How Does Steam Fit In on Xbox?

If the Xbox console is becoming a portal to other stores. Offering other opportunities to play games based on value that are within them. Where is the profit for Microsoft? That’s a big question, but if we think with Microsoft’s head, they’re more keen about engagement through their platform. I think Game Pass has illustrated that it can pick up third-party games with Ninja Gaiden being pretty big for them this year. Microsoft aren’t going to want to water down Game Pass, they’re going to want to see it continue to grow because it’s becoming something of its own thing. You could say, bigger than what the Xbox console actually is.

The only way they do that is by using their wallet unifying the experience with all the stores that you are going to be able to ‘buy from’. In essence, they’re third-parties – seemingly as store-fronts. When I spoke about Steam coming months ago I hinted that the smart play would be them trying to win on value.

I really think Microsoft knows that Xbox as a console is dead in the water. However, as a service and a value proposition in gaming. That’s an entirely different matter. When you have Sony getting in trouble for their store prices and not being as consumer friendly as they could be.

The simple fact is Microsoft is forced to play into the hands of what the consumer wants or what they would benefit from. What’s going to be popular is unifying that PC experience as one of the things that can make it all work seamlessly by bringing that experience to your living room.

Xbox Game Pass combined with PC is a bigger service than PS Plus. It makes sense they combine those efforts. Providing the best experience across all devices. So how does Steam benefit and how does Microsoft theoretically? If you have players on PC and then you bring that experience to the living room as well as the benefits on PC and the value proposition. I think there is plenty there to actually work with. I don’t think Microsoft will want to make it challenging to play your way either, and I am certainly getting the impression more each day that the next Xbox may be made by a third-party.

If we look at what the Xbox teams have been doing. They’ve been doing a lot of work trying to bring Xbox backwards compatibility forward. They’re working a lot behind the scenes of improving their own PC storefronts as well. This really could feed into this one experience and the new console.

I see Steam being seamless within the operating system. No more downloading a thousand of those store launchers on PC. I think bringing that sort of experience has a lot of benefits for those who want to get that PC experience in their living room and beyond. I see that actually having a lot of potential and if executed well enough could win some people over.

Will it be enough to dethrone PlayStation? No, but by extension who is to say that Microsoft isn’t building itself up with Xbox to allow Game Pass to be easily transferred over anywhere it sees fit? Could we see it show up on Nintendo first? I actually think that’s more of a possibility than PlayStation but doing that they rack up those user engagement numbers further. If we’re talking about the Nintendo Switch 2. It’s now more than powerful enough for the Xbox experience to go there. Maybe, just maybe, they make a better representation of themselves with the Japanese gamers. As the PC gaming market there has exploded.

It could actually be strategically brilliant from Microsoft here if it all comes together.