The future of Xbox will be revealed on February 15th

Prediction: in the future it'll be incapable of running games, will be a designated Twitter machine.

They'll call it X Box
Given the comments last week assuring people that Xbox was still going to make consoles, my money is on a streaming only console with no local games.

Online access required 24x7
- Ugh, I hate how extremely likely that is 😮‍💨
TwitterBox AKA Bird Cage.
- Twitter is called "X" now, so xbox still works.

Just a shit ton more layoffs

New indecipherable naming system.

The New Original Xbox X-S Console Series was just announced with two levels, the X-S Pro-X Phactor or cheaper ST-X Pro-BoxX 2.

The previous gen Xbox X/S will be re-released as a subscription legacy product called Xbox One 2.0.

The Xbox 12 will run on Windows 12 and is basically a locked down PC that runs another Xbox DRM layer on top of Windows 12 that makes it so you cant actually use it as a PC.

That's exactly what microsoft would do
- It’s kinda what they already did
  
  But now Xbox games just need to target windows and that minimum hardware of the “console” that Microsoft sells. Then if a game is released on Xbox it’s already on PC.
  
  Of course, it’ll be in the Microsoft Store and not on Steam. M$ coming for Valve’s lunch; thinking they can push them off Windows and onto Linux, which will then not be supported because every AAA game will have a Windows-kernel anticheat and not run on Proton/SteamDeck.
  
  They’re coming for the gold, boys.
Ooh how about this, you can subscribe to Windows as a service on your Xbox for only $9.99 /month? Also, if you want access to the games store you need the full Windows experience on your Xbox.
- See, yes, exactly.
  
  I guarantee you their upper and middle management would convince themselves this makes sense.
  
  I used to work for them. The management is basically all fucking delusional, out of touch psychopaths.
And also the games are running via wine cuz Steam is doing what Microsoft couldn't for decades.
That's basically what xboxes have been for the past two generations already, despite the snark that kind of makes them more open than other consoles just because the games are basically already PC games
- Except that you cant actually use it as a computer without DRM without a ton of fucking work, nor as a gaming device without DRM without a ton of work.
  
  MSFTs development notes and such for the Pluton CPU architecture heavily draws from wanting to be able to stop people hard-modding existing Xboxes.
  
  A separate, physical security co processor doesnt work because people figure out how do basically flash an Xbox, or do some kind of software stun lock, then physically remove the anti piracy doohickey, then finish flashing the thing into a hackDbox.
  
  Thankfully the linux community appears to have neutralized that threat for PCs running Linux, at least.

I'm going to guess they're just going to announce their first party games are coming to PlayStation and Switch 2

Now if Sony and Nintendo will just return the favour... That would be so great!
- Pretty sure if Nintendo allowed their games to go to other consoles it would cripple their console market. Their consoles are notorious for being underpowered, so their big selling point is the exclusive games. Why would I get a Switch 2 when the cheapest Steam Deck is (probably) around the same price?
- We need to push to end console exclusivity. It's bad for the consumer because it pushes more sales of a console you may not want, rather than the consoles competing on their own merit.
- Their fans gonna be mad if they try though
This is what I expect as well, with maybe some reassurance that they have no intention of pulling Xbox Series S/X off the market. Then, when Sony announces the PS6, people will be waiting for an announcement on the next-gen xbox. And waiting, and waiting, and waiting…

They will continue selling it this generation, and quietly drop out after that.
- I’m not so sure. They don’t have to give Sony or Nintendo a 30% cut on anything sold on Xbox. They may be in third but I’d imagine losing that cut would be painful. I suppose the question is does losing that 30% to save the cost of designing and selling another console as a loss leader make it worth it?

Finally, it'll be shaped like an X!

The first one was kinda x shaped
- Too much box! Not enough X.
- It was a box with a big x in relief yeah

Xbox Two

Nah, that would be too logical. It would be the Xbox ONE XX
- Xbox Y
Xbox Two Series Y

DirectX13 will be a wrapper windows only API for vulkan /s

Xbox Xero

Game Pass availability on all consoles. I'm calling it.

I've been saying this to my friends for a good while. I would take it even further than that too.

My prediction has long been that since they were thinking about getting rid of it anyway, and they are shifting focus, that what you predict will happen and that eventually either Xbox will not exist or the Xbox of the future will just be a streaming dongle like the firestick. Just a little app store with controller and you stream all of your games over wifi.

They sell it for dirt cheap and no legit console can compete for basic gaming. Sony will still have a hardcore market, especially with vr and their first party titles, but most of the casual crowd would buy a 50-100 dollar "Xbox" so fast and just pay for game pass. It is a no brainer for Xbox, consoles are always a major loss of money and they don't want physical media anyway.

Edit: "We have a different vision for the future of gaming. A future where players have a unified experience across devices. A future where players can easily discover a vast array of games with a diverse spectrum of business models. A future where more creators are empowered to realize their creative vision, reach a global audience, unite their communities, and succeed commercially. A future where every screen is an Xbox."

While they announced new hardware they were real hush on it, just that it would shake up the industry. While I'm sure they would say that regardless and a lot of people say a handheld, either way I don't think it's just a console. A handheld would allow exactly my prediction to be possible but it wouldn't be as cheap.

That quote feels like it nails exactly what I expected though. It might be some time but I do think it will happen and their whole narrative seems to be moving away from Xbox being a console.

They're going back to Windows PC gaming so that Linux doesn't take over.

Would you like to get some info going back to 2005 regarding the interest and effort Microsoft puts into PC gaming?

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/ms-promises-to-bring-more-first-party-games-to-pc.710494/page-4#post-88868188
You misspelled “they’re gonna require all games sold on Windows to be explicitly licensed by Microsoft in an effort to capitalize on Playstation exclusives”

I hope they announce a controller with gyro

Uh, what does that even mean? I thought Xbox was going just fine, making them money.

Recent news that they would be releasing games that would have previously been exclusive to X-Box on other platforms such as Playstation has led to many a rumour that MS may be planning to stop developing the console at all.