Xbox Series... M?

continuing with the info of the Xbox Direction thread, I've read from someone I trust who subsequently learnt from someone who predicted lots of things that became reality regarding MS stuff, that....

MS will leave Series production. There is talk that the announcement could be accompanied by a new hardware presentation, which we all obviously intuit will be a handheld with basic specifications from which to make games on Windows.

Rather than no competition at all with Sony and Nintendo, allegedly what Microsoft wants is an open system with many manufacturers with minimal specifications, a mix between the consoles we know today and the PC market.
 
Cyan said:
continuing with the info of the Xbox Direction thread, I've read from someone I trust who subsequently learnt from someone who predicted lots of things that became reality regarding MS stuff, that....

MS will leave Series production. There is talk that the announcement could be accompanied by a new hardware presentation, which we all obviously intuit will be a handheld with basic specifications from which to make games on Windows.

Rather than no competition at all with Sony and Nintendo, allegedly what Microsoft wants is an open system with many manufacturers with minimal specifications, a mix between the consoles we know today and the PC market.
Click to expand...
Even if that would be an interesting concept (and something that's probably going to happen at this point, even DF talk about it regularly), it wouldn't really be competition. Here's a PS6 like Xbox with similar specs at 200€/$ more! It would get a tenth of the sales of the competition. Microsoft doesn't like losing money on hardware anymore, that's pretty clear, but this strategy would just lead to lower losses instead of higher market share.

And with how much money they are losing on series s (which I don't really understand, those specs should be pretty cheap to manufacture at maybe a small loss for Microsoft), a series m would be really expensive. Like 600$ expensive.
 
Keep this thread discussing the handheld possibilities, and broader MS business plans in the other thread.
 
Based on sources from my ass(ets),

The Xbox portable SOC will be used in Surface, OEM laptop / handhelds. All of them will run the same OS with differences in terms of UX and OS openness. The OS on the Xbox handheld will not allow easy installation outside of stores. Xbox sells the SOC to OEMS for breakeven costs. Xbox should be the cheapest base handheld.

OEM devices:

have different form factors
better screens, OLED, bigger, HDR
more and faster ram
faster clocks
fully enabled GPU
bigger and faster SSDs
extra inputs
extra ports
haptics
more open OS

For example, Xbox handheld specs:

1080p120hz 7" LCD with VRR
3.5ghz CPU, 2.0 ghz GPU with 10 active WGP
no backbuttons
24GB of LPDDR6 14.4 Gbps. 256bit bus
1TB SSD
1 usb-c port
1 SD card slot
$399

Lenovo Legion Go Fast specs:

1440p120hz 8" OLED with VRR, HDR
4ghz CPU, 2.5 ghz GPU with 11 active WGP
2 x back buttons
Hall Effect joysticks
32GB of LPDDR6 16 Gbps. 256bit bus
2TB SSD
2 usb-c port
1 SD card slot
less restricted windows os.
$999
 
Last edited:
Cyan said:
www.wired.com

Only Microsoft Can Save Windows-Powered Handheld Game Consoles

The dream of running all your Steam, Epic, and GOG games in one place will continue to be a nightmare until Microsoft steps up.
www.wired.com www.wired.com
Click to expand...

Google still benefits from its services running on competitors' devices, so either way, Google comes out on top. A similar strategy could work for an Xbox handheld built on a platform of work that Microsoft shares with third parties.
Click to expand...

The problem here is that the defacto service for PC gaming is Steam. Unless Microsoft forces their store and Game Pass on these devices there is no incentive to use it over Steam or even any number of other alternatives, they'd be way down the priority list. As it currently stands the more Microsoft invests into Windows gaming it could just be a situaton in which it just benefits Valve/Steam who stays on top.

The economics would be completely different if they could actually take revenue per PC game sale from a handheld. Windows not only for free (with more developement for gaming) but they could even rebate the OEMs to lower hardware prices and make it up on the back end.
 
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