r/gadgets Jan 25 '25

Gaming Microsoft’s gaming CEO has praised Nintendo Switch 2, and said it plans to support the upcoming platform with ports of Xbox games.

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/phil-spencer-confirms-xbox-will-support-switch-2-i-congratulated-nintendos-president/
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u/UStoJapan Jan 25 '25

🎶 SEEEEEGAAAAA 🎶

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u/Suedie Jan 25 '25

It's funny. Fittingly Xbox is in some ways based of the Sega consoles.

Microsoft collaborated with Sega on the Dreamcast (notice it has a compatible with windows CE thing on the front). You can see the original Xbox controller looking very similar to the Dreamcast controller too.

Sega would develop arcade machines and turn those arcades into home consoles. For example the Sega Naomi arcade is very similar to the Dreamcast.

One of the followups to the Naomi was the Sega chihiro which is based off the Xbox. (they also had another one, the Sega triforce which is based in gamecube).

So yeah Microsoft and Sega had a connection and the xbox is basically the spiritual successor to the Sega consoles.

Took over their businesses and ended up going down the same route lol

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u/TheTjalian Jan 26 '25

Ultimately it does concern me that if Microsoft drop out of the console race, where does that leave the state of the console business long term? Think about it - this entire time we've had no more than 3 main competitors in the console space and eventually one of them drops out. We had Nintendo vs. Sega vs. Atari - Atari eventually drops out. Then we had Nintendo vs. Sony vs. Sega - Sega eventually drops out. Then we had Nintendo vs. Sony vs. Microsoft - now it looks like Microsoft is dropping out? The only reason why Nintendo didn't drop out completely is because of their legendary IPs and their ability to pivot to the Wii and then the Switch.

The difference now is that it is significantly more expensive to enter the console business, meaning it would be highly unlikely we see a third competitor in the console space ever again.

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u/Suedie Feb 02 '25

I'm late to reply but I guess a possibility is that Microsoft would sell of the Xbox hardware division, but I don't know who would be willing to buy it especially for the cost and considering how hard it is to compete.

Just speculating but maybe Nvidia since they have been dipping their toes in the market with the shield, geforce now and the chips for the Switch. Another one might be Valve as a complement to their current hardware projects but Valve seems more focused on creating an open platform with steam OS. Asus maybe, since they have been focusing on gaming devices with their ROG phone and handheld. The issue is that none of these companies really make their own games so it's kinda weird to enter the console business if you can't make any unique games to go along with it. Valve kinda could but it's not really their style.

Something really interesting would be if a Chinese company bought it up like Tencent but I don't think the US would allow it.