Could Xbox Soon Become The Next Dreamcast?

Microsoft's future in the video game space is murky right now, so let's break it all down.

[ApocalypseShadow]

Not anytime soon. But they're on that path.

One thing not mentioned in the article is Microsoft's money bags. If Sega had Microsoft's money, they would have still been around as a hardware manufacturer. Xbox as a platform only survives because of the money bags. They can continue making consoles for the core and port to PC.

The multiplatform strategy is only the result of arrogance and misguided leadership that blew up in their face. They thought gamers would jump on Xbox in droves if they knew that many of their favorite games would be only on Xbox. But that's not happening at all. Sales didn't increase. They decreased. Why? Because the dumb asses thought giving away these expensively made games in a cheap service would also turn the tide.

Gamers on other platforms are willing to buy quality. They don't need to be handed nearly free games in a service that aren't even finished and sometimes average in their development. Gamers buy Nintendo games. They buy Sony games. Microsoft groomed their base to not buy games. Even the quality ones. It has always been their plan to go digital. But most gamers still like single player gaming. Still like physical releases.

Microsoft's problem has always been that they don't produce high quality games at the same output as Nintendo and Sony. Actually, they should be producing quite a lot more because they're worth over 2 TRILLION. How they don't have more is ridiculous and no excuse. Buying publishers to take away from competition only backfired. Because it still takes millions of dollars to continue to make those games from the publishers they snatched. Their only choice was to crawl back to their competitors to help sustain those developers because Nintendo and Sony platforms were the ones buying games.

Am I sorry for Microsoft? Hell no! They deserved last place for putting in the least effort. They deserved the fallout for buying up the industry and didn't make a single blip on the radar against their competitors where they now need those same gamers they took away games from to support them. Part of it may have been to cash in on their competition. But the result is the slow death of their platform. They may go 3rd party. They may keep making hardware. I don't give a shit about them to worry about it. I only give a shit about the destructive nature of their industry moves that only negatively affect gamers. They could sell and drop out of the industry and I wouldn't blink. Probably laugh. But not blink. They deserve whatever comes to them. At least Sega put in the effort when it came to games. They just had poor leadership. Microsoft has poor leadership and barely makes memorable games. That's a killer combination. And not in a good way.

[Cacabunga]

That would be an insult to Dreamcast.. it had a crazy line up of legendary critically acclaimed games.

[Crows90]

I was thinking the same. Dreamcast had incredible games in such a short amount of time. It was truly exceptional.

[darthv72]

...and yet all those great games were not enough to sway people from the looming release of the PS2 at the time. Sony just has that kind of brand loyalty.

[Cacabunga]

Darth

I do not agree.. Sony had even better games thanks to an unprecedented 3rd party support..
DC had amazing lineup but 90% were arcade games..

[883]

@darth:
And Sony showed off "The Emotion Engine" and their real time demos that made everyone think they would miss out on REAL next gen 128bit magic if they jumped in before PS2s polygon pushing monster (and early lack of anti-aliasing with a healthy heap of shimmer + DVD playback) stepped up. PS2 was a fantastic system though with amazing games.

[blacktiger]

That's not true. Just because Microsoft has the money doesn't mean Microsoft can allow xbox to bleed entire Microsoft money. It doesn't work like they. Also SEC will be watching and investor won't allow it. Lot of reasons why Microsoft can not continue even if they wanted to. SEC regulations is expensive.

[fr0sty]

Exactly this... Microsoft is a publicly traded company, mostly owned by their shareholders (Approximately 59.24% of the company's stock is owned by Institutional Investors, 7.73% is owned by Insiders and 33.03% is owned by Public Companies and Individual Investors.). Their shareholders call the shots on the business decisions, and their shareholders want one thing and one thing only, for their stock price to go up. Losses do not make stock prices go up... so if the division continually posts losses on hardware, but shows profits on software and services (which has been the case with Xbox its entire lifespan, for over 20 years now), the shareholders are going to grow impatient and demand they stop making hardware and focus on the only thing that has ever made them money, software and services.

When Microsoft bought Blizzard and Activision for almost 100 billion, I knew that was the nail in the coffin for Xbox as a console... as the shareholders were going to expect a quick return on that investment, and when it didn't materialize, they were going to be out for blood... out to force Xbox to sell those games on as many consoles as possible, "and while you're at it, sell those first party exclusives that aren't selling well on other consoles as well... hell, just stop making consoles and sell games."

If there is another Xbox console generation, it will definitely be the last, but I doubt there even will be one at this point. I think the Xbox division planning on it just in case, but I don't think the project has been greenlit from Microsoft itself. The rumors that they have not yet even secured the chips needed from the chip fabrication facilities ties into this.

[shinoff2183]

While I usually agree with you . Alot of what was said can just also be asked before any of that.

How long will the shareholders wait? It doesn't appear long at all

[Babadook7]

I think I get your point. Like just because MS has money does not mean they are content to throw it away on a dying ecosystem. Xbox has to be profitable or “what’s the point?”

[ifinitygamer]

Money bags, yes, but are we ignoring that Xbox actually makes a profit on games and GamePass? Hardware is often a loss leader, and they're probably making profit 4 years into the life cycle, but games and services revenue have been very profitable while other parts of Microsoft's business is struggling. Say what you will about the quality of those games, of course, but this is kind of a reverse Dreamcast situation, where the console was dragging down the company and put it at risk of shuttering entirely. Killing that console saved the business and allowed it to continue to make games on multiple platforms. In this case, the service is very profitable, as are the games, and they're also double-dipping into Multiplatform to extend this further, while their hardware is just sort of what they believe to be the best for gamers and their own titles (whether that is the case or not...)

[fr0sty]

The issue is, they aren't selling enough hardware to make their exclusives profitable, and now that they've bought half the gaming publisher/dev industry, they have no choice but to go third party to make a profit... and that is making their shareholders take a real close look at their hardware division under the microscope... why keep making the hardware if the software is all that is making them money, and they continually, generation after generation come in dead last with hardware sales?

Look at a game like Spiderman 2... if it had been an Xbox exclusive, with the amount it cost to develop, it would have been a huge failure... simply not enough consoles out there to sell it on. They would have been lucky to break even.

[ifinitygamer]

@fr0sty agreed completely, which is why they're hedging by releasing other games to multiplatform, plus they have PC to make up for the difference in a lot of ways, which is why their games are not complete money pits. It brings up the question of whether or not those exclusives would drive sales of consoles, though. Let's say Spiderman 2 was an Xbox exclusive, it would certainly have pushed console sales, though who's to say how much is anyone's guess.

[fr0sty]

That's why you can't rely on just one exclusive, Sony has always delivered on a wide range of solid exclusives, even this generation (even if they haven't been strong on the first party exclusives, they've made up for it with third party). They don't rely on just one "system seller", they have a portfolio of them.

[JBlaze226]

ApocalypseShadow To be honest Sony has more of a chance to go 3rd party because like you said Microsoft has money, Sony does not. Sony does not have games, Only games they have come from 3rd party. Sony has been losing money for years and you. Saying Microsoft has been putting the least effort just proves you have no idea what's been going on. All Sony has done is repeat and recycle, never innovating or doing something new. All Sony has is brand loyalty nothing else and it shows.

[LG_Fox_Brazil]

Not sure about that. It's been two decades and I still think about Power Stone, Shenmue, Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio, Seaman and others, but I'm not sure I'll remember Xbox Series X/S games in a few years from now... Maybe I'll remember about the franchises that the Xbox brand spawned, but I don't believe that the Xbox Series lives up to the late Dreamcast or even to the Xbox name itself. I do have great memories about the 360 with Blue Dragon, Gears 2 and Lost Odyssey though

[S2Killinit]

Shenmue blew me away.

[isarai]

Nah, sega actually makes good games

[Becuzisaid]

No, Dreamcast was ahead of it's time and most still have very fond memories of it that had one. It also had some good games on it even in it's short lifespan. Xbox has none of these qualities.

[Profchaos]

I remember it coming out at the time in a really bad place they hit the market before the PS2 but it was during this transitional time when Sony was promoting the power of the PS2 and so many of the Dreamcast games were awesome but often third parties simply ported the PS1 version increased resolution and performance but rarely fully utilise the capabilities of the console.

I think in the end bad marketing done it in and like the GameCube so many people are fond of it now but at the time it was looked at in the lense of the day and it didn't stack up.

Personally I miss Sega in hardware they took risks that many companies won't

[Becuzisaid]

I never owned it, and got the PS2 right when it launched. But there were certain games it had that I was always jealous of that I didn't have access to - Sonic adventure, crazy taxi, power Stone, code Veronica, shenmue, skies of Arcadia. I always thought it was a really cool machine though. I've never heard a bad thing about it though from those that had it.

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

I only ever saw one Dreamcast, and that was one my friend owned, pity I never got to play it, I wonder what games he had for it?

It would be nice if some of those games got ported to modern systems.

[Profchaos]

Oh man sonic adventure on the Dreamcast made me so jealous as a huge sonic fan on the mega drive who also moved to PlayStation 2 I never got the chance to play it back in the day either. The Dreamcast in Australia where I am was always relegated to the smallest corner of EB Games it was kind of a strong first indicator that things were not going well at the time.

[badboyz09]

Pockets to deep

[46player]

Dreamcast had better games!

[Profchaos]

Ive been thinking about this and yeah it's possible however I think the question is more could Xbox become the next Sega rather than Dreamcast.

I can see Xbox becoming a brand still with a seperate look and feel to the parent company no one wants to see the company that makes excel publishing games so I can't see them using the Microsoft moniker on games they publish.

I see a future where Xbox is a service driven product and who knows they may still continue the hardware and make it heavily subsidised extremely powerful and low cost but require a gamepass subscription to use it so they make back their money over 4 years or so.

But I absolutely see third party publishing and cloud gaming being the sole reason for their existence.

They have far more technical experience than Sega did who we know offloaded a lot of technical expertise to vendors and it's a different time to when Dreamcast died we have cloud gaming coming up (I'm not sold on it but many appear to be).

[S2Killinit]

It would have to be universally loved to be the next Dreamcast.

They forget that Sega didnt do anything wrong, it simply didnt have the coffers of MS to hold on. MS and xbox story is a bit different.

[jwillj2k4]

I have 2 dreamcasts, 2 Saturns. Sega did a SHIT TON wrong and they’ll be the first to tell you 😂😂😭

[shinoff2183]

I played Saturn alot more then ps1 at first. My stepdads sister had one.

They had an enclosed front porch. Kept the Saturn and a TV on the front porch so the kids on the 3 house side street block could play whenever. It was all family. Literally.

[Lightning77]

Depends. They're doing another next gen console. If things don't go there way next time (though many said this gen was their last chance) they're downsizing, selling of Xbox or become 3rd party. Because the industry is just too expensive.

Though tbh I dont know what MS goals are. They said or class console sales aren't the end all be all. Is is high gamepass subscriptions? High engagement in services sales attach rate or what? The funny part is Phil recently said (again) Xbox is profitable just, slow growth.

Sounds like money hungry company wants more money, then they make said money, they want more, more and more. There is no goal just pivot after pivot and gluttony for money from what it sounds like.

[shinoff2183]

Thats the thing though Phil has had to eat his words so many times over the years. Make sure you have some salt when hes talking.

I do believe ms will give the handheld thing a try. It was probably already in r and d and all.

[Knightofelemia]

Microsoft going the way that Sega chose I would not be surprised. I honestly would not be surprised if Microsoft rebranded Xbox as a games section and focus their studios under one branch called XBox. And have games that say developed or published by Xbox studios. But unlike Microsoft Sega actually had machines that did well and the game libraries to back these machines up.

[Lightning77]

360 didn't do well?

[Knightofelemia]

It had more games then the XB1 and what's on the Series X and that's me defending the little white space heater.

[shinoff2183]

360 sold well but gotta admit ms dipped out of that Gen about half way through. A little over halfway maybe.

[Einhander1972]

Not soon enough.

[Barlos]

Microsoft's future in the game space isn't murky at all. They've planned for a long time to drop hardware and become a multi platform publisher. For them it's much more profitable than making games purely for their own hardware. It's no coincidence that they've spent so much money on buying up some of the biggest studios with the most profitable IPs in the business. They didn't do that just to restrict the sales of those games to one single platform.

[StoneTitan]

Oh yeah absolutely. Because they make more money now that they have to release on PS instead of their own hardware and give sony a 30% cut on every game sold. I am sure they planned that from the beginning.
Kill xbox and release on pc and ps. Sure all planned.

[gold_drake]

nah, xbox has Mothergoose MS behind them. Sega didnt have that kind of money.

also, sega makes fantastic games. even the dreamcast had some of my favs

[YourMommySpoils]

Even combining ever generation of Xbox, it will never match Dreamcast.

[Hofstaderman]

This. To this day I still remember booting up Soul Caliber in 1999. There will never be another console quite like it.

[purple101]

the best game of all time, !!! which says a lot, as its a fighter, which never get voted.

then eventually soul caliber switched to unreal engine and ruined it, felt clunky and just like any other game, lost some of its fluidity and individuality, also too many teleporting moves. Cervantes had one jump/ teleport move, plus yoshimitsu had a few dash/teleoport, that was it.!! fast forward to ps4/xbox era and everybody teleprting around, left right and centre, the 'dance' of the fight we fell in love with, was gone,.

[CantThinkOfAUsername]

Halo > whatever on Dreamcast

[TheColbertinator]

Dreamcast was a great system. Better than anything Microsoft or Sony have pumped out in years.

[fsfsxii]

Bro mad 😂😂😂

[Workshyskiver]

I honestly believe the next gen from Microsoft is going to transition to having 2/3 PC architect box boxes that run an Xbox platform along with Steam, epic or other storefronts of your choice, with one of them being a handheld akin to the steam deck. They are looking to alter the dynamic of the how the console market operates by fundamentally removing the walled gardens. PC gaming and Mobile are the only real growth sectors of gaming so why not have a product line that operates in all of them.

[aaronaton]

Dreamcast's aren't E-waste and hold a legacy, i have a modded DC hooked up to a CRT with the entire library.
Good luck having that with Xbox in 10yrs time.

[mudakoshaka]

I don’t know why, but the focus Xbox had on heavy shooters with an Alien/Space theme such as Gears of War and Halo never appealed to me. Those game had their audiences of course. But I remember that people who liked those type of games were big fans of Quake, Doom, Duke Nuken, etc when they were younger. Some people like gore and monsters. Sony had a more diverse selection of games. They were more adult oriented with games such as The Getaway on PS2 and Heavy Rain on PS3. They also had monster shooters. To this day, everytime I play a game that is an Xbox exclusive it really feels that it has no soul. Story writing has never been the strength of Xbox exclusive games.

[TheEnigma313]

Dreamcast actually had amazing games.

[anast]

The Dreamcast was better. Xbox is just a more advanced version of the Phillips CD i that turned out the be a better version of the Stadia console.

[jeromeface]

no... dreamcast was what it was due to before its time innovations... microsoft isnt interested in innovating anything but a sub fee to their gaming service.

[Chocoburger]

Don't insult my precious Dreamcast like that by comparing it to modern day Xbox. 🍥

[thesoftware730]

MS/Xbox is not going anywhere; whenever something shifts, people get all doom and gloom, lol. MS is making money on software and services, and hardware eventually becomes profitable. The problem is it's the same market over and over, with the lion's share going to their direct competitor, Sony. Fan loyalty is a real thing; it's almost like politics, where "your" side can't do anything wrong, and if they do, you brush it under the rug and keep cheering.

MS will release a new console; they will just open it up, make it completely like a PC, with other storefronts, and at the same time dip into the Switch/Steam Deck business with a handheld, effectively putting Xbox on every type of device. Collectively, it will create growth, even if one sector falls short. They will also continue to put games on PS and Nintendo when it makes sense...Live service games and, maybe after a year or 2, single-player games like SF and Indiana Jones; I do not see Halo, Gears, or Forza falling into that situation.

Side Note: as a Nintendo fan, I remember the many, many years of doom and gloom predictions from console loyalists lol.

[DazaMc]

It would need some amazing games before it becomes the next Dreamcast!

[DustMan]

The Saturn burned to many consumers in America. I loved the system, but the majority of the good titles for the system were never brought to the states. It was a shame. The Saturn was an absolute 2d powerhouse that released at a horrible time when everybody wanted blocky polygons. The Dreamcast suffered from the stigma of how Sega handled the Saturn in my opinion. I bought Dreamcast on day one and loved it until they stopped supporting it. I mean NFL 2k, and NBA 2k. Still playing NBA2k until this day, and would play NFL2k if it was possible to exist.

[vTuro24]

Microsoft is and has always been a software company first. Whatever hardware they make is (almost?) always secondary to their software. They seem to be trying to turn Xbox into a subscription service similar to Office 365 that spans across every platform you can think of. They want to push their presence everywhere basically. The Xbox console is just one place out of many. How well that strategy will turn out to be in the long run still remains to be seen. Wouldn't put too much hope in their hardware plans anymore tho. But never say never I guess. At the end of the day, their wallet is effectively a bottomless pit.

[Tankbusta40]

Full disclosure....I own a ps5, and a Series X....I still have a Dreamcast that I breakout to play Skies of Arcadia and Grandia 2 every once in awhile. I don't see a single game that I will be playing from this gen on the Xbox in 20 or so years. So while I know the comparison here is a hardware making solely transitioning to a software company...I can't compare the two

[XBManiac]

˙◠˙
BTW, many first gen Xbox games and great sagas like Project Gotham Racing were born in Dreamcast. Xbox was born thanks to Dreamcast.

[MarcianoBR360]

the situation with the Dreamcast and any Xbox is completely different.

[mastershredder]

That would require a soul.

[Abear21]

Xbox keeps making new SKU’s! The internet says Xbox is waning but M$ keeps pumping out different console variants, it’s like, pretty sure they didn’t buy up half the industry to put out games on PC.

It’s funny bc M$ is so slow delivering any notable games the masses thinks Xbox is dead but really it’s just on life support while the games are being made—best not take them out to oven too soon this time or it will be a death sentence, not just for the Xbox brand, but all those great IP’s they bought as well.

[purple101]

In the last 6 years have they made more skus or more exclusive games

Honestly I’m confused.

Have they had Xbox one slim Xbox one x, Xbox series s & x, the black s 1tb edition now this new adorably digital edition, is that 6

They had starfirld redfail forza & halo infinite sea of thieves, As their big blockbusters

You could say hifi rush but that’s fishy, they would have had it anyway, even without the buyout,

I mean, I’m not good at maths but it’s not really adding up to a great scorecard in my eyes

[XiNatsuDragnel]

They're following that path so much rn.

[Demetrius]

These mfs not even tryna release games at all, they rather boast about releases that's like 3+ years away lmao then wonder why sales are low seems like there's politicians and con artist working there nowadays with all the lies and not owning up to it like a real adult

[Rols]

Basiic tenet of business is that you don’t keep pouring money into a loss making venture. MS has a history of cutting and running if the business venture is failing.

[Auron]

No, the Dreamcast was awesome and still is.