Xbox is now claiming that the next Xbox (it's now confirmed Series X/S won't be the last) will be the largest generational leap of all-time. I do not understand that strategy. Xbox already has broad support for PC gaming, so why worry about a powerful console that will still fall short of some very powerful gaming PCs? Software and Game Pass will sell Xbox consoles, not big specs.
If we find out that Nintendo's upcoming platform is one of their biggest (if not biggest) leap in specs of all-time, what is the point? Is Nintendo really going to benefit from a docked Switch 2 that would outperform a Series S and get closer to a PS5? Nintendo customers (whether adults buying for themselves or for family members) typically come for the Nintendo software, a little bit of the third-party, and some Nintendo charm/quirks. Nintendo will just pass the costs onto us. A Switch 2 that is more powerful than Series S would probably be at least $500 USD. I really don't want that, especially if it's the only way to get Switch as a hybrid without a cheaper hybrid SKU.
Gaming PCs long ago outpaced consoles, there's no use in trying to get way closer to them if the price is too high.

There is a report that Cloud streaming of all owned games is coming in 2024. Supposedly Xbox has had to wait this long after announcing the feature in June 2022 for release later in 2022, due to the regulators heavy focus on Cloud gaming during the ABK deal. Now that the FTC appeal is nearly over, they will be able to implement this long promised feature later this year.

When will people understand that a console covers different needs? I am a PC gamer first, but I have 4 Xboxes in the house... And I would never/ever give up on them, and I'm definitely looking forward for the next Xboxes, Switch, Play Station, every generation.

Consoles are just so much easier to set up; they are plug-and-play; you do not need to update your drivers, and do all the things required on PC; people can just start the controller and play their games right away, The games are (for the Series X at least) looking very good and do not require spending a lot of money, etc...

And people coming up with, "Well, you can set up your PC with (for instance) Big View (Steam) or any other thing like that, making it usable with a controller, etc..."; well those are a lot of steps that need to be done and even then you won't get what console offers. Setting up a PC to do what a console do (the simplicity) is just a pain and whenever you want to change something you need a keyboard etc.. And it is just not what most people wants from their gaming device plugged to a TV. This is why consoles are so popular. 

The majority of console users want that simplicity over those framerate/ray tracing/being able to do something else than  playing games, the PC offers. 

That is huge, I wouldnt mind getting into that.

This. I used to be a PC gamer, but it's just too much to deal with and all the kids running around. Just give me something where I can hold a controller and be done with it!

Consoles do cover different needs, I'm a console gamer. I just feel like a push for consoles to have really big leaps each generation (more than normal) will pass the cost onto the consumer. If 2 sets of specs become more common (like the Series X/S) then go for it. 

Xbox is now claiming that the next Xbox (it's now confirmed Series X/S won't be the last) will be the largest generational leap of all-time. I do not understand that strategy. Xbox already has broad support for PC gaming, so why worry about a powerful console that will still fall short of some very powerful gaming PCs? Software and Game Pass will sell Xbox consoles, not big specs.
If we find out that Nintendo's upcoming platform is one of their biggest (if not biggest) leap in specs of all-time, what is the point? Is Nintendo really going to benefit from a docked Switch 2 that would outperform a Series S and get closer to a PS5? Nintendo customers (whether adults buying for themselves or for family members) typically come for the Nintendo software, a little bit of the third-party, and some Nintendo charm/quirks. Nintendo will just pass the costs onto us. A Switch 2 that is more powerful than Series S would probably be at least $500 USD. I really don't want that, especially if it's the only way to get Switch as a hybrid without a cheaper hybrid SKU.
Gaming PCs long ago outpaced consoles, there's no use in trying to get way closer to them if the price is too high.

I went into this earlier in the thread, but I think the whole "next Xbox is the biggest leap of all-time" is largely marketing spiel. If you look at all console generations before now, there were some absolutely massive leaps that have happened, some of the biggest being SNES to N64 and PS2 to PS3. Even if Phil didn't mean across all console makers, but simply that it would be Xbox's biggest leap yet, that would still be highly unlikely as OG Xbox to 360 was a pretty huge leap, the GPU leap alone was from 14 gflops to 240 gflops, a 17x increase in theoretical GPU performance. Xbox One to Xbox Series X was only a 9x increase in theoretical GPU performance by comparison, and that was a 7 year generation, we're looking at a 2026 release for the next-gen Xbox if the leaks are accurate, only a 6 year leap in technology. 

On top of that, even if on-paper specs were somehow the biggest leap yet for gaming, due to the perceived phenomenon of diminishing returns, graphical leaps looking smaller and smaller each year the closer we get to realism, this biggest leap yet in gaming technology wouldn't be perceived as such by the layman, not compared to those biggest leaps of the past like SNES to N64 or PS2 to PS3.

Realistically, I just can't see Xbox releasing a console for more than $600, and the best specs Xbox is likely to be able to manage for $500-600 in 2026, the leaked release year for the next-gen Xbox, is probably roughly on par with the current Radeon RX 7900 XT in rasterization performance and above the 7900 XT in ray tracing performance (due to AMD planning big ray tracing improvements for their upcoming RDNA 4 and RDNA 5 GPU's, with Xbox supposedly using RDNA 5 for their next-gen GPU). To give an idea of what kind of leap the next-gen Xbox will likely be in realistic terms over the Series X, the Series X GPU is roughly equivalent to the Radeon 6700 10 GB on these charts, and we'd be looking at roughly 7900 XT tier performance on the top chart (rasterization) and roughly Geforce 4070 ti or 4070 ti Super tier performance on the bottom chart (ray tracing) for this next-gen Xbox releasing in 2026. 

So basically about a 2x leap in framerates over Series X in rasterization performance and a 3x leap in framerates over Series X in ray tracing performance. Not exactly a leap large enough to be worth Xbox making a big deal about it in their marketing next gen. 

So, I see one of two things happening here in regards to why Xbox is claiming this will be the biggest technical leap ever for a console generation:

1. This biggest leap ever will be a perceived leap not due to actual on-paper specs, but rather from AI techniques. The next-gen Xbox will be able to make good use of AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution AI upscaling to not only render games at much lower native resolutions to free up more of the GPU for boosting other graphics settings (which is already being used in many games even on Series X), but also for AI frame generation. Frame generation in the current FSR iteration, FSR 3, can already push about 80% higher framerates in many games, and we will see further improvements in upcoming iterations like FSR 4 and 5 before the next-gen Xbox releases. With AI frame generation, those above 2x leaps in real-world rasterization performance and 3x in ray tracing performance, should roughly double to a 4x leap in rasterization performance and a 6x leap in ray-tracing performance over Series X.
2. In the slides about the next-gen Xbox that leaked out during the FTC vs Microsoft-ABK merger trial, Microsoft suggested the next-gen Xbox could be a hybrid cloud console, with native hardware handling some of the graphical load and a cloud server handling the rest of the graphical load. If Microsoft is still planning that hybrid cloud console for next-gen, and can make the tech work by 2026 (doubtful imo as they were aiming for 2028 before and even by 2028 may not be able to make it work), the next-gen Xbox could be perceived as being the biggest technical leap ever thanks to cloud boosted rendering exceeding the graphical capabilities of native hardware alone.