Topic: The everything Xbox thread

Between this, the price hikes for consoles, and the newly announced $600/$1000 handhelds, I can only assume that Microsoft want to drive everyone to PC gaming as a cheaper alternative.

Dang, me and my fellow Microsoft haters are eating good right now.

No one mourns the XBOX
No one cries, "They don't have games!"
No one pay the subscription from XBOX
The good man scorns the XBOX
Through their lives, our children learn
What we miss is Game Pass payment.

And goodness knows the XBOX's lives are lonely
Goodness knows the XBOX die alone
It just shows when you're greedy, you're left only on your own

Yes, goodness knows the XBOX's lives are lonely
Goodness knows the XBOX cry alone
Nothing grows for the XBOX, they reap only
What they've sown

$30/month for Game Pass Ultimate.

Oooof.

So many people were attempting to cancel their subscription yesterday that the webpage crashed.

The last good thing that came from Xbox was the 360.

I know it sounds harsh, but they do NOT deserve any business. Shame for the good IPs they hold.

No one mourns the XBOX
Now at last, it's dead and gone
Now at last, there's joy throughout the land
And goodness knows (goodness knows)
We know what goodness is (ah)
Goodness knows
The XBOX die alone
It died alone
Woe to those (woe to those)
Who spurn what goodness is
They are shown
No one mourns the XBOX
Good news
No one mourns the XBOX
Good news
No one mourns the XBOX
XBOX
XBOX...!!! (Ariana Grande's high whistle note)

🤣🤣🤣

As someone who is in the Xbox ecosystem vs the PlayStation one simply because I prefer the controller… everything Xbox has done has made me question how bad that right joystick placement really is.

I really don't know what is happening at Microsoft, it seems they are intent on delivering themselves much greater profits but forgot that customers have to actually accept the new pricing. I stopped subscribing to microsoft live back in the 360 era. I didn't need online gaming on 360 I was already starting to play online with PC which is completely free. So really the 360 was just for exclusive single player experiences and while the 360 had loads, the One series seem to drop hugely in this regard and now the current Xbox consoles don't seem to have exclusives at all. Anyway I suspect my Xbox One X will be the last Xbox console I own and I'm not sure a later Xbox console will even exist than the current Series S and X. It feels like the next Xbox console will either be a PC or not exist at all.

Even on my PCs I only have a local account on windows and don't sign into a Microsoft account and also don't use Edge. I certainly wouldn't subscribe to anything like Office. I'm also gradually moving more to Linux. It feels like Microsoft is a company no longer relevant to me at all or how I spend money.

However if they can carve out good income from people prepared to pay big money for access to a wide range of games good luck to them. I just buy the games I want individually and play those on PC.

I suspect (and this is just my personal perception and experience from about 40 years of video games) that Microsoft/Xbox will be a pure publisher like Sega etc. by 2030 at the latest.

They will no longer release new hardware themselves, only things like the Asus Rog Ally, where they have other manufacturers build the hardware and then just license Windows 11 Gaming and the Xbox app.

All according to the motto: Gamepass is dead, long live Gamepass

Sega was forced to pivot away from hardware because they ran out of money.

Meanwhile, MS have all the money.

They have money but do they just want to pour it down a bottomless hole that maybe what the Xbox turns into? It's not looking good for the Xbox brand. I was enthusiastic for the original Xbox, 360 and Xbox One but then the Xbox Series S and X came along and it felt like prices were too high and they were pushing digital too much and had zero interest in that platform. I feel like there are many gamers like me as Xbox this generation has been a greater struggle for them but for those that bought into the current line up they spent a lot more money. Also in the same time period Windows has become a complete bloated mess, massively reducing the performance of hardware and creating slow booting and other problems. Often gaming handhelds are transformed if you install steam os on them compared to Windows. Their product line up has got less and less appealing. Also windows activation is completely open now. All the hackers know how to activate Windows for free and there are utils online to do that simply. It's like no one in India or China has a genuine Windows licence unless it came with the hardware. Microsoft are throwing huge resources at AI but I'm unsure how you commercialise AI in an operating system. It just seems like something you don't want in your operating system because of the huge burden in CPU, storage and memory terms. I debloat my Windows operating systems so they run faster and are more stable.

I don't want or need Microsoft in my life to be honest. It's a brand of the past that wants too much money for its products and services.

@Magician Microsoft Gaming, the division of Microsoft that runs xbox, does not have infinite money. It needs to be profitable or Microsoft will shut it down. Because while Microsoft as a whole has a lot of money, shareholders and leadership aren't going to just set it on fire for fun. That's not going to pay leadership bonuses for another yacht.

Looking at the situation with Microsoft Gaming in regards to the new Rog Ally "Xbox" handhelds, the idea of "Xbox on any platform", and heavy heavy leaning in to cloud gaming, in addition to these price hikes, tells us that Microsoft Gaming is getting trimmed down significantly. The next Xbox "console" is likely going to be a Windows 11 PC with a gaming mode UI. It's pretty much over.

It's not like XBox or Game Pass are losing money though. Their execs repeatedly reassure us that they aren't. While they might be rather economical with the truth about a lot of things, they're not going to tell a bald-faced lie about something that could get them into trouble with regulators.

Rather, it's far more about making us pay more for services to bring the price up to a level that we wouldn't have paid in the first place. You can see the same with the likes of Netflix and Disney Plus, but they've usually been a bit more subtle about it, rather than hiking it by 50% in one go.

I also saw an article that suggested that giving day one access to Call of Duty through Game Pass cost them around $300 million last year in lost sales, and the timing of this ahead of this years annual entry surely isn't mere coincidence. They'll retain a lot of people who would otherwise have unsubscribed because of that, and some of those who do will use what they've saved to buy it outright.