Opinion: Next Xbox will force Sony to stop porting games to PC
- Thread starter Etifilio
- Start date
First off, that wasn't the rumor, and this all comes from some speculative tweet by Jezter Corden that low grade outlets like WCCFTech spun into entire articles for clicks.
Second, if the next Xbox did run Steam games, the only thing Sony could do to prevent them being available to play on it would be to pull their games from the service and betray every single person who bought the PC versions of their games.
If they didn't realize what's wrong with the ports by now, I doubt they ever will...
Next Xbox will force Sony to stop porting games to PC
You mean like Xbox forced Sony to introduce a subscription service that gave away all their high profile games on day one, killing sales?
Or like Xbox forced Sony to implement better backwards compatibility?
It could just be that Xbox can't force Sony to do shit.
The next Xbox being a Windows PC means it's not custom and subsidized hardware. They're just going to set some system specs as performance tiers and hope that PC makers like Asus and Lenovo sell pre-built machines on said specs.
And if the "next Xbox" doesn't use custom and subsidized hardware with mass volume production, it'll be a whole lot more expensive. The next $500 or $600 Playstation is going to be much more powerful at playing games than any pre-built PC that costs $600. So the next Xbox is either a lot weaker for the same price (e.g. handheld like ROG Ally) or a lot more expensive.
Or if anyone thinks Microsoft is still going to spend millions on custom and subsidized hardware just to let Steam run on it and forego its 30% cut, they're dellusional.
Daddy's money ran out when Phil bought Activision. Shareholders aren't letting Phil burn money like he did in the past decade.
They have total confidence that PC ports have no effect (an insignificant effect) on PlayStation sales.
They see only what they want to see to allow them to tell shareholders only what they want to listen.
Suits likes profits regardless of where they came from.
It is the opposite.
People are not understanding… well Xbox fans are not understanding.
There is no next Xbox for next generation.
There is just a PC that will be sold by 3rd-party manufacturers like Dell, HP, etc.
Nothing different from these gaming notebooks or desktops already sold… I mean like Alienware?
For PlayStation it doesn’t hang e anything at all.
People are not understanding… well Xbox fans are not understanding.
There is no next Xbox for next generation.
There is just a PC that will be sold by 3rd-party manufacturers like Dell, HP, etc.
Nothing different from these gaming notebooks or desktops already sold… I mean like Alienware?
For PlayStation it doesn’t hang e anything at all.
They didn’t.
Sony estimate was $450 million… these $700 million includes more than PC revenue.
Yeah. Xbox as a console brand is dead, they don't see Xbox as a threat anymore so they'll be happy to sell more games.
But if the next Xbox IS for all intents and purposes a PC (just a gaming-optimized one), Sony putting that block can be contested in court by Microsoft. MS could just say "Hey, Xbox is a PC now, so why are Sony blocking their games on OUR devices when they aren't doing it to other PCs from Acer, Dell, Lenovo, Asus etc?"
And Sony wouldn't have a defense against that; they'd likely lose that case and be forced to remove the block. That's a consequence of their PC strategy; you can't have your cake and eat it too.
Publishers are free to publish their games wherever and whenever they want.
You make it sound like Sony have a binding agreement with PC and are obligated to put it everywhere on PC.
Why isn’t Epic suing Sony for non releases?
Who is gonna sue Sony for blocking Helldivers and Tsushima in non PSN countries?
The way things are going, will the Xbox brand exist as it is by the time next console gen arrives?
You're misunderstanding the scenario. If the next Xbox is basically a gaming PC running Windows (which I don't think is going to be the case per se, I think it'll be more Xbox OS with extended Windows features running for whitelisted Windows apps/programs like a Steam app for example, but that's just me), that means it would run any storefront that Windows does.
That means it doesn't matter what storefront SIE put their PC ports on; it could be Steam, EGS, GOG whatever. If they are compiling a binary that uses Windows APIs to run on that OS, then since the Xbox would basically be a Windows machine, it could run any storefront SIE put their PC games on, and SIE cannot block that game (much less the storefront) from those Xbox devices if they are technically and legally defined as PCs.
That is the conundrum SIE/Sony would find themselves in due to their PC strategy of the past few years. A particularly potent bit of irony all things considered, but a situation that could've been avoided if they didn't push so aggressively for IMO seems like a suboptimal eying of PC as a growth platform (mobile would have both suited them much better and created less in-ecosystem contention with the console side of the business).
MS maybe uses Xbox for their own "Steam Machines certified" stamp for the 3rd party consolized PC hardware, and maybe also for their multiplatform digital store. Something like "Xbox certified".
But considering MS is slowly moving away from Xbox everywhere, they may use the Windows or Microsoft Gaming brand instead. And they just release an updated Windows optimized for these consolized PCs that would include by default their gaming PC store and GP.
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That could open a can of worms for Sony.
Knowing Microsoft they are probably doing this for that exact reason simply to muddy the waters.
Yep, which is a big reason why I wish they had been a lot more reserved with their PC push. They don't have the vested interests in PC the way Microsoft does, so these ports (and the frequency of them) could have just been benefiting a future pivot for Xbox if anything.
Personally though, I don't think the next Xbox systems are going to be full Windows-based gaming PCs. There's probably way too much work MS would have to do to get a console UI frontend smoothly integrated into bloated Windows. Not only that, that specific approach would mean much higher-priced devices, meaning lower production volumes, meaning fewer user avenues for MS to push Game Pass (Game Pass growth is still intricately tied to hardware adoption, specifically Xbox).
If they can't guarantee Game Pass on PlayStation and Nintendo devices by next gen, they aren't taking the full-on gaming-centric Windows mini-PC/NUC device approach because the price for hardware to make up for software revenue losses would limit the market reach too much, and result in too low of hardware volumes, to adequately push Game Pass numbers significantly higher. Though, it would help secure Windows as a PC gaming platform better against any further moves by Valve to shift PC gamers to Steam OS with devices like Steam Deck and a likely return of Steam Machines.
But would MS really give up pursuing Game Pass growth for that? I don't think so. Hence I've been thinking the next Xbox systems will be more in line with what they're already doing, just bringing some extended Windows functions to run whitelisted Windows applications, probably alongside with porting over Windows Store (to facilitate as the means of accessing those Windows apps on Xbox) and working with Valve on some version of Steam for Xbox (likely with access tied to an ongoing Game Pass subscription since, again, they want to grow Game Pass but in this case, can't expect Valve to entertain a revenue sharing option which makes zero sense for Valve just to help Xbox).
And in that case, I guess Xbox would still be more a console than a PC (even if they do other stuff like introducing modular hardware upgrades for stuff like the GPU or RAM), and be a bit more price-competitive with PlayStation (though still more expensive than an equivalent PlayStation). On those grounds, Sony/SIE could easily implement a block of their games on those Xbox devices and get away with it. Might be a bit messy, and again could've been avoided if they didn't get so overly aggressive with PC ports to begin with (or at least didn't rely predominantly on a 3P storefront like Steam to host them), but at least then it'd be possible.
Because otherwise? Hooo boy....
