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[MarkMe2525]

You can. It just means inefficiencies.
Doing both means the 3rd party games would not be able to benefit the console, and the 1st party games would make less money than it could have.

Adding inefficiency into the system when you already come last in the console race doesn't make sense.

I don't take the view that these are necessarily true. I would agree that it increases development costs, but that would be offset with higher revenue.

 

[mckmas8808]

They have to show commitment next week, or else they lose a lot of existing customers. I think they at least reveal a codename for the next console (or maybe both products rumored).

But then most people will stop buying the current Xbox console and just wait on the new next-gen Xbox console. That's too much to risk.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

But then most people will stop buying the current Xbox console and just wait on the new next-gen Xbox console. That's too much to risk.

They said they expected a 40% drop in hardware sales

 

[Nonehxc]

So...they can't compete against Sony hardware alone...now they're trying to go against Sony hardware AND Switch AND Steam Deck/All the different PC Decks hardware EVERYTHING AT THE SAME TIME.

Well, good luck.

 

[pixelation]

• Xbox community member Magg allegedly has insight into Xbox's plans for the future, revealing that Xbox is still planning to release a next-gen console.
• The next-gen Xbox launch will reportedly include two SKUs: a traditional high-end console and a Switch-like dockable handheld.
• Phil Spencer previously stated that the Xbox console is at the heart of everything they do and will be moving forward.

A next-gen Xbox console is on track to launch in 2026 according to rumours. Apparently, Microsoft are planning to release two devices - a traditional high-end console and a dockable Switch-like handheld.​

It's been quite a week for Xbox fans. Rumours about games like Starfield , Hellblade 2 , Gears of War and even more going to other platforms like PlayStation 5 certainly did not sit well with the majority of the community, who are fearful that Xbox might leave the console business for good.
Microsoft Gaming boss Phil Spencer tried to ease those fears by tweeting that Xbox "are listening and hear" the concerns of the fans and will reveal more details next week in a "business update". It's not quite the wording that Xbox fans wanted to hear but I guess it's still better than dead silence.
Anyway, in the sea of these negative rumours, we also have some exciting details coming from Xbox community member Magg who allegedly has insight into Xbox's plans for the future.

Magg revealed that Xbox are still pretty much planning to release a next-gen console. The target release window is currently 2026 but obviously, plans can change and nothing is yet set in stone.

In addition, the next-gen Xbox will reportedly have two SKUs. One is a traditional high-end console akin to the Xbox Series X, while the second one is a bit more exciting. According to Magg, the second device will be a Switch-like dockable handheld.

Unfortunately, he did not delve into details so that's pretty much the only info we have regarding these products. Reliable Xbox journalist Jez Corden recently revealed that Microsoft greenlit a bunch of Xbox hardware, implying that they have no plans to leave the console space anytime soon.

Source:

source: https://www.altchar.com/game-news/n...switch-like-handheld-its-claimed-ayUnB9z6fJ6r

Yeaaahhh, ain't no one gonna buy them. I'd question a person's sanity if they were to ever entertain the possibility of buying HW from MS ever again.

 

[Papa_Wisdom]

Posted from another thread but this is how I see the next gen Xbox

Next gen for Xbox will be a hand held in the same vein as the series s with hdmi out and connection for an external gpu when docked to your tv

The series x equivalent will be around the same price the series x was launched at, maybe even a little more expensive, all accessories will be compatible (memory cards etc). Again with a connection for external gpu.

Optional purchase to buy a Windows key (like developer mode) which means an version of Windows can be installed so can be used as a normal pc. Giving you access to steam and PlayStation ports.

Perhaps the license to oem to manufacture there own Xbox branded machines.

HeisenbergFX4

Just wondering on your thought of my ramble if you wouldn’t mind

I posted this in a previous thread and I still think there going down that hardware route (handheld and new console)

If they don’t enable a duel boot into full windows (Which I think would be the best option).I think there might be an option to boot into a custom version of it that would allow access to PC Gamepass but also steam.

That way they satisfy everyone, you have your base xbox optimised games profile for people who just want a console experience with the os and there library, want to access Xbox console game pass and play their library.

But you can also (dependant on how flexible the os is for it) use your Xbox to access pc gamepass, but also steam client, People would be access there steam games, where Microsoft sells games, (yes valve would get a cut but we’re talking about people buying an Xbox for this feature) and de facto PlayStation exclusives when they release on steam.

This may actually be beneficial to Sony if Microsoft are able to bridge the divide between pc people wanting a console form factor pc, and Xbox console players themselves.

Microsoft need hardware, At a decent price to match the ps6 in power (home console) the benefit of it would be the understanding that you’d buy an Xbox/PC Gamepass box/Steambox.
If there’s a 12 month or so delay between an Xbox release and then a PlayStation release. We’ll that’s about the same time that Sony takes to port from PlayStation to pc neither side is really loosing out on exclusives apart from Sony who would not be getting their 70% they would get from selling to the Xbox console users.

Or they could just open it up as a full windows experience where it’s effectively a pc which you could just use and install emulators and mods etc.

Whereas Microsoft have got money from people buying there games on Xbox/PC/PS5/next Nintendo
Or subscribed to game pass, buying games on Xbox (Console), or steam.

Handheld I see as a Xbox version of the steam deck not sure about the power though. Maybe a little less than the rog alloy is it?

They probably won’t include the port for external GPUs though.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

HeisenbergFX4

Just wondering on your thought of my ramble if you wouldn’t mind

I posted this in a previous thread and I still think there going down that hardware route (handheld and new console)

If they don’t enable a duel boot into full windows (Which I think would be the best option).I think there might be an option to boot into a custom version of it that would allow access to PC Gamepass but also steam.

That way they satisfy everyone, you have your base xbox optimised games profile for people who just want a console experience with the os and there library, want to access Xbox console game pass and play their library.

But you can also (dependant on how flexible the os is for it) use your Xbox to access pc gamepass, but also steam client, People would be access there steam games, where Microsoft sells games, (yes valve would get a cut but we’re talking about people buying an Xbox for this feature) and de facto PlayStation exclusives when they release on steam.

This may actually be beneficial to Sony if Microsoft are able to bridge the divide between pc people wanting a console form factor pc, and Xbox console players themselves.

Microsoft need hardware, At a decent price to match the ps6 in power (home console) the benefit of it would be the understanding that you’d buy an Xbox/PC Gamepass box/Steambox.
If there’s a 12 month or so delay between an Xbox release and then a PlayStation release. We’ll that’s about the same time that Sony takes to port from PlayStation to pc neither side is really loosing out on exclusives apart from Sony who would not be getting their 70% they would get from selling to the Xbox console users.

Or they could just open it up as a full windows experience where it’s effectively a pc which you could just use and install emulators and mods etc.

Whereas Microsoft have got money from people buying there games on Xbox/PC/PS5/next Nintendo
Or subscribed to game pass, buying games on Xbox (Console), or steam.

Handheld I see as a Xbox version of the steam deck not sure about the power though. Maybe a little less than the rog alloy is it?

They probably won’t include the port for external GPUs though.

As far as what they were at least planning I had mentioned here a few times so the weak minded can go kick rocks I am not teasing anything here.

I knew of the next gen console they were looking deep into pushing 2025/26 even know the specs but at the time was told there was something else coming.

I asked if they were doing the dual sku again and was told sort of but we got side tracked because a few others ventured into Discord so he stopped talking.

I later asked what he meant and he would never say directly but when I asked about a handheld he said bingo

I know very little about what the handheld could be

I know I didn’t give you much info on what you were talking about though

 

[Tiamat2san]

Well i’d buy one.
I use my switch when i travel for work, i was tempted by a steam deck or a ROG ally because i am not a fan of Nintendo games and the poor graphics of 3rd party games.

If i could get a gamepass handheld i would be happy.

So many rumours these days, we’ll see next week what is true.

 

[twilo99]

I’d say they are, once again, late to the party when it comes to handhelds, but I guess it still makes sense to have one available..

 

[Jesb]

I felt for a while that an Xbox handheld made so much sense with gamepass and their goals of play anywhere. I do think they’re a little late on this though. By than we probably see a new steamdeck and probably even better functionality with GFN. I’m not sure a portable gamepass is enough. Competition is so fierce in the handheld space now.

 

[BlackTron]

I felt for a while that an Xbox handheld made so much sense with gamepass and their goals of play anywhere. I do think they’re a little late on this though. By than we probably see a new steamdeck and probably even better functionality with GFN. I’m not sure a portable gamepass is enough. Competition is so fierce in the handheld space now.

I agree it made too much sense. Late to the party as usual. I can see why it wasn't in the cards though, they had their hands full with 2 consoles during covid shortages and then pivoted completely to gamepass and acquisitions without paying attention to what they are doing.

MS is likely aware that what they receive from Switch business is more attractive than making their own hardware for people to get gp on for $1, plus it's more diplomatic than potentially inflaming a second front with Nintendo.

 

[IDKFA]

They have to show commitment next week, or else they lose a lot of existing customers. I think they at least reveal a codename for the next console (or maybe both products rumored).

If they wanted to show commitment then they would have come out and put these rumors to bed already.

They're already losing customers and they're doing nothing to stop it.

All this points to the rumors (or at least some of them) being true.

 

[SHA]

Did Phil write this?

No, I'm not Phil.

 

[Ar¢tos]

The only thing that makes sense is the handheld wont be tied down to the console. Similar to the steam deck. No one is required to support it but you can if you want. They'll probably allow it to do cloud gaming for everything else or remote play from your Xbox.

That will turn it into an indie device + Xbox "Portal" . 3rd party AAA won't waste time trying to scale down their big complex games into an optional handheld.

 

[Astray]

I think the problem with making a handheld that fits into a larger ecosystem is that the handheld is innately crippled in some way. There's a genericness about the current non-Nintendo offerings, and I think this will continue to be the case with this supposed MS device, because their entire larger strategy seems to require homogeneity of gaming software offerings (what works on the Series S must work on the Cloud and Series X and Playstation and and and..), so having a handheld won't really make their games more creative suddenly. The same will likely happen if Sony wants to make some new PSP that connects to the same PS Store we already have.

Conversely, Nintendo doesn't have to worry about this shit, and can go weird with their hardware whenever they feel the need to execute on a certain game concept.

 

[StereoVsn]

Just buy Valve and finally integrate Windows and Steam.

That would make me basically go to GoG and perhaps just quit modern PC gaming.

 

[splattered]

If consoles actually go fully digital for the next generation would it be possible to squeeze in better cooling and some beefier components for improved performance at the trade off of losing suppprt of internal disc drives? Just offer an external drive for people who still have discs laying around? Would that be worth it to people or are you just not ready to give up physical media period?

 

[Astray]

If consoles actually go fully digital for the next generation would it be possible to squeeze in better cooling and some beefier components for improved performance at the trade off of losing suppprt of internal disc drives? Just offer an external drive for people who still have discs laying around? Would that be worth it to people or are you just not ready to give up physical media period?

Cooling rn doesn't have any real prevalent issues, losing disc readers just results in cheaper BOM for manufacturers.

 

[sendit]

No, I'm not Phil.

 

[twilo99]

If consoles actually go fully digital for the next generation would it be possible to squeeze in better cooling and some beefier components for improved performance at the trade off of losing suppprt of internal disc drives? Just offer an external drive for people who still have discs laying around? Would that be worth it to people or are you just not ready to give up physical media period?

The disc drives are a huge waste of space so they can do all sorts of things with that if they don’t need accommodate for it in the design stages

 

[mckmas8808]

They said they expected a 40% drop in hardware sales

 

[mckmas8808]

If consoles actually go fully digital for the next generation would it be possible to squeeze in better cooling and some beefier components for improved performance at the trade off of losing suppprt of internal disc drives? Just offer an external drive for people who still have discs laying around? Would that be worth it to people or are you just not ready to give up physical media period?

But they won't go full digital next-gen, so that's why we won't have to worry about this question. But your questions demonstrate why going all digital next-gen is bad.

 

[Clear]

Switch like hybrid console and a streaming stick/bluetooth hub is what I'd expect.

They've migrated legacy content fully onto the cloud so there is no more need for b/c hardware going forwards. Fully digital.

 

[Daniel_Mallorca1985]

 

[II_JumPeR_I]

Another Xbox Generation with no exclusives at Launch?
Until they fix their slow ass Game Production and Messy Studios i dont see why people would buy another Xbox at this point? They already struggle to sell the current Series Consoles and now wanna go down into a new gen after only 6 years of nothingness?
Oh boy they are so out of touch.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

Agreed

 

[Bumblebeetuna]

Damn I hope not. Series S holding shit back was bad enough, a handheld would be even worse unless they make it incredibly expensive.

2026 is six years after this gen started but in reality it’s more like three years after it started thanks to all the cross gen.

 

[adamsapple]

At least there's an external drive, that seems to be the new hotness these days.

 

[Little Chicken]

Just give us a Windows based Game Pass/Steam machine. There's absolutely nothing stopping them from creating something with their own OS.

 

[AREYOUOKAY?]

Yea lets piss people who own the consoles off even more, not only will we go third party and put games on the competitors more popular system we are also ending the gen early in 26 lmao

They are becoming like Sega and not in a good way.

Xbox pulling off a move like this so soon would be no different from Sega releasing the 32X only to give us the Saturn later on.

Though I guess in this case it would be like Sega trying to jump start next gen with the Dreamcast and screwing over any Saturn buyers / owners in 1998. Both situations are awful for anyone who bought the previous hardware only for them to abandon it so soon.

2026 is way too soon for anyone. Feels like this generation barely started at all with the cross generation / upgrade games. Might as well just go all PC if someone badly wants fancy new hardware and digital only.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

At least there's an external drive, that seems to be the new hotness these days.

Kind of surprises me of an external drive but we have talked about the Series X refresh being scrapped back in Sept so thats not actually anything new

 

[Little Chicken]

Microsoft have already shafted console owners in the past when they abruptly stopped supporting the XBox and released the 360 the same year.

 

[Darsxx82]

Just give us a Windows based Game Pass/Steam machine. There's absolutely nothing stopping them from creating something with their own OS.

If that were the strategy... I don't think there would be any problem for them in converting XSeries to that philosophy.

Imagine "reconvert" the XSERIES OS at the same time as that of that new Xbox and being able to "reuse" that hardware for multimedia and Windows games (BC , emulator, apps).

They already did something similar when they matched the XBO and XSeries OS in 2020. It would be the way to compensate those users and maybe an incentive to see the purchase and value of XSeries with different eyes.

But of course, it's hard to see a company wanting to lose potential revenue, and that is why I don't bet a cent that this possible new philosophy could take place..

 

[adamsapple]

Kind of surprises me of an external drive but we have talked about the Series X refresh being scrapped back in Sept so thats not actually anything new

I gotta imagine they're monitoring the immense backlash about being digital-only.

But then again, these are insider things, who knows what the up-to-date specs are in R&D.

 

[AREYOUOKAY?]

I gotta imagine they're monitoring the immense backlash about being digital-only.

 

[pasterpl]

2026 is way too soon for anyone. Feels like this generation barely started at all with the cross generation / upgrade games. Might as well just go all PC if someone badly wants fancy new hardware and digital only

Nah, we need shorter generations, or go away from that generation speak, have upgradable consoles with refreshes every 4 years with full bc. Pro consoles were the first step towards this.

Kind of surprises me of an external drive but we have talked about the Series X refresh being scrapped back in Sept so thats not actually anything new

Probably for those who buy disc games on Xbox series and backcomp, also you make money on accessories.

 

[SportsFan581]

They are becoming like Sega and not in a good way.

Xbox pulling off a move like this so soon would be no different from Sega releasing the 32X only to give us the Saturn later on.

Though I guess in this case it would be like Sega trying to jump start next gen with the Dreamcast and screwing over any Saturn buyers / owners in 1998. Both situations are awful for anyone who bought the previous hardware only for them to abandon it so soon.

2026 is way too soon for anyone. Feels like this generation barely started at all with the cross generation / upgrade games. Might as well just go all PC if someone badly wants fancy new hardware and digital only.

The industry is in a different place now. What screwed over the Dreamcast more than anything else was the fact that it simply wasn't capable of receiving ports of games that were set to properly take advantage of the other three machines. Tech was moving fast back then. Now you have systems like the SteamDeck and the XSS that can run basically everything the big boys can with some compromises, and that's at just 1/3 the performance on the GPU side or less. People don't necessarily care about the differences in the tech as much anymore either, the differences just aren't nearly as stark as they used to be. The polygon differences between the DC and PS2 were instantly recognizable, now you could probably swap a persons XSX for an XSS while they weren't looking and they might not even notice the difference if there is some space between them and the screen.

Probably for those who buy disc games on Xbox series and backcomp, also you make money on accessories.

Yeah, it would open the door for limited run type releases as well, if MS is moving to digital only releases on Xbox. Which apparently is being backed up by some people that work in retail (although nothing has been confirmed on that front yet).

 

[sendit]

At least there's an external drive, that seems to be the new hotness these days.

External drive because they fucked up by making their upgrade option proprietary. I don't blame them though, it takes a rocket science degree to install a M.2 in a PS5.

 

[SHA]

Damn I hope not. Series S holding shit back was bad enough, a handheld would be even worse unless they make it incredibly expensive.

2026 is six years after this gen started but in reality it’s more like three years after it started thanks to all the cross gen.

This gen is a ripoff, Nintendo swimming, others sinking.

 

[bigdad2007]

Why would anyone buy a locked in walled garden Xbox handheld console when there are already so many more open devices that either run Steam OS or Windows out there?

 

[pasterpl]

Why would anyone buy a locked in walled garden Xbox handheld console when there are already so many more open devices that either run Steam OS or Windows out there?

Probably price. Being already part of Xbox ecosystem.

 

[SportsFan581]

Why would anyone buy a locked in walled garden Xbox handheld console when there are already so many more open devices that either run Steam OS or Windows out there?

Why does anybody by a PS5? And really the SteamDeck is much the same, it gives some wiggle room for the tinkerers but I would think the number of players just using it as it ships is high.

 

[mayham2199]

That will turn it into an indie device + Xbox "Portal" . 3rd party AAA won't waste time trying to scale down their big complex games into an optional handheld.

Not necessarily. The Steam deck can play a lot of AAA games. It's not always great depending on the game but it does work. I played Miles Morales on it. Sure it had issues and was borderline as far as playable goes but imagine what they can with a more expensive device (they will subsidize it) and better tech? It could work out.

 

[tusharngf]

why external HDD only ? what could be the reason?