Tynan Muddle at Aussie-Gamer.com writes: "Those who profess to be true ‘video gamers’ are holding back the very innovation they crave by being deathly afraid of a digital future. This was made obvious by the recent Xbox One fiasco.
The spectacle of watching a relative newcomer to the video game industry — Microsoft — trying to give something back in the way of digital rights management (DRM), only to be publicly slammed by the very fans of said industry to a point where they hit the ‘abort’ button was nothing short of sickening."
Microsoft has announced the Microsoft Rewards app on Xbox will be discontinued in April and has confirmed that weekly streaks will also be coming to an end.
It feels like the video game console is at a crossroads. With Xbox Series X and S floundering in the ‘console war’, Sony suggesting PlayStation 5 is approaching the second half of its life after missing sales targets, and uncertainty around the release of the Nintendo Switch 2, there is growing concern that the traditional video game console business could be under threat.
It's obvious that MS is leaving the console biz. MS may have tons of money, but that doesn't mean they want to keep losing money on the gaming division to prove a point. Thanks Phil
Good article and this is not a duplicate. The link that @Maximus Prime shared is just a small portion of the full interview. This post is the full interview.
Times are changing quick, the same ol way the industry been is changing. Where people play is changing.
“What I think Phil is doing is setting up some smoke signals that we're thinking very differently”
I’m surprised how slowly Microsoft is moving toward Xbox as a software platform. They usually don’t care so much about upsetting their customers with unpopular changes like they do with every other version of Windows.
This "console market hasn't grown narrative " is overblown. The market has grown just not as fast as say smartphones. But so what? There is still money to be made in the business and just because Microsoft has failed doesn't mean the entire industry is facing sudden collapse. Gaming will be fine, every industry has to go through periods of restructuring. AAA games are made becuase its what attracts gamers the most and is where they spend the most money. (Demand/supply) Microsoft abandoning hardware should have happened years ago, they clearly lost interest at a base level in producing games and/or paying 3rd parties to back during the tail end of the 360 generation. Tired of hearing about the future of gaming, just make great games and/or invest in one's made by other to attract people to your platform.
"All signs point to the hardware becoming less and less important to Microsoft."
Less innovation and competition. People act like if MS went away life would be better but it would just mean you have one less choice as to where to spend your money. If Sony became the defacto home console provider and Nintendo the handheld, then these companies could limit what you get and you would ultimately have very little choice but to support them if you want to play games.
I was a video that suggested that Steam could potentially get into the console market if Xbox ceases to exist. They already had the Steam Machine(?), and they have the Steam Deck for the portable market. I’m not in the pc space at all so I wouldn’t know if that would be a realistic statement.
No Xbox future I am going to guess Microsoft will go down the path Sega choose and be a publisher/game developer with their in house studios. Or sell off their in house studios and just go back to making os for PC's. I highly doubt the second part. Microsoft like any company wants to make money. So if Microsoft did say pull the plug on Xbox I see them going down the path Sega went. And utilize Xbox as a brand and not just as a console. I can see the name of XBox being mainly a brand after that. And maybe with the game you see published by or developed by Xbox studios.
Psyche. Your wrong.
None of the reasons stated matter enough. And that crap about instant patch downloads was dumb, because we all know some patches cause more problems than they fix. They even ruin offline games (skyrim).
I'm perfectly content with choosing if I want a patch, thanks to the prompt that gives me the OPTION.
All the other reasons are dumb one's too because MS could simply just give that particular player the ability to turn on DRM themself if they want those "benefits".
Still dont see why mS needs drm to have most of those benefits. Seems like MS is withholding because they are mad. Don't blame gamers, blame MS for withholding.
"The spectacle of watching a relative newcomer to the video game industry — Microsoft — trying to give something back in the way of digital rights management"
How the hell is enforcing DRM "giving something back"?
I can't believe so many people were perfectly fine with Microsoft [I can't say that; i'll get banned]-ing them.
Wow I cannot believe that there are people actually defending this ridiculous policy...
Alright man put the crack pipe down.
And the key word here is "OPTIONS". MS didn't give people options and incentive.
They didn't need to take features such as family share away. They were just acting like an angry kid.
The existance of physical media shouldn't prevent MS from discounting games and having sales on regular basis. Existance of PC game discs don't affect steam sales.