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This is an opinion piece embodying a meme that willed itself into existence this year, mostly through social media and Youtube influencers. It was interesting t

This is an opinion piece embodying a meme that willed itself into existence this year, mostly through social media and Youtube influencers. It was interesting to observe (and tedious as a friend watched dozens of hours of these videos and breathlessly repeated their contents to me.) At some point an Xbox executive had to respond to it to assure that they are working on the next Xbox console, which should've been obvious to players given where we are in the cycle. The will to manifest the meme into reality came from a convergence of trends. Neophyte linux enthusiasts in gaming drove a lot of it, I suspect.

PaulHoule 10mo ago
I'd be more impressed if an Xbox executive said that they weren't working on a new console, I mean I can't see how it can work as a business unless they change their attitude 200%. I trust those YouTubers more than I trust mainstream game journalists. In the current market for electronics I can't imagine a quantum leap in consoles at a sub-$1000 price point, it is not like NVIDIA or AMD gives a damn about gaming in this environment where it is all about selling as many GPU for AI as they can while they can. Steam Deck is long in the tooth. I think PS and XBOX portables could muscle into that space, XBOX is already licensing their name, but balancing size-cost-performance-power does not look easy but the PS Vita was my favorite dedicated game system I ever owned. I like my Deck but it is too big and I have to think long and hard if I want to pack it in my t̴a̴i̴l̴ backpack on any given day or pack something else. A realistic plan is shut down most of Activision and sell the rest to Tencent, take an $80 billion goodwill loss so they won't pay tax for half a decade, Wall St won't care so long as they keep making noises about AI, do right by Azure, Windows, Office and the enterprise stuff. Keep Windows great for gaming and keep the brand alive as part of that and if they want to sell XBOX branded body wash or something, bully for them. Set free from Activision those developers will be able to make good games again.
- wincy 10mo ago
  That said, my kids got a Switch 2 for Christmas and we just got done with a super fun session of Mario Party Jamboree and boy are Mario, Bowser, and the gang looking GREAT! Super fun, everyone was laughing and having a great time. They’ve always operated in a different universe than the other console makers. If we want to play the sorts of games XBOX and PlayStation offer, we’ll just load up the Steam Deck, or if it’s a super graphically intensive game we’ll use my RTX 5090 I use for local LLMs anyway. With a few console commands and config hacking, I was able to get Portal 2 to run split screen across 2 full screens for each player, which was super fun!
- 1123581321 10mo ago
  I think that's part of the convergence, too. A perceived war between scrappy honest influencers and legacy journalism, some long fallout from game journalism controversies a decade ago. Why would someone read a mainstream games journalist about this story, either? Same for tying a hardware console's fortunes to whatever Microsoft is doing with Activision. All three (four counting Steam) consoles update every several years. A quick Wikipedia skim tells you almost everything you need to know about that. They're all packaging the AMD and Nvidia hardware available along some price-performance point (they all have access to the same tradeoffs) and releasing developer SDKs. Each one has a store, some deals and a slightly different take on how they integrate streaming and retro games. I have trouble seeing how attitude affects executing any of this. The attitude only comes into play because Xbox has to respond to this meme in a way that placates gamers.
  - PaulHoule 10mo ago
    I don’t see what the point is for consoles that aren’t PCs. Pair an XBOX ONE controller with a decent PC and install Steam and it is not the sweaty experience that PC gaming was in the 1990s, but a lean-back “just works” experience, you can play the same games with the same controller. Instead of waiting for the upgrade cycle you can get the latest hardware from AMD, Intel or even Apple. If you want to spend more and get a top flight graphics card you can get high frame rates at 4k. And it’s a PC, you can hook up a keyboard and a mouse and do all your PC stuff too so it better justifies the price. The PS5 has sold a respectable number of units but when I needed a mostly media box to sit next to a TV I got a used PS4 Pro because the PS5 was much more expensive, I have Steam on a few machines. There are only 15 exclusives for the PS 5, one is a remake of my favorite game from the early 2010s but that’s not worth it to me. Microsoft should come out with XBOX gaming PCs, whether it is own-brand like the Surface or are licensed through partners like ASUS and Dell.
- Molecule4373 10mo ago
  Imo it is just a matter of time until linux replaces Windows as the primary gaming OS. What ripple effects that will have idk, but I def think Windows will primarily become a casual computing OS
- apitman 10mo ago
  What do you think of mid-tier Android handhelds like the Odin 3? I think these things are starting to look very interesting, especially when you factor in things like Winlator, Moonlight streaming, etc.
tapoxi 10mo ago
It's because Microsoft hasn't been inspiring confidence when their five year old Xbox Series X is more expensive than last year's better performing PS5 Pro - which runs an increasing library of Microsoft's own games at better resolutions and framerates. Microsoft didn't even have a Black Friday discount for their hardware this year. That's not the playbook of a company actively invested in a market.

PaulHoule 10mo ago

I'd be more impressed if an Xbox executive said that they weren't working on a new console, I mean I can't see how it can work as a business unless they change their attitude 200%. I trust those YouTubers more than I trust mainstream game journalists. In the current market for electronics I can't imagine a quantum leap in consoles at a sub-$1000 price point, it is not like NVIDIA or AMD gives a damn about gaming in this environment where it is all about selling as many GPU for AI as they can while they can. Steam Deck is long in the tooth. I think PS and XBOX portables could muscle into that space, XBOX is already licensing their name, but balancing size-cost-performance-power does not look easy but the PS Vita was my favorite dedicated game system I ever owned. I like my Deck but it is too big and I have to think long and hard if I want to pack it in my t̴a̴i̴l̴ backpack on any given day or pack something else. A realistic plan is shut down most of Activision and sell the rest to Tencent, take an $80 billion goodwill loss so they won't pay tax for half a decade, Wall St won't care so long as they keep making noises about AI, do right by Azure, Windows, Office and the enterprise stuff. Keep Windows great for gaming and keep the brand alive as part of that and if they want to sell XBOX branded body wash or something, bully for them. Set free from Activision those developers will be able to make good games again.

wincy 10mo ago
That said, my kids got a Switch 2 for Christmas and we just got done with a super fun session of Mario Party Jamboree and boy are Mario, Bowser, and the gang looking GREAT! Super fun, everyone was laughing and having a great time. They’ve always operated in a different universe than the other console makers. If we want to play the sorts of games XBOX and PlayStation offer, we’ll just load up the Steam Deck, or if it’s a super graphically intensive game we’ll use my RTX 5090 I use for local LLMs anyway. With a few console commands and config hacking, I was able to get Portal 2 to run split screen across 2 full screens for each player, which was super fun!
1123581321 10mo ago
I think that's part of the convergence, too. A perceived war between scrappy honest influencers and legacy journalism, some long fallout from game journalism controversies a decade ago. Why would someone read a mainstream games journalist about this story, either? Same for tying a hardware console's fortunes to whatever Microsoft is doing with Activision. All three (four counting Steam) consoles update every several years. A quick Wikipedia skim tells you almost everything you need to know about that. They're all packaging the AMD and Nvidia hardware available along some price-performance point (they all have access to the same tradeoffs) and releasing developer SDKs. Each one has a store, some deals and a slightly different take on how they integrate streaming and retro games. I have trouble seeing how attitude affects executing any of this. The attitude only comes into play because Xbox has to respond to this meme in a way that placates gamers.
- PaulHoule 10mo ago
  I don’t see what the point is for consoles that aren’t PCs. Pair an XBOX ONE controller with a decent PC and install Steam and it is not the sweaty experience that PC gaming was in the 1990s, but a lean-back “just works” experience, you can play the same games with the same controller. Instead of waiting for the upgrade cycle you can get the latest hardware from AMD, Intel or even Apple. If you want to spend more and get a top flight graphics card you can get high frame rates at 4k. And it’s a PC, you can hook up a keyboard and a mouse and do all your PC stuff too so it better justifies the price. The PS5 has sold a respectable number of units but when I needed a mostly media box to sit next to a TV I got a used PS4 Pro because the PS5 was much more expensive, I have Steam on a few machines. There are only 15 exclusives for the PS 5, one is a remake of my favorite game from the early 2010s but that’s not worth it to me. Microsoft should come out with XBOX gaming PCs, whether it is own-brand like the Surface or are licensed through partners like ASUS and Dell.
Molecule4373 10mo ago
Imo it is just a matter of time until linux replaces Windows as the primary gaming OS. What ripple effects that will have idk, but I def think Windows will primarily become a casual computing OS
apitman 10mo ago
What do you think of mid-tier Android handhelds like the Odin 3? I think these things are starting to look very interesting, especially when you factor in things like Winlator, Moonlight streaming, etc.

tapoxi 10mo ago

It's because Microsoft hasn't been inspiring confidence when their five year old Xbox Series X is more expensive than last year's better performing PS5 Pro - which runs an increasing library of Microsoft's own games at better resolutions and framerates. Microsoft didn't even have a Black Friday discount for their hardware this year. That's not the playbook of a company actively invested in a market.