Xbox's Current Strategy of Rumored Multiplatform Support and Next Gen Hardware

[fiendcode]

That's not why Disney bought Fox, that was just a side effect. It was mostly bought to have a lot of legacy content for their upcoming streaming endeavors. Iger isn't paying 70 billion just for X-Men and FF rights

The MCU was a $25B+ business when Disney bought Fox 4 years ago. X-Men/FF rights were absolutely central to that, to the point they'd likely have just let Comcast have Fox if not for it.

I'd argue properties like The Simpsons or Fox's 30% stake in hulu were probably more peripheral even. You have it backwards on what made this buy "essential" at the time and pushed Iger over the edge. You say Disney wasn't spending $70 for just the missing Marvel properties and that's true... but there no chance in hell they were spending $70B without them either.

 

[BoktaiFan]

Top 30

NSW - 25
PS5 - 3
PS4 - 2

Palworld is also a weird example since it isn't even the PS5, it's on the Series that doesn't exist in Japan. Also, everything skipping is a bit of hyperbolic when Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island came and beat Tekken.

15 of those switch games are Nintendo developed/published games you realize?

Also the top software sells thousands more than the bottom. You also realize that the top software (LAD8) sold more than 9-20 combined right? Also there is no question Tekken 8 is going to outsell Shiren globally come on man. No one is thinking that Shiren and Tekken are in the same category when it comes to impact

 

[RDragon]

15 of those switch games are Nintendo developed/published games you realize?

Missing the point. The fact is, only five games are not on Switch. And two of those spots is taking by the same game on different consoles.

Also the top software sells thousands more than the bottom. You also realize that the top software (LAD8) sold more than 9-20 combined right?

Yes and what does it matter? I bet if you do a Top 100 the majority of them would be Switch games. If this was an US chart, people would call this a monopoly since all the top sellers are Switch's software rather it's developed/published by Nintendo or completely third-party.

Also there is no question Tekken 8 is going to outsell Shiren globally come on man. No one is thinking that Shiren and Tekken are in the same category when it comes to impact

And that still doesn't change the fact Tekken 8 is underperforming and Shiren is one of the top games this year. Which flies against your point of 'everything is skipping Switch'.

 

[BoktaiFan]

Yes and what does it matter?

Because if one game sell 100000 copies and games 2-100 all sell 1 copy no one in their right mind would call that a monopoly. Clearly the interest of the consumers is n product 1 not 2-100. This should be obvious.

And that still doesn't change the fact Tekken 8 is underperforming and Shiren is one of the top games this year. Which flies against your point of 'everything is skipping Switch'.

You can cherry pick any example you like it's plainly obvious where JP third parties interests are. Monster Hunter/Capcom? PS5, Final Fantasy? PS5, Silent Hill? PS5, Dragon Ball? PS5, Atlus games? PS5.

If you somehow think PS getting all those while Switch gets Shiren proves its a monopoly then hey antitrust in your world would be very interesting.

 

[RDragon]

Because if one game sell 100000 copies and games 2-100 all sell 1 copy no one in their right mind would call that a monopoly. Clearly the interest of the consumers is n product 1 not 2-100. This should be obvious.


You can cherry pick any example you like it's plainly obvious where JP third parties interests are. Monster Hunter/Capcom? PS5, Final Fantasy? PS5, Silent Hill? PS5, Dragon Ball? PS5, Atlus games? PS5.

If you somehow think PS getting all those while Switch gets Shiren proves its a monopoly then hey antitrust in your world would be very interesting.

Except that isn't how the chart is shown. Trying to say 'out of 1000' is pretty pointless unless you have the current Top 1000.

How is that cherry-picking? All I did was look at the current top sellers for this week in Japan. Also, the latest Monster Hunter is on Switch, so why are you mentioning this? All current Dragon Ball games are on the Switch since the new one is not only not out yet, but doesn't have a release date. Atlus games, SMT5 that is only the Switch, Strikers, Tactics? FF, what about Dragon Quest Monsters that isn't on the PS5.

Sony getting some big third-party over Nintendo doesn't disprove a monopoly.

hey antitrust in your world would be very interesting.

Nice try. Anyone who follows the law knows that being a monopoly isn't illegal, at least in the US. It's only illegal when you abuse your monopoly power like MS did in the 90s.

 

[BTB123]

You can cherry pick any example you like it's plainly obvious where JP third parties interests are. Monster Hunter/Capcom? PS5, Final Fantasy? PS5, Silent Hill? PS5, Dragon Ball? PS5, Atlus games? PS5.

If you somehow think PS getting all those while Switch gets Shiren proves its a monopoly then hey antitrust in your world would be very interesting.

Monster Hunter Rise is on the Switch, Wilds can absolutely come to Switch 2. Other Capcom games definitely will, especially Resident Evil as they even bothered to make cloud versions for the Switch.
Final Fantasy and Silent Hill 2 are money hatted. What Dragon Ball game is currently not on Switch? Since when are all Atlus games only on PS5?

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

Me when Bloober team passes on the Switch with their 17 cent budget to make the worst game imaginable: Fuck fuck fuck

 

[BoktaiFan]

Monster Hunter Rise is on the Switch, Wilds can absolutely come to Switch 2. Other Capcom games definitely will, especially Resident Evil as they even bothered to make cloud versions for the Switch.
Final Fantasy and Silent Hill 2 are money hatted. What Dragon Ball game is currently not on Switch? Since when are all Atlus games only on PS5?

We were talking about a potential "monopoly" in japan.

My position is that in what world would the "monopolist" be losing all of this support. It's not that those games are all ps5 exclusive its that they aren't on switch. For dragon ball I'm referring to the upcoming one.

And even MH for example rise is on switch but world, rise And wild are all confirmed or on PS.

It's not that I think switch support is necessarily bad just that the facts regarding JP dev support do not support the idea that the switch is a monopoly.

 

[Kirby]

I doubt going all digital is good for the Xbox brand. Cheaper, maybe. Between people with data caps and slow internet, and people who like to gift physical games to their children. Feels like Xbox is becoming even more a brand for people who live in US cities.

 

[GodlyTrident]

I doubt going all digital is good for the Xbox brand. Cheaper, maybe. Between people with data caps and slow internet, and people who like to gift physical games to their children. Feels like Xbox is becoming even more a brand for people who live in US cities.

It does not stop mobile and PC market....

The problem with Xbox is visibility. I would say ROG Ally has more promotions worldwide than Xbox

 

[Kirby]

It does not stop mobile and PC market....

The problem with Xbox is visibility. I would say ROG Ally has more promotions worldwide than Xbox

Not enough marketing is, too, a way MS is cutting corners as a publisher and a platform holder.

 

[GodlyTrident]

Not enough marketing is, too, a way MS is cutting corners as a publisher and a platform holder.

Personally I have never understood why Microsoft did not spend more money on marketing. Like, Sega is doing quite a good marketing for their titles for example.

 

[fiendcode]

I think the pitfalls of digital globally are kinda overblown and the arguments against feel outdated. The biggest core gaming userbase worldwide, which is huge in less developed markets, is also a digital only storefront (Steam).

That doesn't mean Xbox will be fine without physical, but Xbox wasn't exactly killing it with physical anyway. Where packaged physical "matters" most still seems to be the historically established console centered markets (US/Canada, Japan, UK, western Europe) and that's more on audience familiarly and (eroding) preference than a lacking infrastructure. Asia Pacific, South America, Eastern Europe, etc, largely don't care.

 

[GodlyTrident]

I think the pitfalls of digital globally are kinda overblown and the arguments against feel outdated. The biggest core gaming userbase worldwide, which is huge in less developed markets, is also a digital only storefront (Steam).

Which makes sense to be honest as the digital storefront does not require additional logistics - while physical copies have to be distributed, the digital is essentially an app.

 

[Kirby]

Not everyone care about physical games, it's true. I play only on PC and Switch so I know it, but MS strategy is about cutting corners when they should do more than the competition. They're making their platform less appealing to consumers and publishers.

 

[derby_440]

..And after the Insomniac leaks came out i would be surprised if Indiana Jones and Blade don’t have similar baked in sales milestones they also need to hit from Disney/Lucas/Marvel.

I’m sure they wouldn’t be nearly as substantial as Spider-Man but if games sales are as dire as they look from the outside on xbox that this new inititative needs to happen i would bet those games will also be announced as multiplatform.

Disney likely asked for money upfront to release on GP day 1.

 

[Shadow of the Void]

If all these rumors and leaks are true, then MS seems to want to occupy some weird place between first-party and third-party. It's becoming increasingly clear that they don't want to compete directly with PlayStation anymore, and rather are focusing on boosting software sales. They took a big hit in console market share with the Xbox One and never recovered. A friend of mine said that the Xbox brand was permanently damaged with that system, as the increase in digital sales meant more people locked into an ecosystem with their purchases carrying forward to this generation, so less potential for people who switched to PS4 last gen to switch back to Xbox this gen, and I'm inclined to agree with his assessment.

At the start of this generation, I felt MS could make things competitive, at least in North America and other Xbox-friendly markets, since they've actually been expanding their first-party efforts. But that doesn't seem to be happening. Xbox generally wasn't doing awful with hardware sales in absolute terms over the past decade, but the XBS is trailing the XBO by a non-trivial amount (in the U.S., that's mostly because of relatively weak holiday sales; during the Jan.-Oct. period, it's been doing better on average than the XBO). Also, 2023 was the worst year for the brand in terms of the PS/Xbox HW sales split in the U.S. since 2005, and the U.S. is their biggest and most favorable market. I imagine that staying perpetually in third place even in their best markets isn't making MS happy.

They may not be able to salvage the hardware sales situation, and it's looking like they may not even bother trying to do so anymore. However, if their goal is to maximize software sales, then becoming a quasi-third-party where they still offer their own hardware as an option but have most if not all of their games be multi-platform titles would likely succeed in that regard. That's many tens of millions of more potential buyers for their games.

My biggest concern about Xbox potentially pivoting away from being a "traditional" console brand is that it leaves PlayStation without any truly direct competition, since Nintendo also does their own unique thing. I think direct competition is a good thing, as it forces companies to stay on their toes. For example, after the PS2 became the biggest console ever, Sony apparently thought they were untouchable, yet the PS3 proved they weren't, causing them to self-correct with the PS4, which was far more affordable and didn't have custom components that drove up prices and made it hard to develop for.

In terms of how this pivot would affect my game-buying habits, if I could play games like Halo and Gears on PlayStation, I probably would. Xbox consoles have been my primary platform for most of the past 22 years, mainly because that's where everybody I know online and off plays (I've been on XBL since early 2005, and some people I play with have been on my friends list since the Halo 2 days) and also I've generally liked their hardware (esp. their controllers). But if their next system really is digital-only, I'm not buying it. I would like to continue playing their games, however, so if they do release their games on PlayStation, hopefully there's a physical option. I also would like to see MS make Xbox-style controllers compatible with PlayStation consoles.

 

[Drblitzk]

My biggest concern about Xbox potentially pivoting away from being a "traditional" console brand is that it leaves PlayStation without any truly direct competition, since Nintendo also does their own unique thing. I think direct competition is a good thing, as it forces companies to stay on their toes. For example, after the PS2 became the biggest console ever, Sony apparently thought they were untouchable, yet the PS3 proved they weren't, causing them to self-correct with the PS4, which was far more affordable and didn't have custom components that drove up prices and made it hard to develop for.

Back in the PS1/PS2 era, the console and PC markets were completely separated, the big games on PC were completely different even in genres than the ones in consoles, kind of like PC/consoles now vs mobile, so yeah Sony, MS, and Nintendo were in their own bubble, nowadays tho, consoles and PC are in the same bubble, even without MS you can bet that if Sony does something stupid like they did with the PS3, PC is going to eat it's lunch (also I think Sony and Nintendo are competing more than most people give credit for, so that goes for Nintendo too).

 

[Danny]

Except that isn't how the chart is shown. Trying to say 'out of 1000' is pretty pointless unless you have the current Top 1000.

How is that cherry-picking? All I did was look at the current top sellers for this week in Japan. Also, the latest Monster Hunter is on Switch, so why are you mentioning this? All current Dragon Ball games are on the Switch since the new one is not only not out yet, but doesn't have a release date. Atlus games, SMT5 that is only the Switch, Strikers, Tactics? FF, what about Dragon Quest Monsters that isn't on the PS5.

Sony getting some big third-party over Nintendo doesn't disprove a monopoly.



Nice try. Anyone who follows the law knows that being a monopoly isn't illegal, at least in the US. It's only illegal when you abuse your monopoly power like MS did in the 90s.

The fact is that Sony has about every advantage it could have over Nintendo, it gets enormous amounts of better third party support. The fact that Nintendo can dominate the Japanese market when Sony has all the advantages just proves that Nintendo makes games more suited for Japanese taste than other players in the video game industry. Nintendo seems to be the only company that can become a monopoly while facing worse conditions than their rivals.

 

[ArkhamFantasy]

Back in the PS1/PS2 era, the console and PC markets were completely separated, the big games on PC were completely different even in genres than the ones in consoles, kind of like PC/consoles now vs mobile, so yeah Sony, MS, and Nintendo were in their own bubble, nowadays tho, consoles and PC are in the same bubble, even without MS you can bet that if Sony does something stupid like they did with the PS3, PC is going to eat it's lunch (also I think Sony and Nintendo are competing more than most people give credit for, so that goes for Nintendo too).

This is true that PC is more popular than ever and most multiplatform PS games are also available on PC but that doesn’t mean losing a direct competitor like Xbox won’t be a blow.

Even with a very good platform like Series S/X we still see Sony doing a lot of anti consumer moves, the biggest example I can think of is the dramatic price increase to PS+ just for access to basic features that are free on PC, we even saw a PS5 price increase for most of the world.

This also doesn’t take into account the innovation Xbox brings to the industry, they dramatically raised the bar for online networks on consoles and added popular features like achievements.

I don’t know if Sony would go full PS3 era crazy if Xbox dropped hardware, but I’d rather not find out.

 

[Drblitzk]

This is true that PC is more popular than ever and most multiplatform PS games are also available on PC but that doesn’t mean losing a direct competitor like Xbox won’t be a blow.

Even with a very good platform like Series S/X we still see Sony doing a lot of anti consumer moves, the biggest example I can think of is the dramatic price increase to PS+ just for access to basic features that are free on PC, we even saw a PS5 price increase for most of the world.

This also doesn’t take into account the innovation Xbox brings to the industry, they dramatically raised the bar for online networks on consoles and added popular features like achievements.

I don’t know if Sony would go full PS3 era crazy if Xbox dropped hardware, but I’d rather not find out.

Sure, Sony getting away with anti consumer practices is known, but none of those are remotely close to the pre-release PS3 fuck ups, (shit like next gen doesn't start until we say it does), and even then they kind of got away with it, PS3 still did close to the 360 in market share but they paid a couple of billions in loses to fix those mistakes, what I'm saying is if they go back to something similar like they will bleed out money and market share to PC so is not like they can do whatever they want, they don't need a MS machine in the market to try to avoid those situations.

And I never mentioned anything about the market not losing anything by losing a major competitor.

 

[Phonicjoy]

- 3rd party hardware

We’ve been here before. It hasn’t worked for any company really. 3DO did this years ago and it did not work out for the manufacturers or 3DO.

Sure you could do a revenue sharing scheme, but that seems like a drop in the bucket when as a manufacturer you’re totally reliant on the marketing and R&D of a licensor that just gave up on hardware themselves.

Also, what are you going to do about subscription fees that are played through the hardware? Seems rather complicated.

-handheld hardware

So now you have Xbox hardware that’s portable. Okay, still no games besides multiplatform that I’d want to play, and it has to be x86 based (ie just as performant as Steam Deck). Plus this depends on the thin layer client we read about in the court documents that was not there a few years ago.

Timing

The timing for this seems C level based. They just increased their pipeline twofold. Why throw in the towel now? Xbox leadership has to have known this would payoff only a gen later at the earliest. XCloud is not ready to be the main attraction, gamepass is not doing great, and can’t bear the brand alone.
It seems rather shortsighted, unless it’s totally a decision for short term ROI. Or they finally discovered project management gets exponentially hard in such enormous organizations.
I can’t imagine Xbox leadership being behind this.

Future of the platform

I really don’t think there is one.

Console - third party and handheld seem like non-starters, cloud is not ready for prime time, PC has a bunch of (better) competition.

Conclusion

If this is real, I predict MS will go full third party, and gamepass will change to a Ubisoft /EA like sub. They have a gigantic library now that could easily support something like that. It could be priced very attractively and position them as a quasi platform.

 

[GodlyTrident]

- 3rd party hardware

We’ve been here before. It hasn’t worked for any company really. 3DO did this years ago and it did not work out for the manufacturers or 3DO.

Sure you could do a revenue sharing scheme, but that seems like a drop in the bucket when as a manufacturer you’re totally reliant on the marketing and R&D of a licensor that just gave up on hardware themselves.

Also, what are you going to do about subscription fees that are played through the hardware? Seems rather complicated.

We have Window based handhelds like ROG Ally and Lenovo and nobody is finding that "complicated". Not to mention all those Windows laptops.

In regards of 3DO, there is a major difference - content. The gaming market is not the same as it was in 3DO and Microsoft owns a lot of content. With the whole platform being relatively streamlined, it is not a situation where you need to develop for completely different platforms like it 3DO, Atari, Saturn etc.

-handheld hardware

So now you have Xbox hardware that’s portable. Okay, still no games besides multiplatform that I’d want to play, and it has to be x86 based (ie just as performant as Steam Deck). Plus this depends on the thin layer client we read about in the court documents that was not there a few years ago.

Steam Deck has no games beside multiplatform. PCs do not have games that are multiplatform. Mobile phones have mostly multiplatform content too.

Xbox leadership has to have known this would payoff only a gen later at the earliest. XCloud is not ready to be the main attraction, gamepass is not doing great, and can’t bear the brand alone. It seems rather shortsighted, unless it’s totally a decision for short term ROI. Or they finally discovered project management gets exponentially hard in such enormous organizations.

With game development becoming more and more expensive and games themselves not moving the consoles while also releasing Day 1 (basically decimating the sales on a loss leading console already) is a huge money pit (or at best very low margin platform). If for other platform holders you need million copies to be sold full price in order to recover, then the Day 1 releases without selling consoles is basically a huge money loss enterprise. I mean, even Netflix stopped producing expensive (they tried some time ago as far as I remember) despite being the household name and the biggest subscription service out there.

The truth is that Xbox does not sell well at all. Consumer market just does not find the console attractive. And at the same time the consumer market does not find overpriced hardware expensive either. So if Xbox is unable to sell consoles with heavy discounts in their home market, Game Pass not growing (to offset the loss of sales), games becoming more and more expensive - there is no future for Xbox as is, as a home console. The bet of Series S did not pay off much (without it, Xbox would probably be at 20m or less right now), Game Pass did not become a system seller, so Xbox just cant' continue as is without a drastic change. Palworld is a huge hit, but Famitsu sales are not different from just regular sales so it did not change much for Xbox, despite being hugely popular and much more cheaper than Starfield, for example, whose release did not even move the consoles.

The worst part is that the consumer is entrenched in digital ecosystem to a point, where they just don't want to move anywhere.

And you have stuff like this



Where Xbox sales were actually down in comparsion to a year where they did not have games...It is just bad. Though with console sales being overall down, which is interesting.

 

[unkindlynice]

-handheld hardware

So now you have Xbox hardware that’s portable. Okay, still no games besides multiplatform that I’d want to play, and it has to be x86 based (ie just as performant as Steam Deck). Plus this depends on the thin layer client we read about in the court documents that was not there a few years ago.

They would just be doing what other handheld makers already do. It’s a growth market but it’s not going to be an ecosystem. It’d be a Windows PC with an Xbox UI over the top. More likely Microsoft make a gaming UI specific for handhelds to compete with the Steam Deck.

Any Xbox handheld would be more akin to a Surface Handheld.

 

[Smelly]

About that Gamestop Microsoft Gamepass thing, looks like Microsoft themselves have removed all Xbox branding from their official site themselves.

Microsoft Removes Xbox Series & Xbox Gamepass Logos From It's Site:Before: Xbox Series LogosAfter: Console, PC, Cloud

Gamestop spilled the beans early it looks like.

Edit:Forgot the official webpages:

Avowed | Xbox

Avowed from Xbox. Obsidian Entertainment's next epic, first-person RPG.

www.xbox.com

Fable | Xbox

Learn about the upcoming release of the game Fable from Xbox.

www.xbox.com

 

[RennanNT]

looks like Microsoft themselves have removed all Xbox branding from their official site themselves.

Not all of them. There's one in the top and if you scroll down, there's still a "Optimized for Xbox Series" and the Gamepass section still has the X icon.

With that said, removing that "day one to Gamepass" before whatever they're going to say next week feels like they are 'there is no such thing as bad publicity' believers.

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

Not all of them. There's one in the top and if you scroll down, there's still a "Optimized for Xbox Series" and the Gamepass section still has the X icon.

With that said, removing that "day one to Gamepass" before whatever they're going to say next week feels like they are 'there is no such thing as bad publicity' believers.

Forza Motorsport probably generated almost no Game Pass subscriptions while selling almost no copies and likely costing over a hundred million to make.

You, uhh, can't really do that as a rational business.

Andor losing hundreds of millions probably pushed Moana 2 to theaters (along with Mandalorian) and I would guess Forza's total failure and Starfield's disappointment will cause a similar thing for Microsoft.

Now, this will be a PR catastrophe and cause no one to trust Microsoft's future plans (which is extremely bad for the next Xbox if it exists as people will doubt any claims Microsoft will make about supporting it), but... Kind of have to do this before Call of Duty 2025 launches.

 

[Rash78]

About that Gamestop Microsoft Gamepass thing, looks like Microsoft themselves have removed all Xbox branding from their official site themselves.





Gamestop spilled the beans early it looks like.

Edit:Forgot the official webpages:

Avowed | Xbox

Avowed from Xbox. Obsidian Entertainment's next epic, first-person RPG.

www.xbox.com

Fable | Xbox

Learn about the upcoming release of the game Fable from Xbox.

www.xbox.com

I don't think this means anything tbh, just like that GameStop tweet with "Microsoft gamepass"
but this is all Xbox fault for not giving a proper answer to the rumors.

It's only gonna get worse until next week, everyone is trying to look for clues of Xbox going full third party.

 

[RDragon]

While I don't know much about GamePass, but if GamePass was a factor in MS' new direction I wouldn't be surprise. Everything about GamePass seemed too good to be true. Paying $12 a month for access to thousands of game, Day 1 Xbox games, you could get GamePass for as low as an $1 for a month, and MS was also making a profit. It just seemed unbelievable.

Edit: I wanted to add, if the rumors are true, it really does show that Phil's idea of buying Nintendo someday really was a pipe dream since Phil and his board doesn't seem to know how to make money on gaming or market a console.

 

[master94ga]

About that Gamestop Microsoft Gamepass thing, looks like Microsoft themselves have removed all Xbox branding from their official site themselves.





Gamestop spilled the beans early it looks like.

Edit:Forgot the official webpages:

Avowed | Xbox

Avowed from Xbox. Obsidian Entertainment's next epic, first-person RPG.

www.xbox.com

Fable | Xbox

Learn about the upcoming release of the game Fable from Xbox.

www.xbox.com

This change was made various months ago, has nothing to do with the current rumors and business update.

 

[NobsPlaystation]

Some personal Xbox predictions next week:- Microsoft announces changes to Xbox Game Pass, all exclusive titles will not arrive on Game Pass on day one, but rather provide a discount to membership owners. Exclusive titles arrive on the service 6 months later (this will help the business thrive harder)- GAAS titles from Xbox will arrive on PlayStation on day one, but case by case basis - Case by case selection of singleplayer titles on PlayStation and Switch, but unlikely Halo and Gears of War to debut on PlayStation due the IPs original nature on Xbox

Ben is not an insider or anything, but I found his predictions very interesting, I do think it will be something along this lines.
Hi FI Rush and sea of thieves going to other consoles, but not the others like Starfield, Hellblade, Halo etc

 

[Broseph]

Ben is not an insider or anything, but I found his predictions very interesting, I do think it will be something along this lines.
Hi FI Rush and sea of thieves going to other consoles, but not the others like Starfield, Hellblade, Halo etc

Seems like a pretty reasonable prediction. But 'case by case' easily has the potential to also be a shitshow in the future when everyone is lowkey expecting every new game to be multiplatform. They'd need to establish upfront what exactly doesn't fit one of those cases

 

[unkindlynice]

See some people acting like this is a positive but I take the opposite take. It looks to me a high level decision which has had some mid managers ‘review’ it’s feasibility is in full pelt and MS will be making a final decision next week on what parameters for exclusivity vs third party they will follow.

Of course low level sources don’t have a clue about this. I doubt studio heads know.

 

[rockets]

Definitely sounds like people leaked some of these plans early. But tbh, reading between the lines here, porting smaller titles while forgoing the bigger ones doesn't make much business sense. Doubt the bigger titles would even be announced any time soon either.

 

[GodlyTrident]

Definitely sounds like people leaked some of these plans early. But tbh, reading between the lines here, porting smaller titles while forgoing the bigger ones doesn't make much business sense. Doubt the bigger titles would even be announced any time soon either.

The fundamental issue is that Xbox just don't sell. You can't really just put Game Pass Day 1 games without any growth coming from subs or console sales. It is basically throwing money in the pit. Studios and publishers used to make money from being everywhere, but with Xbox studios are basically tied to a console that does not sell, releases day 1 games in the subscription that does not grow...I feel like the financial part is in extremely low margins. Partially it of course is offset by accessories, DLCs and maybe 30% cut - but overall the financial situation is not that great for sure.

Personally I think Xbox is cooked this gen - it is clear that Series S/X did not pay out (granted without S it would be even worth) properly. It is like Wii U.

 

[Bernd Lauert]

Ben is not an insider or anything, but I found his predictions very interesting, I do think it will be something along this lines.
Hi FI Rush and sea of thieves going to other consoles, but not the others like Starfield, Hellblade, Halo etc

I wonder what happens with active Gamepass subs. I bought 3 years of Gamepass under the assumption that everything will stay the same. If they substantially change the deal I'd feel a bit scammed.

(It helps that I paid around €110 for the 3 years of GPU)

 

[GodlyTrident]

I wonder what happens with active Gamepass subs. I bought 3 years of Gamepass under the assumption that everything will stay the same. If they substantially change the deal I'd feel a bit scammed.

(It helps that I paid around €110 for the 3 years of GPU)

I think it is cheaper for them just to return the remaining time in money for those who want to cancel it and that's it. I think Google did that with Stadia.

Also I do wonder if these cheap conversions also did affect them. Shame we can't see the proper finances.

 

[Terrell]

They could but they also don't need to because there is already the Steam Deck, the ROG Ally, the Lenovo Legion Go, the GPD Win 4, the AyaNeo Kun etc etc.

The real problem for Microsoft vis a vis PC is that the windows store/xbox pc app are very low quality and PC gamers vastly prefer to use Steam over anything else. So if Microsoft ships an open platform PC with xbox branding, what's going to happen is people will simply buy and run games off Steam instead. The problem is so bad, even when given the choice to subscribe to gamepass and get things for very cheap, or buy them full or near-full on Steam - people still mostly prefer the latter. It has been a major barrier to Gamepass PC adoption, which was suppsoed to be how they were going to grow subscriptions once console was tapped out.

Getting windows in a state suitable to use primarily using a controller smoothly (as in, without awful janky keymapping/mouse emulation) would also require close collaboration between the windows and gaming teams - something that seems to be a challenge on par with cold fusion for Microsoft. They do benefit from people buying windows licences (except on Steamdeck mostly) but that is not the MS gaming business line, and people are already doing it pretty close to the maximum extent possible - so it's not exactly a growth vector.

News would be premature, but they can say there will be a next gen Xbox to reassure they have a long term commitment to the platform.



Best thing for Microsoft would be buy Valve if Gabe one day agree to sell.

The more I think about it, the more I understand what MS could do: Port the Xbox OS to PC (with tweaks, of course).

With a slimmed-down gaming focused OS (and all of its pre-built requisite APIs and such) that could be installed on a separate boot partition, PC folks could then opt to squeeze the maximum performance from their hardware rig compared to playing games with Windows humming in the background (especially if the OS is optimized even further and games can take proper advantage of the strengths of this idea), which also stretches longevity of the CPU and RAM a bit longer. It would require some new engineering to work, but I think there's potential there, especially if there's purchase transfer from an Xbox console (somehow, that's for them to work out). And they could still release their own hardware, but their success with the "platform" would not be dependent on that.

This is true that PC is more popular than ever and most multiplatform PS games are also available on PC but that doesn’t mean losing a direct competitor like Xbox won’t be a blow.

Even with a very good platform like Series S/X we still see Sony doing a lot of anti consumer moves, the biggest example I can think of is the dramatic price increase to PS+ just for access to basic features that are free on PC, we even saw a PS5 price increase for most of the world.

This also doesn’t take into account the innovation Xbox brings to the industry, they dramatically raised the bar for online networks on consoles and added popular features like achievements.

I don’t know if Sony would go full PS3 era crazy if Xbox dropped hardware, but I’d rather not find out.

I think that Sony is seeing enough attrition as it is that they don't have the "privilege" to take their audience for granted again. And I think that, depending on what MS actually does, there is still room for innovation from them in the space.

 

[Johannes]

I think it is cheaper for them just to return the remaining time in money for those who want to cancel it and that's it. I think Google did that with Stadia.

Also I do wonder if these cheap conversions also did affect them. Shame we can't see the proper finances.

I'm a tad skeptical that Microsoft would offer refunds or that there is a high need for that. I imagine these multiple-year-long GPU subscriptions are mostly conversion subs where people are paying a pittance for this service. Even if in the near future Microsoft dilutes the value of Gamepass I think these people will still keep paying a couple of bucks for GPU for the next 2-3 years* or whenever the current conversion sub ends. Surely Microsoft still sees value in having Gamepass and it being competitive.

*Of course, there are the Timdogs of the world who will make a hissy fit online by smashing their Xbox consoles, canceling subs etc, but those are the minority.

 

[Danny]

Funny if these gamepass changes happen, because Jim Ryan got a lot of attention for saying that the gamepass model was worse than PS plus and that their model wasn't sustainable and now gamepass seems to be moving towards PS plus model.

 

[GodlyTrident]

I'm a tad skeptical that Microsoft would offer refunds or that there is a high need for that. I imagine these multiple-year-long GPU subscriptions are mostly conversion subs where people are paying a pittance for this service. Even if in the near future Microsoft dilutes the value of Gamepass I think these people will still keep paying a couple of bucks for GPU for the next 2-3 years* or whenever the current conversion sub ends. Surely Microsoft still sees value in having Gamepass and it being competitive.

Well, maybe some people will ask for refund or something. As people were fine just sticking with GOLD and also Ultimate encompasses a bunch of stuff. I am GPU sub but mainly playing Forza Horizon and feel fine. Would not be surprised if there are lot of people like this.

Funny if these gamepass changes happen, because Jim Ryan got a lot of attention for saying that the gamepass model was worse than PS plus and that their model wasn't sustainable and now gamepass seems to be moving towards PS plus model.

I am pretty sure Microsoft does not need Jim Ryan's insights to know if it works for them or not. What did happen for sure - the game development has grown too expensive and COVID bump has ended.

 

[Himura Kenshin]

I am pretty sure Microsoft does not need Jim Ryan's insights to know if it works for them or not. What did happen for sure - the game development has grown too expensive and COVID bump has ended.

I haven't seen the source of the Jim Ryan quote in question (if @Danny would like to post it feel free), but common sense tells me that if he did speak on it, it wouldn't have been to "tell Microsoft if it works for them or not." I doubt he'd give a shit nor would that be his job. I imagine he'd only be saying why it doesn't work for Sony.

 

[Dakota Joestar]

Its kinda weird we don't even know the exact date, time, and even format the business event is suppose to be. Like its Sunday and Phil announced the event 5 days ago. Yet for all we know there could still be another 6 days of shitshow of rumors.

 

[ArkhamFantasy]

Its kinda weird we don't even know the exact date, time, and even format the business event is suppose to be. Like its Sunday and Phil announced the event 5 days ago. Yet for all we know there could still be another 6 days of shitshow of rumors.

Kind of feels like things snow balled quickly.

 

[GodlyTrident]

Its kinda weird we don't even know the exact date, time, and even format the business event is suppose to be. Like its Sunday and Phil announced the event 5 days ago. Yet for all we know there could still be another 6 days of shitshow of rumors.

I think the things have calmed down already. Some minor groups are not happy, but by and large nobody cares.

 

[DarkDetective]

I think the things have calmed down already. Some minor groups are not happy, but by and large nobody cares.

Phil has made his commitment to a business update, so he's past of the point of no return.

 

[Remember_spinal]

I haven't seen the source of the Jim Ryan quote in question (if @Danny would like to post it feel free), but common sense tells me that if he did speak on it, it wouldn't have been to "tell Microsoft if it works for them or not." I doubt he'd give a shit nor would that be his job. I imagine he'd only be saying why it doesn't work for Sony.

Jim Ryan said that it was simply unsustainable for Sony to do because they would need to significantly lower the budgets (‘quality’) of their first party games to make it work.

Shawn Layden was the one who said it wouldn’t actually work without 10x’s the subscribers it has now

 

[Himura Kenshin]

Phil has made his commitment to a business update, so he's past of the point of no return.

I don't think he's saying Phil isn't going to do it now, he's saying emotions were high all around at the beginning of the week but now by and large many people have reached a point of apathy. I think that changes once we actually get a date and time though.

Jim Ryan said that it was simply unsustainable for Sony to do because they would need to significantly lower the budgets (‘quality’) of their first party games to make it work.

Shawn Layden was the one who said it wouldn’t actually work without 10x’s the subscribers it has now

Yeah, sounds like they're just both using different reasons to come to the same conclusion. And I'm sure each would agree with the other's statement as well.

 

[GodlyTrident]

Phil has made his commitment to a business update, so he's past of the point of no return.

The event was going to happen anyway. I am pretty sure of it.

The point is that the outrage in the beginning of the week was huge but by the end of the week basically several camps were formed and some folks just accepted that it will happen with some games, some folks just abandoned the Xbox and media and other folks just moved on. When the announcement will happen I think there will be probably some outrage, but I will just mute those folks anyway.

Originally I was also outraged (especially when the first rumors appeared), but then I gradually accepted that Xbox as a brand just don't sell and the new generation does not find it "attractive" at all. And due to that Game Pass just does not grow, meaning their original bet did not pay off.

I am curious if they do some rebranding or something.

Gaming market is very strange right now and the situation where small teams can generate more money than big established studios with hundreds of people, while spending only 2-3 years in comparison to 5-6 years of another game, it a symptom of a big problem.

 

[Charamiwa]

Waiting for next week was probably the right move. Rushing to say something in the midst of all that chaos would have been pretty messy. Next week people will be calmer, and they would have had time presumably to polish their messaging, whatever it is.