Potentially beneficial results from the xbone going down in flames.

[siomasm]

Mostly conjecture, but lets say MS spends billions in development, production, distribution and advertisement of the xbone and makes a meager few million in return. With their recent flop of win8, things looking incredibly grim for their console, I imagine one fantastic thing COULD potentially come of this.

PC ports. Lots of em, and the pressure to make them GOOD ports. Of games we have been demanding for quite some time now, and those that were labeled "Xbone exclusive" once they start thrashing wildly at anything that might help them recover some of their investment.
I can't think of any better way for them to make a profit than doing a fraction of the work it takes to develop and market a game to simply put it on PC.

Unless of course they are utterly convinced of the same shite they spew out of their mouths with it comes to PC gaming being dead. In which case, I'll just leave this here...
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/star-citizen/

All Hail The Glorious PC Gaming Master Race!

 

[Mr.Mattress]

Well, there is that. But another thing that could happen (With or without more PC games) is that Third Parties jump onto the ship known as the WiiU. I know! Shocker of all Shockers! But I don't expect all games meant for the XBone to simply be PC exclusives: A number of those games would definitely go to the WiiU.

 

[siomasm]

Well, there is that. But another thing that could happen (With or without more PC games) is that Third Parties jump onto the ship known as the WiiU. I know! Shocker of all Shockers! But I don't expect all games meant for the XBone to simply be PC exclusives: A number of those games would definitely go to the WiiU.

I don't know about that =/ Different interface, different OS, different compatibility requirements with hardware and software, especially with most MS exclusives trying to push kinect. The easiest jump would be to put it on the platform of the OS it was developed with, windows. I can't imagine the Xbox OS and windows being so different, especially when some of their games at E3 were apparently played on win7

 

[NightmareExpress]

Companies might very well learn that fucking their consumer-base up the arse with a spiked dinger is not acceptable.
Or at least, doing it in such a blatant manner. In fact, I'm certain that the PR departments of other companies have already written notes on what not to do just by observing MicroSoft's silly outbursts.

So right off the bat, the consumer would benefit and would be treated better.
For a little while, at least.

Companies might find that a varied library of exclusives is a good thing to have and they can't just depend on a subscription-based multiplayer service (Sony fumbled the ball this generation by doing that) alongside a handful of (likely) temporarily exclusive titles.

More people switching over to PC for games, either for purchase or development.
More indies coming to the scene with fewer(?) opportunities to get boned.

Really, I don't see that many tangible downsides to the Xbone dying.
It would simply be a bad idea being met, unsurprisingly, with failure. Not much would be lost that isn't otherwise available on the other platforms. Either they improve themselves with the next-next Xbox or they fuck off and let others handle things with more success and appeal.

 

[Miss G.]

Companies might very well learn that fucking their consumer-base up the arse with a spiked dinger is not acceptable.
Or at least, doing it in such a blatant manner. In fact, I'm certain that the PR departments of other companies have already written notes on what not to do just by observing MicroSoft's silly outbursts.

So right off the bat, the consumer would benefit and would be treated better.
For a little while, at least.

Companies might find that a varied library of exclusives is a good thing to have and they can't just depend on a subscription-based multiplayer service (Sony fumbled the ball this generation by doing that) alongside a handful of (likely) temporarily exclusive titles.

More people switching over to PC for games, either for purchase or development.
More indies coming to the scene with fewer(?) opportunities to get boned.

Really, I don't see that many tangible downsides to the Xbone dying.
It would simply be a bad idea being met, unsurprisingly, with failure. Not much would be lost that isn't otherwise available on the other platforms. Either they improve themselves with the next-next Xbox or they fuck off and let others handle things with more success and appeal.

Yeah. And who knows, maybe we will have a new contender or 2 in the console market so the status quo can be kept in a healthy balance. More competition on the business end of things is good for the consumer. As long as I am not affected badly in Microsoft failures (was getting a WiiU with my pre-ordered PS4 anyways), as in other companies see that this shit will not fly, I'm good.

 

[Foolery]

Yeah. And who knows, maybe we will have a new contender or 2 in the console market so the status quo can be kept in a healthy balance. More competition on the business end of things is good for the consumer. As long as I am not affected badly in Microsoft failures (was getting a WiiU with my pre-ordered PS4 anyways), as in other companies see that this shit will not fly, I'm good.

And from the shadows, Sega made its move.

Jokes aside, it would interesting to see if anyone else comes out with a console.

 

[Strelok]

All Hail The Glorious PC Gaming Master Race!

This ridiculous phrase and spunkgarggleweewee need to die, not now, but yesterday. When consoles die (yes when, not if) PC and other mobile forms of gaming should be for everyone and reading something like this even if said to be ironic or as an "inside" joke it just sounds dumb, and uninviting.

Captcha: Just in time. To help kill these two moronic phrases? Let's hope so Captcha, let's hope so.

 

[Terminate421]

When consoles die (yes when, not if) PC and other mobile forms of gaming should be for everyone

Consoles aren't doing their best. We get it. But the world you're talking about is literally a canyon of gaming. PC and Mobile only would be more harmful to this industry than anything I could imagine. Consoles are needed, whether one likes it or not, they are the bridge which holds everything together.

How do we introduce people into this industry? Consoles. I have never met an individual who went form owning an ipad or DS and then immediately jumping ship onto the PC crowd. Consoles are what bring people to PC gaming in the first place.

PC is VERY helpful and is VERY good, I know, I have one, I use it all the time for games. But even I know that consoles are needed. And it stays at an "if" because people aren't exactly buying consoles right now so they can move onto the PS4 or Xbone if they were kicked in the head by a horse.

 

[BeeGeenie]

Why did all the consoles try to add stupid motion controls? Because the Wii made Bank. If it had failed, the Kinect wouldn't even exist.

If Xbone fails spectacularly (fingers crossed) then the entire industry will bear witness that bone-head features like kinect, required connectivity, etc. are a bad idea. That should be enough.
With any luck, they'll start questioning other anti-consumer practices that have been plaguing the industry lately.

In other words, a complete and utter failure could be the best thing that's happened to the industry in years.

 

[VanQ]

When consoles die (yes when, not if) PC and other mobile forms of gaming should be for everyone

Consoles aren't doing their best. We get it. But the world you're talking about is literally a canyon of gaming. PC and Mobile only would be more harmful to this industry than anything I could imagine. Consoles are needed, whether one likes it or not, they are the bridge which holds everything together.

How do we introduce people into this industry? Consoles. I have never met an individual who went form owning an ipad or DS and then immediately jumping ship onto the PC crowd. Consoles are what bring people to PC gaming in the first place.

PC is VERY helpful and is VERY good, I know, I have one, I use it all the time for games. But even I know that consoles are needed. And it stays at an "if" because people aren't exactly buying consoles right now so they can move onto the PS4 or Xbone if they were kicked in the head by a horse.

I've never seen it happen so it must be impossible! That's what you sound like. I've never seen a live dinosaur so they must never have been alive. They were always skeletons.

But seriously, I know people that have jumped straight from portable gaming into games like StarCraft 2 because they had a taste of the potential games had and found something with more depth to suit their tastes on the PC. My first video game ever was WarCraft on the PC and I spent a solid three years playing PC games before my parents bought me my first console. You don't need consoles to introduce people into gaming, you just need games that appeal to the individual person

Implying that consoles are some crutch in which the entire industry stands on is silly. It's just not true. Video games began on the PC for Christ's sake. Well, actually, the first ever video game was on a Cathode Ray Tube, but I digress, a lot of people may have got into gaming through consoles but not all of them needed a kick to the head from MS to game on a PC.

 

[Windcaler]

To be honest its not all that beneficial. Less competition in the market will cause longer term problems since theres no competitor to keep the business in check. Monopolies are always bad for us.

That said, the biggest advantage I can think of is some humble pie. Microsoft with this new console and recently windows 8 has made a couple of flops that were polar opposites of what consumers wanted. With windows 8 theyre paying for that right now and hopefully with the xbone we will see something similar happen. You can only have so many flops before you have to reassess your business model and actively look to give consumers the products they want.

 

[Ken_J]

If the XBone goes down in flames Microsoft might just say "Fuck it" and leave the game industry. Now the console industry will not die. Not as long as Nintendo is still around and the are going to be around for a while, but nature abhors a vacuum so someone else might just fill it. Maybe the Steambox or the OUYA or something from beyond left field but it will be filled. I personally would not mind this sort of change up as many would agree that the current landscape of gaming is a little on the Bland side and needs some newer blood injected and Microsoft's departure might supply the iodine.

 

[The_Echo]

I can see bigger benefits to Microsoft bowing out of the console game.

The Xbox 360 changed the gaming landscape, and some might argue for the worse. It appealed to the "dudebro" fraternity type of demographic, emphasizing online multiplayer, the FPS genre and overly-serious games.

As a result of its massive commercial success, what did we get this generation? All the FPSs and forced online components anyone could possibly ask for, and then some.

I would hope that in this generation (not necessarily due to Microsoft imploding) we step away from that, and go back to the software landscape of the 5th and 6th generation, where open-world platformers, third-person action-adventures and true survival horror games (to name a few) were much more abundant. Just more variety in general (like the handheld scene has been enjoying recently).

 

[Terminate421]

Implying that consoles are some crutch in which the entire industry stands on is silly. It's just not true. Video games began on the PC for Christ's sake.

I don't think you really get it. We NEED consoles to INTRODUCE people to gaming on PC. Dear god.

And insulting me does not help your argument.

Financially, no, consoles are not important, what I meant was on a social aspect. I have worked at a goddamn Fry's store, I know people buy PC games and for gaming. I know this. But not as many as you think, PC's for gaming do not sell nearly as much as consoles, whether you like it or not.

It's not even about sales, more about knowledge. There is a huge percentage of people who think all games are made for consoles only.

This is simple social science.

I don't care what steam's or origin's numbers are: Consoles. Are. Important. To. The. Industry. For. Getting. More. People. Into. It.

 

[Strelok]

~SNIP~

Oh buddy, don't stop believing...

You misinterpret what I say anyway, well I guess not really, I didn't exactly make myself clear. PC will likely remain a niche gaming market, our future is in digital distribution, self publishing, high end PC builders, and notebook enthusiasts especially when the prices begin to really drop in the mobile world the desktop PC is a bit of dinosaur anyway. Good examples are the kickstarter/crowd sourcing project listed above and amazing games like Among The Sleep (play the alpha, seriously, for me there is not a AAA game that can stand up to that, so much so I put in for the kickstarter and payed $250 for a 4 hour game), new work by Double Fine and soon American McGee most of which are meeting then exceeding kickstarter goals. What is going to take out the consoles and sway the casual crowd is smart TVs, smart phones, tablets etc, and the real future is cloud gaming, at that point the difference between what is left of console and PC gamers is what device we use to connect to the system, a keyboard and mouse or a controller. I am not talking about this bumbling attempt at cloud gaming Microsoft is trying, though it is a step in the right direction, but way to soon for the console gaming crowd, which tend to fear changes and technology they need their Halo 12: Combat Samey Bland, Call of Duty: Enough Already and Madden 2099. The gaming world needs another crash, and I hope Microsoft is leading the charge over that cliff.

Since I am dedicating songs, this goes out to the XBone Day One supporters, help it fuel your fears, see you in the return lines Day 2.

 

[tilmoph]

The best thing that would come from a full bore crash and burn of the xbone would be a general pause on connectivity requirements and control over gamers. It would be wonderful if gaming companies went the gog route of full game ownership, but that won't happen from one console failure. But even a pause, even a respite from increasing the degree of control companies in gaming try to exert over their consumers would be grand. It might give people a chance to start experimenting more with small-scale indy developers, possibly helping to solve the massive budget problems modern game releases have, since lower budget but fun games would be seen as a better investment that gun-splosion twenty seven, with super-christ hd and hyperrealism (trademark pending) technology applied to every gun so you can count the scratches on your favorite weapon.

 

[Something Amyss]

Well, there is that. But another thing that could happen (With or without more PC games) is that Third Parties jump onto the ship known as the WiiU. I know! Shocker of all Shockers! But I don't expect all games meant for the XBone to simply be PC exclusives: A number of those games would definitely go to the WiiU.

Quite a few are already essentially cross-platform with the PC. These are still called "exclusives" for the Xbox because pONiEs. It might be simpler to just go to the PC. Additionally, Sony and Microsoft have fairly straight up archetecture. I don't know what the Wii-U is running, but I seem to remember it's the odd duck here.

 

[Saltyk]

Well, I could easily see some of those exclusives going to PS4 and PC. Of course, I think they only have like one game worth picking up...

So, yeah. Titanfall for everybody!
I half expect Titanfall will go cross platform within a year, anyway. Things really don't look good for XBone from what I've seen. Only the most delusional Microsoft fanboys are really defending it.

Not holding my breath that the console will fail, though. I expect it will survive, but take time to save itself.

 

[rob_simple]

PC gaming is never going to eclipse consoles because of all the headaches that come with it. The majority of games I've played on a PC only ran after tweaking settings, updating drivers, getting patches, making a blood sacrifice at the altar...you are never going to convince people who treat gaming as a casual hobby that it's worth slogging through all that just to play a game.

Now maybe if they could make a PC that took out all the more technical stuff like sourcing parts, putting them all together then going through the other stuff I mentioned before, you'd have yourself a sale...Oh wait, I just described modern consoles. I guess there's a reason we need them after all.

Also, worth taking into account that there are backwards compatibility issues with PC games arguably worse than modern consoles: I have games from ten or fifteen years ago that just flat-out won't run on Windows 7, and even the ones that do are prone to crashing.

Now, I can easily pick up a PS2 slimline on eBay for about thirty quid and instantly access all my games from that generation. If I want to do the same with my old PC games and I go buy a ten year old PC tower --assuming I don't have to source the old bits and pieces to build it-- I have no guarantee when I'm done that the games I want to play will run on that particular machine, and even if one does the others might not so, what, do I go and keep building PC's until I can play all my old games, from amidst some terrifying elephant's graveyard of early 90's tech?

I appreciate that's an extremely exaggerated scenario, but it highlights the problem that normal (for want of a better word) people will see with transitioning from console to PC gaming.

Edit: That's also not taking into account the obsolescence factor, I doubt many uninformed consumers will be happy when the buy a new game, one day, and bring it home only to discover their computer isn't powerful enough to run it anymore. Again, another issue you don't encounter with consoles.

 

[TrevHead]

Been a long time PC gamer who now also owns a 360 I REALLY don't like MS and ***** about them every chance I get. However I don't think MS pulling out of the of the console biz would be a good idea for core gamers while Nintendo is putting out underpowered hardware and not quite in the same race that PC,Xbox and Playstation is. As others have stated less competition isn't a good thing, and while the PC is doing ok atm the majority of gamers don't want to game on their desktops and want a console or console like device so I doubt most gamers will flip over to PC and just look to consoles.

And while I almost wouldn't mind MS jumping to PC in a big way if only to knock Valve / Steam down a peg or two now they're getting too big for their boots and starting to affect PC gaming in adverse ways due to their retarded Greenlight system. But I doubt MS would act the same as they did with the xbox, for one they won't beable to get away with milking PC gamers for gold subs and TV like they do with their own hardware short of locking down Windows like Valve feared with Win8, but then they will probably get shotdown by the EU for monopolistic practices.

There's also the issue of console manufacturers moneyhatting exclusive titles without the competition many of the best console games simply won't exist. And while more Japanese games would get to PC I suspect a good number of them will go handheld to. Also with the Xbox out of the game there's are good chance smartphones will fill the gap just as much as PC or Ninty with the WiiU or another console. Don't forget that while consoles are slowly dying so are Desktops, so not quite long live the PC master race is it?


So all in all not a good thing for core gamers in general even if PC gamers get a few more games their way in the short term imo.

I might be wrong here but I'm getting a faint whiff of exclusive port envy from the OP. Yeah it sucks that we've been spoilt with multiplats with this long consle gen, but exclusives are generally a good thing, since it's better they exist so we can play them even if it's years from now when everything's dirt cheap. That's why I don't understand this wish for MS and Ninty to die off.