Ehhhh?
MS have generally gotten increasingly good at making sure all of their games have a PC (is it still UWP or whatever?) “version” and most of the major third party studios do the same. It gets really annoying with corner cases (was it Total Warhammer 3 that was straight up broken?) but you are really buying into game pass at that point.
And I have no idea what your last paragraph is (outside of weird Sony fanboyism?). But you can still play all the Sony/Steam games (and the Steam/Steam games).
I dunno. If I hadn’t have said “fuck windows” (years ago at this point) this would be a no brainer. But I am all for competition and this is a good indicator of what the neXtBOX will be since MS have already hinted at (outright said?) that the next XBOX will just run windows.
Plebcouncilman@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
You’re clearly not understanding Microsoft’s strategy. They are no longer interested in the hardware market that had been losing them money since forever. Xbox is now a software platform, and the next Xbox in all likelihood will simply be a prebuilt PC running the Xbox app.
There’s not many Xbox (console) only games either. And none come to mind that are from this generation. All of them are also on PC.
I think this will play out well for them. What would you prefer, the locked down platform that also sells their games on PC (PlayStation) or the more open platform that lets you play anything anywhere?
slaacaa@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I understand their strategy, I just don’t like it as a console player. I also don’t think it is a very good one from business perspective. For me it seems like they failed in the console (hardware) market, so they pivoted to the cross-platform software focus.
I know like/dislike is subjective, so I understand if others have different opinion. And business-wise, these strategic decisions will show their true impact over many years, so there would be no point in comparing current numbers, let’s see if what they plan plays off in the future.
I have a PS5 and a Series S, so I’m not partial to either of them, just to consoles as a hardware platform. I don’t like this Windows-ification of Xbox, as I moved from PC gaming to consoles around 2 decades ago, and I like my choice. I also switched to iPhone from Android, and happy to have lost all the headaches that came from the more open platform.
Again, these are personal preferences. Maybe I’m the “old man” screaming angrily at the clouds, or maybe the Microsoft MBAs are wrong. Manufacturers are going back on large touchscreens in cars, which was also celebrated as the future years ago, yet it’s just cost saving that sacrifices the safety of the driver.
Plebcouncilman@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
I think tech is far along now that there’s a space for something that is “best of both worlds”. Something that Valve has been trying for a while yet was only successful with the Steam Deck because tech just wasn’t there yet.
Think about it like this: instead of making a whole Xbox based build, devs simply make the PC version of their game and within that PC version they make a series of graphical presets that are the Xbox version, and another one that is the handheld version. This would lower costs for them while Microsoft focuses on building a windows OS that is gaming focused and suspends all the crap that hogs performance.
Microsoft’s track record is not great at this type of “fork” but I think for them as a company this path makes more sense than chasing hardware which has never been a strong suit of them and loses money anyways even for their competitor.