A new rumor suggests that Xbox exclusive Starfield is going to be coming to PlayStation:
https://xboxera.com/2024/02/04/exclusive-microsoft-plans-starfield-launch-for-playstation-5/
- This is after Microsoft paid to acquire Activision Blizzard

Now it's rumored Gears of War and other exclusives may also be coming to PlayStation:
https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/microsoft-is-reportedly-considering-bringing-gears-of-war-to-playstation/

Pretty wild rumors flying around and what that could mean
https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2024/02/05/if-microsoft-gives-starfield-to-playstation-what-does-xbox-become/amp/

More money to be made if they release their exclusives. GoW hasn't released a title in 5 years. Honestly had no idea it was an exclusive. Starfield not becoming the hit (I loved it personally) they needed it to be to sell consoles means they might as well release it to get more profits from it.

Yeah, I don't think the Xbox is going away any time soon. However, they did let go of a lot of their physical media people with the layoffs last week, so you can absolutely bet on the future being digital/subscription based.

Freeing up money for the nuke plants at the AI data centers

I've been following Xbox since the beginning and always have a good idea of where they're going. If you look at their hardware division on the Windows side, you can see it's a drop in the bucket. It's the same with consoles. They don't care at how much consoles they sell anymore. It's usually at a loss. They've ascended from physical to digital media and services. The money is all in GamePass and owning IP. I think it's safe to say they've reached a peak on Xbox Series sales. With cloud gaming, you don't really need a console although the issue I'm running into is queues for popular games.

Honestly, Microsoft could just shutter their whole gaming division because the profits are nothing compared to Azure. I think they keep it because gaming pushes technology and that helps improve their cloud computing business. I wouldn't be surprised if AI comes into the mix. It would be cool if NPCs could say my name than some pre-recorded stuff.

Also, the competition isn't just Sony or Nintendo. It's Steam, Epic and Meta. It's better for them to release a game first on Game Pass. Get services sales and then release on other platforms like Steam and Playstation. Maximum profit for the 3 Trillion Dollar Company.

Also, gaming has changed so much in 2 years with these handheld gaming PCs. The money is in those and game streaming on mobile devices. Apple just opened up game streaming apps last week. Apple sees the $ coming.

Seems like they should do a dedicated OS or at least an overlay on top of Windows and allow third party hardware manufacturers to build off of that kind of like Steam does with Steam Big Picture/SteamOS. Make Xbox the default OS for handhelds, putting Sony in a position that competes with perpetually upgradable hardware and the ability to take games on the go that aren't exclusive to streaming from your own console at home.

Looks like we will get more info next week

We're listening and we hear you. We've been planning a business update event for next week, where we look forward to sharing more details with you about our vision for the future of Xbox. Stay tuned.

— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) February 5, 2024

Interesting development as I'm due for a new console although debating that since I need to upgrade my PC as well.

Now that you can play almost all games with a controller (which was not the case 7 years ago when I bought my high-end gaming PC) I have much less need to have an Xbox although GamePass is the best bang for buck in gaming out there.

If GamePass or something like it made its way to PC, then I really have no reason to own an Xbox anymore. And the Sony IP has started making its way into Steam now as well.

Not sure if you're trolling. But check out https://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-game-pass/pc-game-pass

From the leaks, we'll get a mid cycle upgrade this year. It'll be a cylindrical series X without the disk drive. I'm excited for the new controller. It'll be like the Stadia wi-fi controller.

Microsoft will continue to make consoles as they do with Surface Pros.

Pman... what leaks are you seeing about the controller? This is the one area I'm disappointed with MS. The current Xbox controller simply isn't good enough. It's pretty much been a modified version of the same pad for 20 years now. Come on man!

Really hoping Hall Effect sticks become the norm. Between me and my son, I've had to replace way too many controllers due to stick drift lately!

It was part of the Microsoft data dump from several months back when they uploaded the wrong material to a court portal during their merger/anti-trust defense for the Activision acquisition.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/19/23880809/microsoft-xbox-leak-gamepad-sebile-stadia-steam-sony

BowSowy said:

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Not sure if you're trolling. But check out https://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-game-pass/pc-game-pass

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Why would I be trolling? I actually forgot about this. I've noticed it whenever I sometimes stream Xbox games to my PC but never looked into it.

Xbox has felt directionless to me since about 2019.
They were doing really well for a few years in the aftermath of the Mojang acquisition and the initial reception to Game Pass through 2018, but ever since then the gaming division has been off the mark more often than not

Had Series X|S market share not been as poor as it is, conversation would be entirely different

So assumption is they basically become a larger EA and can focus all of their efforts on services and software, which honestly is what Microsoft does best at historically imo. Every physical product Microsoft has released has done poorly compared to competitors, except for the Xbox 360 arguably

The gaming division has just felt aimless for the last 6 years. Something's gotta give

LOL... does rule #1 apply to all of TexAgs? I thought that was just a rule for the Zoo. I'll have to ask permission... in the meantime you'll just have to "trust me bro".

https://www.inverse.com/gaming/xbox-exclusives-town-hall-meeting-palworld

Leak from internal meeting at MS. Looks like Xbox isn't done, but they're looking to go beyond it

Have a friend in a wow guild that was a contractor with Xbox for several years. Senior and mid level leadership had no connection to gaming or the community. Total widget pushers. Maybe they had consoles at home but they were for the kids.

Just a total disconnect from their audience and no way to bridge that. The reason PlayStation and Nintendo are ahead of them is because the generation in charge in Japan all played. There is also intense public interest and immediate feedback over there that doesn't exist in Redmond.

You friend must have worked there more than 10 years ago. Phil Spencer has been in the mid to senior levels of leadership at Xbox for at least that long and he is an avid gamer.

Nintendo yes, but Sony no. The PlayStation power sphere is in the west

For the Xbox'ers with Flight Sim installed from Game Pass:

Watch out for today's episode on the Xbox Podcast at 2 pm
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-official-xbox-podcast/id74848525

They said 4 games (they did not say which ones) are going multi-platform. Starfield and Indy are NOT one of the 4 though. Hi-Fi Rush has all but been confirmed and that makes a lot of sense.

They also announced that Diablo IV will be on Gamepass end of March. That's awesome, I've been patiently waiting for that one. That will be the start of many Activision/Blizzard game that start going live on Gamepass.

I'm glad I bought Diablo for steam foreseeing it being on Game Pass. Now I can go between Steam deck and console.

You are not alone. PC gaming is for hunchback nerds. Only excuse is building a PC that is connected to a TV and played with a controller.

Pman17 said:

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I'm glad I bought Diablo for steam foreseeing it being on Game Pass. Now I can go between Steam deck and console.

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Can you cross play and cross save games from Steam Deck to Xbox? I'm very much considering getting a Steamdeck but I'm not sure how any of that works.

Is it only certain games or what? Games like Diablo, Cyber Punk, etc. would be great to have on the deck, but only if I can carry my progress over and keep playing on the more powerful Series X.

Would be even better if Steamdeck had native Gamepass support... that is pretty much the only reason why I would consider getting a Windows handheld instead.

I thought they had been done with consoles for like a decade already.

No cross play game saves with the native steam install. You can stream the game son the deck via cloud or console, but you can't install game pass games on the deck.

You can do that on the ROG Ally since it runs windows.

Deck is a companion for PC gamers at this point.

Only certain games have cross saves which is not a whole lot of them. Mostly the online service games. Diablo 4 supports it. Rarely you'll see single player games support cross progression.

So something to consider is Xbox (post ABK) is now the 3rd largest division of Microsoft. It makes more than Windows now (which is mind blowing) & the Surface/Duo/tablet/laptop hardware team reports to Phil/Xbox org. It's Microsoft's largest straight to consumer division now. Gaming just went from a small beans pet project to a focus area of the company. This will be interesting over the next 5 years ...

For those that didn't know, was always political infighting between Windows & Xbox teams. The OG XB ran a stripped down version of Windows. The XB team secretly "borrowed" the source code overnight & tore it down to boot faster. The X in XBox name = Direct X. Bill Gates was initially furious the console booted so much faster than PCs. Fighting started there. Long way of saying the internal politics have finally flipped after 23 years. Follow the money ...