Xbox software output continues to under-deliver, so let's have a disucssion over getting rid of hardware-- one of the few things they're actually getting right lately. Makes sense.

I'd like to think you've both severely over-estimated demand for Xbox software-- with how weak recent gens have been; while the classic Xbox+360 titles will either have been experienced already by older gamers, or have less appeal to younger ones --and under-estimated the genuine need for a direct competitor to PlayStation in the hardware space, at least for the general spread of modern 3rd party games, but also as the main entry point for Xbox's services that ties consumers into their ecosystem going forward.

Thinking that either Nintendo or PC could be direct alternatives to PlayStation hardware in their current states, is just outright poppycock.

As long as Xbox can sell a baseline of at least 50-60M units every gen, I don't think they're wasting money or effort. But if they were to have more successive years of failures with numbers continuing to decline, we'd probably have to discuss more than just shedding hardware by the end of the gen; these failures don't just effect hardware, but more importantly the market appeal of Gamepass, which promotes Xbox published titles day one as one of it's core selling-points.

This only applies to one region, where most games are developed with a rather modest budget.

Nevermind

MS needs the hardware until they have xCloud going on TV and Mobile, and it works good enough. So at least another decade I would think. Basically until xCloud becomes big. No clue if the next Series console will still go for power or go for a cheaper streaming solution with full BC. It seems sales are split half half already?

Eventually Sony might ditch hardware as well, however PS is popular all over the world. XBox mostly US and UK so much easier to switch to cloud gaming. They'll lose some customers (while gaining many more) but not as many as Sony stands to lose. Much easier to get good cloud service to Western countries than all over the world.

Premium console hardware is no longer needed for MS. But they still need a box to get gamepass on. It might definitely be the last gen of having a disc drive in XBox consoles...

But what sort of GamePass model do you think would work for both MS and Sony?
The third party games that GP offers Day 1 for free is obviously not something Sony would want, since they sell those themselves.
So a GP that only has Microsoft's first party games?

Is that enough for people to subscribe to it monthly? Last year MS released like what, 2 games?
That was obviously an outlier slow year, but even at normal pace and if they end up acquiring ActBliz, there's not going to be enough games every month for an active subsription userbase.

I don’t know what type of GamePass you think Sony would allow on PlayStation. But it doesn’t make any sense for them to allow it on there in its current form, it’s too good. MS would have to change it pretty dramatically. Also how would it work on Nintendo platforms? Cloud? Pass.

Didn’t you mention this in another thread? I still don’t think you really understand how much money MS makes off of licensing fees, their cut of digital sales, and services like Gold. You’re saying they should cut off all of that and also make less on games they sell and services (Nintendo and Sony now get their cut) because they lose money on hardware.

“they’ll make more revenue with less cost” Nah not at all. They have less costs but they also make way way less revenue. Again, you dramatically underestimate the amount of money they make off their cut of third party sales and their own services. You’re asking why they continue to make hardware when it loses money, that’s why. Because at the end of the day they make money.

The long term point of Game Pass is to basically degrade/shrink the regular $70 a game retail market whether they want to say that out loud or not.

Just as Netflix basically killed Blockbuster Video and then also killed traditional DVD/Blu-Ray movie sales (wherein the past everyone was used to spending $20-$25 a pop for every single movie they wanted to have in their library at home). Those things had to go for Netflix to become ubiquitous and in as many households as possible.

As such I can't see Nintendo and Sony really allowing Game Pass, because really what's the long term benefit to them in that kind of a future? The point of Game Pass is to in the long term basically change the entire dynamics of a game market to be one that is centered around getting your game content from a monthly paid ala cart service (which of course is controlled by Microsoft alone). 

I highly doubt that Sony cares about MS feelings.  Sony already poked the bear with their 3rd party lock out deals and trying everything they can to stop the ABK deal.  There is nothing MS can do about it.  Regulators will not let them buy their way to success as we have seen with the ABK purchase.  MS cannot gain on Sony some way even if all their games were to hit hard, the PS5 is selling like crazy.  There is no incentive for Sony to allow GP that directly compete with their services on their platform.  If MS get rid of their hardware then they would be at the mercy of Sony because how else they are going to grow their business.  

Sony would act that way because the money they would make from MS is easily going to be made up by all the other companies out their putting their games only on PS.  Sony would Nuke MS platform and cripple the company in consoles, cripple GP to only PC, cripple MS cloud initiative and basically force MS to leave the market.  Sony doesn't care about Bethesda games, they have enough first and 3rd party games to continue to grow their customer base.  The promise of MS games isn't slowing the sale of PS5 consoles and as I stated while yes, Sony could make money by letting MS put games on their system, they would make even more by MS leaving the market.  Crippling MS ability to grow their gaming division is way better than trying to fight MS trying to disrupt the status quo.

Right now, MS need consecutive years of great hardware and software in order to grow GP and their gaming division.  Dropping hardware would instantly make just about every gamer feel the company is about to bail the industry and they would bail on the platform.  There is no scenario I see where GP and MS games grow at this point in time without hardware and successfully bringing AAA games to market.

Microsoft's hardware is the least of their issues, they have had the better hardware since 2017, almost 6 years now.

It's all in the software at this point.

Mobile and PC is where they need to appeal to people to adopt Gamepass, combined they are much bigger markets than consoles and tend to be more open for more innovation/flexibility to maneuver in the market.