It also didn't release as a physical copy. New digital releases in the UK at least are always pretty expensive, whereas with physical copies there's at least a chance of a small discount from a retailer.
More or less. Either Excalidraw for your quick and dirty diagrams or I've used PlantUML + C4 Plug-in for your larger, more long lived diagrams with some success.
It's really quite bad imo, but it's surprising considering how the consoles are basically the same, hardware-wise - the Xbox on paper might even be technically more powerful.
I think that if they'd been able to get out there with a couple of great 1st party games early in the generation it might have helped swing the market in their direction but they didn't and now it doesn't matter.
Sony is also encountering similar issues in terms of the cost of games being unsustainable and Moore's Law kicking in. The difference is that they're making games that move consoles and Microsoft just aren't.
At this point, I don't know what strategy Microsoft has at this point. If you say "Xbox everywhere", what does Xbox even mean any more for the enthusiast? I don't think Xbox is done, but if they were looking to be HBO before, they are now going for the Netflix approach - high quantity content, mediocre product - and possibly alienate the existing audience they have.
I say this as an Xbox Series S owner, I'm happy with my purchase, but as a consumer I don't think I'll be upgrading my console to anything Microsoft ship any time soon.
I think if you read through this and take it at face value, there is a pretty clear picture of what happened: https://robmensching.com/blog/posts/2024/03/30/a-microcosm-of-the-interactions-in-open-source-projects/
I've set up my regular subscription. 👍 This was an important step towards the future sustainability of the platform, so I'm glad to see it happen. Thanks very much, @GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk and @Emperor@feddit.uk for your continued dedication.
I can imagine them carrying on making consoles this generation but long-term Microsoft is a services company and over successive generations they have failed to recapture the lead from Sony since the 360. Ultimately, they just want to make more money and struggling in the hardware business is not an exciting place for them to be in.
I say this as a Series S owner: the writing is on the wall. I will likely not be purchasing another Microsoft console after this, though I'm not sure they'd be interested in releasing one. I want to buy and own games I can play locally on a piece of hardware, which probably means I have to return to Sony or go back to the humble PC. For anyone currently on the fence seeing this news, I don't know why they'd consider buying into the Xbox platform and tying in all their gaming purchases.
Maybe I woke up more cynical this morning, but...
Hoping to save her job, much?