Xbox is betraying the entire concept of video game consoles – Reader’s Feature

A reader reacts angrily to suggestions that the next gen Xbox is a ‘PC in a box’ and argues Xbox is trying to destroy the whole concept of video game consoles.

There’s been a lot of people lately lamenting the current state of Xbox, and for obvious reasons given how bad console sales are getting. What annoys me though is the way they talk about Microsoft, as if they’re some kind of loveable loser who you should pity. Microsoft’s attempts at dominating the games industry are pitiable but their actions are hardly that of a helpless underdog.

They’re the biggest company in the history of mankind and while they’ve been entirely incompetent in the way they’ve used their colossal $3 trillion bank balance they’ve also been extremely destructive. At some point in the Xbox One generation they must’ve decided that if they can’t beat Sony fairly then they’ll just tip the table over and ruin the game(s industry) for everyone.

Almost $100 billion later and they now own Activision Blizzard, Bethesda, and a bunch of others and they’ve… completely failed to put their stamp on them. Nothing has changed about how these companies are run, or what games they make, but suddenly Phil Spencer and his cronies have started talking about what ‘we’ are going to do, when discussing them. As if he or anyone else has had any impact on their success and/or failures.

We know from the court cases that the original plan was to make all Bethesda games exclusives, just like Starfield, but clearly someone higher up, probably Microsoft boss Satya Nadella, told them that wasn’t going to work. They’ve spent all this money and there’s no way they’re going to get any of it back by only selling games as Xbox exclusives.

They’ve not tried that with any Activision games, because the message had already sank in by then, and instead they pivoted to their multiformat plan (which they’ve lied about and tried to underplay the entire time, even with petty things like not releasing the games physically).

And now we learn that their big plan for the next gen is a PC in a box, a PC handheld, and AI. So they not only no longer make consoles they’re trying to make the entire concept of consoles go away, so that they can pretend that actually they’re irrelevant now and it doesn’t matter that nobody bought theirs.

What gets me though is that the first two things have already been proven not to work. Valve’s Steam Machines concept flopped horribly and the entire concept is fundamentally doomed to be the worst of both worlds. Not only that but the latest rumour suggests it won’t even be properly backwards compatible – only through emulation!

We also know that PC handhelds are extremely niche concept, that have only sold a few million in the entire lifetime of the concept. Presumably Xbox thinks they can make theirs more successful but what is that based on? The Xbox brand being so super popular they’ll go from Steam Deck numbers (4 million) to Nintendo Switch numbers (150 million). If they really do think that they’re more delusion than they seem.

And then there’s AI, which for no reason other than it’s an investor buzzword, they’re now going to use to make games. They know it’s only going to make bad games. They know it’s going to do talented people out of a job, but they’re going to push it anyway because they’ve got loads of money and Sony hasn’t.

They’re just going to do everything Sony can’t, no matter how stupid or destructive it is, as they flail about, throwing everything at the wall and hoping that finally, for the first time in two generations, something sticks.

Not only is Microsoft betraying the whole concept of consoles, they’re doing it on purpose in an attempt to make Sony obsolete. If I was Sony I wouldn’t be too worried, given Xbox’s track record, but if they do succeed what will the future of gaming be under Microsoft? AI slop and PCs in a box. I hope they fail utterly, for the sake of all gaming.

By reader Korbie

The reader’s features do not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.

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