The thing is, the xbox platform isn't big enough to support the current studios upkeep costs.
Ei. things don't sell enough on there, to allow them to keep making games, without losing money.

The more studios and bigger they are, the higher the costs of keeping them operational.

If they were to go exclusive suddenly with all these big studios, yes, it would force people to switch (for the games, and some would).
But that wont happend all at once.... in the near term, that would cause massive losses on games from these studios.

You would have to be willing to eat large losses on software development.... for a gain on console sales, which themselves are usually sold at a loss. That is unlikely to happend. (its a gamble if it would even pay off... and you don't gamble billions for fun)

Ontop of that, they made certain commitments that for x amount of years, they have to put their games on other platforms.
It was part of what allowed the transaction to go through.

The thing is.... what does xbox look like 10years from now, following their multi-platform strategy?
It's likely smaller than this gen's xbox numbers (their next gen).

If the following gen (not next, but one after), they choose to do another console, and attempt what your suggesting...
its more costly (the smaller their user base, the bigger the hit).

Microsoft would need to grow xbox user base, before attempting such a thing imo.
If done successully that could be massive power move.

The thing is.... how do you "out console" Playstation (with multiplatform strategy), to then go full elusive afterwards?
MS would need to be in the leader position, to play that card imo.
And thats easier said that done.

I think the "biggest leap ever" marketing is a bluff. Maybe not, but that's my guess.

I think if MS doesn't cancel the next gen kits, that there will be 2 pieces of XB hardware again.

The main goal will be to pretty much unify the hardware so they don't have the Series S/X problem anymore.

One will be a Series X level performance console, give or take, with new tech baked in and on an updated manufacturing process.

The other will have similar hardware and performance, give or take, and will be a handheld hybrid.

The console would likely be $400. The handheld hybrid $500.

With so many saying PS6 will be $600, MS will have two pieces of XB hardware that are cheaper than a PS6, landing in the "sweet spot".

Both will launch holiday 2027 or holiday 2028.

*Just so there's no confusion. I'm not saying the base hardware will be capable of raw 12TF. Think of it like PS5 Pro, where it has 16TF of raw performance, but clearly punches above that because of additional tech like PSSR. MS would be able to make like 8TF hardware, yet get performance like a Series X using hardware and software tech advancements over the next 2-3 years.

A few of my guesses

1) will be multiple plaforms,  From a mobile like device, handheld device/ cheap console to an Expensive console/pc one. 

2) They stated that their is going to be an Windows Os variant that will feel more like an Xbox Os for potential PC gaming handhelds etc;

3) we don't really see the discussion happen a lot but in Europe they are pushing court cases against Sony because they't don't allow other parties to sell  digital games for PS consoles. What it basically means is that potentially at the end of the year you can see Amazon selling FC 26 PS5 keys for 55$ or you buy an humble bundle that comes with keys that work on Playstation but just like Steam Sony will not even get a 1€ cent from those keys.  The reason I mention this is because your COD (warzone) account can be played on Pc, then on Pc and then on PS without you having to spent any cent on it so I expect MS will try to sell COD main game from the COD app without giving any cent to the platform holder. 

The "biggest leap ever" won't feel like a big leap at all.

It might be on paper, but we're already at the edge of a perceivable increase in resolution and fidelity. People are not going to buy 120" 8K TVs, 65" to 80" 4K is the upper limit atm, as well as having a screen in front of you occupying more than 40 degrees of your FoV is not comfortable for most people. At that fov, 3600x2025 is the very upper limit of what you can perceive (20:15 vision, 90 ppd), less than 4K.

Everything in 60fps is not that big of a leap either, that's what ps5 pro is doing now. And higher than 60 frame rates are for enthusiasts. Most people don't even care about 30 or 60.

Fidelity is already at the maximum level of comfort, so that only leaves lighting and physics to be the "biggest leap ever"

Well ray tracing is certainly great for developers, yet the difference with pre-baked lighting and reflections is not that revolutionary. In fact some have issues with the extra amount of visual stimuli that introduces. Can't see anymore because all the reflections...

That leaves physics for "biggest leap ever". Yet again, that will be mostly on paper. There are plenty physics games, and physics can get messy real quick. Again adding to the clutter modern games already suffer from.

Next to, how do you right good stories / gameplay for fully destructible or changing worlds. Better world simulations would be a huge leap, changing worlds, growing, flooding, land slides, snow accumulation. But you still need your quests to be able to work and that will become a lot more tricky instead of simply changing the time of day / weather for a mission.

And overall, diminishing returns keep 'plaguing' 'progress'. It simply won't look like a leap at all in screenshots. Plus the move to streaming from the cloud means all that extra fidelity and finesse gets lost in compression. So why would developers concentrate on details only a small minority gets to see while the vast majority is streaming those games at 720p / 1080p, 30 or 60 fps. (Or bit starved 4K60, uncompressed 4K60 is 7.4 Gbps after chroma subsampling)

Ehh you can see it with the latest 5090, diminishing returns. That's a $2000 GPU, AI spit and polish are not going to make a giant leap over that.

Best they can do for a premium console is not skimp on memory, fast and a lot of it. 32GB RAM.




One untapped market is the (no fuss) home entertainment system. Replicate what the cloud does locally without internet dependence. One main premium XBox that can serve multiple receivers around the house. Basically a PC in a box that can run multiple games simultaneously.

Add split-screen options to play 2 instances of the same game on the same TV and you have a game changer. Imagine suddenly you can play any multiplayer game you buy with 2 players locally on the same TV (or 2 TVs), for the price of one copy (or subscription).

They can do that with streaming as well of course, but it's already tricky enough to stream one game from the cloud, let alone multiple players at the same time.

XBox Blade: serves as XBox server in the house, install all digital games on it.
XBox Play: receiver that either streams from XBox Blade or streams from the Cloud.

Now you have the choice to use the XBox Blade for a single game, maxing all its performance for just your own experience. Or use it to run multiple instances of the same or different games to play together or play different games at better fidelity than from the cloud.

If games need to be multiplatform, what advantage does a super powerful box have besides graphics? It won't use that power to create new game play experiences, because else those games would not run on other platforms.

It reminds me of NEO GEO. It was priced way beyond the 'normal' console prices at the time, but at least had arcade quality exclusives for it. A new Super Box won't have that. The NEO GEO still failed commercially.

The other advantage would be better performance with more titles being in 60fps and some even having a 120fps mode.

It's all such a shame. But hey, at least Nintendo is still Nintendo. And Sony is there. In a way, it sort of feels like we're heading full-circle. Sony and Nintendo, the two titans from the 32-bit era, gearing up to do battle for the soul of gamers everywhere. Who will win?

i think Microsoft should pull a “Nintendo Switch” in that they make it a hybrid system…tho not necessarily hybrid in the same way NSW is. Make the next Xbox both a console & PC.

Xbox have a mid range and Entry level console now; and they failed.

Why try it again?

If people won't buy their hoem console, why would people buy an Xbox handheld over a Nintendo or Steam deck?

They wouldn't.

Yes, I accept that it's a small market (only ~15 Million) but I don't see what the business plan for releasing the other types of machine could be.

Of course it's going to cost them short term losses, but they would regain the majority of lost players in the long term. Xbox with FIFA/EA SPORTS FC, CoD, and GTA exclusivity would quickly beat Playstation and amass a very large playerbase. Sony and Playstation aren't strong enough to beat these IP's combined.

MS wouldn't just be selling more hardware but also make huge amounts of money from 3rd party content and subscriptions that would make up for the short to mid term losses in the aforementioned IP's sales/popularity.

When MS acquired ABK، thousands of fans including popular influencers swore MS wasn't so stupid as to spend 7 billion on an acquisition then keep their games on Playstation. And yet here we are. The truth is... Microsoft could choose any route they want and most of them would be viable. If they add EA and Take Two to what they already got, ANY path they choose would be successful and logical in one sense or another.

But there is a caveat, if Microsoft manage to pass all hurdles and get EA and Take Two then pull a 180 and return to exclusives, whoever permitted them to do the acquisitions will more than likely force them to sell. So it's probably never gonna happen even if all stars align.

As long as Nintendo and Sony don't make some serious blunders, Xbox will never be in a leading position without multiple massive exclusives (I'm talking CoD, FIFA/EA SPORTS FC, and GTA tier).