Well put I think this largely true. This describes exactly what MS is thinking. It all comes down to execution though, if they execute on this well it will be a success.And I'm looking forward to how they implement this as it has benefits as long as they're not trying to sue Sony and Nintendo's model. I can see MS gaming division benefitting from this approach as well, Sony and Nintendo will benefit from this shift. Its not a zero sum game where one group has to lose in order for another to win.Microsoft has already accepted there's no real want for the Xbox console. Even Phil admits it when he stated, paraphrasing, no amount of highly rated games will move the needle. Again, their marketing is to meet the players where they are, and that is not on the Xbox console even based purely on their actions alone.
Listen, I used to be an Xbox whale with my disposable income. I have all the consoles and have always had an up to date gaming rig. As for Xbox, I pre-ordered an Xbox og as soon as it was available along with exclusives. I am first in line with Microsoft's hardware and software. I was an Xbox Live beta tester. I have all and played all the exclusives on the respective platforms. I own all the big games on their targeted platforms. I say all this to say I'm not tied to any one platform, and I support what's unique about every platform, even Kinect.
But Satya scorched earth everything consumer facing and Phil is doing the same song and dance with Xbox I've seen many times now when Microsoft pivots. I do not mean as in they're dropping Xbox. I mean as in dragging the customer along just long enough to pivot.
So, listening to Microsoft's marketing and observing their efforts outside of the Xbox console itself, and again with loads of experience from all their products and services, consumers like myself are also pivoting.
So I reiterate the bulleted list from my previous post. It's not about copying everyone else. It's about accepting their current predicament and operating within it by just treating Xbox as another PC configuration that requires no special console development handholding. And that's much easier to do when console barriers are removed as outlined in the previous posts bulleted list.
- As of the introduction of Game Pass, I do not purchase anything on Xbox anymore. I used the $1 trick initially, and from then on I use points to have a perpetual 3 years of Game Pass banked. So all of it, even playing online, is all free. If Xbox goes away today I lose nothing, because I no longer invest in Xbox.
- Microsoft puts everything on PC (and some for now on other consoles), again meeting the players where they are. So for now I play on both PC and Xbox just because I happen to have an Xbox. Next generation I won't have an Xbox though, because what is the incentive to own an Xbox console? Afterall, people love to say how playing on other devices has no effect on the Xbox console, and how people that say there is an effect are backward thinking fanboys. Well, looking at the sales numbers and the personal account here, I don't think the point should be handwaved away.
- A high end Xbox means nothing when it's not the development focus. Even Microsoft's own devs put out a higher polished game recently on a different platform than their own Xbox. Also if a game is just on console, it's going to be optimized for everything but Xbox due to the sheer number of consumers on other platforms, so why buy the Xbox version? There is no reason to buy the Xbox version. So again, I no longer invest in Xbox.
This is not a doom and gloom post. This acknowledges Microsoft is making tons of money by meeting the players where they are. It just also acknowledges that not an insignificant amount of those players will transition away from being Xbox console owners. You don't have to take my word for it and just look at the overall sentiment online and the cratering console sales. There's no reason to own an Xbox console.
So to get ahead of those transitioning players, and to stay in line with the marketing, it makes sense to just offer anyone that remains an "xbox" with no barriers (it looks like a console, but it's just a PC, see the list). For other consoles, just offer your wares as your starting to do more of now. And since that "xbox" is just a PC, it's just a configuration to easily scale up or down to without any barriers (see list). Everybody wins.
Xbox Business Update Podcast | Xbox Everywhere Direction Discussion
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Of course, there is a reason to buy an Xbox console in the future, and this reason also has an immediate aspect.Microsoft has already accepted there's no real want for the Xbox console. Even Phil admits it when he stated, paraphrasing, no amount of highly rated games will move the needle. Again, their marketing is to meet the players where they are, and that is not on the Xbox console even based purely on their actions alone.
Listen, I used to be an Xbox whale with my disposable income. I have all the consoles and have always had an up to date gaming rig. As for Xbox, I pre-ordered an Xbox og as soon as it was available along with exclusives. I am first in line with Microsoft's hardware and software. I was an Xbox Live beta tester. I have all and played all the exclusives on the respective platforms. I own all the big games on their targeted platforms. I say all this to say I'm not tied to any one platform, and I support what's unique about every platform, even Kinect
But Satya scorched earth everything consumer facing and Phil is doing the same song and dance with Xbox I've seen many times now when Microsoft pivots. I do not mean as in they're dropping Xbox. I mean as in dragging the customer along just long enough to pivot.
So, listening to Microsoft's marketing and observing their efforts outside of the Xbox console itself, and again with loads of experience from all their products and services, consumers like myself are also pivoting.
So I reiterate the bulleted list from my previous post. It's not about copying everyone else. It's about accepting their current predicament and operating within it by just treating Xbox as another PC configuration that requires no special console development handholding. And that's much easier to do when console barriers are removed as outlined in the previous posts bulleted list.
- As of the introduction of Game Pass, I do not purchase anything on Xbox anymore. I used the $1 trick initially, and from then on I use points to have a perpetual 3 years of Game Pass banked. So all of it, even playing online, is all free. If Xbox goes away today I lose nothing, because I no longer invest in Xbox.
- Microsoft puts everything on PC (and some for now on other consoles), again meeting the players where they are. So for now I play on both PC and Xbox just because I happen to have an Xbox. Next generation I won't have an Xbox though, because what is the incentive to own an Xbox console? Afterall, people love to say how playing on other devices has no effect on the Xbox console, and how people that say there is an effect are backward thinking fanboys. Well, looking at the sales numbers and the personal account here, I don't think the point should be handwaved away.
- A high end Xbox means nothing when it's not the development focus. Even Microsoft's own devs put out a higher polished game recently on a different platform than their own Xbox. Also if a game is just on console, it's going to be optimized for everything but Xbox due to the sheer number of consumers on other platforms, so why buy the Xbox version? There is no reason to buy the Xbox version. So again, I no longer invest in Xbox.
This is not a doom and gloom post. This acknowledges Microsoft is making tons of money by meeting the players where they are. It just also acknowledges that not an insignificant amount of those players will transition away from being Xbox console owners. You don't have to take my word for it and just look at the overall sentiment online and the cratering console sales. There's no reason to own an Xbox console.
So to get ahead of those transitioning players, and to stay in line with the marketing, it makes sense to just offer anyone that remains an "xbox" with no barriers (it looks like a console, but it's just a PC, see the list). For other consoles, just offer your wares as your starting to do more of now. And since that "xbox" is just a PC, it's just a configuration to easily scale up or down to without any barriers (see list). Everybody wins.
1, Game Pass. You can save a lot of money by not having to buy the games at full price. Let's face it, the Game Pass offering is getting stronger and stronger and it will only increase. Most importantly, first party games are in on Day1. And first party game dumping in the MS range is coming soon! The money I save thanks to Game Pass, I can spend on an expensive high-end TV and sound system and thus play better quality than the average gamer.
2, Construction. My most reliable and stable console is the Series X, far more stable than any PC. I've never played and don't plan to buy an expensive PC. Instead, I'll buy the moderately priced Xbox console, which gives me quality and the simple but great console feeling that a PC can never provide, due to its many annoyances...
3, Games. New AAA games are still an Xbox priority, and first-party developments are due soon. MS will have more games than the competition and these games better cover my interests. The fact that some previous titles are later transferred to another manufacturer's console a year or two later does not bother me. If a game is good and I'm interested, I won't wait an extra year for it on another platform, but I'll play it Day1 on my own familiar system, for the price of a pizza a month.
Furthermore, there is more and more talk about the AI-based integration in the new Xbox, where it is easy for MS to be in the lead when it comes to games. They have significant investments in this regard and we can already know about them. That's where I'm at right now, with these things they've gotten me more interested in the next Xbox than any other manufacturer's product.
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it isn't that Phil did anything wrong, he is a nice guy, and I prefer to listen to him rather than listening to..., say, Major Nelson when he was in the Xbox division. Sometimes he is too nice but he sounds fine. He kept the Xbox afloat after the disastrous XB1 launch.
Phil's fault imho is that he was too conservative in wanting to relive the X360 glory days. Or in trying to imitate Sony. Sony improved with the PS5, but the PS4 wasn't an exemplary console in any way. It was a stable, good console but there is nothing special about it, imo, other than dominating the market 'cos of the mistakes of the Xbox division.
If you switch the PS5 for the Xbox Series X and viceversa, there is basically no difference at all. This is one of the most insipid console generations.
It's now when we can see a Phil decided to take some risks and innovations in a market where Xbox can't beat two titans like Sony and Nintendo.
As long as they deliver me the best console quality, with games I care about, I don't give a damn where they are in this imaginary race. If it's worth it to MS to make Game Pass a ton of money while only selling half as many Xboxes, then there's no problem here. On the other hand, nothing is set in stone, they can bring out a mega-successful mobile console or marry the Xbox with the PC. BUT, what I care about is that their next desktop console is as comfortable as the Series X. If they have that along with their many games, the monthly subscription
service, then it suits me.
They want to meet customers everywhere including on xbox and they want to make xbox the best console experience for users . They are already making new hardware to help meet that
Listen, I used to be an Xbox whale with my disposable income. I have all the consoles and have always had an up to date gaming rig. As for Xbox, I pre-ordered an Xbox og as soon as it was available along with exclusives. I am first in line with Microsoft's hardware and software. I was an Xbox Live beta tester. I have all and played all the exclusives on the respective platforms. I own all the big games on their targeted platforms. I say all this to say I'm not tied to any one platform, and I support what's unique about every platform, even Kinect
But Satya scorched earth everything consumer facing and Phil is doing the same song and dance with Xbox I've seen many times now when Microsoft pivots. I do not mean as in they're dropping Xbox. I mean as in dragging the customer along just long enough to pivot.
I disagree with you. I think MS is doing the smartest thing by merging their fixed platform goals with their huge open platform os. It makes sense that I can buy Microsoft games on all of their platforms day and date and that they are just a single purchase.
1) But if you want to keep game pass you have to keep paying for game pass and to do that you have to pump money in. So you either have to game enough to get enough free points which seems like an insane amount of gaming (if its even possible) or use bing search to get enough points.
2) Yes the pc is their platform. With game pass or play anywere through the xbox store i can pay for the game and play it on either of those platforms. Its a great feature. I can buy and play a game on my high end rig and then vist my nephew and log in to his xbox and play the game with him.
3) Sony puts better quality games years later on the pc. So do you feel similar about the ps5 pro ? Does it mean nothing ? Ms has already said patches are coming to the xbox versions of the games.
I disagree. With MS having a fixed xbox it allows them to target single or dual spec and really push the limits on what is avalible and there will be a larger player base of tens of millions of players that can buy a box that is $200-$500 and play the game without having to invest more into hardware or mess around with game settings
I think if MS goes the windows route for xbox it will end up being a disaster just like all their other windows attempts ( plays for sure , windows vr and so on)
cheapchips
Veteran
It's easy to point to this gen, but there's basically been no significant hardware advantage for the best part of 20 years.* Third party titles are close enough, unless there's been a porting disaster, and lovely looking first party are down to variances in production quality.
* and yes I'd argue that for Xbone too.
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You're right but the dual spec hasnt worked out well either. Series X hasn't been properly utilized. If they release two machines next gen that have the same amount of RAM, maybe this may work out, but I doubt developer feedback has been positive about another Series S type device. And this developer feedback plays a huge role in how systems are developed and business strategies.
This is the same impression I get that its going to continue to be this way and possibly in the future with much better network throughput and low latency, the console could be a personal game server. You can go anywhere and play your games anywhere with a playstation portal type device or handheld or any screen. No fiddling with settings, just play, this is what consumers want. As well developers love making games on consoles because of the fixed target specs. One thing I expect though is more RAM is going to be the number one thing next gen. How this plays into the multiple configuration strategy for MS is going to be interesting. Because this gen didnt see a large RAM upgrade like in previous years. I think the next gen strategy will require MS to take this into account that off the shelf GPUs may not match the memory requirements of the next gen consoles for the first year or two. Of course this wont be a problem for Sony and Nintendo
You bring up valid points, its a risky bet but its about execution. If OEMs can make their own Xboxes with higher specs but as a consumer you're aware, the most stable experience is going to be from the official MS Xbox then this could work(i.e dont expect as stable an experience when you buy a licensed Xbox instead of the official one). As well devs would build to a single target spec official Xbox and then the OEMs and MS just figure it out on their own. Otherwise if MS does the dual spec, multiple hw configuration Series X2/S2 type thing plus OEM licensed Xboxes, yeah that would be a disaster.
I remember the Xbox 360 with its 512MB of unified RAM had markedly better looking games with smoother textures than the PS3. Even though Sony later came out with good looking titles like Uncharted, 3rd party titles looked markedly better and smoother on the 360. It just had a better memory architecture. As well I remember on the Xbox One, games looked markedly worse compared to the PS4. I think this gen has been a much closer one in considerable part because MS hasnt gotten any value from the extra silicon they paid for with the Series X. Maybe we could have seen some more oomf out of it in terms of fps but they both have 16GB of unified GDDR6 RAM. This is worth considering for the next gen. Is it worth spending extra money on silicon from a business perspective if devs arent going to fully utilize it?It's easy to point to this gen, but there's basically been no significant hardware advantage for the best part of 20 years.* Third party titles are close enough, unless there's been a porting disaster, and lovely looking first party are down to variances in production quality.
* and yes I'd argue that for Xbone too.
what's the difference between a computer capped to play games -a console- running under Windows and a computer running under Windows totally optimised via software by Microsoft to play games like the Steam Deck that can be opened up if need be?
As I said before, I know people who never touched a PC that have the Steam Deck and it runs flawlessly for them, they think it is a console. You have one and I know for a fact that you are happy with it.
The issue with MS right now is that the console business/console mentality isn't for them, it's not in their DNA, and it shows. It's curious that the Series X looks like a big square box like a fridge -the PS5 isn't much better-, and similar to a classic productivity PC than to a console, without any style, while actual PCs are getting much sexier.
Their competitor isn't Sony nor Nintendo, it's Valve, 'cos if Linux takes over gaming I can tell you that Windows won't be as successful.
They could make another console, but I wouldn't buy it when you can have a Lenovo Legion Go 2 and much better hardware that can run a bit of everything. And you have the "infinite" backwards compatibility of PC -which leads to extra sales, GoG runs on that-, to mods, etc.
Other people are making brilliant hardware: Steam Deck or Lenovo Legion Go to name a few. But there is hope, because the Surface team is going to take over.
How do you come to that conclusion that this has anything to do with dual spec?
This is caused by cross generation games due to market size. It simply made no economic sense to design games exclusively for the new generation of consoles for years. The same happened to PS5 which had no PS5S.
How do you expect these consoles to look these days? They are limited to their function which means dissipating 250W at a low noise level. IMHO the PS5 looks ugly and less practical compared to the simplistic XSX design.
I was talking about the negative developer feedback about the Series S in relation to the conversation. The dual spec he was talking about was the SeriesX/S. You find no such issues negative feedback on the PS5. But he was right, developers like building to target specs. As he had said before I responded, "With MS having a fixed xbox it allows them to target single or dual spec and really push the limits on what is avalible". This is largely true. My argument was although he was right, the dual spec as done by MS hasnt worked out. Although it could, if for example in future systems they had the same memory architecture. So this may be something worth considering if they want to try this same business strategy in the future. A Series X2 and S2 with the same amount/type of unified memory as this has been the biggest issue this gen from developer feedback. But is it even worth trying considering how it was received by developers this gen? But he was spot on from a business and technical perspective as he said here :
To add to your assertion, Sony would never launch a Series S type device alongside a new gen console for software development reasons. Those guys dont play around the developer experience ever since the PS3 gen. I can see them launching a handheld of some sort of handheld with separate requirements and its own dedicated devkit or continue with the playstation portal path but I have never heard of a "PS5S" in the works. Their business model is to build a cheap powerful machine and bring down the costs of production over the gen then launch a pro model thats offers a seamless dev experience. But all titles have to be designed around the non pro model then updated for the pro!!!
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Johnny Awesome
Veteran
MS expected to have 30 million sold by the end of 2023 with an outside hope of 35m and they ended the year around 25 million. That's a disappointment, not a disaster like some make out.
There's no reason to panic. Get the 32+ dev teams cranking out AAA content for Day 1 GP. Then put that content on PS 3 years later at $60 a pop.
Put out a $599 box for the hardcore in 2025, reduce the X to $399, the S to $199 and bring out an M that can play S games when they can do this for $299. Then bring out an X2 in 2029 for $599. Shrink the X to S size for $199 etc....
Consistency. Every 4 or 5 years a new box. Rolling Gen's. Support 3 or 4 hardware configs. Stop clowning around. Do this for 10 years and Xbox will do just fine and maintain a 60+ million user base with 50+ million GP subs, all while making a killing on Sony's hardware.
Games:
2024 - Hellblade 2, Avowed, Indiana Jones, CoD, Starfield DLC
2025 - Gears 6, FH6, Fable, Clockwork Revolution, CoD
2026 - State of Decay 3, South of Midnight, CoD, Everwild, Perfect Dark
2027 - Doom, Crash Bandicoot, CoD, Blade
2028 - Outer Worlds 2, Tony Hawk, CoD, Spyro
2029 - ES6, Halo, Forza, CoD
There's no reason to panic. Get the 32+ dev teams cranking out AAA content for Day 1 GP. Then put that content on PS 3 years later at $60 a pop.
Put out a $599 box for the hardcore in 2025, reduce the X to $399, the S to $199 and bring out an M that can play S games when they can do this for $299. Then bring out an X2 in 2029 for $599. Shrink the X to S size for $199 etc....
Consistency. Every 4 or 5 years a new box. Rolling Gen's. Support 3 or 4 hardware configs. Stop clowning around. Do this for 10 years and Xbox will do just fine and maintain a 60+ million user base with 50+ million GP subs, all while making a killing on Sony's hardware.
Games:
2024 - Hellblade 2, Avowed, Indiana Jones, CoD, Starfield DLC
2025 - Gears 6, FH6, Fable, Clockwork Revolution, CoD
2026 - State of Decay 3, South of Midnight, CoD, Everwild, Perfect Dark
2027 - Doom, Crash Bandicoot, CoD, Blade
2028 - Outer Worlds 2, Tony Hawk, CoD, Spyro
2029 - ES6, Halo, Forza, CoD
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Why do you waste time on listening to console warriors and 2nd or even 3rd rate "indie" developers which are most of time just console fanboys instead of looking at the reality?
The reality is that XSX and PS5 games are more or less the same with minor differences connected to their individual strengths. So why do you still blame the XSS that your XSX didn't get the kind of games you expected to be developed?
Either your expectations are bogus, the market just didn't support them to develop or MS management lacked the vision/long term planing for their production pipeline. Take your pick.
They did the reverse and released a Pro after the normal model and are doing it again...
I can't wait for you to argue how the normal model drags down the Pro like a millstone and how Sony sucks of still producing the normal model which just ruins everything.
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The dual spec seems to be doing well for them. Seems like all the games except one have had feature parity between the consoles and well everyone knows my feelings about that developer.
Sony isn't moving the ram amount of the ps5 pro. So if MS released two xbox nexts one based around zen5/rdna5 at 12tflop with 16gigs of ram around $300 and a zen5/rdna5 at whatever 24 or soemthing tflop and 24gigs of ram I think it would work out just fine for them.
Sure maybe in 50 years or so. I am only just now getting offered fiber where I live in New Jersey and it sucks thats not to mention my own personal hardware that wouldn't be up to the task to provide the latency I want inside my home let alone when I am trying to connect out and about via 5g
I am not sure what you are trying to say about off the shelf gpus and their memory. It seems like the GPU manufactures or at least Nvidia are very reluctant to increase the vram on their cards. For Ms if they need to i don't see why they can't just add DDR into the system for the cpu to use while leaving the exotic ram for the gpu portion to use. 4-8gigs of ddr5 would be more than enough even single channel for a zen 5 to operate with and then 16gigs of ultra fast gddr ram could be reserved for the gpu portion of the chip
Sony is using amd also so I don't see what options they will chose that are vasty different. Nintendo is going nvidia it seems and they just use gddr or lpddr ram
I think its smarter for MS to have Xbox as its own self contained hardware and then simply make a light weight windows with the xbox app as the launch skin for companies who want to build steam deck like devices or steam machine like devices.
For the average consumer looking at a console they just want a game that works and if you go to far into the weeds with different oems launching different xboxs all the time its just going to cause a cluster for the end user not to mention the developers. You said above you think a dual sku didn't work but now every windows oem is goig to make their own xbox with slightly different hardware ?
Personally I think MS needs to be disruptive again like they were with the xbox 360 or like nintendo was with the switch. Both devices came off the heels of disastrous consoles and both brought enough new or enough polish to captivate gamers.
That is why I think a 2025/26 console with a focus on AI could be that disruption for them. Esp if they can get some of their big games out at the same time using that functionality. I linked the ai stuff modded in to skyrim but imagine if MS has Fable or outer wilds 2 ready with that type of technology and its only avalible on the next xbox . Not only that but drive it home with needing amd ryzen 9000 ai edition chips to run it on the pc and boom you push a narative that the new xbox is leagues beyond the xbox series or ps5 family.
that is disruption and it piggy backs on all the ai hype now. Sony having launched a ps5 pro likely this year wouldn't be able to react right away to 2025 system. Even in 2026 it be a very short life span for the ps5 pro . So we could again see a rehash of the xbox 360/ps3 where MS has a year or even more advantage.
You realize that a steam deck is a singular device that only valve makes. There are no third party steam decks. valve also works with devs to make steam deck profiles available.
I also hate to break it to you but as a big steam deck fan that uses mine every day there are plenty of games out there that don't just work. Valve has a whole program dedicated to let you know which games just work and which games are fubar and everything in between.
I have no issue if MS wants to unify what the oems are putting out as windows handhelds but it will never be as easy as just using an xbox nor will the hardware ever run as well as just having xbox os on it.
Lenovo Legion Go 2 wouldn't have better hardware than a new xbox console. The Go is behind the series s in terms of gaming performance let alone the xbox series x.
Oh okay let me explain what I meant. Consoles at times had much larger jumps in memory than one could find in off the shelf GPUs. I remember when the PS4 came out getting a consumer GPU with 8GB of VRAM was quite difficult. You could only find that in high end professional GPUs for the first year or two iirc. I think next gen that will be an area with a large leap(large memory leap). I dont think a 2x increase in memory will suffice. But thats a whole other argument. And if this happens how would it affect say licensed Xboxes for the first year or two(if this is the strategy moving forward). Console makers have the advantage of designing ASICS and then amortizing the cost of the memory over say 7 years. Like right now they're paying peanuts for the 16GB of memory in the consoles. If it wasnt for the expensive SSDs(which have now dropped in prices as well), we could have seen more memory. And disk storage wont be a huge factor in the cost of next gen hw like it was this gen. I think most of the R&D will go into larger amounts of memory and higher memory bandwidth for tasks related to RT and ML. That with the obvious improvements in CPU/GPU compute. So if this happens how would OEMs building licensded Xboxes navigate this if the consoles come out with much larger memory than is available off the shelf?
The key is understanding why the reverse isnt the same. Thats the key!!
I agree on this, I was just trying to be a devil's advocate and figure out a way it would make sense. But the dual SKU as implemented by MS this gen has clear issues. As well opening up the Xbox to multiple hw configs has even clearer issues. As you said yourself as a steam deck owner games dont just run. Its not like any game can run on the machine. In my understanding the current state of console version and PC version titles makes the most sense. I think MS gaming is trying to do multiple good things at once and mixing them up at times; improve ease of PC gaming, create great console hw, BC and Forward Compatibility, have a platform with great software titles that can be played on multiple different types of hw, etc. So they have issues executing and focusing on the core. Thats why I suggested regardless of what strategy they choose moving forward, they should launch a single Xbox next time. Just one MS official Xbox that is going to get full support. This is the fundamental best strategy moving forward but as well they may be thinking of focusing on becoming a 3rd party developer.
The thing is console hw takes years of R&D to develop and ship. And its not just the hw but what software advancements, advancements in memory and storage make it worthwhile to usher in new generational leaps. If you add a large AI accelerator onto the ASIC will it have enough memory bandwidth to meet the goals of the developers? What do developers like Rockstar think is the memory bandwidth requirements for such a system based on statistical and empirical data, etc. These are the questions that take years to formulate for consoles. I think 2025 is too early as well as 2026 for reasons I'll mention below. One of them is memory, GDDR7 roadmap is from 2023 to around 2028 IIRC. The HW engineers at MS want their next gen machines to release at the best possible time to get higher bandwidth memory. 2025 isnt that year, neither is 2026. The gap in memory bandwidth would be too large between a machine released in 2025 and one released at the end of 2027. If you're adding all these accelerators for AI and RT you'll have higher memory bandwidth requirements that need to last at least 6 years. I could be wrong, but this is what I remember when I last read about this.
The advantage of the 360 was it was overall a better designed system than the PS3 from the system architecture to the SDK. It wasnt just one thing but a well balanced machine using the best new technologies available without going experimental. Devs just gravitated towards it as well due to the unified memory etc. MS learned what worked and didnt work with the OG Xbox and they had Sony's PS3 engineers wowed and impressed by the 360 system architecture, despite Sony coming out with a novel Cell architecture for the CPU, they had been beat. Thats what they need to do as well this time, not one singular thing like AI but a well balanced system. The issue with a new system in 2025 is you likely wont see a difference between the PS5 pro and this system in titles unless its prohibitively expensive(over $800) and also if MS can put hundreds of millions of dollars to a few billions to make software titles for it(Fable and the other games are designed around the Series X hw already, they wont do). If its a midgen product it will end up costing the same as the PS5pro otherwise you'd need GDDR7, a large die area dedicated to AI as you said, larger RT accelerators, a lot of developer outreach to see how they could use a new system, large funding for titles that can take advantage of the hw, etc. It would be awfully expensive to release such a system in 2025 or 2026 with the line up of titles needed to show a generational leap. And if it doesnt have a steady release of titles you'll end up in an even worse situation in terms of hw/sw sales as consumers will be clamoring to see what the machine can do.
I think its a bit short sighted to only look at VRAM. today you can get 32gigs of ddr 5 ram for $80 bucks and a 8-20gig vram video card for the pc.
But the same was kinda true with the ps4/xbox one. They had 8 gigs total ram but most gamers ran 16-32 gigs of ddr 4 and video cards of 4-8gigs of ram.
I think on the pc side we have been just as stagnant as on the console side and it really started happening last gen. I also don't see a OEM stuffing their version of xbox full of expensive ram. Even then all that will happen is costs will go up on that console. If lets say Dell comes out with the alienware Xbox series X and puts in 32gigs of ram they aren't going to sell it for less than MS is selling the current xbox series x. They are going to say well this is a value add and now lets make money and price this at $600 or $700. not to mention that both MS and Sony are willing to eat some cost of consoles at the start because they get 15-30% of all the games sold and 100% of all the accessories. Dell wouldn't be getting any of that.
I 100% think if Ms is making a mobile gaming device it should be a mobile xbox that just runs xbox games.
Ms is already set up with the series S to have a vast amount of optimization done for.
I'd perfer if they launch a new generation of devices next year and it consists of a handheld zen5/rdna5 with 16gigs of ram and then a standard console with zen5/rdna 5 and 24+ gigs of ram.
Modders added AI to skyrim on their own and it didn't take them years
It seems to work really well and if they could do it then MS's dev teams can do it.
I am not sure why you need a large AI accelerator. AMD has xillan cores that it is adding to Zen with Zen 5 later this year. They will be small cores meant to accelerate this stuff kinda like what Qualcomm is doing
In terms of bandwidth there is nothing stopping Ms from implementing infinity cache into the xbox or going with a split pool of ddr for the cpu and gddr for the gpu.
Sure it being a better designed system may have helped it out later on but there is no denying that having the market to themselves as the only next gen machine for a year also helped them out.
As for 2025 you'd get zen 5 which leaks indicate in certain tasks is 40% faster than zen 4 which it self is faster than zen3+ and that is faster than zen 3 which is faster than zen 2 in the ps5/pro and xbox series there should be massive gains in cpu performance clock for clock. Depending on when Morpheus(zen 6) comes out that could even be possible for a 2025 console.
We know in some games the zen 2 processor in the ps5 and xbox series consoles is holding back frame rate and performance. The ps5 pro is rumored to only have a slight increase in clock speed of several hundred mhz . So in those types of games you could end up seeing huge gains in performance. That is before getting software specifically designed to take advantage of the new processor
On the gpu side if rdna 5 is available that should hopefully greatly improve ray tracing performance and that is something rdna 2 greatly lacks.
At the end of the day MS has 32 developer studios which can focus on making the best experiences with their console as a base. Things are completely different than when they launched the xbox series. For one there is no pandemic shutting everything down and forcing everyone remote. but also they have grown a lot in studios allowing them to have a lot of content for the xbox.
I've said it before and I will say it again. Having a COD that takes advantage of the next gen system on day one is a big system seller. There are a lot of cod fans that will switch consoles for the best console version. Add to it that they can have a gears ready or doom and have a big RPG ready too and it could be a really big year for a new console unlike what happened with the series consoles
