If you had to guess, which company do you think will exit the console business first?

Microsoft. They aren't making the kind of profits that they had hoped for, especially Game Pass. However, with that said, they'll be in the race for as long as they are convinced that they can earn a profit. They have very deep pockets.

Neither is going anywhere soon, I don't think, but I suspect Sony will hang onto producing consoles long after everyone has moved onto whatever the future of gaming is. That will be partly out of a sense of love for their customers alongside a deep seated sentimentality for the industry, but also because they always support their existing systems to the very end, no matter how unprofitable they become.

The Ouya.

Atari.

Microsoft. They will continue to shift toward their gaming services, and focus less on the box you play on. Still a few gens before they stop producing hardware, but I wouldn't be too surprised if the next X is all digital, and the next S is a streaming dongle you connect to your TV.

Didn't we already done one of these threads already?

Well anyway, my answer is MS and we'll leave it like that.

Well the lemmings here have been saying that MS doesn’t care about console sold numbers any more and only care about GP . So if that’s the case , then I would say MS will drop out ans only care about GP

It’s pretty obvious.

Didn’t one company have an exec in an email hypothetically kill off their current products for a mobile model?

Nintendo is definitly going out first, they're 15 years behind everyone, with thier 720p consoles, they're probably still figuring out what an email is, Though they have really cool games, Like TotK, They probably should go 3rd party honestly. Making games is just better for Nintendo, But not consoles, It's just not for them anymore.

Between Sony and MS, I would go with MS, They will focus more on thier streaming services, and shift away from console market. That's all I have to say really. It's obvious.

If there's no more Xbox what are we going to call lemmings? Will lemmings even be allowed to be on here? I don't consider a gamepass a "system" this is system wars after all.

So lemmings you better hope Xbox doesn't stop making consoles or you can't participate in system wars anymore

@Star67: If the Lemmings leave, then this board will be even more dead than it is.

Well I'm tempted to say Sony because they offer so little, but at the same time they do seem really invested in gaming.

Microsoft offers a lot and Game Pass is great and they've really done a lot with gaming in the past few years.

But as for who would get out of the console business? As in hardware? Gotta go with MS. MS is software mostly, hardware second (at least it seems that way). While they'd always be involved with gaming, they might give up the hardware side of things.

Sony on the other hand is primarily hardware.

Microsoft doesn't need consoles; the Xbox brand can be played anywhere now.

Sony however still has all their eggs on the traditional hardware setup, so Microsoft could exit consoles without even losing anything, while Sony would be severely hurt.

I actually thought last gen was MS last.

Haven't we been here before? Are you guys just gonna regurgitate the same thing every week?

The death of Xbox have been going for over a decade. I look forward to the irony in 5+ years from now.

This has been going on since around 2007. PS is getting too arrogant and anti-consumer. Nintendo makes weak hardware and kiddy games so they are gonna flop for good. Xbox is correcting course and becoming competitive with their pro-consumer policies . We’ve been stuck in Groundhog Day for 16 years yet nothing has changed.

The traditional console market is changing and going away, likely in the next 5yrs.

So, the question is who is going to embrace the new market?

I don't believe Sony or Microsoft will stop making consoles as long as they can find ways to subsidize the first party content.

3rd parties will always be there, the question whether they can remain profitable without continuing to stifle creativity.

The industry is shifting and I don't think SW sees it because people are too focused on fighting the "other side"

Sony is shifting to GaaS, MS to subscriptions because the hardware-led market is coming to an end.....and it's our fault

Some are seeing the inevitable change but most a traditionalist and are going to die on that hill.

Platform locked games are going to die. It is inevitable. 😊

The baffling thing about this thread in particular is that the OP swears he's a hermit, and yet all he does is make threads about consoles. A weird obsession.

I'm seeing the slow death of physical disc going away in a slow and painful way. The gaming industry is really pushing everyone to go digital is what's been happening. I been a digital gamer since the dawn of PS4/Xbox One and none of this effects me. At least Nintendo respects tradition, so that's a good thing😊

Were all getting older here, and finding ways to making interesting threads is really hard these days is why we're still seeing the same old, same old.

If you guys have any better ideas making interesting threads, let's see'em.

@davillain: The problem isn’t the threads. It’s the factions. I just try to poke the hornets nest of the most active groups. But the active Cows from last gen scared off the Lems. And in 2016-2017 those Cows ran off when their narratives ran dry. Now we are left with what we have today. Lems and Cows that are still drinking the Kool-Aid. While Sheep and Hermits have no reason to participate… I would say that thankfully this place hasn’t mirrored the Twitter/YouTube console wars, but the active Lems here are running the exact same playbook that Xbox fans on social media are running. In fact they follow them around on social media like… well Lemmings… Just check a ColtEastwood/DealerGaming/TimDog tweet and Antwan3K, Pedro and Kvally are saying the same shit almost word for word… And I’ve caught one of them actively shadowing these Twitter clowns on social media…

OMG, the System Wars saviour it's also a stalker... I mean, a detective! 🤣

The console business or the gaming industry? Consoles will be obsolete once streaming tech advances. Sony will eventually be bought out by one of the trillion dollar corps when this happens, so will Nintendo.

Amazon, Google, Apple and Microsoft will have a bidding war.

@navyguy21: Consoles aren't going anywhere. People have been predicting the death of consoles for over a decade now, yet the console market has continued growing to over $50 billion annual revenue. Consoles will do just fine. So will PC and mobile games. The video game industry is large enough to support them all.

@theam0g: Sony and Nintendo will almost certainly never be brought out by a foreign corporation. No way would the Japanese government allow that to happen. The laws and regulations there are very restrictive against foreign buyouts.

I feel as though MS have made their plans pretty clear about the future, and it revolves around services, not hardware. They don't really need it... that said, that's an easy question to answer with the current market. Things could always change though.

As long as ms is in the service game, do they really have a reason to drop out of hardware? A homeland's more than just protection against dispersal... look at Apple.

@sancho_panzer: Sure man, I agree, I just think they're the most likely to drop out first. At some point in time streaming will get to a point where real hardware probably won't be all that necessary. We aren't there yet, but let's revisit this in 10 to 15 years.

MS will never leave consoles.

1. They need their own consoles to maintain control of their services. The reason Gamepass won't be on PlayStation or Nintendo ever, is because GP will contradict their own ecosystems and Sony and Nintendo want to maintain complete control over their own ecosystems.

2. MS just spent 70B to reinforce those services.