Microsoft To Unify PC and Xbox One Platforms (theguardian.com)

New submitter Serzen writes: According to The Guardian, Microsoft is planning to end fixed console hardware for the Xbox One as a move towards one ecosystem running Unified Windows Applications. The head of the company's Xbox division, Phil Spencer, said that the Universal Windows Platform would be central to the company's gaming strategy. "That is our focus going forward," he told reporters. "Building out a complete gaming ecosystem for Universal Windows Applications." What this could mean is that the Xbox One becomes more like a PC, with Microsoft releasing updated versions at regular intervals with more powerful processors and graphics hardware. In theory, because games will be written as UWAs, older titles will remain compatible with the new machines.

Comments

Re:Then why get a console?

[Anonymous Coward]

If your PC can run everything that the console can, why bother with the console?

Cost.

Consoles usually represent good value for the processing they provide at time of release.

Re:Then why get a console?

[antek9]

It obviously doesn't occur to them that lots of former PC gamers turned to consoles specifically to get away from yearly hardware upgrades. This is a very anti-console move by Microsoft, indeed.

It might be good news for Sony, at least in the short term, but I'm afraid it's bad news for most console gamers.

Steam Competition

[nateman1352]

Looks like the fact that Valve largely controls PC gaming and is doing everything they can to push it away from Microsoft's platform has earned them Microsoft's perceived #1 gaming competitor. Make no mistake, Microsoft knows that gaming is one of the few remaining compelling reasons for consumers to use their platform. Most (but not all) desktop application use cases can be accomplished with a web browser these days. Microsoft knows that if they don't create a reason for game devs to use DirectX 12 then there is a risk that game devs will prefer Vulkan due to the multi-platform targeting (Windows, SteamOS, Android) which will erode the position of Windows as the best PC gaming platform.

Basically this is Microsoft saying that they don't care very much about Sony anymore, they perceive Valve as a greater threat and they are willing to give up the hardware sales that XBox exclusive titles would normally drive to instead incentivize continued purchase of Windows licenses for gaming PCs. It would not surprise me if Microsoft starts licensing the XBox brand the same way Steam Machines are licensed. We could see an "Alienware Xbox" sometime soon.

Re:Then why get a console?

[Stormwatch]

Consoles usually represent good value for the processing they provide at time of release.

That was the case with the Xbox 360, which had a triple-core PowerPC back when x86 PCs were still on single-core Pentium 4. Not so much with the current generation consoles, that were kind of "meh" from the start.

Re:Then why get a console?

[DrXym]

The flip side is that whatever you save by going to consoles you lose by paying through the nose for the same game. And certain kinds of games simply don't travel well to consoles.

Re:Great

[BitZtream]

I have a PC, I don't game on it because of EXACTLY that! When I play online games, I'm not evenly matched because my PC simply isn't fast enough, which makes crap play for me and everyone else, so I use a console.

Now what they're saying is that my nice 'its going to be the same hardware fro 8-10 years' console is going to be just another PC ... but worse still an extremely locked down PC?

I knew I should have bought a PS4, but after having 3 PS2s die on me and the Sony rootkit episode and all the other shit they pull I just couldn't force myself to do it. Now basically there are no valid consoles for me to own :( Nintendo seems to be stuck thinking N64 graphics are still the target :(

Re:Then why get a console?

[Anonymous Coward]

Also something of a hardware apex in current hardware architectures. When was the last hardware update that didn't scale out instead of up? The last CPU I bought had the exact same clock speed as the one I bought 5 years earlier, just with more cores. My graphics card? Still rocking GDDR5 with the same bud speed from a decade ago but cuda/shader core count has sky rocketed.

Moore's law was nice while it lastest...

Re:Great

[nmb3000]

Just what PC gamers need - games targeted at low end hardware so it will run on a console.

Not necessarily. There's this thing called 'settings' in most games. You know, like higher resolution/quality graphics, physics, etc...

Tell me, does that "Setting" thing:

- Enable graphical features that the devs left out because the console hardware couldn't support it?
- Fix retarded user interfaces that were designed as 10-foot interfaces so they're clumsy and don't show any details?
- Fix retarded control schemes built for a console's gamepad and shoehorned into a keyboard + mouse interface?
- Make levels larger with few or zero loading screens?
- Remove an engine-enforced frame limiter set to 30fps to prevent frameskips and tearing?
- Gracefully support resolutions larger than the average 1080p (or god forbid, 720p) television?

For any benefits they may have, the simple fact is that consoles ruin games for PCs. It used to be that a game was built for the PC and then ported to a console -- starting with a whole cloth and then cutting out pieces that don't fit. Turning that around just means a worse experience for everyone.