But I’m just asking, naively, is 10% a “buyout” by any reasonable definition of the term? I thought that was just a “stake”. I thought a “buyout” meant buying all of someone’s stake.
I noticed the announcement trailer doesn’t even show any footage of the original, which makes it the only remaster trailer I think I’ve ever seen that doesn’t do a split screen or other comparison at some point.
And the first thing they mention is new Spatial Audio and haptic triggers. It’s like selling a new car and bragging about the cup holders first.
It’s not impressive, but it’s nice to get a mainstream release that maxes it out within reason for the vast majority of people with zero effort or inside knowledge. If you aren’t happy with anything less than 8k 144Hz, then you can make that happen for yourself by other means. But for the millions of people with 120Hz TVs from a Memorial Day sale, this really is a meaningful offering.
I think they need to do this now before Microsoft does it first. Xbox is flailing and the daylight they can see from there is the Xbox/PC ecosystem. Turning Xbox from a box to a brand that merges PC and console into a fluid system would be the best way to pivot the market and put Sony on the back foot.
I mean technically yeah. But it might also mean some meeting-in-the-middle on what PC/console even means. It’s probably push PC fanning even more toward being console, with the benefits of more consistency and less cheating, but the downside of being less flexible and more crowded with console players. Probably also a bigger push for buying PC games through the Microsoft store when possible.
My Baseless Prediction, i.e. if I ran Xbox, what I would do given their situation:
Microsoft will sunset the Xbox as a console but focus on creating a dual boot mode for Windows similar to the Steam Deck and Big Picture Mode. Probably called “Xbox Mode” or something similarly unoriginal but evocative. This streamlined mode will greatly reduce system overhead and be controller-centric, and it will have an emulation layer to support all Xbox ecosystem games along with backward compatibility. On certain form factors it will be the default boot mode, and supporting this they will release two new Windows PC form factors: a living room box and a handheld. Other PC manufacturers will be able to jump on the wagon as well. I doubt they will in any way define reference performance profiles akin to a console “generation” but they may have some kind of guidance regarding how graphics should scale seamlessly between TV/monitor and handheld form factors to allow for a Switch-like docking experience.