Xbox Business Update Podcast | Xbox Everywhere Direction Discussion

[QPlayer]

agreed. The hybrid one could even be eGPU compatible for those who want extra power.

On the dedicated console, since they are taking preservation seriously, thy could make it even PC Windows compatible, I mean console gamers should have it as easy as possible to launch any Windows game. Which means hundreds of thousands of games and stuff.

They could create a Windows virtual machine that could run any .exe, even .exe files with viruses, without having any effect to the base console. There are a lot of games via emulation, mugens, openbor games, visual novels, erotic novels, retro gaming, free games on itch.io,, etc etc etc etc, that could be accessed by console gamers.

If they want it to make game preservation a thing, some kind of API running games from the very first version of DirectX to MSDOS games, easily accesible to console gamers could make it even more compelling for any lazy console gamer.

Btw, Microsoft just released the source code of MSDOS today.

Thus console gamers would get the best of both worlds too. Gaming nowadays is not just trending full prized AAA games, there are a lot of games in between.

The hybrid handheld could get the best of a traditional console, the UI and easy of use, but with an actual tweaked Windows OS running it, so the rest would be guaranteed.

Actually, with this strategy, they could keep the Xbox brand name, but they could create a much more extended and at the same time risk-free business. MS requires subscriptions. If that's how they get more people to subscribe to their service and so we can get the Xbox experience, then go for it!

 

[Seanspeed]

What impressive launch? Someone else posted the launch. I just remember playing COD 2 until oblivion came out like 4 or 5 months later. The xbox 360 started like a small snow ball up hill and kept picking up steam as it went.

Day 1 launch lineups for any console are rarely very good, but Xbox360 had quite a good one. Kameo, Project Gotham Racing 3, Call of Duty 2, Condemned, Perfect Dark Zero, and Geometry Wars Retro Evolved.

Either way, I think when people talk about the launch, they are talking bigger picture though, so like launch window/first year. And that was absolutely excellent. Along with previously mentioned Day 1 games, there was Elder Scrolls Oblivion, Dead Rising, Gears of War, Prey, Saints Row, Test Drive Unlimited, Viva Pinata and Rainbow Six Vegas.

Some of these would later come to PS3, but for that first year, all these games listed were X360(console) exclusive, and you cannot tell me that's not a great lineup of games.

It absolutely came out the gates swinging.

 

[rntongo]

well, the west isn't rich, at least where I live, and you might be surprised at certain apparently rich places of the west where hidden poverty is kinda rampant. Didn't you have a connection back then? Just curious...

Personally, I can tell you that I live in a very rural mountainous area and back then my connection was horrible. 1Mb at most, and it dropped a lot. I had internet in 1997 for the first time, but it was a temporary thing, like 15 days, it was so expensive.

Then in 1999-2000 I had internet for a while, it wasn't as expensive, but 56K modems are too slow.

Until two years ago my connection's speed was 20Mb (actual 2MB/s speed but usually a lot less than that) via satellite like a phone, Thanks to an EU initiative now we have fiber in certain villages in the area where I live.

Yes you're right, the West is not entirely rich but when you said you had 1Mb internet, thats very excellent internet compared to the rest of the world especially at that time. You'd only find such speeds with research facilities and certain NGOs or government offices in Africa for example. It was typical, Europe had very good internet access when the 360 launched as well as the US, I remember quite well how fast the internet was when I visited the UK or Switzerland or example. People didnt have 1Mbps internet in their homes in the developing world at the time, not even close, if they did it was the exception not the norm. 2005-2010 people mainly used wireless dongles. The fastest dongles in those days were around 256Kbps so 32KB/s by 2010 you could find 512Kbps dongles but at the same time 1Mbps packages were marketed that never run faster than the 512Kbps!! This was 2010. In hotels when I'd travel you'd find faster internet in developing countries but between 2005-2010 the vast majority of the world was playing their consoles offline. That only changed when the PS4 and Xbox One launched and it was only in certain parts of the world where high speed internet access had improved like Egypt, Kenya, India. But your experience with the Xbox 360 online features was not a typifying experience for the rest of the world where the other half(at least) of Xbox 360 consoles were. And as I mentioned to you we used to buy electronics from the West on trips and take them back as presents or requests from friends. Millions of console sales categorized as NA or Europe were for families and game cafes in Egypt, Kenya, Brazil, etc. I would say the Xbox 360 was one of the best selling devices globally during this time. Sony had to make so many low cost variants of the PS3 to get close to the 360 sales.

In my house we had landline internet paid for by the govt and it was decent but it wasnt the norm & you couldnt use it for online gaming. It was decent until around 2006 when the dongles started popping up with faster speed of around "125Kbps" which were much slower than advertised still. I remember downloading Pirates of Silicon Valley movie for a month from a bittorrent site using the dongle(something that would have taken a few hours from a relatives house in the UK). It was unlimited and worked quite well(but not for online gaming) but the cost of an unlimited package was prohibitive to a lot of families(again ours was paid for by the govt).

 

[eastmen]

Yes you're right, the West is not entirely rich but when you said you had 1Mb internet, thats very excellent internet compared to the rest of the world especially at that time. You'd only find such speeds with research facilities and certain NGOs or government offices in Africa for example. It was typical, Europe had very good internet access when the 360 launched as well as the US, I remember quite well how fast the internet was when I visited the UK or Switzerland or example. People didnt have 1Mbps internet in their homes in the developing world at the time, not even close, if they did it was the exception not the norm. 2005-2010 people mainly used wireless dongles. The fastest dongles in those days were around 256Kbps so 32KB/s by 2010 you could find 512Kbps dongles but at the same time 1Mbps packages were marketed that never run faster than the 512Kbps!! This was 2010. In hotels when I'd travel you'd find faster internet in developing countries but between 2005-2010 the vast majority of the world was playing their consoles offline. That only changed when the PS4 and Xbox One launched and it was only in certain parts of the world where high speed internet access had improved like Egypt, Kenya, India. But your experience with the Xbox 360 online features was not a typifying experience for the rest of the world where the other half(at least) of Xbox 360 consoles were. And as I mentioned to you we used to buy electronics from the West on trips and take them back as presents or requests from friends. Millions of console sales categorized as NA or Europe were for families and game cafes in Egypt, Kenya, Brazil, etc. I would say the Xbox 360 was one of the best selling devices globally during this time. Sony had to make so many low cost variants of the PS3 to get close to the 360 sales.

In my house we had landline internet paid for by the govt and it was decent but it wasnt the norm & you couldnt use it for online gaming. It was decent until around 2006 when the dongles started popping up with faster speed of around "125Kbps" which were much slower than advertised still. I remember downloading Pirates of Silicon Valley movie for a month from a bittorrent site using the dongle(something that would have taken a few hours from a relatives house in the UK). It was unlimited and worked quite well(but not for online gaming) but the cost of an unlimited package was prohibitive to a lot of families(again ours was paid for by the govt).

A big issue with America is how rural it is. I had rich family that had a mansion and a huge amount of land in southern Jersey but the next house was half a mile away and they had dial up and had to switch to a dish that downloaded but had to upload via dial up for many years. They and some others in the community finally paid to have lines ran out to their houses since the cable companies didn't want to invest that money into it for so few houses.

 

[eastmen]

This is exactly why it is likely that they want to come out first with a console with features that attract new players. What could be the biggest buzzword in the coming years? AI, of course. Starting this year, almost everything in computing will be about this. During the time of MS, he got on this train and invested a lot of money in Intel's developments and production lines. Now, some may say that this is not related to the console department, however, it cannot be ruled out considering the possibilities. In order to create a successful product similar to or exceeding the X360, a different approach is needed.

With the current Series consoles, they can only own a more modest business slice. If they want to keep the Xbox Series line and develop it further, there is only one way, a successful Series S Mobile that plays Series S games. With this step, they can also keep the 30 million user base.

Would that be so important? At that time, they stopped at 20 million sold consoles and switched to the more modern, better-built console, the X360. Why can't they do that now? Of course, this is just a theory, but they can bring out the new generation console this way, earlier than the competition and rebuild a much larger user base.

MS would love to refresh the xbox line with AI capabilities and get them out to tens of millions if not over a 100m gamers. It be a wet dream to them for having all that data to locally train their ai for gaming . Taking 30% cuts off others people software sales along with getting a 100% of their own software sales coupled with accessory sales and subscription sales is all just icing on the cake for them.

I am also willing to bet that AMD has a vested interest to get all their AI components in a microsoft device since Qualcomm is already doing so with the surface line up. AMD getting tens of millions if not a 100m xbox out there that support their ai instructions , cores and possibly their rdna redesign that is rumored for rdna 5 out there in the world can be a very big deal for them.

But hey we will see what Ms ultimately does.