Xbox Business Update Podcast | Xbox Everywhere Direction Discussion

[Dominik D]

I think I addressed most of your points here in the parts of my comment you ignored.

Excluding Nintendo is fallacious. But even if you let yourself do that, it doesn't explain how Valve destroyed MS in a market in which MS does not participate in - which is what I responded to. You shifted discussion to what success is (why?) and how Nintendo is in a different league.

If the claim is that MS should have some mobile offering then, yeah, maybe. But not only is it a different discussion altogether, this claim only makes sense if you exclude Surface which sells $billions worth of products every year. I stand by what I said: you're shifting discussion from what I responded to onto something that can be defended (but it's not what I argued against). So no, you didn't address the core of the issue in the part of the comment I ignored because it didn't address what I was responding to.

 

[see colon]

You're shifting the goalpost. The claim was that Microsoft, company not in mobile market, lost to Valve - company that was outsold by Nintendo 90:1. No matter how you slice it, it was a bizarre claim and no amount of weaseling to exclude Nintendo changes that. It's some new brand of absurdity, in the same league as Switch2 obviously losing to Sony handheld that doesn't currently exist.

Did Microsoft lose to Valve, though? Do we know how the recent Windows handhelds sold? And when do we start counting? GPD has been selling a windows handheld for over 10 years, right? And there are others as well.

I'm not contesting that Steam Deck hasn't captured the mindset, but much like iPhone vs Android, iOS has the mindshare, but Android has a much larger installed base with a much wider variety of devices.

 

[Cyan]

Microsoft led the video game industry in December, with PlayStation as an unexpected ally, it's been a successful month for Redmond, driven by Call of Duty and the new multiplatform strategy

Microsoft was the No.1 games publisher in the world last month | VGC

Nearly $0.5bn was spent on Xbox games across Steam, PlayStation and Xbox in December…

www.videogameschronicle.com

 

[iroboto]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1884735559953768661

140M streaming hours per quarter on Xbox is massive. If they maintain this. That’s a lot of people playing.

 

[Cyan]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1884735559953768661

140M streaming hours per quarter on Xbox is massive. If they maintain this. That’s a lot of people playing.

really happy that PC Gamepass is growing! The games' library is getting better and better by the day, and you can also buy the games if you want to keep them whether you use the service or not.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1884735559953768661

140M streaming hours per quarter on Xbox is massive. If they maintain this. That’s a lot of people playing.

Well, do we know? That could be 70M people streaming 2 hours/quarter, or 1.4M streaming 100 hours/quarter. Depending on where one sets 'a lot', it probably is, but we've no idea of actual numbers here. The increase in PC subscriber base is definitely good, and shows the transition. Perhaps that came with a decrease in XB subscribers as players migrate? It's a pretty opaque statement in the end.

 

[cheapchips]

Well, do we know? That could be 70M people streaming 2 hours/quarter, or 1.4M streaming 100 hours/quarter. Depending on where one sets 'a lot', it probably is, but we've no idea of actual numbers here. The increase in PC subscriber base is definitely good, and shows the transition. Perhaps that came with a decrease in XB subscribers as players migrate? It's a pretty opaque statement in the end.

I tried to see if I could find something on Steam to compare to, however imperfect. The top 10 game on there will pull 2-25 million hours a day. GTA5 would be 200000 daily players playing for around 3m hours, to randomly pick one.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

More on the report:

Xbox hardware sales slump, but Game Pass is surging

Microsoft has announced mixed results for its latest financial quarter, with strong growth for Game Pass offset by the …

www.eurogamer.net

Overall, revenue for Microsoft's gaming division was down seven percent year-on-year for the three months ending 31st December 2024, with a 29 percent drop in Xbox console sales largely to blame.

But the quarter also saw a significant boost to Game Pass, which ... saw a significant uptick to its subscribers on PC. It's clear that Game Pass subscriptions will have been boosted by Call of Duty: Black Ops 6's launch in October.

Overall revenue's down. Subs up thanks to COD. Again, we're kinda waiting on a year to see how ABK and GP are shaping up post acquisition. Clearly we see content can drive subs, but that's not increasing revenue at this point. Although profits are more important; who cares if revenue is down 80% selling lossy hardware if profits are up 80% selling high-margin subscriptions?

 

[iroboto]

Well, do we know? That could be 70M people streaming 2 hours/quarter, or 1.4M streaming 100 hours/quarter. Depending on where one sets 'a lot', it probably is, but we've no idea of actual numbers here. The increase in PC subscriber base is definitely good, and shows the transition. Perhaps that came with a decrease in XB subscribers as players migrate? It's a pretty opaque statement in the end.

It’s about 1M people streaming 1Hr a day. Honestly it may not seem large, but that’s pretty big. It’s about 1/2 the peak of Google stadia without it actually being a real service.

It has a long way to go though. You can see why MS will not stop hardware, there would need to be at least 50M users streaming per month before they decide to call
Hardware quits.

 

[Cynicalking]

Forza Horizon 5 coming to PS5

https://twitter.com/x/status/1885027379099095379

 

[Cyan]

Forza Horizon 5 coming to PS5

https://twitter.com/x/status/1885027379099095379

my 5 y.o. and 7 y.o. nephews love this game. One of the best MS games btw.

 

[Cyan]

The Xbox concept was to get Windows into the living room. They might actually succeed with full Windows on the next iteration of hardware.

that was a revolutionary idea, it still is today, MS is thinking better imho, and different now. They then returned to the traditional ways but...what a hell of an idea it was, same if they continued with Windows Phone...

Thinking about that and OEM models, being Intel and Dell my fetish companies... it'd be quite ironic if Dell had ended up making the Xbox.

When news leaked in 1999 that Microsoft was developing a gaming console, many assumed it would follow an OEM model, with Dell already involved in production alongside AMD. In fact, rumors circulated that Dell and AMD were on the verge of signing an agreement that would have allocated 60% of all AMD CPUs made for the original Xbox to Dell.

 

[rntongo]

Forza Horizon 5 coming to PS5

https://twitter.com/x/status/1885027379099095379

I called it! Xbox and MS Gaming can make a lot more money this way at least in the short term. So expect Fable, the next Oblivion, Halo to be going onto Playstation. Third party strategy seems to already be paying off and making their games available on as many platforms as possible gives them more revenue. They may be even able to create another console if they keep at it like this. But they would have to do it quite well otherwise Playstation will become the defacto preferred development platform for even MS games

 

[Cyan]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1885392457115820404

 

[rntongo]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1885392457115820404

Good short term strategy to squeeze more money out of their IPs. Its honestly smart.

 

[Cyan]

Good short term strategy to squeeze more money out of their IPs. Its honestly smart.

it is. Hopefully, they will do more than that, and take all the advantages of -windows- PC to create something new.

On PC the concept of generations is diluted. You can play Indy on PC Gamepass, or Wukong, but you can also play Half Life 2, which is 20 something years old, Portal 1 and 2, Mafia II, Skyrim, etc etc. New and old games are competing, and ironically enough, old games win in popularity (there are much more simultaneous players on Half Life 2 than most AAAs today).

One can play a masterpiece on Steam each month until one dies because of the INFINITE backlog of games on Steam.

Hope that when Sarah Bond mentioned the concept of preservation she was talking about something like that.

 

[tuna]

I want The Master Chief collection! Just do it MS!

 

[mr magoo]

I want The Master Chief collection! Just do it MS!

Its coming!

 

[QPlayer]

Well, actually, Xbox owners are also doing well with this cross-platform deal. The popularity of Xbox games will continue to grow, and same time the increasingly rich Game Pass will represent a real attractive value on Xbox and PC platforms.

Smart Microsoft, very smart!

 

[QPlayer]

I read an interesting thing on another forum where someone brought up the topic of whether you will be able to play GTA6 on PC when the game is released on consoles. And here something was discussed that few people have yet understood. MS plans to stream all purchased games. If the game will be streamed on PC via Game Pass when it debuts on the console, then this is a huge business win for Microsoft and their subscription service.