Xbox Business Update Podcast | Xbox Everywhere Direction Discussion

[iroboto]

This article from long ago:

Xbox sets up a game preservation team and wants "the biggest technical leap ever" for its next-gen system

Xbox has established a new team dedicated to video game preservation and forward compatibility.

www.eurogamer.net

Talks about creating a forward compatibility team for games to be preserved as they move into next gen.

The directSR is announced which most people took as a nothing burger.

But with the way we PSSR roll out now, it’s apparent that you do need forward compatibility. Can you launch something today that will benefit from the technologies of tomorrow.

And directSR would be that, an abstraction to allow for future SR algos, that they may not even know exists. It does actually relieve the issue we are seeing now with the PSSR rollout.

This may be useful information to see where Xbox is headed in the future if they roll out more stuff like this

 

[rntongo]

In fact, only MS has data on how many people subscribe and how many people remain subscribers for a high-volume game. For example, those who play COD because of multiplayer are constantly subscribing to Gamepass because of this. I know such situations. But as I said, we can only guess here, we will only know for sure when Microsoft publishes the increase in the number of subscribers.

The other thing is the benefits from having COD will only be temporary. So I understand why Phil is planning on doing more acquisitions. Eventually they'll need to find ways of growing subscriber growth beyond those from the ABK acquisition.

 

[iroboto]

The other thing is the benefits from having COD will only be temporary. So I understand why Phil is planning on doing more acquisitions. Eventually they'll need to fond ways of growing subscriber growth beyond those from the ABK acquisition.

They don’t need to own everything to gain subs. COD was never going to a cloud service. If games are willing to move to cloud or gamepass, MS can take easier routes to obtain it.

MS needed a highly successful game that continually drives engagement back to their platform. They have COD and they have a slew of others. It’s unnecessary for them to just acquire companies to grab their user base. That’s way too inefficient for their needs.

 

[rntongo]

They don’t need to own everything to gain subs. COD was never going to a cloud service. If games are willing to move to cloud or gamepass, MS can take easier routes to obtain it.

MS needed a highly successful game that continually drives engagement back to their platform. They have COD and they have a slew of others. It’s unnecessary for them to just acquire companies to grab their user base. That’s way too inefficient for their needs.

Yes and Phil plans on achieving this at least partly through more acquisitions in the medium term.

 

[Cappuccino]

Yes and Phil plans on achieving this at least partly through more acquisitions in the medium term.

It’s wild to me that even after all these huge acquisitions the answer/path forward is yet more purchases. Does MS need to own 75% of developers to make GamePass make sense?

 

[rntongo]

It’s wild to me that even after all these huge acquisitions the answer/path forward is yet more purchases. Does MS need to own 75% of developers to make GamePass make sense?

Yeah its going to be interesting how they do this because more acquisitions are going to come with more scrutiny. Eventually he'll have to focus on pushing out great new titles from the internal studios or even consider making more deals with external studios, the former which he's not been very good.

 

[Seanspeed]

I don’t think MS has a choice here. A great deal of scrutiny from CMA and others have pretty much halted any direction of buying for exclusivity at least with respect to COD.

The idea situation is that subs pick up in growth market areas. And purchases pick up in traditional areas due to popularity.

Recall that in order to get ABK over the line, all this exclusivity business needed to be addressed.

MS is still playing it safe, as the FTC is still fighting them on things even now. This is probably their limit, whether they chose this path or not. MS is no stranger to anti-trust, they became very hands off everything for a long time to the point where it almost put them out of business.

Putting their games everywhere on every platform is what they promised the regulators. They are, as I can see, following through on that promise.

I imagine the FTC's priorities are going to change hugely heading forward....

 

[iroboto]

And so it begins the cloud wars

Stream Your Own Game with Xbox Cloud Gaming (Beta) - Xbox Wire

Starting today, Game Pass Ultimate members can stream select games they own, in all 28 countries where Xbox Cloud Gaming (Beta) is available.

news.xbox.com

Xcloud is now streaming games you own. First list of additional 50 titles added that are not part of the game pass list.

Game Pass Ultimate members can stream select cloud-playable games you own, even if they’re not included with Game Pass Ultimate, directly on various devices. This includes Samsung Smart TVs, Amazon Fire TV devices, Meta Quest headsets as well as other browser supported devices like PCs, smart phones, and tablets. For more details, see below or check out our support page.

On your PC, phone, tablet, handheld, and most devices with access to a web browser:

• Use a supported browser like Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, or Apple Safari.
• Navigate to http://xbox.com/play.
• Sign into your Xbox Game Pass Ultimate membership.
• Look for “Stream your own game” to discover games you can play right now, and others you can stream after purchasing them.
• Connect a supported controller. Controllers like the Xbox Wireless Controller, Xbox Adaptive Controller, PlayStation DualSense, or DualShock 4 controller are all compatible. On PC, some games will also support mouse and keyboard input.
• Start playing!

On supported TVs and VR headsets:

• Download and launch the Xbox app (on supported Samsung TV, Amazon Fire device) or the Xbox Cloud Gaming app (on Meta Quest 2, 3 or Pro)..

Decent list. 3 GOTY candidates on it and some very recent titles.
****

1. Animal Well
2. Assassin’s Creed Mirage
3. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
4. Balatro
5. Baldur’s Gate 3
6. Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden
7. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II (2022)
8. The Casting of Frank Stone
9. Cyberpunk 2077
10. Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake
11. Dredge
12. Dying Light 2 Stay Human
13. Farming Simulator 25
14. Fear the Spotlight
15. Final Fantasy XIV Online
16. Final Fantasy
17. Final Fantasy II
18. Final Fantasy III
19. Final Fantasy IV
20. Final Fantasy V
21. Final Fantasy VI
22. Hades
23. Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions
24. High On Life
25. Hitman World of Assassination
26. Hogwarts Legacy
27. House Flipper 2
28. Kena: Bridge of Spirits
29. Lego Harry Potter Collection
30. Life is Strange: Double Exposure
31. Metro Exodus
32. Mortal Kombat 1
33. NBA 2K25
34. PGA Tour 2K23
35. Phasmaphobia
36. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
37. Rust Console Edition
38. 7 Days to Die
39. Star Wars Outlaws
40. Stray
41. The Crew Motorfest
42. The Outlast Trials
43. The Plucky Squire
44. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
45. Tom Clancy’s The Division 2
46. TopSpin 2K25
47. Undertale
48. Visions of Mana
49. Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2
50. WWE 2K24

xcloud all titles:

All games | Xbox Cloud Gaming (Beta) on  Xbox.com

www.xbox.com

 

[RobertR1]

Need an app for AppleTV please.

 

[fehu]

I think that's more a problem on apple's side

 

[rntongo]

They're getting people used to Xbox not being a specific hardware system, but a service. As long as your machine can run some sort of Xbox gamestore or app. So if Phil remains, Xbox hardware made by MSFT themselves is going to be very very niche or not exist at all. It will be up to OEMs to make hardware.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1861077393026265428

 

[iroboto]

They're getting people used to Xbox not being a specific hardware system, but a service. As long as your machine can run some sort of Xbox gamestore or app. So if Phil remains, Xbox hardware made by MSFT themselves is going to be very very niche or not exists at all. It will be up to OEMs to make hardware.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1861077393026265428

until other platforms are significantly greater in population over their console population, xbox will be releasing a console.

I really don't understand your of logic when over 90% of the xbox business is still traditional console gaming. There will be an eventuality in which console numbers will drop significantly, but it won't be due to xbox being released on other mediums, it's because those other mediums are going to be significantly cheaper than console hardware.

 

[rntongo]

until other platforms are significantly greater in population over their console population, xbox will be releasing a console.

I really don't understand your of logic when over 90% of the xbox business is still traditional console gaming. There will be an eventuality in which console numbers will drop significantly, but it won't be due to xbox being released on other mediums, it's because those other mediums are going to be significantly cheaper than console hardware.

I just think that this advertisement itself has a well known negative effect on Microsoft's Xbox hardware sales. Why would someone want to buy offical Xbox hardware if they can get the experience anywhere else. Which means MS Gaming is specifically preparing for that. You dont see Sony Nintendo or Apple advertise other pieces of hardware as a priority place to experience their software unless they are giving up on that specific hardware. Thats why I said MS's gaming hardware is expected to become a niche product especially compared to the state its in today. Or it may be disbanded entirely. At this point its not out of the question a next gen handheld or Xbox could just be an officially licensed Xbox from an OEM.

 

[QPlayer]

I just think that this advertisement itself has a well known negative effect on Microsoft's Xbox hardware sales. Why would someone want to buy offical Xbox hardware if they can get the experience anywhere else. Which means MS Gaming is specifically preparing for that. You dont see Sony Nintendo or Apple advertise other pieces of hardware as a priority place to experience their software unless they are giving up on that specific hardware. Thats why I said MS's gaming hardware is expected to become a niche product especially compared to the state its in today. Or it may be disbanded entirely. At this point its not out of the question a next gen handheld or Xbox could just be an officially licensed Xbox from an OEM.

Ok, but how do you convince the current ~ 30 million Xbox Console Gamepass subscribers to buy an expensive OEM XboxPC?

 

[iroboto]

Why would someone want to buy offical Xbox hardware if they can get the experience anywhere else.

Where else can you get a high powered system in which the baseline for games is built around at a price point of 599?
The ROG Ally is $799, nowhere near the power of XSX.
Steam Deck is not cheap either and doesn't have the power of a console.
A PC to have equivalent power is expensive, certainly more expensive than a console.
Cloud streaming is not yet the equivalent of a local gaming yet.

So I'm confused on this idea that just because they advertise that xbox is playable on all these other modalities, that suddenly the xbox console market will be left behind.
What will kill the xbox console is that the medium is no longer providing any form of value for its price point. That's what will kill the console. But that applies to Nintendo and Sony as well. If your only value is putting out exclusive titles and locking people to hardware to play those games, eventually, people will not buy it.

That's the bet MS is taking here. They're saying, hey listen, you want exclusives that's cool, you can play them on a variety of devices where we don't need to lock you into expensive hardware to play if you already have some other way to access our content.

That's the not the same as MS saying they're putting all their content and developing multiplatform titles for Nintendo and Sony.

 

[rntongo]

Ok, but how do you convince the current ~ 30 million Xbox Console Gamepass subscribers to buy an expensive OEM XboxPC?

Well the advertisements do include cheap PCs as examples of an "Xbox". I see your argument though. But maybe these advertisements are nudging/telling those 30m plus Gamepass subscribers to move to other hardware systems?? Not get too attached to boxes that MS Gaming may be ready to end producing? I hate to be that guy but the writing is on the wall imho. I'd love to be proven wrong though.

Where else can you get a high powered system in which the baseline for games is built around at a price point of 599?
The ROG Ally is $799, nowhere near the power of XSX.
Steam Deck is not cheap either and doesn't have the power of a console.
A PC to have equivalent power is expensive, certainly more expensive than a console.
Cloud streaming is not yet the equivalent of a local gaming yet.

So I'm confused on this idea that just because they advertise that xbox is playable on all these other modalities, that suddenly the xbox console market will be left behind.

Thats actually the most difficult part in all this. Well I think they are hoping their universal SDK which has caused some issues with devs wont be have major problems moving forward. But I agree, a baseline system with a proper devkit for developing games would probably be the best thing. Not sure MS thinks the hardware they make specifically for a home console will need to sell in the millions. I think with Xbox hardware now being managed by Surface team, the aim could be to have it in a similarly niche position as Surface is to the PC ecosystem. I think you're just pointing out the obvious cons but the advertisements are essentially telling the public you dont have to buy an Xbox from us to experience Xbox. And the implication from that is they dont intend on having Xbox hardware they develop in house play as large a role in the Xbox experience as they move forward.

 

[iroboto]

Well the advertisements do include cheap PCs as examples of an "Xbox". I see your argument though. But maybe these advertisements are nudging/telling those 30m plus Gamepass subscribers to move to other hardware systems?? Not get too attached to boxes that MS Gaming may be ready to end producing? I hate to be that guy but the writing is on the wall imho. I'd love to be proven wrong though.



Thats actually the most difficult part in all this. Well I think they are hoping their universal SDK which has caused some issues with devs wont be have major problems moving forward. But I agree, a baseline system with a proper devkit for developing games would probably be the best thing. Not sure MS thinks the hardware they make specifically for a home console will need to sell in the millions. I think with Xbox hardware now being managed by Surface team, the aim could be to have it in a similarly niche position as Surface is to the PC ecosystem. I think you're just pointing out the obvious cons but the advertisements are essentially telling the public you dont have to buy an Xbox from us to experience Xbox. And the implication from that is they dont intend on having Xbox hardware they develop in house play as large a role in the Xbox experience as they move forward.

The advertising is for folks who don’t have ann Xbox already. That means they are trying to get some % of people to cross over into the Xbox ecosystem with as little friction as possible. The console is a massive friction point and the only people buying a console generally means they are already invested into what is being offered.

What is the likelihood that someone who is fully vested into PlayStation will buy into Xbox games if they had to buy a Console? What if they already have a PC and a mobile device? Very cheap bar to entry. Get them to try it and let them determine if they want to go further and get a better experience.

The key is to get people to engage with Xbox. That is the challenge they are trying to solve.

 

[QPlayer]

Well the advertisements do include cheap PCs as examples of an "Xbox". I see your argument though. But maybe these advertisements are nudging/telling those 30m plus Gamepass subscribers to move to other hardware systems?? Not get too attached to boxes that MS Gaming may be ready to end producing? I hate to be that guy but the writing is on the wall imho. I'd love to be proven wrong though.



Thats actually the most difficult part in all this. Well I think they are hoping their universal SDK which has caused some issues with devs wont be have major problems moving forward. But I agree, a baseline system with a proper devkit for developing games would probably be the best thing. Not sure MS thinks the hardware they make specifically for a home console will need to sell in the millions. I think with Xbox hardware now being managed by Surface team, the aim could be to have it in a similarly niche position as Surface is to the PC ecosystem. I think you're just pointing out the obvious cons but the advertisements are essentially telling the public you dont have to buy an Xbox from us to experience Xbox. And the implication from that is they dont intend on having Xbox hardware they develop in house play as large a role in the Xbox experience as they move forward.

What makes me a supporter of the Xbox console is the simple greatness, convenience and gamepass provided by the console, the fact is that I also like MS games.

However, if they give me all the convenience and quality gaming experience in the Gamepass subscription system so that I have to buy an XboxPC, I'm fine with it. Actually, it wouldn't bother me if there was only one game version in the future, that is, the PC version of the games would run on the next Xbox console. I say, if all of this is paired with a gaming experience similar to the one I have now, I'll buy it.

I used to have a theory that it would always hold up. If a sufficient quantity and quality of games were made exclusive again, it would be a success. An example: imagine the debut of the next Xbox console with the following exclusive games, Elder Scrolls 6, Forza Horizon 6, Quake next gen, Gears of War, Spyro, they own AAA GTA clone. All of these were released exclusively for the console at launch and only a year later for PC. I'm sure those titles would make that console like candy. Then to continue the one-year exclusive strategy with similarly big titles every year. They have the development capacity for it. In fact, the formula would be that simple, people would simply not be able to resist such an offer.

But the management does not have enough confidence to do so. However, they would have nothing to lose, in fact, it would be the best way to multiply Gamepass subscriptions for a new console. Who would be a fool to avoid this? Seeing the aforementioned game titles, which you can get all at once, packaged in an affordable box for an $18 subscription, you'd be well on your way to becoming part of the subscription system.

 

[Cappuccino]

Why would someone want to buy offical Xbox hardware if they can get the experience anywhere else.

Because it's not the same experience anywhere else. I would (and do, check my post history lol) that PC isn't that hard to work and most gamers could probably figure it out, but Xbox still provides a console experience you won't find on PC or any handheld (save for maybe Steam Deck but even then not really). Really good example of this: try using a PC or handheld as a way to watch videos and movies without spending all day reading guides on the home theater PC subreddit lol.

n example: imagine the debut of the next Xbox console with the following exclusive games, Elder Scrolls 6, Forza Horizon 6, Quake next gen, Gears of War, Spyro, they own AAA GTA clone.

My problem with this is these are all washed up has-been franchises from has-been developers. I'm sorry, and this might be overly harsh, but ES6 is going to be dampened by how bad Starfield was, FH6 will be damped by how every new title in that franchise is a location reskin of the old, Quake is good but isn't going to sell consoles (alas, this has always been a more PC oriented franchise), GoW hasn't been relevant for years (same for Halo although you didn't mention it), I can't even remember the last time I thought about a Spyro game. A new franchise would be nice but if its a generic 'GTA clone' nobody is going to play it over the real GTA6/Online.

 

[Karamazov]

can you play MSFS2024 via xcloud ?