So in ten years Xbox won't exist as a brand at all? I agree. No need to take the bet.

I think what you're describing is exactly what Microsoft is doing. Except I think it's incredibly short sighted from a business, consumer, and brand perspective.

IMO, It's basically the brand equivalent of seppuku.

With no functional distinction between Xbox and Windows, you just get the entirety of the Xbox ecosystem silently competing with all of Steam. But even worse: it's now just the word Xbox on Windows. And everyone really hates Windows at the moment. It's bleeding OS marketshare to Linux like nothing I've ever seen.

So they want to put the entirety of Xbox recognition on a Platform (PC) that their console users won't be familiar with, and the OS they're integrating it with is actively losing users. Mostly to Linux. Which Steam has an entire OS built on top of that anyone can use for their games for free.

So the consumer choice for PC users will be between:

• Steam OS based on Linux for free. Runs all steam games and has a desktop mode for all other apps.

• Windows 11 for $hundreds, smaller pool of games + worse performance.

I don't think people are going to choose option 2 just because the word Xbox is in it somehow. Some might, but this is just HBO becoming MAX all over again, but without the escape plan of returning to HBO.

Destroying a console AND brand just to compete with Steam with an inferior product is incredibly dumb, and incredibly Microsoft.

They’ve already stated that intent last November. Everything is an Xbox

It’s almost like people trust Valve and don’t trust ASUS

In places where Steam Deck isn't selling officially, the ROG Ally has been selling like hotcakes.

Thanks, I literally just looked this up and saw that is supposedly the case. That's very surprising to me. At least it has that

Supposedly its a slimmed down version of windows, but yeah still windows 🤮

I have the original and passed on upgrading to the OLED. It really hasn't shown much age at all, yet. I'm not really playing AAA or demanding titles on it, anyway, and it works perfectly for all of the games I do want to play on it. I figure the limiting factor will be the battery, and that seems to be just as good as it was new.

The clones aren't acceptable replacements to me, they are more of handheld-consoles than handheld-PCs. If it doesn't have touchpads, I don't want it, period.

Microsoft’s debloated

Hehe.

I think it's actually the opposite, as they claimed to have optimised it for gaming with interface and QOL catered to the purpose. That's more bloat when Microsoft does it.

I’m not a MS fanboy (incredibly far from it) but your comment sparked a vision in my head of an immutable variant of LTSC/iot that function liked a Debian or arch base with vendors building x window interfaces on top of it i(the name is already there). interfaces that are hardware or platform specific (e.g. here’s your Ubisoft skin, here’s your Epic Skin, etc…).

If only we lived in a tech utopia instead of… whatever the fuck the mba’s have spent the last few decades shitting out.

I hate having thoughts of utopia in an orphan crushing world.