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Comment by nerdjon | Hacker News Reader

This has been such a weird generation of consoles from a price standpoint but I know a lot of that is just due to pricing of things being weird anyways.

This is expensive, I am struggling to really justify it at the moment (and I have a 4090 in my PC so it isn't some thoughts about price or power or whatever). Games right now are just not really struggling. Last time around these pro consoles came out we were running up against the limits of the hardware at that time. That isn't the case yet.

It will be interesting to see what Xbox comes out with, the timeline for this coming out is pretty quick. So unless xbox was just about to announce something not sure how realistically they will have an answer to this

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XBox is in a strange position, there are rumours of a next generation console, but I don't believe it matters.

Microsoft has been behaving as if XBox has become an umbrella brand for Microsoft Game Studios, after ABK acquisition.

They are going the way of SEGA, regardless how much Phil Spencer says they aren't.

They are in a strange position, but I don't think they are going the way of Sega right now. The market is very different now than it was at that time.

We are applying the status quo as the only possible way to run game consoles when that doesn't have to be true. AMD and Nvidia compete just fine on the merits of their hardware alone without exclusive games.

Even Sony is realizing that they can't only publish on their own consoles. What Microsoft is doing now with Playstation they have already been doing for quite some time already with their games launching day one also on PC.

We also can't ignore that the need for the console is changing with things like xcloud (which runs Xbox hardware on blades, so it gives them incentive to continue making xbox hardware that can both ship as a home console and in blades). xCloud you can even use without any extra hardware (other than a controller) right on your TV with Samsung.

Obviously xCloud isn't going to be the solution for everyone. But we can't apply how things previously worked to how Xbox is trying to just have a different business model. And it isn't anything new with the ABK acquisition. It is continuing what they have already been doing.

Yeah, however eventually XBox hardware will be a revamped version of Windows Media Center, and that will be as welcomed as XBox ONE original design as multimedia box was.

By the way, Dave Cuttler at the end of his interview on Dave's Garage mentions Microsoft is running XBoxes on Azure with Linux for Microsoft's AI purposes, that is how much they care about XBox hardware and cloud gaming.

> however eventually XBox hardware will be a revamped version of Windows Media Center, and that will be as welcomed as XBox ONE original design as multimedia box was.

I don't see any indication that they are going down that path. The decisions that made the Xbox One a media center instead of a focus on gaming was made by leaders that are not there. Phil Spensor came in to fix that problem. Nothing they have done recent seems to be pointing in this direction except for doom and gloom speculation about Xbox.

> By the way, Dave Cuttler at the end of his interview on Dave's Garage mentions Microsoft is running XBoxes on Azure with Linux for Microsoft's AI purposes, that is how much they care about XBox hardware and cloud gaming.

I will have to look this up but that doesn't sound like a bad thing? Hardware having multiple purposes just incentivizes the creation of the hardware in the first place. We see this with how Apple is operating right now.

The rumors is that is going to be Windows based, and have all kind of stores in it, XBox, Steam, Epic, whatever.

Basically PC in a box, in kiosk mode.

It is a bad thing, because those boxes are surely not improving the XBox Cloud streaming experience, which is quite famous for not being that great, with long waiting queues.

Is this expensive because of the components or because you feel systems were priced lower in the past and this is a small upgrade?

I think for the number of hours people put into it gaming systems are actually quite cheap. You get to have them functioning for 5-10 years with 100s of hours played. On a per hour level, it provides massive amount of entertainment.

Now, if you already have a strong PC (which you allude to) and game on that, your ROI is probably going to be a lot lower.

I see it as expensive mostly because we have not had any drop in price this generation.

For example, take last generation. The Xbox One launched at (all USD) $500, $400 without Kinect once that was an option. PS4 launched at $400. The PS4 Pro also later launched at $400, The xbox One X launched at $500.

This is a $200-$280 (including adding the drive) jump in price and the base model is still the same price or more expensive in some places than it was at launch.

On the flip side, I also do worry about what exactly we are seeing from Sony again. We know that Sony can get cocky when they are on top (See PS3, cross play, etc) and make decisions that are not good for gamers. I worry this is a sign that they are going that way again.

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