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Xbox’s leadership shift proves it: the gamer era is over, AI runs the show now
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this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2026
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so is microsoft just abandoning xbox like rumored?
They wont abandon the brand but it will be much more focused monetization and exploration of existing gamers. Pushing for more subscriptions, more live servcies, pushing for their streaming services, and using gamers to train their AI.
Given their push for copilot gaming, wouldn't surprise me if they use the last two to make some kind of claim they're use AI to reduce latency by having AI "predict" your moves making streaming better.
So Sony said something similar about milking it's current customer base more by charging more for services/software and not really offering anything new in return. Console gaming maybe dead or at least the next generation will most likely be the last.
I don't see consoles surviving for much long with so many things working against them like AI, cloud services, mobile offerings, PC alternatives, and increasing hardware costs.
Also if AI can predict what I'm going to do and do it for me then what if that's not what I was going to do. It would suck the joy out of actually doing the things. Single player games probably don't matter as much but feel like it would ruin PVP like overly aggressive aim assist.
Consoles will be the last to go because they’re the only gaming hardware sold as loss leaders. The days where you could “Build a better PC for the same price” are long, long gone. When the consoles go, gaming as a mainstream industry goes wirh them.
You could never really build a better PC for the same price, consoles were always $300 to $400 cheaper than the equivalent PC at launch by design. Pre gen4 consoles really had to compete with Arcades and gen4 to gen 6 really only had to compete with each other. Gen 6 and after now have strong competition from PC and mobile.
PC suffered from a lack of eco system, cost, and complexity. Consoles were sold at a loss at launch because the software was tied to the proprietary hardware and they could make their money back by offering exclusive games and pay to play online.
Now consoles are just under powered custom PCs and Steam/GOG have built eco systems for PC to make PC gaming more friendly and now Steam is building hardware to make PC gaming more affordable. Plus with cloud gaming everyone can stream just about any game no matter what hardware they have.
Nintendo will probably hang on the longest with their unique hardware and IPs that will never ever get ported to another system, at least not until Nintendo no longer builds their own hardware.
AI and Cloud gaming will probably be the biggest thing to revolutionize the gaming industry and probably the most destructive since Atari over saturated the market. At least in the short term.
There wasn't ever a time you could build a better or even comparable PC for the same cost as consoles in modern gaming history. It's always been something with a higher entry cost and the cost benefit coming over time with cheaper games and no mandatory subscription.
Yet PC gaming is now the "mainstream", with it being the biggest platform globally.
For the past 15 years, the hardware costs have been subsidized by both online subscriptions and storefront cuts for digital purchases.
That being said, consoles haven't been sold at a loss for multiple generations now. They've mainly been cheaper due to economies of scale
They've already announced that the new Xbox is made by ASUS so I think that confirms my long held suspicion that they're transitioning to an XBOX store for PCs, much like the XBOX Ally
I remember being very annoyed, for years, that Microsoft stoped releasing their flagship gaming franchise, Halo, for their most popular platform: Windows. For years, only Halo and Halo 2 were released for PC, and Halo 2 was almost unplayable due to Microsoft's massive cockup with Games for Windows Live. It was clear they didn't give a shit about their customers as they tried to force them to re-buy hardware and pay a monthly fee, while simultaneously sabotaging gaming on the PC.
It wasn't until just a few years ago where Microsoft released their most popular franchise for their most popular platform. I'm still salty about that.
God damn am I happier now though. I don't have an xbox or a Windows computer, I'm not beholden to their decades of compounding bad decisions.
Play splitgate. It's pretty much halo done right.
And works on Linux flawlessly.
I mean they made a console for the same reason as everyone else: They wanted a dedicated DRM machine. One that they can control from bottom to top.