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[vcc]

But as I posted ages back (and I think you may have replied?) why not just sell the XBox business and pocket the $5bn or whatever it would sell for?

It's not an exit. It's a change in approach. And as per previous posts it's a bloody interesting one with no guarantee of success but also a chance of being really innovative and disrupting the market.

MS likes to hoard things. They don't need the cash. They'd rather keep their options open by still owning the IP. They have a good shot at leveraging the momentum of the xb brand to jump start the w10 store. Although the scope of that success would be much less than many think.

Also there arent that many buyers that aren't direct conpetitors in some way. MS wouldn't want to sell it to google or apple or samsung.

 

[Trup1aya]

In order to do that, MS has to prove there is money to be made in doing so. Why do I pick targeting UWP development, when Steam already has an established install base in the types of product i'm already making, and a storefront that users flock to? Like everything else, they have to prove that there is money to be made in changing our practices. I just don't foresee any reason why there would be. And again, you're talking about changing how devs approach our entire code base for the types of games our users want. There are a ton of drawbacks to that.

If you'd be so kind, I got a few questions that only a dev would be a be able to answer.

Do you have any experience with UWA development?
Do you forsee a scenario where planning to code a game as a UWA AND for distribution as an .exe is prohibitively expensive and/or difficult
Assuming MS believes this will be successful, Do you believe it's MS' expectation that developers will choose to develop UWA's INSTEAD of .exe's

regarding iterative hardware:

It seems to me that a developers would never target the "stop gap consoles" natively, due to population numbers. Rather, they would target the original console, and the stop gap console would see performance enhancements through brute force. The scenario doesn't seem too different from PC development, where devs target a common denominator, but gamers with better hardware brute force better performance. Could you explain why this situation would be different.

Thanks in advance if you decide to answer.

 

[4Tran]

I think at this point if they want full bc with XB1 they need to keep a pool of the eSRAM or need the whole memory pool to have similir speed and latency. Yeah this will be a huge gamble thay they can shift the business side.

It does seem to be a mix of all the worst aspects of console and pc strategies to the various market segments with only a faint hope of changing historic trends. They need to appeal to the xb base and folks who like upgrades but are afraid of pcs. I'm not sure if enough will jump on to justify this move. Super risky and historically trends already suggest it's unlikely to succeed.

The fact that Microsoft is planning such a risky move leads me to believe that Xbox is pretty desperate to find a reason to exist within the larger company. I can't imagine that Nadella will have much patience for them when this move fails.

But as I posted ages back (and I think you may have replied?) why not just sell the XBox business and pocket the $5bn or whatever it would sell for?

It's not an exit. It's a change in approach. And as per previous posts it's a bloody interesting one with no guarantee of success but also a chance of being really innovative and disrupting the market.

I don't think that this approach is particularly interesting at all. It's like Xbox trying to capitalize on the popularity of PC gaming and missing the point of it all. I do agree though that this isn't an exit strategy, but it does tell us that Microsoft isn't happy with how Xbox has performed.

 

[Papacheeks]

An iterative console doesn't solve the biggest problem they have had this generation, which has been attracting a worldwide audience to their console. MS is close in terms of sales in the US & UK. Yes, they do get outsold in those territories by Sony, but its not this huge blow out for the majority of the year. The real difference maker has been every region outside of those two. A new, iterative console will not change that. If MS wants to become the market leader, they need to figure out how to make their brand appealing in those other regions.

Also, console generations have become longer for multiple reasons. Manufacturers are making more money on these systems the longer they last. But costumers are also more reluctant to upgrade because the cost of investing in these machines is so high. Compare how much you were being asked to invest into an OG Xbox or PS2, to how much we invested into our systems during the PS3/360 era, and how much we're being asked to invest into our current machines.

Agreed. The issue is they did not create games/services for regions outside UK/US. If they seriously wanted to get people in brazil, Italy, or where ever to buy their console and gain marketshare, I think they have to do what Sony has been doing for many years. Which is make games and your console that speak to different regions.
Driveclub speaks to anyone who likes cars right? Well the thing is in the beginning of that games launch it was gears toward European race cars and tracks. Which speaks volumes over in other regions.

I't's similar to the deal XBox made with Fifa bundles. They need games /services that speak to a wider audience. 360 and OG bxox had better world wide presence in terms of software than bone, and that would be because of the diversity they had in the beginning. They had american racing games, boxing, European inspired racing games, mech games(chrome hounds, mech assault), fighters, jrpg's, even games like grabbed by the ghoulies, fusion frenzy were kind of weird games that maybe didn't set the world on fire, but were options.

They need to start developing their own brand of sports titles like sega did back in dreamcast days. And make them more of a fun experimental thing than trying to emulate what EA, 2K dominate.
Imagine if the made a soccor version of blitz? That would sell like crazy over seas. Or if they brought back Project gotham racing. Focused on UK, EU based racing.
They need more studio and partnerships, not newer refreshed box's that have higher specs. PS2 has shown that the stronger console isn't always the best, and that was why PS2 destroyed gamecube and xbox. They had a diversity of games that was unparalleled that spoke to different demographics in different regions.

PS: I burned my fingers this morning so excuse my shitty writing

 

[Zedox]

Please, try to come up with a better example. I think I know what you are getting at, but
people not switching to Linux has more obvious reasons: habit,convenience and MS's 20+ years of total dominance on PC. Why is nobody asking 'Why doesn't Apple release their OS for PCs?' Then things would get interesting for MS's ecosystem plan. Answer: they don't seem to care. They have itunes running on PC already and the money is made in there and on million devices out there running the apps.

We had this discussion in the other thread and I still think you are overblowing MS's ecosystem blabber a little bit. On my mobile device I purchase music, games,apps, etc. like millions of consumers out there. This is a way bigger market than console/PC gaming and in order to keep your purchases it really makes sense to stay with the brand. What is MS selling through their store? On devices that are not used by the majority in everyday-life? I don't need W10 to play my itunes music on PC.
What eco-system are we talking about? Being able to play games on PC and Xbox does not cut it for me and is not the same thing like being able to listen to my music or apps on three devices. MS hardware products are not the number one choice. So, who gives a rat's ass for compatibilty amongst devices they don't buy. A dedicated PC gamer will see even less reasons to buy a Xbox now. Once again, it will be a nice thing to have for a certain segment of consumers, but you can't compare what Apple is offering to what MS is trying to do right now. The gaming market is not on the same level as the mobile devices market.

I'm not overblowing MS' ecosystem. All I'm saying is that it makes it helps with lock-in. I'm not talking personally (it doesn't effect me personally, I'll buy whatever system has the games that I want to play on it). I'm talking generally speaking, I think you may be misunderstanding what I'm saying. Even if Sony does this same plan I think it is effectively the same thing. For someone who has either a PS4 or an Xbox One or whatever, if they could buy 1 system (which a lot of people do), wouldn't they most likely buy the system that can carry their games with them than not? It's basically how companies can keep customers happy while also doing lock-in. It's similar to phones in the sense that people bought apps (obviously it's not the same as games) and wouldn't switch to Android from iPhone as they would have to rebuy the apps that they spent money on and use. Now i'm not saying it's a 1 to 1 example. I'm just saying BC helps with lockin. If you have a console that comes out every couple years, you're more likely to stay in that brand than switch to the other. That's all...I know I basically said the same thing over and over in different ways...i'm too tired to delete it now. LOL.

 

[Markoman]

Not halo 7, but smartphones are already capable of running halo 1 and 2, soon they will be able to run halo 3, 4 and in a few years 5. At that point even a smartphone can become a portable console, and even though they are old games since it's the same ecosystem and the same library they become another commodity that a user invested in ms ecosystem can use.

As for controls, ms has drastically increase accessory support on win10 mobile due continuum. They already support keyboard and mouse and projecting to a monitor. Projecting to a tv and supporting a controller is not a huge departure from that.

The tech experts in this thread are still discussing how this will work and I still don't see Witcher 3 ports on Iphone and S. Galaxy, so I do have a point, because that's what we are talking about: game x is released, and the same version of the game plays on various devices with different scalability. Like I said, not going to happen in the next 2-3 years in regard to mobile devices, because of various reasons. Getting a possible Halo 3 remaster on next Surface pro is a whole different story.

 

[Trup1aya]

The fact that Microsoft is planning such a risky move leads me to believe that Xbox is pretty desperate to find a reason to exist within the larger company. I can't imagine that Nadella will have much patience for them when this move fails.


I don't think that this approach is particularly interesting at all. It's like Xbox trying to capitalize on the popularity of PC gaming and missing the point of it all. I do agree though that this isn't an exit strategy, but it does tell us that Microsoft isn't happy with how Xbox has performed.

I feel the opposite about your first paragraph.

I just can't see a company like Microsoft attempting such an expensive and risky move if there wasn't a lot of faith in the value of Xbox.

If nadella was questioning whether or not this unit should exist at all, why would he sign of on $billions of addition investments?

 

[wapplew]

I feel the opposite about your first paragraph.

I just can't see a company like Microsoft attempting such an expensive and risky move if there wasn't a lot of faith in the value of Xbox.

If nadella was questioning whether or not this unit should exist at all, why would he sign of on $billions of addition investments?

I think it's rather simple, MS think store front is more important than Xbox one.
Their store is fucking barren, and moving Xbox one exclusive to Windows store is the only move they have regardless the of damage on Xbox one value.

It's not desperate or risky move, it's the only move.

 

[Markoman]

I'm not overblowing MS' ecosystem. All I'm saying is that it makes it helps with lock-in. I'm not talking personally (it doesn't effect me personally, I'll buy whatever system has the games that I want to play on it). I'm talking generally speaking, I think you may be misunderstanding what I'm saying. Even if Sony does this same plan I think it is effectively the same thing. For someone who has either a PS4 or an Xbox One or whatever, if they could buy 1 system (which a lot of people do), wouldn't they most likely buy the system that can carry their games with them than not? It's basically how companies can keep customers happy while also doing lock-in. It's similar to phones in the sense that people bought apps (obviously it's not the same as games) and wouldn't switch to Android from iPhone as they would have to rebuy the apps that they spent money on and use. Now i'm not saying it's a 1 to 1 example. I'm just saying BC helps with lockin. If you have a console that comes out every couple years, you're more likely to stay in that brand than switch to the other. That's all...I know I basically said the same thing over and over in different ways...i'm too tired to delete it now. LOL.

Lol
Ok let's forget about 'ecosystem' for a moment. How does the lock-in work without being able to lock others out. You are able to purchase games via W10 store but at the same time you can buy thousands of games via Steam. Don't get me wrong, if this ecosystem you are talking about is something like XboxLive on PC, a clear distinct service, then I can see them locking customers into subs and deals and so on. A simple storefront won't do shit on the other hand. They have missed that train and I don't see them winning on that front unless they are able to beat the competion on today's main battlefield: mobile devices.

 

[DeepEnigma]

I think it's rather simple, MS think store front is more important than Xbox one.
Their store is fucking barren, and moving Xbox one exclusive to Windows store is the only move they have regardless the of damage on Xbox one value.

Pretty much.

 

[gamz]

Ok, let's ignore any arguments about Metro being a paradigm shift and go back to your original point -- the fact you seem to think Metro was just a reskin of Apple's design -- which is really the only thing I was arguing about. Like I said, you're the only person I've come across, either online or in real life, that actually seems to think that. Even Apple fanboy extraordinaire John Gruber has never said a thing like that (I think he actually even said he likes it). If Microsoft wanted to reskin Apple's design then they would have looked at this:

As I said last night you'll never convince someone to admit that the company they hate was actually influential in any way to the company they love. Even though all tech companies borrow heavily from each other over the years.

 

[Punchy4486]

I just want to know if I can buy all Microsoft exclusive games (past and present) going forward. If I can buy all the Halo and Gears games without an Xbox, I'll do that and buy everything else on Steam or Playstation.

 

[Crayon]

As I said last night you'll never convince someone to admit that the company they hate was actually influential in any way to the company they love. Even though all tech companies borrow heavily from each other over the years.

Who are you accusing of hating what company? Not cool.

 

[gamz]

Who are you accusing of hating what company? Not cool.

I'll revise and you are right. I'm making assumptions.

You are never going to convince some people that company A was influenced by company B. Or vice versa even though tech companies borrow each other ideas and influences all the time.

 

[Zedox]

Lol
Ok let's forget about 'ecosystem' for a moment. How does the lock-in work without being able to lock others out. You are able to purchase games via W10 store but at the same time you can buy thousands of games via Steam. Don't get me wrong, if this ecosystem you are talking about is something like XboxLive on PC, a clear distinct service, then I can see them locking customers into subs and deals and so on. A simple storefront won't do shit on the other hand. They have missed that train and I don't see them winning on that front unless they are able to beat the competion on today's main battlefield: mobile devices.

Sorry,I am including Xboxlive/psn in the lock in stuff. That's why Isaid ecosystem because it isn't only the games but the services around the main product. I'm not caring about winning or losing for any of these companies. I just see lock in is a part of the strategy that this approach takes.

 

[Markoman]

Sorry,I am including Xboxlive/psn in the lock in stuff. That's why Isaid ecosystem because it isn't only the games but the services around the main product. I'm not caring about winning or losing for any of these companies. I just see lock in is a part of the strategy that this approach takes.

Ah, we're finally good. I didn't follow the whole 'Quantum Break goes PC discussion' ,so yes, I was getting the wrong idea about what you were trying to say. Makes a whole lot more sense now.

 

[Synth]

There's a difference between the kind of risk associated with a plan that looks good but remains untried and what Microsoft is talking about. This continually upgraded console looks bad on paper because it strips away some of a console's advantages without adding any of the PC's advantages.

This isn't really true. The main advantage that a console has that would be lost here is the idea of every owner playing on even ground. This advantage kinda evaporates the moment you start to talk about crossplay gaming though.. and nobody ever complains about this (quite the opposite actually), so it's probably not a huge advantage at all overall. The other advantage would be the knowledge that from launch to the death of the console, you'd receive the best possible experience from the games you play... except... this is only valid for exclusives, as the PS4 (and certainly PC) ensure that this isn't the case for multiplats... and they're already releasing their first-party stuff to PC anyway. So really, the typical advantage that a console would have, are actually just advantages to the PS4 right now, making it a disadvantage for the XB1 currently. So there's not a whole lot to risk (beyond Live revenue if too many go PC), and absolutely nothing to gain by standing still.

Now as for not gaining any of the PC advantages... you actually do gain some. Firstly whatever approach is taken to make this work would basically have to guarantee flawless backwards compatibility... which in the age of shit constantly getting delisted is very important to some (e.g. me). You don't have to worry about having your console be perpetually seen as the weaker console, because you simply put a faster one out. And finally (and this is something I think gets ignored too much when people talk about people not "upgrading their phones/gfx cards/whatever" on a yearly basis)... when a customer does want to upgrade, you have a shiny, reasonably new box that's still relatively exciting to upgrade to. Yes, someone that bought a GTX780 may not buy a GTX880.. but when they are ready to buy a new card, there'll be a GTX980. Another person may not have bought the 780, because they owned a 680, and also may not buy another card until the 980. Regardless though, there was a non-dated option for them to purchase that doesn't simply put them where their friends were numerous years ago. If most people bought a new card every 4 years instead of every 2, would it then make sense for there to have been no new high-end graphics card between the 680 and now?

 

[gamz]

But as I posted ages back (and I think you may have replied?) why not just sell the XBox business and pocket the $5bn or whatever it would sell for?

It's not an exit. It's a change in approach. And as per previous posts it's a bloody interesting one with no guarantee of success but also a chance of being really innovative and disrupting the market.

LOL!

Are we still on this exit thing. Seriously?

 

[SPDIF]

As I said last night you'll never convince someone to admit that the company they hate was actually influential in any way to the company they love. Even though all tech companies borrow heavily from each other over the years.

Maybe not, but I just wanted to finish what I was talking about. And like I said, it's pretty off-topic, so I won't be talking about it again.

 

[EvilAlPacino]

LOL!

Are we still on this exit thing. Seriously?

Anything Microsoft announces translate to "exiting the console business." Thats all people get out of it.

No one has a real idea how all this is going to work, but they're quick to judge or jump ship.

 

[Trup1aya]

I think it's rather simple, MS think store front is more important than Xbox one.
Their store is fucking barren, and moving Xbox one exclusive to Windows store is the only move they have regardless the of damage on Xbox one value.

It's not desperate or risky move, it's the only move.

Eh, I see what you are saying. I guess I just feel like you need to distinguish the hardware from the platform, though.

I mean, there are 20million Xbox ones in the wild. That's not a number to be ignored. If they can use Xbox software to populate the PC ecosystem and then merge the two ecosystems so that developers see opportunity in the combined population totals, then people who own Xbox hardware reap the benefit.

I think people forget that some folks just want to play on consoles. If this move helps the Xbox One secure games that otherwise wouldn't have come to the console, then there is no damage to the Xbox ones value in the eyes of those people.

 

[SneakersSO]

If you'd be so kind, I got a few questions that only a dev would be a be able to answer.

Do you have any experience with UWA development?
Do you forsee a scenario where planning to code a game as a UWA AND for distribution as an .exe is prohibitively expensive and/or difficult
Assuming MS believes this will be successful, Do you believe it's MS' expectation that developers will choose to develop UWA's INSTEAD of .exe's

regarding iterative hardware:

It seems to me that a developers would never target the "stop gap consoles" natively, due to population numbers. Rather, they would target the original console, and the stop gap console would see performance enhancements through brute force. The scenario doesn't seem too different from PC development, where devs target a common denominator, but gamers with better hardware brute force better performance. Could you explain why this situation would be different.

Thanks in advance if you decide to answer.

Yes, I have some experience with UWA development, although even in the space of app development, I have way more experience with iOS & Android development, for obvious reasons.

The moment you have a plan to add a platform or a new distribution model to your game, your cost in terms of funding & effort will go up. That doesn't mean it makes it unfeasible, just that those two costs goes up, and that we'd only choose to do this if the benefit of this wider platform release compensated us enough for it. It would only be prohibitively expensive if UWA development wasn't bringing us enough of an ROI necessary to do so. Making our game .exe gets us on steam & on every major console. If UWA development just supplants Xbox & PC, two platforms my .exe already runs on & makes money from, why would I focus on UWA development?

Ideally, if we're talking about creating a platform that software developers target, then we need to take a step back from console development, and look at this in the broader view of targeted OS development. Right now, if you're making new software, you're focusing on app development, and you're targeting iOS & Android first & foremost, with iOS probably being your first choice. UWA's just haven't taken off yet as a tertiary platform in that sense. I don't approach developing software for Windows as a UWA, because I can still reach my audience through Windows regardless despite it not being a UWA. I do think that, ideally, MS would want software developers (not just game developers, mind you) to approach developing software on Windows as UWA, but they also know they can't force us to do it. Their current approach is to try to make it as seamless as possible, and eliminate as much of the effort cost as they can that it would normally require us to put in. I appreciate their efforts, but they still have a looooooooong way to go.

The reason why its different is because game devs write our games, particularly console games, to have our code bases specialized towards the machine they are running on. I was discussing with another user a few of the possibilities that we might see in order to get such a scenario, but none match the current discussion we're seeing arise from a mid-step iterated console. Even when comparing it to PC games development, which has its own unique & wild set of problems that comes with the open-ended platform that it is, it's still very different in terms of execution. So, unless the console's APU & OS is identical to the weaker Xbox, then I have to build a separate code base to have my game run natively on the machine. Which would then require it's own amount of debugging & QA. Who is eating all of the financial & effort cost for that? Me, the developer. And since its just another Xbox, all this results in me selling into the same market ecosystem i'm already selling to; so its increased cost for no extra gain.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Thank you for the valuable insight from a developer's perspective SneakersSO. Basically echoing my thought process on this.

 

[Crayon]

No. They are using everything, including windows, to get a presence in mobile. Nadella has said this many times: leverage 1 billion Windows users to get apps on their phone-desktop mobile continuum platform.

This is really the thing. And it's serious because ms' hasty motions could be very disruptive for pc as we know it and not in a good way.

edit: i should say not in the way they expect.

 

[wapplew]

Eh, I see what you are saying. I guess I just feel like you need to distinguish the hardware from the platform, though.

I mean, there are 20million Xbox ones in the wild. That's not a number to be ignored. If they can use Xbox software to populate the PC ecosystem and then merge the two ecosystems so that developers see opportunity in the combined population totals, then people who own Xbox hardware reap the benefit.

I think people forget that some folks just want to play on consoles. If this move helps the Xbox One secure games that otherwise wouldn't have come to the console, then there is no damage to the Xbox ones value in the eyes of those people.

Again, every publisher already making titles for your combine population, it's call Multiplatform games.
Combining storefront that no one use and 20m Xbox one it's not better opportunity for them.

Right now, everyone making 3 version, 1 PC x32 version and release on any PC store they choose, 1 Xbox one version and 1 PS4 version.
So you combine Xbox one and Windows store,
Tell me why a developer want to spend more resource to make a UWA PC version on top of x32 version to serve only Windows 10 PC users?
They already have that cover with thier X32 version which reach far more bigger audience including Windows 10, 8, 7 maybe XP too.

 

[JaggedSac]

Yes, I have some experience with UWA development, although even in the space of app development, I have way more experience with iOS & Android development, for obvious reasons.

What are your thoughts on MS purchasing Xamarin? That gives them a sort of bridge from writing a UWP to also generating iOS and Android artifacts from that. Takes them from having UWP to also having a somewhat universal development codebase. I've never futsed around with Xamarin so I don't know what the process is like.


Unrelated to that, but it seems like the initial Redstone release is all about making the UWP better:

Yea, my guide is faster as well. Nice improvements all around.
There's also this:

Windows 10 Redstone: Second wave of updates coming in 2017

This first update is being developed under the tag RS1, and according to my sources will focus mostly on the convergence of different Windows 10 devices such as PC, Xbox and Phone. RS1 will heavily concentrate on the Universal App Platform, bringing the Windows Store to Xbox One and introducing more Project Centennial and Islandwood apps to the Store.

 

[yukianderson]

SneakersSO that's really good take on it and that also means that ever time MS updates the hardware developers may have to develop for three different platforms and like some people have said before the game might end up looking the same. While Sony only has one platform and developers can optimize that one and have the full 60 million plus install base. Who would waste money and resources in a platform that can't recover with game sales?

 

[SneakersSO]

What are your thoughts on MS purchasing Xamarin? That gives them a sort of bridge from writing a UWP to also generating iOS and Android artifacts from that. Takes them from having UWP to also having a somewhat universal development codebase. I've never futsed done anything with Xamarin so I don't know what the process is like.

Xamarin/Mono requires you to build your code base in C#, which depending on what you're building, could be a limiting factor. If Windows Store ever becomes a strong enough market, then I could see Mono becoming a strong tool for helping mobile/app developers transition over while also retaining as large a reach as possible. A lot of ground needs to be gained though. App & Play Store just eclipse Windows Store at the moment. And the more entrenched app/mobile developers become in iOS & Android, the more reluctant they are going to become to change everything up from the ground up. MS needs to prove UWP is really, truly worth all the effort.

 

[Trup1aya]

Yes, I have some experience with UWA development, although even in the space of app development, I have way more experience with iOS & Android development, for obvious reasons.

The moment you have a plan to add a platform or a new distribution model to your game, your cost in terms of funding & effort will go up. That doesn't mean it makes it unfeasible, just that those two costs goes up, and that we'd only choose to do this if the benefit of this wider platform release compensated us enough for it. It would only be prohibitively expensive if UWA development wasn't bringing us enough of an ROI necessary to do so. Making our game .exe gets us on steam & on every major console. If UWA development just supplants Xbox & PC, two platforms my .exe already runs on & makes money from, why would I focus on UWA development?

Ideally, if we're talking about creating a platform that software developers target, then we need to take a step back from console development, and look at this in the broader view of targeted OS development. Right now, if you're making new software, you're focusing on app development, and you're targeting iOS & Android first & foremost, with iOS probably being your first choice. UWA's just haven't taken off yet as a tertiary platform in that sense. I don't approach developing software for Windows as a UWA, because I can still reach my audience through Windows regardless despite it not being a UWA. I do think that, ideally, MS would want software developers (not just game developers, mind you) to approach developing software on Windows as UWA, but they also know they can't force us to do it. Their current approach is to try to make it as seamless as possible, and eliminate as much of the effort cost as they can that it would normally require us to put in. I appreciate their efforts, but they still have a looooooooong way to go.

The reason why its different is because game devs write our games, particularly console games, to have our code bases specialized towards the machine they are running on. I was discussing with another user a few of the possibilities that we might see in order to get such a scenario, but none match the current discussion we're seeing arise from a mid-step iterated console. Even when comparing it to PC games development, which has its own unique & wild set of problems that comes with the open-ended platform that it is, it's still very different in terms of execution. So, unless the console's APU & OS is identical to the weaker Xbox, then I have to build a separate code base to have my game run natively on the machine. Which would then require it's own amount of debugging & QA. Who is eating all of the financial & effort cost for that? Me, the developer. And since its just another Xbox, all this results in me selling into the same market ecosystem i'm already selling to; so its increased cost for no extra gain.

thanks for the reply.

It seems to be that MS has to understand that few developers are going to skip out on making .exe AND that .exe will be the primary target. so
Success in this space would initially depend on:

1) how easy and inexpensive it is to convert an existing .exe into UWA

And

2) the exisitance of financial opportunities once the UWA is created

so, say a developer has a game and is considering following a typical PC game porting path (PC-> maybe ps4-> double maybe xb1). Naturally, The main thing dictating how far along that path they travel is cost and financial opportunity.

Seems to me that MS is banking on the idea that UWAs will allow developers to either reduce costs or create financial opportunities that will cause developers to reconsider where they place Xbox in the porting path.

Maybe it's because they think the pre-installation of their store will give games more visibility among people who game on Win10 casually.

Or maybe they think providing a standardized platform for cross-play will be seen as a opportunity for developers.

Whatever the case may be, sounds like they have a looong way to go.

Regarding stop-gap hardware, I'd assume that the bolded is exactly the route they would take.

Again, every publisher already making titles for your combine population, it's call Multiplatform games.
Combining storefront that no one use and 20m Xbox one it's not better opportunity for them.

Right now, everyone making 3 version, 1 PC x32 version and release on any PC store they choose, 1 Xbox one version and 1 PS4 version.
So you combine Xbox one and Windows store,
Tell me why a developer want to spend more resource to make a UWA PC version on top of x32 version to serve only Windows 10 PC users?
They already have that cover with thier X32 version which reach far more bigger audience including Windows 10, 8, 7 maybe XP too.

Yeah I get all that. But I think their goal is to bring games to Xbox that otherwise would have skipped it altogether. i guess it boils down to what it actually takes to convert a win32 game into a UWA, and whether or not the costs associated with that are exceeded by the financial opportunities gained by having the game in Xbox and in a store that is preinstalled on hundreds of millions of PCs rather than in one that only core gamers are using.

Ofcourse all of that hinges on MS getting core gamers and non core gamers alike to peak in the store.

 

[4Tran]

I feel the opposite about your first paragraph.

I just can't see a company like Microsoft attempting such an expensive and risky move if there wasn't a lot of faith in the value of Xbox.

If nadella was questioning whether or not this unit should exist at all, why would he sign of on $billions of addition investments?

Companies like HTC and Blackberry made all sorts of huge investments out of desperation when they found their current products not cutting the mustard.

This isn't really true. The main advantage that a console has that would be lost here is the idea of every owner playing on even ground.

The main advantage of consoles for both consumers and publishers is simplicity. All of the Xbone SKUs would be able to play all Xbone games, thereby making it easier to make purchasing decisions, easier to market to, and easier to target games for. Xbox is saying that they want to throw all of this away.

Now as for not gaining any of the PC advantages... you actually do gain some. Firstly whatever approach is taken to make this work would basically have to guarantee flawless backwards compatibility... which in the age of shit constantly getting delisted is very important to some (e.g. me). You don't have to worry about having your console be perpetually seen as the weaker console, because you simply put a faster one out. And finally (and this is something I think gets ignored too much when people talk about people not "upgrading their phones/gfx cards/whatever" on a yearly basis)... when a customer does want to upgrade, you have a shiny, reasonably new box that's still relatively exciting to upgrade to.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. It looks like this is what Microsoft thinks when they look at the advantage of PCs, and it's also completely missing the point. The main advantage of PC gaming isn't being able to upgrade your hardware whenever you want; it's flexibility. A consumer has a huge amount of choice in what goes into the hardware, what kind of games they can play, what kind of control mechanisms, and where to buy games. Microsoft's plan is effectively the opposite of that. What they want is to keep their customers locked into their proprietary platform.

And even the plan for backwards compatibility is bad. It's a neat feature, but it's not a major selling point. And to implement it, they're going to have to support bad hardware and API choices in all of their future consoles.

 

[Synth]

The main advantage of consoles for both consumers and publishers is simplicity. All of the Xbone SKUs would be able to play all Xbone games, thereby making it easier to make purchasing decisions, easier to market to, and easier to target games for. Xbox is saying that they want to throw all of this away.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. It looks like this is what Microsoft thinks when they look at the advantage of PCs, and it's also completely missing the point. The main advantage of PC gaming isn't being able to upgrade your hardware whenever you want; it's flexibility. A consumer has a huge amount of choice in what goes into the hardware, what kind of games they can play, what kind of control mechanisms, and where to buy games. Microsoft's plan is effectively the opposite of that. What they want is to keep their customers locked into their proprietary platform.

But an Xbox One would still play all Xbox One games. There's no simplicity lost here. When Phil states that they would have "backwards and forwards compatibility" that's simply mean that the new model would still just be running Xbox One games. It's not like a 32X where the upgrade brings a new selection of software that's unique to it.

As for the PC stuff. I didn't say anything about main advantages. You said it would gain none of the advantages of the PC model... so I listed some that it would gain.

 

[Bits N Pieces]

All of this chat is based off of hypotheticals, right?

 

[Synth]

All of this chat is based off of hypotheticals, right?

Kinda... any speculation on the implementation is... but Phil basically said this is something they will be doing in some form.

 

[Shin-Ra]

But then there's another ace in Ms strategies. Eventually phones will be powerful enough to run xbone/Ps4 games and when they do you add another family of devices you are able to game on with the same library. It's not the most compelling reason ever, but I think it all adds up.

Are Microsoft going to open their ecosystem to Android and iOS phones?

 

[Crayon]

But an Xbox One would still play all Xbox One games. There's no simplicity lost here. When Phil states that they would have "backwards and forwards compatibility" that's simply mean that the new model would still just be running Xbox One games. It's not like a 32X where the upgrade brings a new selection of software that's unique to it.

As for the PC stuff. I didn't say anything about main advantages. You said it would gain none of the advantages of the PC model... so I listed some that it would gain.

The simplicity is lost when user is drowning in marketing about the 2017 XBox version of Elder Scrolls being better than ps4, and they get the game home to their 2013 pooch xbox to find their game is actually worse than ps4. There's a confidence that is damaged.

 

[Trup1aya]

Companies like HTC and Blackberry made all sorts of huge investments out of desperation when they found their current products not cutting the mustard.

Yeah, but those companies were fighting to survive... MS can live without Xbox, so I don't understand why they would make such investments if they didn't have faith in the return.

The main advantage of consoles for both consumers and publishers is simplicity. All of the Xbone SKUs would be able to play all Xbone games, thereby making it easier to make purchasing decisions, easier to market to, and easier to target games for. Xbox is saying that they want to throw all of this away.

As far as consumers are concerned I don't think the simplicity goes away. All of the games work fine regardless of which Xbox they buy during the generation. They just decide how pretty they want those games to be. Publisher still target the low end device because that's how you reach the largest audience. The high end device achieves better performance through brute force, just like what occurs on PC.

The simplicity is lost when user is drowning in marketing about the 2017 XBox version of Elder Scrolls being better than ps4, and they get the game home to their 2013 pooch xbox to find their game is actually worse than ps4. There's a confidence that is damaged.

I think gamers are generally used to marketing materials looking better than what they see when they get home. And I think they are smart enough to understand whether they have the normal or "plus" version of a product and what that entails.

 

[JaggedSac]

The simplicity is lost when user is drowning in marketing about the 2017 XBox version of Elder Scrolls being better than ps4, and they get the game home to their 2013 pooch xbox to find their game is actually worse than ps4. There's a confidence that is damaged.

Yeah, true. They will certainly lose the dum dum market with this.

 

[Synth]

The simplicity is lost when user is drowning in marketing about the 2017 XBox version of Elder Scrolls being better than ps4, and they get the game home to their 2013 pooch xbox to find their game is actually worse than ps4. There's a confidence that is damaged.

Honestly, the type of user that'd actually be evaluating the difference between an Xbox One version of a game and a PS4 version of a game.. and certainly one that would then both access and notice the differences between both versions, is going to know the difference between the new Xbox and the old one. This will be similar to different model of phones 5, 5S, 5C... you'd have those that know the difference between them, and those that won't even be comparing them to the equivalent Android models.

This is a non-factor.

 

[Bits N Pieces]

Kinda... any speculation on the implementation is... but Phil basically said this is something they will be doing in some form.

Cheers, going to be interesting to see how it all unfolds.

Buckle up

 

[Crayon]

Yeah, true. They will certainly lose the dum dum market with this.

I believe they will lose some portion of this significant market segment.

 

[wapplew]

Game label and box art can be confusing.
Right now PS4 box game only play on PS4, how would you label Xbox 1.5 games? Better with Xbox 1.5?

 

[Crayon]

Honestly, the type of user that'd actually be evaluating the difference between an Xbox One version of a game and a PS4 version of a game.. and certainly one that would then both access and notice the differences between both versions, is going to know the difference between the new Xbox and the old one. This will be similar to different model of phones 5, 5S, 5C... you'd have those that know the difference between them, and those that won't even be comparing them to the equivalent Android models.

This is a non-factor.

In your estimation, would there be a full-gen xbox to line up with the eventual ps5 release? Because the ps5 will probably come with the old message "this is a significant upgrade". An effective one. Bolstered by the fact that they can now say theyre the only ones offering it. Would there be a similar whole number xbox to meet that?

 

[Ricky_R]

Game label and box art can be confusing.
Right now PS4 box game only play on PS4, how would you label Xbox 1.5 games? Better with Xbox 1.5?

Probably something like Xbox / Windows game. Everything else managed by marketing/advertising/PR.

 

[Trup1aya]

Game label and box art can be confusing.
Right now PS4 box game only play on PS4, how would you label Xbox 1.5 games? Better with Xbox 1.5?

I don't think you change the label of Xbox games.

You just market the Xbox 1.5 as a box that makes your games prettier.

 

[yukianderson]

Game label and box art can be confusing.
Right now PS4 box game only play on PS4, how would you label Xbox 1.5 games? Better with Xbox 1.5?

They probably can make them a different color.

 

[Synth]

Game label and box art can be confusing.
Right now PS4 box game only play on PS4, how would you label Xbox 1.5 games? Better with Xbox 1.5?

You don't imo. You just continue to label them as Xbox One games, much like a 3DS games is simply listed as one even if the user is playing it on a 2DS. At the very most you could just but the alternate spec info on the back of the box with the other stuff (like how many players).

 

[Zedox]

Are Microsoft going to open their ecosystem to Android and iOS phones?

Actually, with the purchase of Xamarin, I think MS is making a case for developers to use it (along with UWP) to create iOS,Android,Windows, and Mac apps. One they have a developer on their platform it would be easier for them to port code to different platform. But that'sfrom the developer standpoint.

MS actually had (in preview form) Android apps tunning natively on Windows phones. It worked too well lolol and they want people to use UWP to make any type of app ( that'sprobably why they bought Xamarin) and not use what they already have that excludes them.

Also there are Xbox games on iOS and i think on Android right now. So its not like it wouldn't happen.

 

[cakely]

Yes, I have some experience with UWA development, although even in the space of app development, I have way more experience with iOS & Android development, for obvious reasons.

[ solid insights ]

Some really great info in this thread (especially the above) but it looks like we're just debating hypothetical outcomes now.

I'll bookmark this thread and come back to it when we have some more concrete information from Microsoft. It will be nice to see how accurate our predictions actually were.

 

[Garrett 2U]

There is no debating that the UWP is ambitious.

However, Microsoft has been undergoing this process for a very long time, much before Xbox One's release.
This unification has clearly been a goal of Microsoft's since Windows 8 and the Metro App.
Even when they first announced the Xbox One, the vision was for the console to integrate into the Windows 8 ecosystem.

The UWA is a application format that is intended to run on all Windows 10 devices.
To suggest that Xbox is leaving the console industry because of this announcement is quite foolish, given that the Xbox One is running Windows 10.

Developer support is obviously a critical factor in its success.
In his presentation, Phil says that communicating with developers and evolving the UWA to meet their needs is Microsoft's number one priority right now.

And it is clear that Microsoft's goal is for the UWA to support AAA gaming in its full form.
Already, they've worked with two third party developers (Remedy and Crystal Dynamics) to develop their games as UWA. ROTR is out now and Quantum Break has gone gold.

We'll see how it pans out within the next couple of years, but this unification is not a reactionary move to the console space, and it is certainly not the signal of an exit.
It has been a work in process for many years.

 

[SEGAvangelist]

You don't imo. You just continue to label them as Xbox One games, much like a 3DS games is simply listed as one even if the user is playing it on a 2DS. At the very most you could just but the alternate spec info on the back of the box with the other stuff (like how many players).

Right. The same disc would work on XB1 and XB1.5. That one is easy.