for most of you disappointed in the new xbox for lack of games, please keep in mind that E3 is some 19 days away and they were obviously holding back some cards for that show. This reveal was not about games, yet they made mention of 15 in-house titles (8 of which are new IP which seems interesting), EA sports mentioned 5 titles, and after the talk there have been tons of announcements of upcoming games that will be released. So don't worry, the games are coming, and I think that E3 this year will be pretty neat.
All that said, I think that MS has missed the boat in a big way. What do I need an xbox for exactly? I own 5 consoles in my house. Not a single one is hooked up to the TV, and none of them have even turned on in the last 2 years!
Why? As it turns out, there are a lot of little reasons, but the overwhelming reason is simple: consoles have become redundant.
Have we learned nothing about the cell phone revolution? My house use to be cluttered with a bunch of nearly useless single-purpose devices. Then I got a smartphone, and now everything from the simple MP3 player, to my GPS in the car has been replaced entirely by a device that fits in my pocket. Even my laptop has almost been replaced, and I fully expect my next phone in 1.5 years to replace that the rest of the way (all it needs is a docking feature).
Meanwhile, a similar revolution has happened in the living room. The living room use to have a bunch of consoles, controllers, cartridges and discs, movies of various formats, and a host of additional proprietary controllers (guitars, drumsets, etc). I have never had cable or satellite, but many homes have that as well. Now my living room has a TV and a couch. All of my media is on my PC in the basement with no need to swap out discs or other physical media. For day to day use my phone has an app which I use as my keyboard and mouse, but if I need a keyboard, mouse, or controller I can get one easily. All of my software is on it for work and play. I have a full browser with flash and java support. I have access to all of my files. It is simple, there is very little clutter, and it works very well.
So maybe it is just me, but wouldn't it make more sense to add xbox functionality to my computer rather than making a device that is almost a clone of my PC, except that it does not work as a PC?
Or put another way: Would MS make more money selling consoles that they loose money on? Or by selling controllers, kinnect units, xbox live gold subscriptions, and making next gen games only available on the win8 app store?
All that MS has to do is fix the WEI and attach a WEI requirement per game. Only play casual games? here is a tablet with a WEI of 4 which is more than capable of it. Want to play any game at an acceptable 30fps 720p level? Here is a laptop or desktop with a WEI of 7. Want to play at 4K with AA and AF enabled? Well here is a system with a WEI of 1000.
Oh no! did your PC/console/tablet/phone die on you? Maybe you should contact ASUS/Dell/HP/Nokia for support on that because we only provide the network and distribution platform for games/music/movies/TV.
It gives MS less responsibility on hardware, it would push subscription services and win8 sales, and it would go a long way to fixing stagnated PC sales, while opening up gaming to a much broader market. Doesn't this make more sense than selling a PC that is not a PC?
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