If they stopped would they move to trying to push pre-built PCs and PC handhelds? They already got the laptops.

I honestly hope they stop. We would benefit more from an increase in manufacturers making entry level standardized prebuilt gaming computers like the steam deck and similar. Those with the aptitude and shopping sense can continue building or buying computers normally.

Devs using the systems like steam deck as a base level target for optimization has led to enjoyable experience in titles I have tried so far that have taken this path. Theoretically you should be able to use better hardware for a better experience, and the better optimized the more you should get per hardware tier. Like how things were back in the day. I’ve heard about a lot of weird arguments about dev costs for multiple optimization targets but m$ already did this by having multiple Xbox models in the same generation. I’m also on team optimize for known entry level hardware and blame GPU makers for writing shitty closed source drivers if the game can’t run on the absolute latest card, which seems to happen fairly regularly with AAA titles at launch. AAA titles issues you can probably blame dev company shareholders tmore often than not though.

The Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One X and Xbox Series X were the best console hardware I ever owned, so please Microsoft don’t stop making great Xbox consoles.

They just did that podcast a couple of weeks ago after the third party game leaks to officially state they aren’t stopping console production

Worth noting that Peter Moore does not currently have any insight into what conversations are happening at Microsoft right now, but there are some interesting bits in here.

And why do you need a bespoke piece of hardware that costs us, Microsoft, billions upon billions of dollars to install, and you hope to hell you get an attach rate of software and something out of your Xbox Live, your connected service, that would justify the losses, the hemorrhaging of cash that hardware costs you?

That is way more risk for them than it is to just make Game Pass available on more open platforms, and it makes plenty of sense. Sony had something like a $600M profit margin on a $7B investment, IIRC, so those margins are getting slimmer even when you’re in a market dominating position like they are.

Somebody gave me a DVD the other day, I have nowhere to actually look at this.

This does reflect what the average consumer is doing, but it’s stupid. The movie industry, even more than the gaming industry, are doing their damnedest to make sure I can’t ever legally own a copy of the movies I enjoy, and it’s doing more to make me stop watching movies than it is to pay them perpetual revenue forever. Perhaps the downward trend in theater attendance is tied to that too, but I’m no analyst. There’s certainly no GOG for DRM-free movie purchases, so if there’s no Blu Ray copy of it, you’re just buying a pass that lets you stream it from someone else’s machine that will disappear one day, as Discovery customers on PlayStation just realized.

Gen Z is coming through and they’re going, why do I need to spend four or 500 bucks on a bespoke piece of gaming hardware when I’ve got my smartphone, or I got my PC or my Mac, and I can do things there with a pretty decent controller?

And when consoles aren’t so streamlined anymore and the price gap between a console and a half-decent PC keeps shrinking. Because development budgets have gotten so expensive, the most popular games are rarely the most demanding ones out there anymore either, so it’s not like there’s a lot of pressure on the consumer to get a super expensive PC if they want to play games.

They just bought Activision Blizzard. Can’t see them not making consoles.