The writing has been on the wall for a while. I remember hearing quotes about wanting to turn Xbox into a Steam competitor back in like 2018. I was honestly surprised when they released the Series. I was pretty sure we would get some sort of streaming only console after the One X|S.
I imagine going forward, in addition to the streaming services, we are going to see Xbox leveraged as “certification” for other manufacturer’s hardware where consumers can be assured that this device meets some set spec for this year’s Xbox games.
They couldn’t go full steaming at that point, X Cloud wasn’t fully ready, and gamer sentiment was against it on the whole. The Series S was intended for this use, but the timing was off. So they set about building up infrastructure using massive AI investment money, which also increased the price of hardware, eventually releasing a console costing over $1000 pricing most gamers out of owning the top end hardware, making the Series S type devices much more appealing, and getting them onto the streaming service, raking in fixed income off everyone, and raising prices when the investors want another payout.
The writing has been on the wall for a while. I remember hearing quotes about wanting to turn Xbox into a Steam competitor back in like 2018. I was honestly surprised when they released the Series. I was pretty sure we would get some sort of streaming only console after the One X|S.
I imagine going forward, in addition to the streaming services, we are going to see Xbox leveraged as “certification” for other manufacturer’s hardware where consumers can be assured that this device meets some set spec for this year’s Xbox games.
They couldn’t go full steaming at that point, X Cloud wasn’t fully ready, and gamer sentiment was against it on the whole. The Series S was intended for this use, but the timing was off. So they set about building up infrastructure using massive AI investment money, which also increased the price of hardware, eventually releasing a console costing over $1000 pricing most gamers out of owning the top end hardware, making the Series S type devices much more appealing, and getting them onto the streaming service, raking in fixed income off everyone, and raising prices when the investors want another payout.