this week Mushroom show Q: What’s the point of Xbox? This is not us being sarcastic or sarcastic. This is a question that everyone in the industry (especially Microsoft itself) needs to find an answer to. A conflicting, convoluted vision for the platform leaves it struggling to find its identity at the dawn of a future it’s trying to build for us all, one in which the consoles themselves no longer matter. However, Xbox still requires us to buy an Xbox. It’s a tricky situation, and the perception is that Xbox doesn’t have any compelling exclusives. please look below.
The problem with Xbox is you don’t need an Xbox
That’s not to say the X-Series and S-Series aren’t great machines. They absolutely are – yes, even the “underpowered” and much-maligned S-Series, which I’ve been a huge advocate of in the past and will continue to be because, simply put, it’s the best deal gamble around. Many people see the debacle of Baldur’s Gate 3 as a big indicator that the Series S is actually terrible. As it stands, this intrepid machine is the cheapest place to play Baldur’s Gate 3, Cyberpunk 2077, and Star Trek. As well as all existing or future current-gen exclusive games, excluding PS5 exclusives and the odd rare game that never launched on PC. That’s incredible for a box that’s half the price of a decent low- to mid-range GPU.
But if you already have a decent GPU in a decent PC, you don’t need an Xbox at all. Not even the cheap ones, that’s the business model of Xbox Everywhere. PC Game Pass essentially delivers the entire Xbox experience as a convenient little app for Windows. Hell, you don’t even need a proper computer: if you own a Steam Deck and have ten minutes to spare, you can run Game Pass through Xcloud, and it’s pretty good too. Microsoft provides official guidance for this process. It even includes custom artwork.
Android phone. Samsung TV. Your mom’s crappy laptop has integrated graphics and tape over the webcam port. Technically, neither of these devices require an Xbox, as it is the device that accesses Xbox games. That’s a problem because Microsoft is still ostensibly in the business of selling Xboxes.
This is a confusing proposition. Buy an Xbox! But don’t worry, you don’t need it. So get one today! If you like. Likewise, Microsoft’s desire to be a major third-party multi-platform publisher while also enjoying a reputation as one of the top three platform holders seems like an unclear vision. Xbox wants to be everything to everyone: a premium console for hardcore gamers. The cheapest casual gaming console on the market. A vast portfolio of first-party studios. The largest third-party publisher. A platform. a service. A box. an application. With Nintendo, you know you’re getting a Mario machine. With Sony, you know you’re getting high-quality, budget-friendly exclusive narrative films that will eventually become shows on HBO. Xbox’s hype is hard to sum up succinctly, but everyone knows it doesn’t have The Last of Us.
The main reason Xbox doesn’t have any clear vision or proposition is that it’s still playing catch-up after costly disasters (RROD, Don Mattrick, all of Japan shrugging). But mostly because any big business cares about growth: a percentage somewhere on an Excel sheet, either up (good, executive bonuses) or down (bad, layoffs, and executive bonuses). Confusing business decisions are often just confusing because ordinary people aren’t constantly trying to meet the most demanding and destructive metrics that we humans are obsessed with. Our situation is in some ways even worse, the equivalent of the gods forcing people in the ancient world to sacrifice each other to gain their favor, but we don’t even sincerely believe in the excuse of divine bargaining. Everyone knows that infinite growth is an extremely stupid idea.
Continuously contorting itself in pursuit of endless growth but lacking the kind of easily definable and universally understood USP enjoyed by Nintendo and PlayStation, Xbox was an often contradictory business that made a strange statement about itself in its twilight years. An act of vandalism, reminiscent of SEGA. As a platform holder for many years, when Microsoft occupied the third spot in Microsoft’s current trio, it kept doing stupid things like launching competing consoles and habitually failed to capitalize on the massive franchises it owned. Right, and usually just doesn’t make sense for its messaging.
It’s easy to see why a lot of us oldies have been considering the Dreamcast lately: it’s a decent machine with great value for money, but it’s been buried under the rug compared to the equivalent PlayStation. And resulted in Sega leaving the hardware business entirely, which directly led to unimaginable realities like Sonic the Hedgehog and Mario appearing in the same game, and a huge void that the brand we’re currently discussing is waiting to fill.
Tempting as these comparisons are, going beyond the surface level is less compelling. Microsoft is still the most valuable company on the planet, and I don’t know what that means, but it’s certainly not the danger Sega once was. While PlayStation may appear to be the healthier brand, it should be noted that Sony has its own problems and is suffering from the same stagnant growth problem that has led to thousands of layoffs in recent years as the wider industry is suffering. Same problem of stagnant growth. As a result, they do a lot of third-party operations themselves.
Gaming consoles no longer seem to be a growth business, so we’ll see their relevance decline over the next few years, although they won’t disappear entirely.we will see a PS6I bet PS7, as well as their Xbox counterparts. They will run custom ARM chips and utilize frame generation in graphics technology, which people on Reddit will complain about constantly. Nintendo will continue to straddle the line between handheld and home, as I believe the Switch’s biggest differentiator is a core part of Ninty’s current offering.In the meantime, Microsoft’s studio portfolio will continue to churn out very good, if not earth-shattering titles: games like Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, and the upcoming Avowed and Hellblade 2 all point to a promising direction for the Xbox Service or platformIt’s been characterized by a steady stream of smaller, more interesting games and experiences, rather than an emphasis on trying to chase Sony’s niche of massive prestige projects that took a decade and hundreds of millions of dollars to produce.
If that’s the case with Xbox, then it’s a place where ideas can thrive, and the democratizing effect of popular subscription services like Game Pass has given the business a revenue cushion that allows its creatives to keep getting creative, working with the mainstays to make things like Things like Peniment, things like Starfield, are a good thing for everyone. In my opinion, a diverse, eclectic mix of studios churning out a steady stream of double-A tournament games and B-grade curiosities is more sustainable than a bunch of GAAS duds and HBO bait.
Xbox has the power to pull this off. They just need to, you know, get on with it.