Ex-Xbox boss says what everybody knows

https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2025/03/ex-xbox-boss-says-console-war-has-lost-its-feistiness-as-microsoft-goes-multiformat

Well two things actually. The console wars was good for both Sony and MS.

But the more relevant for today is that if Microsoft could stop making the Xbox then they would in a heartbeat. This is why they are pushing Game Pass and the every device is an Xbox rubbish. They really want to stop making their hardware.

Sony are not going to stop making the Playstation as that would involve them making a decision rather than doing what they have always been doing thoughtlessly.

Sony can't keep pushing out 300 million dollar clown shooters and close them after two weeks.

Console wars is over.

I think next gen, MS will go the Nvidia route and have a "reference" design for consoles and allow other hardware makers to make their own versions.

The Xbox brand isnt as popular outside the US, so allowing Lenovo, ASUS, Valve and others to make their own boxes based on the reference board would boost their hardware sales and appeal

.

COoL

Not to be dismissive of your idea but this was aleady tried with steam machines and 3DO (could've been a different console around that gen)

Neither was a succes afaik.

There is a reason Sony and MS are going 3rd party and still releasing future hardware generations. $$$

I think this is right... and I'm all for it.

I had a steam machine (Alienware Alpha) and I loved it.

It failed because it did not provide the console experience on PC like the Steam Deck does today. It was actually worse than the ROG Ally because it did not receive regular driver updates the way GPUs do today, so games often ran poorly on already weak hardware

Add to that, the hardware was woefully underpowered, as mobile chips back then were still limited where it mattered: GPU power.

Steam Deck and ROG Ally have proven that gamers will buy a high powered, small form factor PC if the UI and OS is great.

Casual gamers dont want to tinker like I do.

Both of my boys have an ROG Ally, and to make it functional for them I had to put desktop icons for every game they like to play to make it easy for them.

I don't think that will be the case. There is no money to be made from hardware on its own. Those companies will gain nothing. Consoles only makes sense to console manufacturers because they are primary beneficiary from all the sales that are piped through the hardware.

The difference here would be MS/AMD would just build the main board, and partners could build and price their own consoles. This is the way the GPU market works. I do agree that margins are thinner than they used to be, but that is more of an Nvidia issue, where they are placing hard limits on how partners can change the board, or features they can add. This is why EVGA stopped making Nvidia GPUs. Nvidia starting competing with their own partners rather than just offering the reference model.

There's still profit to be made if MS can sell their "reference" console for $4-500 (since it would be subsidized by software and game pass) and allow third parties to price how they want, and add value/features they want. Sony has set the $699 standard, so there's room to make a profit, assuming MS doesnt implement some Nvidia-level restrictions in order to push their own hardware (which is unlikely given that they don't want to make consoles anyway)

Xbox following the Sega trajectory to a tee:

First console dominated by rival.

Second console has a strong lead before rival catches up.

Third and fourth consoles dominated by rivals.

They quit making game consoles.

Agreed. MSFT went out and BOUGHT the win. Console wars are ridiculously done. I don t care who makes the box I play on.

Console sales have traditionally been a very slim profit margin endeavor only in place to create marketshare and sell software.... All the time, money, employees, marketing, manufacturing etc... For something arriving closer and closer to a future where physical hardware may not even be needed.... If I'm Sony, sure I'm trying to stretch it out as long as possible, especially knowing Microsoft wants out.... But, I mean... Isn't that where it's going?

The margins aren't thinner, they are non existent if the prices are to be within range of console prices. There is literally no profit to be made by solely selling hardware for console gamers. GPU market and console markets are not the same. MS can sell reference designs for hardware but it legitimately would not make any sense for them to sell "reference" hardware to a third party to resell the hardware. Even if MS gives away their Xbox OS to manufacturers, the they will not be able to sell the hardware and be profitable without exceeding the pricing constraint of console gaming.

I get what you are saying, but I dont think explained when I meant clearly.

What Im saying is MS/AMD develop the chip and board, and sell that to manufacturers to build their own console. They could add features and software tweaks to make the increased price worth it. This is why I compared it to the GPU market. Nvidia/AMD sell the chip and board to 3rd parties to build their own cards.

Nvidia used to let 3rd party vendors to add ram, software features, overclock, etc. They have locked down their cards in order to sell more reference cards.

I do agree that there's little to no margins on just hardware if the assumption is that it matches to reference price. What i'm hoping to see is what we see in the handheld PC market, where the APUs are essentially the same, but we see wild hardware and software differences like more storage, faster RAM, USB C ports, 3rd party docks, eGPUs, upgradeable parts, etc