I don't think this is the last generation of Xbox hardware but they definitely are not going to push the next iteration hard. I suspect they will start to license out the OS and have a broad set of hardware specs to follow. Treat it like the Surface, it will co-exist with other machines.
Essentially, the business model of the 3DO has finally been proven correct 30 years later. Do keep in mind a lot of the 3DO team did end up at Microsoft... maybe they played the long game...
Basically, PS5 sales recently reached 80 million. Xbox Series X/S is estimated about 30 million. They lost the generation where digital libraries were built and can't gain the market back.
There's been a lot of rumor lately that Xbox becomes a shell on top of Windows and just runs regular Windows games. The announcement of the Xbox ROG Ally using this same approach gives it a lot of weight.
Nothing of the sort has been leaked or said by Microsoft.
However, their strategy seems to be going all-in on Gamepass. And if you subscribe to Gamepass, Microsoft does not care if you play on your Steam Deck, iPad or Xbox.
This is also why they mentioned they might open up the Xbox to other stores (Steam), and why they have been releasing first party titles onto the PS5[0].
If you couple that info with them axing their own handheld and instead licensing out the Xbox name to Asus with the ROG Ally Xbox, it isn't a huge leap to assume they'll just license out the Xbox name to whichever OEM feels like making a console. The Xbox One and Series X / S already run the Windows Core kernel which would make going more wide on the hardware support quite easy, and the current hardware is semi off-the-shelf stuff from AMD anyway.
Not the Xbox itself, if it was just the standalone device, but the way they had chosen to modify Windows to have Xbox compatible APIs, which are worse than the previous Windows APIs.
The enshittification of Windows gaming started with the removal, or sometimes deprecation, of the Windows gaming APIs.
At this point it's an open secret that there won't be another Xbox. So yeah, they made something cool, and managed to fumble it.
I don't think this is the last generation of Xbox hardware but they definitely are not going to push the next iteration hard. I suspect they will start to license out the OS and have a broad set of hardware specs to follow. Treat it like the Surface, it will co-exist with other machines.
Essentially, the business model of the 3DO has finally been proven correct 30 years later. Do keep in mind a lot of the 3DO team did end up at Microsoft... maybe they played the long game...
How come? Any TL;DR? Not a gamer, so I’m not up to date on consoles.
Basically, PS5 sales recently reached 80 million. Xbox Series X/S is estimated about 30 million. They lost the generation where digital libraries were built and can't gain the market back.
There's been a lot of rumor lately that Xbox becomes a shell on top of Windows and just runs regular Windows games. The announcement of the Xbox ROG Ally using this same approach gives it a lot of weight.
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Nothing of the sort has been leaked or said by Microsoft.
However, their strategy seems to be going all-in on Gamepass. And if you subscribe to Gamepass, Microsoft does not care if you play on your Steam Deck, iPad or Xbox.
This is also why they mentioned they might open up the Xbox to other stores (Steam), and why they have been releasing first party titles onto the PS5[0].
If you couple that info with them axing their own handheld and instead licensing out the Xbox name to Asus with the ROG Ally Xbox, it isn't a huge leap to assume they'll just license out the Xbox name to whichever OEM feels like making a console. The Xbox One and Series X / S already run the Windows Core kernel which would make going more wide on the hardware support quite easy, and the current hardware is semi off-the-shelf stuff from AMD anyway.
[0] this led to some memery: https://images3.memedroid.com/images/UPLOADED187/67a6bce7291...
As a Windows gamer, it was the worst.
Not the Xbox itself, if it was just the standalone device, but the way they had chosen to modify Windows to have Xbox compatible APIs, which are worse than the previous Windows APIs.
The enshittification of Windows gaming started with the removal, or sometimes deprecation, of the Windows gaming APIs.