For the First Time in Years I’m Excited About Where Microsoft Gaming Is Going

They say that trying the same thing again and again and expecting the same result is a sign of madness, and I suppose that Microsoft is tired several times on the console equipment market and finds itself in a distant third place. It therefore seems that, despite its marketing campaign “Everthing is an Xbox”, what is really going on is a return to the warm breast of the PC games.

Although the details are vague, on the basis of what we know and some rumors, the next Xbox could really be nothing more than a Windows PC with an Xbox badge on the shell, and although fans of the Xbox console equipment are not too satisfied with this change of direction, I think it could be better than Microsoft plays its real skills and forces.

Before Xbox, Microsoft was a PC Game Publishing Titan

These days, when people think of the game and Microsoft, it is Xbox who comes to mind, but before the first Xbox was born, Microsoft was already strongly involved in the game industry. It was an important part to bring people to use MS-DOS and Windows, after all.

In the 80s, and especially in the 90s, Microsoft developed and published a large number of games. Many of them were not notable, but games like Empires Age,, Microsoft Flight Simulator, Mechwarrior 4, And my beloved Monster truck madness are just a few. In the 2000s, they published games like Freelance And Dungeon seat. Microsoft has even published Solid metal on PC.

In other words, on PC, Microsoft was not a player and had a lot of franchises respected in his stable.

The Xbox began as a consolized PC

The first Xbox proved to be quite prophetic when you look at modern current generation systems. Unlike PlayStations and Nintendo consoles of the time, the first Xbox was essentially only a normal PC, with personalized equipment. However, he has executed the same type of code as an Windows PC, and the “X” in Xbox comes from “DirectX” – the Windows game API. After all, the console was originally called upon to be called the “Directxbox”.

Not only did it make the original Xbox much more powerful than the other consoles of its generation, but it meant that the developers did not have to develop ports completely separated from a game. You can simply develop your PC game, then modify it relatively little to make the Xbox version. Today, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 effectively follow the same model, except that the operating system is a modified version of FreeBSD rather than Windows, and of course the Xbox One and Xbox Series consoles are also really consolidated from PC equipment systems, with the beating heart of Windows with DirectX always to their heart.

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The Xbox 360 was a stroke of luck

In fact, the only time Microsoft deviated from this approach was with the Xbox 360, which used a personalized IBM Powerpc triple-core processor. Ironically, despite a extremely High hardware failure rate from a problem known as “Red Ring of Death”, the Xbox 360 is the most successful Microsoft console to date. It is not only because of the material, which was Quite great when it worked, but especially because of all the big games in the system.

However, the Xbox 360 is distinguished as the only real luminous point in the history of the Xbox console. For a certain time, it seemed that the Xbox could only improve, but thanks to really epic decisions and bone head with the Xbox One which, frankly, sabotaged the consoles of the Xbox series in many ways before being designed, the only non -Japanese console left in the race is stuck in the last place.

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The new Xbox Rumor direction brings Microsoft back to its roots

Although it is always a rumor and that it did not do what to refer by waves of Xbox Marketing and Leadership, there is a good chance that the next “console” Xbox could actually be a Windows 11 PC running Windows 11 Games – or whatever the next version of Windows ends up being called. Microsoft moves away from the “Xbox” being a console and markets it aggressive as a brand on different devices. The new Xbox brand Handheld PC Handheld PC PC, for example, will integrate the games you buy on Steam in the same Xbox style launcher as Game Pass and Microsoft Store Games.

At the same time, Microsoft pushes its “Play AnyWhere” functionality established at new heights, forcing more to connect, so that if you buy their games on Xbox, you can also play it on PC at the same price. Personally, I think that the long -term plan here is to eliminate the native Xbox versions of the games and to move everything to the PC versions, assuming that the next Xbox material system will execute the latter.

The last piece of the puzzle would be to bring the excellent emulators of Microsoft for Xbox and Xbox 360 games on PC, which would allow the company to take a clean break in its console equipment at the end of this generation. So, even if we have been promised that a new generation “Xbox” is always on the cards, it could end up being the Microsoft version of a steam engine.

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Sometimes it is better to stick to what you know

If this is true that Microsoft effectively moves to PC equipment (and cloud streaming from PC equipment) and leaves the equipment of the tailor -made console, then personally, I think that the company is finally on the right track and would return to its roots. Except, this time with new IP years, development experience and other knowledge to develop a robust company focused on PCs.

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It is quite possible for Microsoft to create something that combines the forces of the PC with things that people love their consoles. It is time that we accept that the experience of the Microsoft console has failed, and honestly, with regard to the equipment, the company has a fairly spotted assessment. Microsoft clashed against Amazon’s echo with the invocation of Cortana, and I bet that you did not even know that it existed. The company clashed against the iPhone with the Windows Phone and Kin – -Ad. He went against the iPod with the zune – -ad. The RT surface? Dead. And now the Xbox? I think it’s dead Jim.

To be fair, Microsoft made a very good joystick and an optical mouse for a while, but I think this good old Microcomputer software should probably stop paying the money he earns with this software into hardware products that then light this money on fire.

If Microsoft amounts to focusing on being a developer and publisher for PC Gaming, and can fill the material gap to keep its old console fans – it really excited me. Despite lamentable recent layoffs (such as reported by our friends from Polygon) in the company’s games division, I think the future of long -term Microsoft game exploits seems brighter than it has ever been during its console experiences. If he can learn from his mistakes, he could end up being for better.