For anyone done buying discs, it’s a removed point of failure in the device. The Series S sold well, so if your point is “No one wants a digital console”, then no, you are wrong.
People wanted more storage in existing models
For a lot of people, the $100 difference between models is a heavy consideration. Anything that can get trimmed out may make them more likely to buy.
Edit: looks like the old series x was 499 but is on sale for 449 basically everywhere. The new discless series x is 449, but will prob be on sale for 400 in a few months.
Ownership of the people, not of corporations. Why do you think they are always trying to “seize the means of production”? To give ownership to a big mega Corp like msft? Nope
You got to take that up with the Microsoft executive who wrote it. It’s physical media, so Microsoft has less control over it, which they clearly don’t like.
Microsoft does a lot of bad things, but I got to give it to them here. Their push for accessibility in gaming is definitely a good thing. They’ve been pushing multiple modular controllers in order to allow people with disabilities to play games in a comfortable way. Having the support of a major player in the gaming market like Microsoft will definitely help with support for these products.
At launch, the Proteus Controller will work with the Xbox Series X / S, Xbox One, and Windows 10 and 11. ByoWave says it won’t support PlayStation 5 or Nintendo Switch, though it’s open to partnering with these platforms.
Pretendo here. Sorry, but this comment has been removed for the reasons of “slander” as stick drift has never existed in our products in the first place.
It’s a ton of money when comparing it to mainstream electronics, but I’d imagine that $300 single payment is a drop in the bucket for something medical. Anyone who needs it probably spends similar amounts or more adapting other everyday things for ease of use.
It’s a niche probably low volume product that requires a good amount of hardware and software engineering.
You ever look at how much a basic, non-powered, used wheelchair costs?
These high prices come with the fact that by definition, the equipment can be incredibly specialized. Unfortunately this is something most people with any sort of disability are probably completely used to.
Lots of people make valid criticisms of Microsoft and Xbox, but one thing that no one can criticize is their dedication to making products for people with disabilities. They have been consistently releasing these products for people despite a small market for them.
It looks like with multiple power cubes you can break it up. My favorite thing about the switch is the separate joy cons. This is far far far less painful for me to hold than traditional controllers. If this worked on Linux, Mac, PlayStation, and my Steamdeck, I might try it, as long as I could return it if it doesn’t work out.
I struggle with buttons in general. My palms are too small so I can’t wrap my hand around them very well. I have to death grip with my palm or I drop it, but I am constantly shifting around as my fingers can’t reach certain things easily either. The off-axis joysticks on an Xbox controller is a no go as I have to hold the controller rotated a bit which means that up isn’t up. I do much better with PS5 controllers, but still get a lot of pain in my hands if I play too much.
This thing looks cool even without a disability, TBH. I can't judge its usefulness for disabled people, of course, but I hope it'll be the tool they need to mitigate the issues life has cursed them with, at least for a little while during game sessions.
If cloud gaming ever becomes the norm, the consumer will have no power left. That’s their end game, to lock us into platforms and extract subscription and when they can’t get more subscribers they will demand higher prices and add more advertising. People who are paying for game pass, are investing in this future for gaming.
MS surprise launched hifi rush with zero marketing, put it on gamepass day 1 then complains it didn’t meets ales expectations and shuts down the studio that made it. Now, 48 hours later, they are saying they need more games like that.
It may not be directly referenced in the article but cloud gaming was absolutely a part of what led to the closure of tango gameworks.
Gamepass isn’t cloud gaming, though. It’s a game subscription, but cloud gaming is only optional and only available for a subset of games. All of the games however can be downloaded and are played locally.
You are right, that there are no games now bound to the cloud right now. But look at Microsoft business model in other areas. It’s all software as a service, web apps in the cloud, that businesses pay a subscription to use. It’s great way to extract value from customers, because it gets harder and harder to move away from these platforms. Your data, save games, your friend list, your ability to play multiplayer and so on, get increasingly locked to one platform, which makes it harder to move. And then Microsoft can just collect rent, they don’t have to innovate or compete on a free market. This trend is sometimes called techno-feudalism.
Sure that’s how it is now. As soon as the technology is mature enough, they will slowly begin to make a push for cloud only games. In that way they have total control. They can’t do it now because the technology is not quite there yet, and people is not ready. But you can see where they are heading. All business software such as Office and other cloud services is already there.
There’s also GeForce Now and they seem to be doing okay but at supposed 25 million registered users, that doesn’t seem like that much all things considered. For comparison, I can’t get the number of registered Steam users but they alone have around 30 million concurrent users on a typical day.
Oh I agree with you, I was just adding onto your point to the person you’re replying to. There’s plenty of options in the cloud gaming space but they’re not doing well enough to impact traditional gaming where you run the game on your own hardware which they were worried about.
I’d argue that xcloud and gamepass are equally disruptive to the industry. In either case you don’t own the games and they are tied to a subscription. Whether the game is running locally or in remote hardware doesn’t change how it impacts development and sales of games.
Cloud based gaming is not going to replace owning hardware unless they can ensure sub 20ms response time for every and I don’t belive that target is feasible but either case is bad for gaming as a whole. Games with 100 million dollar budgets are never going to see a positive ROI on services like gamepass and are reliant on gamers being willing to pay full price at launch.
My point is that Gamepass and similar services will kill AAA games if they become the primary way people access games and that is something that is best avoided. Games need a 6-12 month buffer to hit sales targets before they are considered for subscription services, otherwise the entire business model will fall flat on its face and take gaming with it.
There’s a huge difference between game pass and cloud gaming though. The way things are, cloud gaming isn’t gonna take off for a long time. And game pass games aren’t exclusive to game pass,i very much doubt it would make much financial sense to do that either as things are right now. Game pass and game sales aren’t mutually exclusive. Most people are still more than willing to pay full price for games rather than renting it except in certain situations.
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