Xbox has an interesting opportunity going forward, that I expect they'll fumble.

Interest in physical media has actually been on the upswing, and, with Sony announcing their plans to abandon physical media, it feels like MS has a chance be the "good guys" like what Sony did to MS when MS threatened to ruin physical media prior to the Xbox One release.

However, I'm expecting Microsoft to simply follow Sony's path, because I think they are already going down a path that favors digital-only, and I also think they just don't care to distinguish themselves. It seems like Xbox's claim to fame for the past few years is "It has game pass, and it can play a lot of the same games PlayStation can."

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saghm 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Interest in physical media has actually been on the upswing, and, with Sony announcing their plans to abandon physical media, it feels like MS has a chance be the "good guys" like what Sony did to MS when MS threatened to ruin physical media prior to the l One release.

Not only that, but RAM/GPU/SSD prices going up so much recently (which is especially jarring for SSDs, which for like a decade had been getting more affordable; I bought a 120 GB SATA SSD in 2012 for around $100, and I was able to buy a 1 TB m.2 one for around the same price a few years ago) is starting to equalize pricing for PC gaming. In 2022, the initial Steam Deck launched for just $400, and it continued to be offered at that price for a few years, which made it cheaper than the Switch 2 launch price.

I feel like if I were a console manufacturer, I would be trying to figure out a way to take advantage of that. Other than price (previously), the other obvious selling point of PC gaming is more control over your system, so there could be an opening to try to lure away wayward PC gamers with some changes that give them a bit more control on the console. I agree with you that I can't really imagine Microsoft doing this though.

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jeppester 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Xbox is ahead of Sony on this path. Their studios often, if not most of the time, release physical games that require a full download to play.

I doubt that they will go back to where Sony are now.

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protimewaster 3 hours ago | parent [-]

> I doubt that they will go back to where Sony are now.

I agree. However, I do think they would get some positive attention (and some accompanying sales) if they were to backtrack and announce a console more like the 360.

It feels doable if they care to do it. Physical media should still be viable for holding all the game data for a while longer. Blurays can manage up to 128 GB, and I think the average game install size is ~60GB right now, giving most games some room to grow.

The biggest issue with a strategy like that is that they're, like you said, pushing digital-only hard already, and they're also trying to save money, so the idea of spending more money to make future consoles with disk drives, and to make disks, is unlikely to appeal to them.

It is a shame, though, because it seems like the Xbox 360 will have been widely viewed as peak Xbox until the end of Xbox.

	▲	ErneX an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Another issue is that Xbox game discs this generation are 50GB while on PlayStation 5 they are 100GB. I think the reason for going with 50GB for games on the MS side was to remain compatible with the previous generation of consoles.