff and it's time to stop!

I doubt they will go that high, but I'll just say that we saw what happens when Sony gets a monopoly in the past, PS2 sold 150m to the <25m each of OG Xbox and Gamecube. The end result was an extremely cocky and full of themselves Playstation, who charged $500 and $600 respectively for the two PS3 launch models (1 year after Xbox 360 launched for $400), and then went around making statements like Ken Kutaragi's "the PS3 is for consumers who think to themselves 'I will work more hours to buy one' " and "Xbox 360 is more like Xbox 1.5", and Jack Tretton likening the various consoles to food stating that "PS3 is surf & turf, PS2 is your favorite burger restaurant, Wii is just a lollipop, and Xbox 360 is a restaurant where you get sick because the cook isn't reliable". Sony were remarkably full of themselves after the huge success of the PS2, and that monopoly did nothing good for consumers.

Now let's look at how this current gen has been shaping up. PS5 is tracking roughly in line with PS4 (which sold 117m lifetime), Xbox Series is tracking behind Xbox One (which sold 58m lifetime). That was before this imminent announcement of multiple Xbox exclusives going multiplatform, which will certainly cause Xbox Series sales to track even further behind Xbox One, and PS5 sales to begin to track over PS4. So most likely this gen we are shaping up for something like 130m+ PS5, and maybe 45m Xbox Series. That's not quite the monopoly that Sony had exiting gen 6 with PS2's 150m and Xbox's 25m, but it's also a margin that is large enough to be considered a monopoly.

So, we have a history of Sony abusing the consumers when they have a monopoly, and we are tracking towards a Sony monopoly once again. Will they go as high as $800 for PS6 and $90 games next gen? Maybe not that high, but I'd say that $600 PS6 and $80 games will almost certainly happen next gen, and they maybe even go as high a $700 for PS6, especially with the way that computer parts are being affected by inflation. Xbox becoming non-competitive with Sony in terms of hardware likely won't be good for consumers. 

I know you didn't but if you don't care about smaller titles going multiplatform why do you suddenly think smaller titles are going to cease to exist by going multiplatform? Game Pass will still exist on the Xbox console, via PC as well. Plus these smaller titles are often very successful in their own right, I wouldn't call Sea of Thieves a smaller title Tbf but Grounded was a big success on its own right, largely via Steam.

The studios didn't sell to Xbox to help them compete with PlayStation, they sold because Xbox offered stable financial security. The studios are sold by their owners who are often like 1-2 people at most, the opinions of the developers is often irrelevant in this equation. But what we have heard is that when it comes down to it, the developers who make the games want their games everywhere. See the example of Josh Sawyer who straight up said he wants Pentiment on other platforms.

The developers often want their games enjoyed by as many people as possible, Game Pass comes into that equation, as does porting to other platforms, like I get why you're upset but I really don't think that the developers are on your side on this one, they almost certainly love that Xbox is allowing them to expand to other platforms, especially when they straight up do interviews saying they want their games everywhere, Lol.

And I don't think it's about revenue, I think it's about profit margins. Those COD support studios are unlikely to be removed even if Xbox made everything exclusive, Infinity Ward/Treyarch/Sledgehammer are core COD studios, Raven is the lead for Warzone, that only leaves Beenox, High Moon and Toys for Bob. Toys for Bob already make things other than COD. Probably High Moon will have to become a core studio in order to get COD on a 4 year development rotation.

But most Xbox studios aren't exclusively making A-titles, aside from Double Fine, Obsidian makes AAA alongside their A.

I don't know but I think you're panicking too much, a studio can be closed at any point, a studio can bomb even with Game Pass, no reason to believe Xbox is suddenly about to start throwing the hatchet down on every smaller studio if the studio itself is still profitable and while Microsoft wants to improve their profit margins they also want to be #1 in revenue and they won't get there by closing everything and focusing solely on COD...

Some of these games have been highly successful on Steam, which tells me that the games themselves are appealing.

I said this recently in another thread. The $599 was not because of cockiness though. Every PS3 was sold at a huge loss and they lost billions. They didn't charge $599 because they were cocky, if they charged less they would have literally died. It was just a terribly designed piece of hardware from a business point of view. Cell and Bluray were both mistakes for a 2006 console. I won't deny that some of their statements you mentioned were horrible, but I don't think the PS3 era is any evidence at all that a dominant PlayStation will overcharge consumers and I think the "Sony has no competition! Price will go up and be insane!" comments are silly. They undercharged with the PS3, they just shouldn't have designed something so expensive.

Btw a verified Persona leaker has just said that Persona 2 and 4 remasters are in development for Switch 2 and next gen Xbox. That wouldn't make sense if the next Xbox was 2028 surely? Would it even be in development for a console which is 4 years out? Xbox wouldn't even have the specs yet, Lol.

Surely another point in favour of 2026?