Is Microsoft planning to make an Xbox Series XX or XXX? Maybe not, as the company has admitted that it has “lost the console wars” as part of a new document that stems from the FTC’s new case against Microsoft’s pending, $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, something that the U.S. regulator clearly doesn’t think is the greatest idea. “Xbox has lost the console wars, and its rivals are positioned to continue to dominate,” reads one portion of the document highlighted by The Verge, while another points out how Xbox has “consistently ranked third in consoles behind PlayStation and Nintendo.” Many Xbox fans are calling this a shame, reasoning that Microsoft has delivered some very nice hardware this generation.
From The Verge:
In five days of hearings this week and next, the FTC is seeking an injunction to block the merger while its own administrative case plays out over the coming months. If the FTC is successful, Microsoft has said it might walk away from the deal altogether. The stakes are extremely high.
The FTC is concerned that Microsoft could make Activision content exclusive to Xbox and not available on rival consoles, cloud gaming services, and multi-game subscription services. Here’s what its complaint says:
“Microsoft’s ownership of Activision would provide Microsoft with the ability to withhold or degrade Activision content through various means, including manipulating Activision’s pricing, degrading game quality or player experience on rival offerings, changing the terms and timing of access to Activision’s content, or withholding content from competitors.”
The merger could affect a long list of companies — Nvidia, Nintendo, EA, Epic Games, Ubisoft, and Tencent, to name but a few. But one player in particular is omnipresent: Sony.
Discussion (17 replies)
Join Discussion →Well, you know, when you ask for loans, your building is worth 50mil, but when you pay taxes, its about 15mil, and so on.
Context is relevant. These weren't marketing documents aimed at Xbox fans. The FTC is trying to block an acquisition, so it seems that it'd be to Microsoft's advantage to downplay its position in the console market relative to its rivals.
The Verge is capitalizing on that to score some cheap clicks.
Yeah yeah MS: we are a poor poor company with a poor mans gaming department. Reality: 2 billion profit last quarter.
I have a hard time believing that. I see Xboxes everywhere. Maybe they're 2nd behind Playstation but I can't imagine that Nintendo is beating them.
Depends on how you look at things, in terms of units, Switch is the 3rd best selling console of all time. I dont know how that translates into software sales, money and such.
If you look at lifetime console sales, Microsoft barely makes the top 10 with the 360. They really need better exclusives if they want to make progress.
Not releasing the anemic Series S would have also helped their cause this gen.
Is the console war really a zero sum game? Aren't people allowed to own more than one console of a different branding?
I mean, I get that people love to look at it as Black vs White, it's just kind of the way we are wired to think of things. But I would say Nintendo has made a very good run not really aiming to compete against anyone - they just kind of do their own thing and focus on putting out good games that people want to play.
I've been kicking the idea around of getting one of these for an emulation machine.
I don't see why. It plays games just as well but at $200 less. I would think it would sell more Xboxes to people that would like one but don't care enough to shell out $500 for one.
And it also hold all your games back as they need to perform similarly on both while the series S is about as powerfull as the previous gen but with an SSD.
No the series S doesn't "hold back"
The X is targetted at 4K & the S at 1080p.
Only problem is the memory limitation for which they can use the new "texture streaming rate" parameter introduced to support 8gb Nvidia cards
The real problem is "unoptimized PC ports" that target 1440p for the X, then there is no way they can run comfortably at 1080p on the S
https://www.purexbox.com/news/2022/10/many-studios-are-struggling-with-xbox-series-s-requirements-claims-developer
https://wccftech.com/developers-xbox-series-s-dropped/
https://www.thegamer.com/developers-worried-how-xbox-series-s-impact-next-gen/
There is no techincal explanation of how a Series S holds back games.
As I have mentioned before Series X targets 4K & Series S targets 1080p. This is perfectly fine.
Problem is when "lazy" game devs target 1440p for series X
Id Software’s lead engine programmer, Billy Khan, says, “The memory situation is a big issue on the S. The much lower amount of memory and the split memory banks with drastically slower speeds will be a major issue. Aggressively lowering the render resolutions will marginally help but will not completely counteract the deficiencies.”
Agree the memory is a bottleneck on Series S
But majority of installed Nvidia cards have 8gb or less of memory. If a game can be optimized for a 8gb card at 1080p then it can be optimized for series S also & vice versa