An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Microsoft's revenue from Xbox console sales was down a whopping 42 percent on a year-over-year basis for the quarter ending in June, the company announced in its latest earnings report. The massive drop continues a long, pronounced slide for sal...
My Baseless Prediction, i.e. if I ran Xbox, what I would do given their situation:
Microsoft will sunset the Xbox as a console but focus on creating a dual boot mode for Windows similar to the Steam Deck and Big Picture Mode. Probably called “Xbox Mode” or something similarly unoriginal but evocative. This streamlined mode will greatly reduce system overhead and be controller-centric, and it will have an emulation layer to support all Xbox ecosystem games along with backward compatibility. On certain form factors it will be the default boot mode, and supporting this they will release two new Windows PC form factors: a living room box and a handheld. Other PC manufacturers will be able to jump on the wagon as well. I doubt they will in any way define reference performance profiles akin to a console “generation” but they may have some kind of guidance regarding how graphics should scale seamlessly between TV/monitor and handheld form factors to allow for a Switch-like docking experience.
You need to shoehorn some AI into this tho
Uggggghhhhh. Me, I’d just support DLSS-style upscaling and call it a day but realistically there will be some GenAI bullshit for sure.
Somebody was showing off an AI technique to de-interlace old videos. This is a problem that is notoriously difficult to solve algorithmically you either end up with blurs or you end up with crossfade.
This will revolutionize the old VCR porn market
There’s always room for more
If it means my console friends will finally play on PC I’m for it
I mean technically yeah. But it might also mean some meeting-in-the-middle on what PC/console even means. It’s probably push PC fanning even more toward being console, with the benefits of more consistency and less cheating, but the downside of being less flexible and more crowded with console players. Probably also a bigger push for buying PC games through the Microsoft store when possible.
This doesn’t sound like anything Microsoft has done before.
For what it’s worth, Windows 8, while tragically mistargeted, was a marvel of streamlined engineering.
But your skepticism is sound. Microsoft hasn’t been able to execute a bold and cohesive vision in at least a decade, if arguably ever.
This is what I believe too