Mark Kriska of Mammoth Gamers continues his console wars piece with a closer look at the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii.
Microsoft executives seemingly considered bringing Xbox Cloud Gaming to the Sony PlayStation 5 through a browser.
So much weird crap has come out from all this this. They honestly don’t know what the hell to do with Xbox.
This is where it is eventually heading, gamepass will go platform agnostic and MS will stop making hardware. The writing has been on the wall for years.
Its no different to what they did with Apple when they wouldn't allow a proprietary Xcloud/gamepass app.
Xcloud by definition is the opposite of 'console business', its entire purpose is the lack of requirement for console/dedicated hardware. They want it on anything with a browser.
Fair but putting xbox on your opps browser platform...? I think there's a sign.
Funny how this is not supporting the narrative of Xbox just taking grants away from the read Activision blizzard
It means steam could be, at any point, brought to consoles and Microsoft wants to be there first.
Outside of third party games, what in the world could Microsoft bring?
Ohhhh wait a minute.. Microsoft is buying up all the third party publishers.
Hmmm
Not really a console now. Not with the focus on GP or wanting to stream to phones and TVs.
Then there's inability to support their platform through in house resources. Needing to buy 3rd party.
Can't say if that's a good thing having a limited browser or not. But it still does show the level of shadiness Microsoft would be willing to go to cut into Sony's sales behind the scenes...
Microsoft: "Damn! Sony is whooping our asses again. We have the most powerful console in the world and a smaller hardware footprint. And they are still beating our ass. Seems they could shape their console like a spacecraft and still kill us in sales. How do we stop this momentum?"
Top executive: " We could create more studios and beat them on high quality games."
Microsoft: " You're fired. Pack up your things. You.. you in the green shirt. What say you?"
All in the room: (they look puzzled as they are all wearing green except Phil in his gamer shirt.)
Microsoft: "Fine. (irritated) You with the mullet and the dark frames..."
Executive Mullet: "We could... we could buy up third parties that have made PlayStation a success and lock them out of those top games?"
Microsoft: "Yes. YES!! I like where you are going with this. Done! We buy the top players and take away games so that customers come to us. Hey you in the pony tail(Meeting Recorder), get on the phone and call the financial department for a meeting. We need to spend whatever it takes besides CANNIBALIZE our sales. Buy off congressmen if you have to. Who else?"
Executive playing with a Gears action figure: "Oh I know... we offer our services on Sony's console. That way, they'll be playing our games and not theirs. Like on the browser. Cutting into their profits as well."
Microsoft: "Promote this man too. Hmmm. Can Sony stop us or block the browser?"
Executive Gears: " Don't know but we'll look into it sir."
Microsoft: "Muaaahahaha!! Then, our control and domination of videogames will almost be complete. Has Nintendo stopped laughing and said yes yet? No? Then we'll play the long game until the time is right. Nintendo's future is off their hardware. Muaaahahaha!!!"
Meanwhile, Spider-Man 2 sells millions in its first month. The plot thickens...
In 2018, PSN was making more money than the Xbox and Nintendo entire gaming divisions combined. Yes, I am talking about just PSN, not the playstation division.
You seriously think Microsoft suddently started making this much more money when they're spending it left and right on Gamepass? Sorry no, in term of profits and revenues, Sony and Nintendo are likely far above them.
Sony make 24mil last Q xbox mad 14mil and Nintendo made 16mil you xbox kids just latching on to tht fake charts that he removed cuz he made them up HAHAHAH
With trillions in the bank MS should be making more than PS but unfortunately for some that's not the case which makes MS even more embarrassing, pathetic and lame.
It's funny how when talking about xbox vs PS the "But MS has more money than Sony" always comes to the conversation but games are not in it lmao
@Aloy literally, absolutely no one, mentioned MS. Lol you completely made something up something in your head
Jeez. Why don’t they just go third party? Seriously if they are willing to go this far then it’s just desperation to hang into the console market so you don’t look like a failure by sneaking around.
Sony would be way more open to have some kind of deal for Gamepass to be on PlayStation if MS were openly third party and releasing games from Zenixmax / Activision and especially MS first party on their console
They probably wouldn’t have an issue
Cause they want their fingers in ALL of the pies.
Think at this point MS makes more money through patients (which they bought) and intercorporate subscriptions (Like the disc format for BR during the BR/HD-DVD 'war') than selling products to consumers.
"Cause they want their fingers in ALL of the pies"
And that sadly will be their downfall...
Except currently they have their fingers in most of the pies. Even with the Activision deal going through, the next Xbox likely digital only, the consoles done. Will likely eventually reduced to an app that may one day be on a Playstation or Nintendo box while MS makes more off Candy Crush. If that's still a thing by then.
Key issue neither they nor fanbase keep dismissing is the death of creativity under Xbox. COD and Overwatch were only fading before all this, and hell, no remembers during the 360 era talk starting of the industry being dead before the Switch and PS4 revived it like nothing happened.
The best thing MS can do for the industry is leave, thought again with the Activision sale that seems unlikely.
@Foxtrot:
"Even that was based off what the Dreamcast tried to do"
Naw. Sega was out the door regardless due to mismanagement. And neither Sony or Nintendo seemed all that interested in online for consoles. Likely might have tried implementing a gen or two later at best. MS quickened the process.
It would make sense for Xbox to drop consoles and just be a service provider. Their acquisitions will not translate to any meaningful console sales and they are seeing this with Starfield.
This article is wrong in some aspects.
- PS3 has a successful E3 2005. Other than the questionable boomerang controller, everyone was excited about the console. It was E3 2006 that ruffled people's feathers.
- Xbox 360 actually had the slowest start of all 7th gen consoles. PS3 and Wii sold at a faster rate at their respective launches and all throughout most of the generation.
- How can you say that PSN failed? It implemented many features that we take for granted nowadays such as using actual local currency instead of a contrived points system, not locking many of the console's functionalities behind a paywall, having Cross-Buy right out of the gate starting with PS1 Classics, offering AAA games release day one along with the retail version, allowing Remote Play to be accessed anywhere in the world, starting out the gate with dedicated servers, offering a subscription service that gives plenty of value via PS+, and it was nowhere as restrictive as XBL. That sounds like a success to me.
- PS3 actually came in second place because it was always selling at a faster pace than 360 since day one when you align their launches. PS3 ended up selling 86 million while 360 sold 85 million. This is significant because PS3 had one less year on the market and was more expensive throughout most of its life compared to the 360.
- Xbox 360 may have ended up being the favorite platform in North America, but you can't say the same for the rest of the world. In regions such as Europe, Asia, and RoW the PS3 and Wii were always more prominent. That's why those platforms were able to outsell 360 in total sales.