• smoothbrain coldtakes@lemmy.ca
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    11 months ago

    I always heard that consoles were sold at a loss and made up for with services. Sounds like the logical continuation of this saga is for MS to give up the hardware game so long as Gamepass generates more income due to being on virtually every platform.

    • woelkchen@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Sounds like the logical continuation of this saga is for MS to give up the hardware game

      That’s what Microsoft want to make people believe: “Poor Microsoft only selling proprietary platforms because those evil competitors would not let them onto their platform. Sony basically forced Microsoft to buy Activision Blizzard, commit only future Call of Duty to come to PlayStation at all, and reserving future installments of all other franchises to come out exclusively on Xbox and Windows. Microsoft really wants to release Diablo 5, Overwatch 3, etc. on PlayStation but because GamePass isn’t available, their hands are tied.”

      Just look at Steam and Steam Deck: Steam allows subscription services. EA Play is available through Steam. On Steam Deck there is even the entirely vendor-neutral Flathub platform available through the pre-installed Discover store. Microsoft could release GamePass through there and even bundle a Proton-like compatibility layer based on actual Windows code. Microsoft doesn’t do that because GamePass is meant to tie people into Microsoft platforms.

    • verysoft@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      They won’t even need to sell an expensive console, they want to sell a “streaming stick” and stream games to it.

      • woelkchen@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        they want to sell a “streaming stick” and stream games to it.

        If that were true, Microsoft would sell such a thing already. GamePass Streaming is just meant as a sneak peek of the games experience. The real deal with better input latency will be Xbox and Windows for the foreseeable future.

        • verysoft@kbin.social
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          11 months ago

          I just looked and they actually scrapped it, they were working on one. Perhaps they wanted to just target existing devices in the end, although that hasn’t seemed to have gone anywhere either, with game pass only being available on some samsung tvs.

          • woelkchen@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            they actually scrapped it

            Nothing was ever confirmed. It was all conjecture based of some thing in a background of a video.

        • smoothbrain coldtakes@lemmy.ca
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          11 months ago

          It’s what Google wanted to do with Stadia.

          Fire Sticks can already Bluetooth connect to controllers and I have Moonlight installed on mine so I can stream games from my desktop to my TV downstairs. It’s not even that intensive on hardware.