It has been a while since this generation took hold of audiences around the world. Today, GATT’s GamerX takes a peek into the future and what it might hold for gamers. And what he sees is digital distribution across the board. Right now, companies are currently upset with the second hand game market, losing sales to used games, and basically making companies like GameStop a whole lot of money. Meanwhile publishers around the world are making portions of their game require a new purchase for it to be considered a full game? Where does this all head – Digital Distribution.
Xbox boss Asha Sharma has discussed how component shortages will impact the company's plans for Project Helix.
When does this end? Its killing everyone. Consoles and PC. And for what? AI? The benefits of AI are completely outweighed by the negatives. And the government should have never allowed one company to buy up all the RAM.
This kind of proves this is an after thought product, most products like this are in r&d 5 years before they start mass producing. So they typically have the cost of components and things worked out long before assembly starts.
This is an assumption still, but I wouldn’t be surprised if project helix is similar to Scalebound,perfect dark and sod3. They had an idea but no actual execution other than concept stage. Being impacted by the ram shortage likely would also put this device 3-4 years out.
I’m not even sure MS has that endurance with Xbox yet
I mean.... what?
We're at a point that Samsung wont even provide their own phone department ram because they can sell it at higher prices to 3rd parties (AI). Its more profitable to sell the ram than make their own devices with it.
You think because R&D starts 5 years ago the 3rd party component manufacturers will honour that price? They'll sell it to whomever is paying the most today, not some gentlemens agreement they made years ago. AI farms will buy more volume at higher prices than any console manufacturer will. It'll be the same for Playstation.
Contractual agreements are not the same as “gentlemen” agreements. If you think that they work with their distributors a month before production then their entire business model is trash. They work with companies like nvidia constantly for building the graphics cards they need. They work with companies that build motherboards years in advance. This is what proper business planning does.
They are not buying components on a whim like a consumer. So again, considering the ram isn’t a singular module and is integrated into the motherboard I highly doubt they wouldn’t have a final schematic that they are supposed to be building around.
If they are delaying production another 3 years then it’s obvious again this is an after though project and is just trying to be responsive to their bad execution they had the last 14 years.
It also isn’t far fetched to use their failure to produce first party titles the last 7 years including the highly anticipated games I mentioned all being cancelled. That they would continue to you know… lie
Helix is going to be stupidly expensive
Instead of leaning into smarter upscaling techniques they're brute forcing hardware that will cost them dearly and it remains to be seen if it's genuinely going to provide a meaningful differential
I know in the oc.doace people like to brag about not using frame gen or dlss to get to high on a game but for the majority of players they happily use those technologies without a second thought
That's going to be ps6 vs Helix
While this does seem to be the case, I am encouraged by the statement from Microsoft about wanting to provide affordable options. If this means a Series S style Helix, at least there will be something affordable being offered.
It's called systematic inflationary. Yes we get it Microsoft, keep raising in the name ofall kinds of stuffs
Honestly if there was thing I learned from this generation is that new consoles arnt day one anymore.
I can wait 1-3 years.
Another important lesson from this generation: while Nintendo showed us that prices don't necessarily need to ever drop, we've now learned that waiting 1-3 years does carry some risk that prices increase. This generation is just bizarre in all the wrong ways.
The factors are largely external. Covid and Russia-Ukraine war causing inflation led to the first price increase in 2022.
Then we get Trump's tariffs increasing hardware prices, AI boom causing a RAM crisis, war on Iran causing a worldwide fuel crisis which impacts the cost of everything.
Gaming doesn't exist in a vacuum. The last few years have been a shitshow and lot of it was definitely avoidable.
LucasRuinedChildhood,
For sure. No disagreement on the external factors doing a lot of this. Where I have to gently push back however is on two fronts:
1. The pandemic definitely caused some issues: asynchronous development was a big issue and really complicated timelines and affected game quality. At the same time, when it comes to price hikes, it's really difficult to know what was genuine necessity and what was taking consumers for a ride. The pandemic brought about "stag-flation" which was increasing prices and stagnant wages, which was a problem caused by supply chain constraints. There was also "Greed-flation", where companies that were slightly affected or had no issues took advantage of the situation and squeezed everyone citing supply chain issues when there were none.
2. It's definitely true that the tariffs, AI boom, and RAM crisis were all things enabled by tech broligarchs throwing money at this caricature of a world leader, one of them being Satya Nadella. I don't think Sony and Nintendo have contributed much to this problem if at all, but Microsoft's Nadella I feel was instrumental in causing every one of those issues. Microsoft as a company contributed to both candidates (though they gave Harris 4x as much if I recall), but Nadella was all in on letting AI run wild. He paid for unregulated AI, and got a war that's not a war (even though Trump called it that at least five times on television) that screwed up helium access. So for me, I feel that one of the players in the gaming industry is a key architect of these issues, and for that reason I struggle a bit to think of it as "external".
The Xbox maker will begin sending alpha versions of Project Helix to developers starting in 2027.
New Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma, who took over as the head of the Xbox business last week as longtime Xbox boss Phil Spencer retired, has confirmed the codename for Xbox's next-generation console – Project Helix – and also confirmed long-swirling rumors that the device will play Xbox and PC games.
Hm.
Selling to customers the benefits of Xbox Helix compared to a PC and Steam Machine will be the biggest task for Xbox' marketing, I suppose.
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I said when Xbox destroyed their future with with all their arrogance at the start of XBone”if they keep loosing money they only have 2 more generations before they exit the console market like sega.
This is their final chance to validate the existence of a console to the INVESTORS if this console fail as we all know without exclusives from the activision acquisition or their old exclusives for more than a year it’s game over for Xbox consoles.
Everyone know games will wait for a timed exclusive to go to their console of choice, Microsoft signed the Xbox console death certificate the moment they started PORTING ALL THEIR GAMES to other consoles.
Now my hope is that Valve gives Sony a run for their money and we get a good generation where they take risks and bring new experiences to the market.
They will make xbox “consoles”, but they actively downplay consoles because their business strategy is walled garden services
This is basically a PC w xbox logo
Xbox has put itself in a tough position... With current RAM prices, the system is going to cost a fortune (it's APU alone is $500-600, before you even get to the RAM, SSD, power supply, etc). So, we're looking at a 4 digit price tag, and it has the Gabecube to compete against now directly in that console space. It has no exclusive games at all. PS6 is coming in close in performance but expected to cost hundreds less, and PS6 Pro will likely again take the "most powerful crown" once it drops, but it will actually have exclusive games.
Not an easy sell to the general public, and not even an easy sell to the PC enthusiasts as it isn't powerful enough to justify paying that much for when you could just build a far more powerful PC for not much more $. If I'm dropping north of $1k on a game system, I'm going to want to go all out, not have mid-range performance. It'll be interesting how they plan on marketing this thing, and who they expect to buy it.
What changed?
Hey obscured 🤖🤖
I’ll explain it like to a IQ 9
Nothing has changed they kept loosing money and to please their INVESTORS Microsoft purchased activision and other developers spending more money they could make in WAAAAAY too long for the company CEO that love monetizing everything so they started porting to EVERYTHING they could (even fire stick🤣🤣).
Do you know why it’s called the big 3?
In the lat 70’s to early 80’ there was multiple companies with their own consoles each the market collapsed and only 2 survived, enter PlayStation, exit sega, exit google, Microsoft is destabilized and desperately start to port all their games EVERYWHERE, enter valve.
Now
W h a t do Y O U think w i l l h a p p e n t o
t h e 3rd leg of that triangle when one is warbling and a replacement is on the way.
@ghost: “ Loosing money ? Got it. You’re obviously educated…”
Sure I’m not a scholar but it’s obvious that they aren’t going to be publishing their big franchises day one games on their competitors because of brotherly love for the gaming industry.
Unless and I know this is something a lot of Xbox hardcore fans like obscure can’t comprehend that a big corporation like Microsoft is loosing money gen after gen,
Money doesn’t come for free from big corporations Xbox gen 1 lost money on consoles sold. Xbox 360 lost money on repairs of the RROD Xbox One didn’t make the money they wanted, Xbox series hasn’t sold as well as expected and have a MASIVE LOAN from all the studios and a publisher purchase..
I’ll be waiting for your reply proving they are not loosing money. Oh I see you pulling that game pass card, put it back FCC filing by Microsoft said they didn’t make money from game pass.
NOW PROVE ME WRONG
They had to put them on other platforms. All the gaming companies they bought cost a LOT of money. Xbox is not sufficient to bring in new revenue, so the only choice is expanding your market share by releasing on other platforms that are clearly leading the market. It was not something they wanted but something they needed to do to recoup some of all the expenses.
I might be saying the obvious but any piece of hardware for as powerful as it could be, without an healthy portfolio of fun to play and engaging games is worth less tehn zero. So as long as the new XBOX will be marketed as the most powerful console on the planet and NOT as the ONLY place where true long lastying XBOX fans can impersonate their beloved characters/heroes this thing is going to fail big. I would love to think that Playstaiton is moving away from the PC ports also to keep its identity, the truth is that a console value is higher if that console is the only mean to access certain IPs. XBOX with gamepass and PC ports has depersonalized his player and fan base.
Just my two cents ... but I am sure there is some thurth in here.
Peace on !
Xbox has a huge library of great games. This new console will be able to play them all. Thats what gamers care about the most.
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The question will be if you have a PC, why buy a Xbox that plays PC and Xbox games… Unless they plan to have you buy a Xbox PC instead of a dedicated PC. Thats got to be the plan. Take some of the PC players and turn them into console PC players. They couldn’t give you full access to the PC/console like you can with a dedicated PC because you would think the piracy for the “dedicated” Xbox games would be crazy. Yeah, they are really going to have to explain who this is for. If you can install whatever you want then you would have Steam access. This directly copies the Steam box idea so I’m sure Steam isn’t happy about it. I guess time will tell.
Maybe it will be heavily subsidized so software sales will make up the loss to get it into peoples hands early and the system allows for a steam like environment. I think Sony knows since rumor has it that they will do less Pc ports.
I dont think that's in the cards not with the 80 plus billion spent on gaming this gen. Microsoft aint subsidizing hardware anymore look how they've priced the series consoles and offered no deals this past holidays. Sony pulling away from pc ports is because there is no good rational for continuing to do so.
They don’t sell enough of the current Xbox consoles to heavily subsidize those platforms and in fact they increased in price, so I don’t see a future where this gets any. I think we’re looking at a $999 platform, which I mean is great for a GPU rumored to be on par with a full PC running a RTX 5070Ti/5080 equivalent depending on clocks, since those GPUs alone around $1000+.
I assume they’re going to do a two tiered system again, because a lowered cost version could be the significantly better option for PC gamers specifically the esports crowd who doesn’t upgrade all the time and don’t care about the highest specs. If they can do something around a RX 9060 with 16GB+ of VRAM for $499 then that would be the true winner because it gives those PC gamers a REAL substantial upgrade at a very reasonable price. It’ll also put a huge amount of pressure on the Steam Box.
What i was wondering too, like best case scenario it's a PC with a bunch of restrictions on it, and when ALL their games on on PC, what is even the incentive here? 🤔
It builds a niche for them, and I’ve been saying they should have done this since the XBO. However, it’s still going to be a battle. Hardcore PC gamers are not leaving PC unless this is an ultimate steal in price:performance.
The rumored spec depending on clock speeds should place this around RTX 5070TI / 5080 performance which sounds insane, but the rumored launch in late 2027 and the RTX 5070Ti/5080 will be almost 3 years old by then.
But those GPUs are retailing around $1000, so what is this PC-Console hybrid going to cost.
Basically a PC with an Xbox logo slapped on, just like the so called Xbox handheld.
My guess is it won't play my Xbox games I have on disc 🤔
Nah, the handheld IS a PC. It can stream Xbox games or play the PC version of those games with "play anywhere".
This sounds like it will play Xbox games natively, which is amazing if true.
I want to see more. I already have a powerful PC so I need to be sold on this before just diving in. Tech whore that I am. Seems very interesting so far, regardless.
I hope not. I like having a box with a manual and beautiful art on the box.
I can't take a download to my non-online playing friend's house, so, I hope physical media is around for some time. Plus, there are collectors out there.
It won't be.
Excellent article..especially the part about a portable hdd for those w/o broadband.
I really don't want to have to wait for hours just download an entire game, personallly. Is it really that hard to make a box and write down a few instructions on a manual? Plus, its a lot harder for a casual audience to connect to something they can't physically hold in their hands.