The new CEO of of Microsoft Gaming, Asha Sharma, confirmed something that has been widely speculated for a while that could be bad news for the Steam Machine.
Writing in a post on X/Twitter, Sharma said:
Great start to the morning with Team Xbox, where we talked about our commitment to the return of Xbox including Project Helix, the code name for our next generation console.
Project Helix will lead in performance and play your Xbox and PC games. Looking forward to chatting about this more with partners and studios at my first GDC next week!

So it's now very much official - whatever the next Xbox turns out to be, you'll be able to play PC games on it as well. Which likely includes Steam, Epic Games and so on. This puts it more in direction competition with Valve's upcoming Steam Machine. And is no doubt one of the reasons that Sony with the PlayStation are pulling back on PC ports.
While Valve struggle to even get the Steam Machine and Steam Frame released, Microsoft clearly have some big plans there that could eat into it. If there's the possibility to buy a reasonably priced and powerful machine with a TV-focused interface that plays both Xbox and PC games, I imagine at least some on the fence about the Steam Machine may now be reconsidering.
The Steam Machine will still have a lot of pros though - with it being a completely open platform like the Steam Deck where you can do quite literally anything with it. But, that's not going to be enough to sway people if the pricing is too high.
Hopefully Valve will get some pricing info up on the Steam Machine, Steam Frame and Steam Controller soon - time is ticking down for it.
Quoting: Doktor-MandrakeTo be fair, I liked the TV aspect of the Xbone and would've used it, but that was when I still had/wanted cable. (Though the USB antenna dongle was cool too if you didn't have cable.)Quoting: pbReading this reminds me of the xbox one launch lolQuoting: Doktor-MandrakeYou don't really get console "generations" like we use to, when a new console offered a generational difference in terms of what games could do, it's more incremental increases, higher res, higher fps, better raytracingThe next generation of consoles will feature AI that plays games for you and they will advertise it as a replacement for twitch and youtube. Why watch some random dudes play games when you can have your best friend Cortana play the game before your very eyes, all the while unlocking accolades on your account.
"TV"
"Streaming"
More TV, and then some more streaming
"Sports"
Yeah OK xbox, but where's the fun games to get excited about?!
What pissed me off with the Xbone announcement was the whole software keys for physical games, but that was thankfully abandoned. The Xbone was never gonna be my main console that gen and when I did finally get my Xbox One X, it was for exclusives, Play Anywhere titles, and western 3rd party console games.
Quoting: CaldathrasAn Epic Games leader has said they're planning for EGS to be on the next Xbox "console" day one.Project Helix will lead in performance and play your Xbox and PC games.
Strange to assume that this means the machine will open the ecosystem to Steam, Epic Games and such. M$ can achieve this statement simply by allowing owners of this new Xbox console to purchase the PC games through the Microsoft Store. No need to give competitors access to their closed market.
https://www.gamefile.news/p/epic-has-many-plans-for-its-game
“We definitely plan to be on the new hardware for Xbox, because, unless their policy or stance on it changes, they are telling us they’re going to welcome that. And we’re going be there, like, on day one. That will probably require us to build in whatever their requirements are, some sort of software to support that.”




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