From the article:
"There’s much talk from the gaming industry that the next generation gaming consoles will be the last. Many cite the rising costs of game development, the seemingly inexorable rise of free to play or ‘freemium’ gaming, and of the explosion of handheld gaming on smartphones, as the primary factors driving the demise of traditional gaming consoles. These are all valid arguments,but are they missing the point?"
Microsoft has announced a partnership with AMD to power the next generation of Xbox, including its first-party future Xbox consoles.
This thing is gonna be *expensive* and extremely powerful!
It might easily break the $1000 price point for a console for the first time ever.
So what's going on here?
I think two things: Windows faces an existential threat from SteamOS if it ever goes mainstream. So Microsoft wants to build an Xbox PC complete with streamlined Windows OS that will be able to be more attractive than any SteamDeck home console.
Microsoft wants every gamer including PlayStation gamers to move to PC, then it wants to market Game Pass to ALL PC players. Even if it only captures 5% of the worldwide market that would likely be enough to bring in enough revenue to make the subscription service a financial success.
Note how much emphasis they keep putting on "you can play your games across any device"... as in, no exclusives. This thing will flop hard, again, if it even launches. They already pumped the brakes on the handheld.
If it's going to do that, it will flop hard. Their best selling console is the cheapest one on the market, not the more expensive one. And they can't sell that to keep up with the more expensive PS5.
Edit: Also, AMD is easily not going to sign away anything that limits what they can do with Sony. They make more money the more consoles manufactured, not the one that sells the least out there but for more.
Xbox doesn’t have someone like Mark Cerny— let’s not pretend that’s a small thing. Sony's domination really began when Cerny became the lead architect. What most people don’t realize is how much of a developer-first mindset he brought to PlayStation hardware.
For example, during PS4 development, Cerny made the call to increase RAM from 4GB to 8GB of GDDR5—a huge and expensive decision at the time—specifically because developers told him they needed more memory. That change had a massive impact on the PS4's long-term success, making it much easier to develop for and future-proofing it in ways Xbox One simply wasn’t.
And he doesn’t just sit in an office and make guesses—he visits every major first-party, second-party, and even third-party studio every two years. He talks directly with the people making the games and collects detailed feedback on what works and what doesn’t. Studios trust him because he’s not just a hardware guy—he’s been a game developer, a producer, and a creative lead. He understands game development from the ground level all the way to the top, and that’s why studios feel comfortable being honest with him. That’s how features like the ultra-fast SSD and the dedicated 3D audio chip made it into the PS5—they weren’t just specs on paper, they were answers to real-world studio needs.
So while Xbox is doing great things with AMD (and that’s a strong move on its own), they don’t have a Cerny—a bridge between engineering and creative. That matters.
And for those claiming Xbox might gain an advantage by launching early—this isn’t 2005 anymore. Back then, launching the Xbox 360 a year early gave Microsoft a real edge. But now? People are invested:
They’ve built massive digital libraries
Their friends and social systems are tied into Xbox Live or PSN
And cross-play means you don’t have to switch consoles just to play with others
You can’t “win” the generation early just by releasing first anymore.
If Xbox wants to win the next generation, they should aim squarely at core gamers. Release a powerhouse, even if it costs $800–$1000. The hardcore market would embrace it. But the real danger is that they’ll also release a $350–$400 console, like they did with Series S—and that console will hold the whole generation back again. Series S was the bottleneck of this generation. Developers had to build to its limitations, and it’s part of the reason why PS4 is still being supported with new releases in 2025.
Power is only one part of the equation. Vision matters. Studio trust matters. Execution matters. And that’s where Mark Cerny and PlayStation’s approach continue to set the bar
I think they could put in a low effort iteration that doesn't pack in a lot of innovation (same dashboard, copy some ideas on the controller) on refreshed silicon, benefitting from AMDs newer architecture. They don't need an Uber engineer for mediocrity.
If they would have doubled down on exclusives after buying up the universe they could have done just that
But they've done nothing short of sabotaging their consoles for the last several years - why would they try for another baby after clubbing their eldest son? It's madness
I hope there's no focus on 8K. Current gen consoles aren't exactly setting the world alight with rock-solid 4K60 titles, nevermind 4K120. Focusing on 8K would be a waste.
UDNA is on track to be revealed Q2 2026, so the Xbox rumors from the Activision trail, might be true about them launching their console first to market with a holiday 2026 release date.
That being said UDNA will be a big improvement over the current Series Consoles, but I don’t think UDNA 1st-gen is going to be a huge upgrade over the RX 9000 performance wise. RX 9000 is on 4nm, and UDNA 1st-gen is supposed to be on 3nm (basically 4nm+).
The question I have is are they going to stick with a 2 console future. Are they dropping the high-end since Series S sold better? Are they making a higher-end platform and using the ASUS Xbox handheld PCs as the new Series S option, or are they making a middle ground that’s “affordable” and balances price:performance. Also, are they sticking with the Xbox-PC mentality we see with the ASUS handheld.
"... Xbox consoles" ~ they're again gonna pull a Series S-v2 and handicap the next-gen's 2nd phase.
@RaidenBlack
Series S was a handicap primarily due to the RAM (it needed at least 12GB), but with Switch 2 and more handheld PCs it’s going to become a porting point for those platforms. So while it hurt development early on for Xbox, it’s now helping every other mobile platform…..which is great for everything else even if it doesn’t directly benefit MS, outside of their ASUS Xbox Handheld PC.
That being said, if they did do a Series SV2 I would hope they learned from their mistakes (they clearly didn’t learn from the PS3 or the GTX970 about split memory being awful for GPUs).
RAM
16GB is the will still be the minimum for the next 5+ years (12GB is starting to hit its limit), so that problem would be solved.
GPU
RDNA4 and/or UDNA are big improvements over RDNA2. Even staying at 20CUs like the Series S, the jump to RDNA 4 + clock speed would be around a 60% - 70% boost over the Series S, putting it around a RTX 2060 - RX 6600 performance, which is a much better result, even if it’s still below PS5/SX natively. However, the Switch 2 is showing was a superior upscaled can do, and having FSR4 would be a SIGNIFICANT upgrade over the PS5/SX, and would allow the SSV2to run PS5/SX games at native 1080p same High-Medium settings and FPS as those consoles in most games, but upscaled to 4K with better image quality than both of those consoles.
Price
Considering they raised all their console prices here’s where the issue comes into play. The above hardware would be fine, but if they can’t get it to $349 - $399 (the Series S is now $379 -_-), then why not get a digital PS5 starts to become the question for anything above $399. But if the global economy steady and back to normal what could anyone say bad about this platform at $349…?
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HERE WE GO AGAIN!!!!
ALREADY GOT MY MONEY SAVED THANKS TO GAMEPASS!!!
First to market with the weakest console of the new generation, half-baked and rushed. Then Sony comes around and shows them how it's done for the fifth time in a row.
You said they weren't making another console? What happened? You types are wrong about everything all the time it's quite fascinating to watch actually.
@raiden kind of but if they didn't rush rrod may not have happened and they could have turned a profit that generation
Also ps3 dropped the ball massively so the generation would of been theirs by default but rrod abd mattricks casual push killed them and gave Sony a opportunity to claw it back
@prof, don't underestimate how much developers finally getting a grasp on coding for the Cell processor also helped PS3 take the crown in the end.
Classic move if you're losing just start the next gen early look how that worked for dreamcast
At least the Dreamcast was an amazing system (still is!), the last two Xbox generations have been shameful.
Sony confirmed their partnership with AMD for PS6 ages ago.
With Xbox taking time, everybody was hoping they might try something new & different by going Nvidia route but guess they went with the boring AMD route again.
Well Sony recently said that PS6 was top of their mind and are hard at work on it.
Next gen talk already we're 4 in a half years in the gen. 9th gen is easily the worse gen by far.
Almost 5 years in for PS and XB entries... Nintendo kicked off 9th gen back in 2017. MS and Sony were late because of the release of the Pro/One X consoles to extend their 8th gen presence. And in doing that is why the adoption rate for their 9th gen has been slower than the previous. Its also why crossgen is still a thing.
But like you said, 9th gen has been the worst, even in my 40+ years of gaming.
The voice actors for Arthur Morgan and Charles Smith have vaguely confirmed a claim by Rob Wiethoff (voice of John Marston) that big news related to the Red Dead franchise will be coming "before Friday."
I hope it's a remake of the 1st game. But it's probably just the PS5 version of Red Dead Redemption 2
I hope a PS5 upgrade launches on the same day as announcement & it costs no more than $10. I already bought the Ultimate Edition once, they got good money from me.
I stopped playing completely 2 years ago until they did 60fps. I really didn't expect it would take this long & I didn't want to start completely over on PC.
My wish is that its optimized for current gen machines, with some sort of story expansion. Undead nightmare 2! My 2nd wish is that it just shadow drops on the day of the announcement!.
For new players trying out Fallout 4, there are a few actions that gamers should avoid making as they journey with the Sole Survivor.
I think i made the mistake of giving Mama Murphy too many chems. Because I could never get my settlement past 98% happiness, and it even cost me the Platinum.
Please console bussiness is worth what 10 billion a year? and thats just gona go away? LMAO stupid people
Because the Mayans were wrong.
nextgen= 3 years old entry level pc....
conclusion nextgen sucks.....
I hope this won't be the last but sadly it may be true. You won't need consoles to deliver games in the near future. Smart TV and other devices will be able to do it also.