Steam Deck is the biggest threat to Xbox and maybe the other way around too. Let’s explore Microsoft and Valve’s weird relationship

  • tacosanonymous
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    7 months ago

    Meh. They are their own worst enemy. If you’re going to make a console, you have to give people reasons to buy it. Their lack of console selling games isn’t the steam deck’s fault.

    I thought the ps3 might kill Sony’s console dreams but they buckled down and delivered with the ps4.

    M$ can salvage this, if they genuinely reflect and start delivering.

    • narc0tic_bird
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      7 months ago

      Sony also built up momentum during the second half of the PS3’s lifespan by focusing on what’s most important for a games console: games. And they made the PS3 more affordable and therefore accessible with a great, focused PS3 redesign in form of the PS3 Slim, saving costs while only cutting features that weren’t really important to most potential customers (PS2 backwards compatibility).

      They took that momentum, watched Microsoft fail and made a home run with the PS4 based on the perfect storm that was created.

      The PS5 was simply a continuation of their good form, and Microsoft has just been going along with their Xbox brand and consoles, seemingly not knowing where to go, buying studios left and right which then proceed to release mediocre titles. They also tried something with their subscription service, but it turns out most people just buy the games they want to play instead of picking from a selection of games of which they wouldn’t have chosen most of them if they weren’t included in a subscription.

      • warm@kbin.earth
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        7 months ago

        After being away from consoles for a long time now, they really have little appeal beyond their easy setup and cheaper hardware. The exclusives on any console are not worth buying a whole new console to play. There’s so much more value in PC gaming, the intial barrier of entry and possible technical problems just put people off.

        I really think Steam Machines could make a major comeback now, the deck has proved the software side, SteamOS is much more mature.

        • narc0tic_bird
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          7 months ago

          Oh I agree with that and I’m a PC gamer 99 % of the time (well, like 95 % desktop PC, 4.5 % Steam Deck, 0.5 % consoles). I mainly use my PS5 for playing BluRay nowadays. I don’t fancy paying more for games, a subscription for online gaming and getting a worse experience (in terms of graphics/performance and things like modding but also voice chat options etc.).

        • DebatableRaccoon@lemmy.ca
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          7 months ago

          I couldn’t agree more. Back during the initial pitches of the Steam Machines, I was a supporter of the concept and was looking forward to the release. In my market, they took a long time to release and ended up being stupidly expensive. To give an idea, in my market an i3-powered unit was expensive as an i7-powered one in the US despite not having that problem with PC components or even prebuilts. Eventually I spent the money on a parts to build my own rig that was significantly more capable than what the Steam Machine of equal cost would have been. I found little ways to make being a couch PC gamer viable without breaking the bank on horribly expensive niche products like lapboards and it’s enabled me to become a PC gamer despite having been a console boy for so long. It’s a shame because I think Steam Machines would make PC gaming so much more approachable to the average consumer (which I was at the time) and I hope they still manage to in the future.

    • thingsiplay@beehaw.orgOP
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      7 months ago

      The video content isn’t talking about the current market or the past, but how Steam Deck is the biggest threat to Xbox in the future. Xbox has a lot of potential. The leadership changed (which is addressed in this video too). When Microsoft was at its worse, Steve Ballmer was the boss of Microsoft and Don Mattrick was ruining Xbox in the ground with XBox One. Now we have Satya Nadella and have Spencer, who did bring back the Xbox brand and seem to understand their stuff better.

  • bigkahuna1986@lemmy.ml
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    7 months ago

    Naturally Microsoft will respond by further enshittifying their own platform then just buying up the competitors to save themselves.

  • DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    7 months ago

    I used to like Fan the Deck before he got super popular. In the past…like 6 or 7 months he’s turned into a clickbait whore and became like Deck Ready (the OG clickbait whore Steam Deck channel)

    • thingsiplay@beehaw.orgOP
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      7 months ago

      I don’t agree that Fan the Deck became too much clickbait. I know Deck Ready too and its incredibly bad with his clickbait. Stopped watching Deck Ready. But regardless of the title in this video from Fan the Deck, I had same expectations as you, if you watch the content then the title makes sense and is not clickbait. I agree on every point and the recap he did in the beginning too.

      Regardless what you think, if I am paid to write this or not, I mean it when I say this video title is not misleading clickbait.

      • DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        7 months ago

        I did not watch deck ready because they are clickbait whores from just a glance… But I wanted a SD focused news alternative and found fan the deck from searching around for a similar steam deck focused channel and it was a breath of fresh air. Now he posts shit titles like “Steam Deck Problem” with BEWARE big letters on the thumbnail. get. the fuck. out. I unsubscribed after that video. If I have to use DE-ARROW to see what your video is about (and his videos have started to been “de-arrowed” as viewers are probably sick of it too) you’re gone.

        The GOAT though IMO is Dragonware Decaf. Lisa knows her shit. She doesn’t do news but she does SD tutorials

  • Zworf@beehaw.org
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    7 months ago

    Nah. Playstation is the biggest threat to the Xbox. They sell much more than the steam deck. And they know how to sell a console by selling good games and not making only deals with repetitive “AAA” studios that poop out one remaster after another.

    • Queen HawlSera
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      7 months ago

      You know the PS5 is being discontinued with no PS6 on the horizon right?

  • LordJer@beehaw.org
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    7 months ago

    As an Xbox owner I’ve come to realize that buying that console may not of been the best decision.

    • DdCno1@beehaw.org
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      7 months ago

      Backwards compatibility is great though. It’s the most convenient way of playing console exclusives from the 360 generation in particular, especially those that run at higher resolutions now.

  • Queen HawlSera
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    7 months ago

    Honestly Console gaming will be nothing but a distant memory in 10 years