Why would Valve release a console that runs Xbox Console OS instead of Steam OS? Why not Steam OS which is doing quite well. They could make much more money this way as well with their own Store front on their machine.
Yeah thats a good point.
Yeah, I know MS or Phil have suggested having Valve's game store on a future Xbox which doesnt monetarily make sense either but Valve wouldnt do the reverse. The next step for Valve is to improve their handheld, Steam OS and increase the number of titles that play well on their steam deck devices. These will lay the ground work for better future hw and services including a possible hw console next gen. They dont need sales numbers comparable to Sony, if they can sell at double the price of a PS6 they can bring in a higher margin per console while bringing consumers into their ecosystem. If they can hit a quarter of PS6 sales that would be a huge achievement considering the higher margin. They can strike a decent middle ground between those looking for a more powerful system while still having the benefits of consoles i.e precompiles shaders. So Sony could take over most of the console sales while Valve could expand their ecosystem to cover PC, handhelds and AAA console gaming.
I think it would definitely do both. PC gaming has gotten a fair bit more expensive lately with the rise in GPU and motherboard pricing and all, and it's definitely going to have put off plenty of people who otherwise might have been interested in checking out PC gaming. A subsidized, fixed spec box that offers truly good performance per dollar again would be super appealing to a lot of people, I think. Something relatively affordable, but also something that would get a fair bit of explicit performance profile support for in games due to its popularity(ala Steam Deck), making the experience very accessible for those coming over from console gaming.
Microsoft doesn't have to pay licensing for Windows OS/VMs, so they have a small advantage. Wine compatibility only goes so far.
Releasing in 2026 it would be very expensive and most games will be designed around the 16GB RAM PS5 still. As well by 2026 prices for the base PS5 and Series X will be lower than today, I just dont see how this will get the software support it needs in 2026-2028. Yet Sony will be in position to release a much more powerful machine in 2028 at a lower cost. Memory is going to be the big game changer next gen alongside acceleration for Ray Tracing and AI workloads.
This is just speculation on your part, the only difference is that it is an outdated speculation based on previous trends. But we know very well that the previous cheap console philosophy is no longer profitable for large companies. If they want innovation and "this will be the biggest technological leap" promised by Microsoft, then they will sell the next console more expensively with more advanced components, especially if it will actually be a unique PC. The traditional console concept is becoming less and less important.
We can estimate the performance of a next gen console right now probably. If we assume a cost optimized 2nm in 2028, something like a 5080 can be shrunk to around 250mm. That's feasible for the GPU portion of the chip, so between a 5070 to a 5080.
