Microsoft and Sony both are gearing up for their next-gen Xbox and PlayStation consoles, and the landscape is looking a lot different from yesteryear.
Xbox's hardware sales are down year-over-year to the tune of 42%, but their overall revenue is up 61%, thanks to strong software sales across its half a billion customers on all platforms. Over three quarters of industry spend is now on in-app purchases and microtransactions, on things like skins and battle passes, upending the way big platform holders are viewing growth long term.
The industry as a whole has contracted, with large publishers and developers committing to thousands of layoffs over the past couple of years. The pandemic boom preceded a post-pandemic crush, with users flocking to other types of entertainment and tightening belts in an uncertain economic landscape. EA, Square Enix, and other publishers have also reported declines, with playtime sessions down overall. One area of growth Square Enix did report was in massively-multiplayer online games like FFXIV, which, you know, even if you play with a gamepad hinge on having a certain QWERTY-type accessory attached to them ...
RELATED: Best keyboards for Xbox
To that end, it can't be business as usual for Xbox or PlayStation. We expect that there are big changes coming to the way Xbox thinks about its hardware line-up, the plans of which we understand to be finalized now. There are some high-level things Xbox is rumored to be doing, including the ability to run PC platforms like Steam and Epic Games on the next-gen Xbox, for example. But I think there's something fairly simple Xbox and PlayStation both could do to change the culture around console gaming, while modernizing it for the dominance of core PC gaming, as well as the "iPad kid" generation.
Keyboards.
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Social gaming rules supreme
Whether it's old staples like World of Warcraft or modern newcomers like Genshin Impact and Roblox, social gaming now reigns supreme. Publishers are bending over backwards to develop multiplayer games to try and find success stories like Fortnite, often with very mixed success. The risk and rewards are undeniable, as even some of the historically biggest online social games like Destiny have struggled to maintain their momentum. New games like Suicide Squad have been prolific flops, but others like Elden Ring, despite having limited social features even without text inputs, have become huge viral success stories.
Indeed, even games that revolve more heavily on their single-player aspects are exploring asynchronous multiplayer features. Elden Ring's passive multiplayer features have led to all sorts of memery and hijinks, and essentially provide free marketing and virality for the game on top.
Multiplayer games of all shapes and sizes have become the social space of choice for millions across the globe, but PC has a pretty clear advantage in this arena for a variety of reasons. Whether it's the choice of peripherals, generalized freedom, zero paywalls for online play, or plurality of hardware options — a pretty simplistic and obvious advantage is the simple QWERTY keyboard.
PlayStation and Xbox both support QWERTY keyboards via USB, but they do not come as standard. The sofa-friendly options are often mad expensive too, like the Razer Turret. The fact they're not available as standard also discourages developers from adding those features in as standard, since the vast majority of users simply won't have access to them. But what if the Xbox and PlayStation both included some kind of QWERTY keyboard in the box?
On-screen keyboards suck
I can already hear some of you saying "but Jez, Xbox headsets and microphones exist." And sure, microphones can serve a similar purpose, but you can do so so much more with a keyboard than simply chat.
Let's put aside the fact that many, MANY people just don't want to voice chat with strangers (but may be willing to text chat). Adding in a keyboard (with trackpad or mouse too?) as standard could open up the consoles to a variety of new experiences. Whether its typing in console commands for games like Minecraft, being able to search custom games more easily, or even typing in AI prompts for the wave of predicable generative experiences on the horizon — heck, even making genres like hardcore RTS more viable or popular. Having these available in the box for people to use could bring the console culture more closely in-line with that of PC or even iPad gaming culture.
The current generation of on-screen, joystick-bound keyboards just absolutely suck. At least iPads have touch as an option, but consoles don't even have that. Voice-to-text prompts aren't always accurate unless you speak in American English, and even then, typing more complex commands or sentences can be difficult, or even just plain slow. It could also help solve simple accessibility issues, for people who can't or simply don't want to use a microphone, for any variety of reasons. I would bet money that the vast majority of Xbox and PlayStation gamers don't even know their consoles can support keyboards and mice for that matter.
There are drawbacks, of course. Including a keyboard (and mouse) as standard could inflate the retail price of the boxes. They're not free to make, after all. It could also potentially further divide the player base between controller and keyboard players, if you did also decide to include a mouse. This is why I'm unsure whether including a mouse would be a good idea, since you don't necessarily want to encourage console players to move to mouse and keyboard for general gaming inputs — traditional console gaming gamepad player pools might shrink. Forcing users to switch inputs to compete isn't fair in either direction. This is more about enhancing the social landscape of console gaming, rather than changing the standard inputs for actually playing games. Simply including a keyboard with a trackpad should be at least enough to enhance that experience, although I'm sure there's an argument to be made for including a full mouse too, to increase the popularity of games that, well, require a mouse to play optimally. I'm not here to argue on that point specifically, though. At least not today (I'm tired.)
Either way, I'm also not sure what the best implementation would be. A full size lap-wide QWERTY keyboard with a numpad is obviously the best option for sofa bound use, which is the cornerstone of the console gaming experience. But what about people who don't really game on a sofa? Perhaps some kind of controller attachment as standard would be the best option, but the lack of standardization with PC keyboards might eliminate some of the user scenarios I'm proposing here.
I'll just let smarter people than me handle those details ...
It would make a positive difference
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And hey, I get it's easy to say these things, and the problems and benefits would need to be weighed in depth before committing to something like this. But given the rise of PC gaming, and particularly iPad gaming, I think having some of these expected input modalities would go a long way to bringing console gaming further in-line with modern social gaming expectations.
Microsoft bundled Kinect with the Xbox One specifically to try and make motion-oriented gaming a standardized option for developers and players. Kinect as an option simply would never have worked (if indeed it would've ever worked). Some kind of lappable keyboard or keyboard controller attachment, or something that elevates the current on-screen keyboard experience would make socializing on Xbox and PlayStation both a lot easier to accomplish.
I realized this while playing Diablo IV recently. Trading items has become a big part of the experience now, but opening the chat log and thumbing in my text into the chat is an absolute pain in the arse on Xbox. The players I'm seeing there are all PC players, with keyboards attached. An entire culture of socializing in games is leaving console behind here potentially. And it could be a relatively easy fix.
