This move definitely comes with the risk of games no longer being optimized for "that one box" and I'll explain below.
I'm not worried about that. At a basic level, I'm sure Microsoft will expect games to run on all hardware at an acceptable framerate and resolution until the hardware version is phased out.
I do not have a strong opinion on this topic. There's been back-and-forth discussion about the dangers of multiple SKUs and how the Windows API will make things all better etc etc etc but I don't necessarily feel strongly either way. I can see how the multiple SKUs would be bad as well as good for devs. I can see how customers would love it and how it would confuse them. Again, no strong opinion.
Rather, my concern is far more fundamental.
Previously, Xbox One was the tip of the spear for Microsoft's gaming division. Even with Windows integration looming on the horizon, it was still the tip of that spear. It was Microsoft's premium gaming device where developers made games exclusively for it, where the hardware was pushed to its limits, and where gamers were promised a premium (or, ahem, First Class) experience.
For starters, (for the most part) games are no longer being developed exclusively for the Xbox One console hardware. Let's not confuse the issue by trying to expand the definition of "platform". It is a simple fact. Microsoft is not going to make Xbox One console hardware exclusives any more.
This may or may not have ramifications. Maybe Microsoft's APIs will negate any and all problems. Maybe Xbox One hardware is already so flexible that developing cross-platform on PC and XBox One will be the same as developing exclusively. That all may be true.
But developing a game multiplatform has always had consequences in the past. Always. Again, maybe Microsoft will buck that trend? Who knows? But it is foolishness to pretend that Microsoft isn't trying to buck that trend. It's foolishness to act as if this is a different situation. It's not. A console's library just went multiplatform, and even though the same company owns the other piece of the platform, it's still a split between two platforms. The end. Microsoft appears to have a lot of mechanisms in place to make this work and lessen the impact, but it is still a fact that Xbox One is now pretty much a multiplatform machine.
On top of that, Microsoft's messaging makes it clear that Xbox One is now only one of many. It is not Microsoft's focus. It is not the tip of the spear. Games aren't being made to take advantage of its unique hardware or unique capabilities. In the very same way that Xbox moving away from the "traditional console model" may have good and bad consequences (you'd have to be silly to not admit that there are pros and cons to this decision), Xbox moving away from traditional console exclusives may have good and bad consequences. I can't think of many good consequences because this hasn't really been tried before. I can think of plenty of examples of bad consequences when a console loses its exclusives, though.
As such, my concern is that first-party development will suffer.
Let me put it another way on a new line for everyone to see: my concern is that the Xbox One will no longer be the best place to play Xbox exclusives. If that is the case, what's the value of getting the Xbox console? I understand that multiplatform games will almost never be "best" on consoles (assuming they have a PC equivalent), but for exclusives, what does this mean?
