Xbox Business Update Podcast | Xbox Everywhere Direction Discussion

[Cappuccino]

You better not put more milk in coffee. because it seems to give you diarrhea...

Literally 100% of your posts on here is hyping up Microsoft lol.

Let me put it this way: if MS made good games still, they wouldn’t have to give them away in a $5/$10 a month subscription.

 

[Dominik D]

Let me put it this way: if MS made good games still, they wouldn’t have to give them away in a $5/$10 a month subscription.

Cart before the horse. Games were in pass day one long before the quality (and quantity) decline.

 

[Cappuccino]

Cart before the horse. Games were in pass day one long before the quality (and quantity) decline.

Xbox quality has been in decline since Halo 4 lol. Game Pass was MS' answer to Xbox's declining relevance, both as a console and as a publisher.

 

[see colon]

My point is: I haven’t seen much homegrown MS first party success, they just buy the competition basically. And most of these games will go on sale because they don’t sell very well outside of Blops and maybe Flight Sim.

Again, are we talking about sales, or good games? What is the criteria we are talking about here, as it seams to have changes since your initial comment about Blops being the only "good game" Microsoft released last year. Now we have to disregard Flight Sim because there was a previous game in the series? If it's sales, again, 4 of the top 10 games were EA releases, and 4 of them are sports titles that could be described as DLC for last years game, as you describe Flight Sim. The fifth title, College Football 25, is only not a yearly sports title because of the NCAA rules that were in flux for the last 10 years preventing anyone from making a game. But they sold well. And that's what matters, right?

And homegrown success? What does that even mean? PS5's stand out titles have been largely made by Insomniac. Their output could be described as "Iterative licensed super hero titles and mascot action games". Sony purchased that studio the year before PS5 released, 5 years after Microsoft bought Mojang, and a year before Bethesda. When does a purchased studio become first party in your eyes? This might blow your mind, but Madden, College Football, and PGA Tour (not a top 10 seller) are made buy EA Orlando. Who used to be called Tiburon... Before EA bought them. When do they get to be a "real" EA studio? When do any of the studios purchased get to have their success be counted by their parent company? And does the money they make selling their games have to be withheld until whatever criteria is fulfilled to become "in house" in your eyes? Because I'm pretty sure Microsoft is tabulating Activision's earning on their balance sheets already. Unless it isn't about sales, and therefore money.

Let me put it this way: if MS made good games still, they wouldn’t have to give them away in a $5/$10 a month subscription.

They aren't giving them away. They are including them in a subscription service on their platform and selling them for $70 on Playstation. Black Ops 6 was the best selling game last year, despite it's inclusion on Gamepass. It's inclusion on Gamepass doesn't seam to have effected it's sales negatively. Lets be honest here, with Xbox's installed base they weren't ever going to sell that many copies there anyway. Onboarding people to a reoccurring subscription on one platform while selling it on another both allows you to have a direct value comparison with your competition (It's free* on Xbox, $70 on PS5), while also making money by selling the game. In fact, selling the more copies of the game than any other game last year.

Oh, wait. You said "good games" again. Is this not about sales, but quality? Or do you assume some sort of correlation. Because if you think every "good game" is going to sell sell, I would encourage you to look at Titanfall 2.

his one really surprised me tbh.

I'm not surprised. Age of Empires has been on everything from Android, Mac, Nintendo DS and Nokia nGage. It isn't even the first time the series has been on a Sony platform. Age of Empires 2 had a release on PS2 in PAL regions and Japan, but never had a release on Xbox back then.

 

[Dominik D]

Xbox quality has been in decline since Halo 4 lol.

Why stop there? The last good MS game was Flight Simulator in 1982.

 

[Cappuccino]

Again, are we talking about sales, or good games? What is the criteria we are talking about here, as it seams to have changes since your initial comment about Blops being the only "good game" Microsoft released last year.

Both, but more the latter. Good games generally sell well, there are exceptions of course but this is generally true. Blops is a good game that sold well. Hellblade 2 seems to have reviewed well but idk, I think most will forget about it in 6 months. The first game played mostly like a tech demo and I didn't finish it.

Now we have to disregard Flight Sim because there was a previous game in the series?

No? We disregard it because it doesn't do much different from it's predecessor. Flight sim is a lot closer to NBA 2k than it is to a genuine sequel, the improvements it makes on FS2020 make it more of a DLC and less of a full fledged game. In fact, many people in the flight sim community were confused as to why it's a new game entirely and not just a DLC for 2020.

And homegrown success? What does that even mean? PS5's stand out titles have been largely made by Insomniac.

I think it's fair self explanatory: did the parent company have any hand in the game's development. For the early Insomniac games probably not, I'd agree that's not really homegrown. Meanwhile most of Naughty Dog's biggest franchises were created years after Sony bought them, I would call that homegrown success. I would say the new Doom is homegrown, as it was probably almost entirely developed post-acquisition.

What I am saying is I'm not going to attribute the continued massive success of CoD to Microsoft because they bought Activision lol. They did fuck all to make it successful and tbh MW3 and Blops6 were probably mostly developed pre-acquision (and certainly pre-integration).

In fact, looking at history, generally MS' biggest successes (Halo) were in *spite* of it's management, not because of it. Bungie was in turmoil for almost every Halo development cycle, and they hated being owned by them so much they broke it off basically as soon as they were contractually able to. When MS set up a successor studio to continue their franchise/prop up the corpse, every game they made sucked and the franchise lost all cultural relevance. This was prob Microsoft's biggest chance at creating some homegrown success and they fucked it up royally.

Because if you think every "good game" is going to sell sell, I would encourage you to look at Titanfall 2.

Obviously not every good game sells well, but most do. Those that don't are the exceptions that prove the rule, considering TF|2 launched alongside BF1 and COD:AW it's low sales had little to do with the game. That said... TF|2 still has a pretty sizable community, it is very easy to find matches and you hear about it from time to time. Does anyone still play MS multiplayer games released at that time (notably, Halo 5)?

Let's do a thought experiment: if MS bought Sony, would we retroactively say MS won the console war because they own PlayStation now and PlayStation won?

 

[Cappuccino]

Why stop there? The last good MS game was Flight Simulator in 1982.

Microsoft's best games were from the 360 era imo. Halo 3, Gears, early Forza. Very good era for MS.

 

[Cyan]

Xbox quality has been in decline since Halo 4 lol

do you include Halo 4 or exclude it? Just curious....

Anyways, I am finally beating Halo Infinite campaign and I'd recommend you to give it a try if you can. It's a very underrated game imho. The campaign is fun, the sound is top notch, and the graphics are really well made

 

[Cyan]

so it turns out that Age of Empires 2 had a Playstation 2 version.

That being said, I hope AoE and AoM is going to let players use a mouse and keyboard on the PS5.

The Switch 2 port could be excellent in that sense, since it can be used like a mouse.

 

[see colon]

Bungie was in turmoil for almost every Halo development cycle

Bungie has never not been in turmoil. As we speak right now. Turmoil.

Obviously not every good game sells well, but most do. Those that don't are the exceptions that prove the rule, considering TF|2 launched alongside BF1 and COD:AW it's low sales had little to do with the game. That said... TF|2 still has a pretty sizable community, it is very easy to find matches and you hear about it from time to time.

Titanfall 2 is free* on gamepass.

Microsoft's best games were from the 360 era imo. Halo 3, Gears, early Forza. Very good era for MS.

They bought Halo and Gears. Those shouldn't count.

 

[Cappuccino]

do you include Halo 4 or exclude it? Just curious....

I think Halo 4 was a pretty bad game. Okay campaign (super melodramatic imo) and bad MP.

Anyways, I am finally beating Halo Infinite campaign and I'd recommend you to give it a try if you can. It's a very underrated game imho. The campaign is fun, the sound is top notch, and the graphics are really well made

I bought Halo Infinite on release and beat it then. I think it is rated appropriately, the MP was very flawed and the campaign made no sense.

Bungie has never not been in turmoil. As we speak right now. Turmoil.

Sure. And a good parent company tries to ensure their largest and most important first party developer isn't in turmoil. MS didn't accomplish this.

Titanfall 2 is free* on gamepass.

The game has gone on sale for -90% multiple times. Gamepass has nothing to do with it lol.

They bought Halo and Gears. Those shouldn't count.

Do you think MS had the same level of involvement on, say, Halo 3, as they did on MW3 or Blops 6?

 

[Cyan]

I bought Halo Infinite on release and beat it then. I think it is rated appropriately, the MP was very flawed and the campaign made no sense.

do you mean because of the story? I still haven't got that far, beat Tremonius and the elite guy. I like the campaign's story, far from the drama of Halo 4 -haven't played Halo 5- although I liked Halo 4.

But more importantly is that it has fun environments and battles. The open world..., hmmmm, I don't care, but where is action, it's fun, at least for me.

My issue with the campaign is how they handle the checkpoints. I lost most of my progress in certain missions 'cos of how they are handled. Fortunately, this didn't happen as of late, but it can be disheartening to start a mission from scratch when you almost had beaten it.

 

[Cappuccino]

do you mean because of the story? I still haven't got that far, beat Tremonius and the elite guy. I like the campaign's story, far from the drama of Halo 4 -haven't played Halo 5- although I liked Halo 4.

But more importantly is that it has fun environments and battles. The open world..., hmmmm, I don't care, but where is action, it's fun, at least for me.

My issue with the campaign is how they handle the checkpoints. I lost most of my progress in certain missions 'cos of how they are handled. Fortunately, this didn't happen as of late, but it can be disheartening to start a mission from scratch when you almost had beaten it.

Story is a big issue yeah. Halo has basically been treading water since Reach, every new game is a reboot essentially. They basically abandoned the story they started in 4, made a new one in 5, abandoned that too, now in Infinite it's completely different and they followed it up with nothing (no campaign DLC and no new announced game 3 years later).

The best part of old Halos was the environmental variety. Every mission felt distinct and was in a different setting. All of Halo Infinite takes place in the same 4 spots in the same geographical location, it feels incredibly small and samey.

It's very obvious to me that 343i (now Halo Studios lol) has no idea what makes Halo stories good so I'd respect them more if they just went full bore on the multiplayer.

I don't usually care about graphics that much but the graphics in Infinite were also really bad, the blurriest TAA I've ever seen. Halo 5 looked better imo, way sharper with MSAA.

 

[rntongo]

with this..., the console wars has ended.

They were telling us ("I called it" like @rntongo would say xD ), it's not new, especially when Phil talked about the red lines. Now it's news as if when someone says that the water makes you wet.

If this happened 6 years ago the world would explode, but now.... I wonder what @eastmen or @Johnny Awesome think about this,

Next up, Gran Turismo on the Xbox.

lmao this is probably the 3rd time I'm saying it but yes I called it. Whatever happens MS Gaming is in good hands, Xbox may or may not survive though. Sony's playstation business is also going to get a huge boost going into the next gen and MS Gaming is going to make money hand over fist by having their titles available on multiple platforms. Its going to be interesting times. One serious threat to MS Gaming's hw business or Gamepass is going to be Steam though.

Next up, Gran Turismo on the Xbox.

I dont think its in Sony's interest to move their titles to Xbox at all considering the issues with that platform, otherwise any PS5 game could run easily on the Series X and likely even better considering the Series X has better hw. But with 1st party Sony titles having them as timed exclusives on their hw is better, after a year or 2 or 3 an exclusive can appear on PC. Gran Turismo on PC could happen but I dont see it happening any time soon. Especially with the coming boost in 2028 and 2029 as people transition to Playstation, Steam and PC away from Xbox

 

[Cyan]

One serious threat to MS Gaming's hw business or Gamepass is going to be Steam though.

Steam is impossible to beat. As much as I want to hate on Steam, and deep down I prefer GoG -or I truly want to-, there's nothing quite like it. It's the whole experience, their community, workshop, the interface is superb, the customer support,,, everything overall.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

with this..., the console wars has ended.

They were telling us ("I called it" like @rntongo would say xD ), it's not new, especially when Phil talked about the red lines. Now it's news as if when someone says that the water makes you wet.

If this happened 6 years ago the world would explode, but now.... I wonder what @eastmen or @Johnny Awesome think about this,

Next up, Gran Turismo on the Xbox.

I was finally getting caught up on this thread when I saw that my name was being invoked.

I'm fine with it as long as there is a new Xbox worthy of buying at some point. I'll go PC if there isn't.

I'm fine with PS users paying for my GP games.

I'm glad that I only had to pay $180 to play Hellblade 2, FS 2024, Indiana Jones, COD BO6, Ninja Gaiden 2 Black, Avowed, South of Midnight and Doom DA - (12 month period) + other games I won't bother mentioning.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

To elaborate, now that I have time...

I think fundamentally Xbox under Phil's direction is trying to change the value proposition of an Xbox console.

From: A closed system with exclusives you can't get anywhere else
To: A GP delivery mechanism with great services and play anywhere and access to your old games library, but without exclusives as most Xbox games will just be cheaper to play on Xbox/PC via GP, but purchasable on PS as well.

I get that some people think that this isn't enough to drive/keep people on Xbox. It's a valid argument.

But you can count me in the camp that think it's possible as long as the new hardware they bring out is competitive with whatever Sony does.

It would also help if big Xbox releases had a 3 month+ exclusivity window on GP. Long enough for the hype to still be there, but still throwing a bone to people who actually have GP. Indiana Jones is perfect IMO. December on GP. Spring on PS5. By the time it ships on PS most hardcore Xbox people will have completed it, but it's still not old news. It's a sweet spot.

All the Xbox fans I know are grumbling about titles going to PS, but they all want a new Xbox so they can keep getting games via GP for cheap and keep access to the ecosystem they've been enjoying for decades.

I think MS can continue to sell 40+ million consoles every generation and expand GP on PC and make a killing on PS/Steam/Switch as well. Future is bright IMO.

Look at the GP lineup this year. It's ridiculous:

Ninja Gaiden 2 Remastered
Avowed
South of Midnight
Clair Obscur 33
Doom DA
Ninja Gaiden 4
Towerborne
Outer Worlds 2
Call of Duty 2025

+ other rumored stuff I won't bother getting into

MS is soon going to be publishing more 1st party titles on PS than Sony will. LOL

 

[QPlayer]

Meanwhile, according to the aggregated bestseller data of the amazon store, the Xbox Series X is currently ahead of the Playstation.

The SX 1TB with disk drive is available again. Interesting.

 

[egoless]

This is in general addressed to the thread. I just quoted your post.

I get that some people think that this isn't enough to drive/keep people on Xbox. It's a valid argument.

But you can count me in the camp that think it's possible as long as the new hardware they bring out is competitive with whatever Sony does.

Competitive how? History shows power, usp (unique selling point), games means nothing for Microsoft. Nobody exploits what's unique about an Xbox. Sony has the mindshare, install base and overall clout to continue dominating.

It would also help if big Xbox releases had a 3 month+ exclusivity window on GP. Long enough for the hype to still be there, but still throwing a bone to people who actually have GP. Indiana Jones is perfect IMO. December on GP. Spring on PS5. By the time it ships on PS most hardcore Xbox people will have completed it, but it's still not old news. It's a sweet spot.

This is a barrier, and the touchy feely marketing is clearly against barriers. So how long before they get called out on this double standard and have to simultaneously release content.

Also, a delay doesn't work so well for story driven games. What's the point of playing the game if the story has been spoiled on social media?

All the Xbox fans I know are grumbling about titles going to PS, but they all want a new Xbox so they can keep getting games via GP for cheap and keep access to the ecosystem they've been enjoying for decades.

I've still yet to pay for gamepass since its inception, and pay for it using their own rewards points. Anybody can do this if they take the time. I've been a gamepass member since its inception. How am I and others like me a sustainable business model? I am talking about the Xbox console itself. As I've posted before, the cratering console sales don't seem to be accounted for in the push to make everything an Xbox, especially since currently the majority of game pass revenue comes from the Xbox console. Microsoft has a penchant for putting the cart before the horse.

The grumbling is because of history showing the trajectory. I know a user here was lambasted from pointing out the similarity to Sega a while back, but it indeed is very similar. It's a combination of Sega and 3DO's (and maybe steam machine) strategy. Sega got out of hw, 3DO is no more, and Steam is mainly sw (an app and SteamOS) but slowly re-entering hw (VR, steam deck). Now even Shawn Layden is making the Sega comparison, so does the claim still warrant the derision? Again, not directed at you, it's a general question. Now even Nintendo is stressing the importance of exclusives for Nintendo Switch 2 to make that hardware successful. Because why get a Switch 2 when everything runs on Switch 1, and Switch 2 just nets you higher resolution/framerate? Take Nintendo's stance, replace Switch 2 with the next Xbox console, and replace Switch 1 with PC/PS5/Switch1/TV/toaster....

What both former Sony and Nintendo are talking about is what the grumbling is about.

I think MS can continue to sell 40+ million consoles every generation and expand GP on PC and make a killing on PS/Steam/Switch as well. Future is bright IMO.

MS is soon going to be publishing more 1st party titles on PS than Sony will. LOL

Yes MS is making tons of money with their current plan, there's no dispute. Their largest Game Pass customer though is the Xbox console user. What happens when console dries up, as it's already doing by selling less than even Xbox One? Why would that PC user still using Game Pass for both console/PC bother when they can just get the same content on a Steam sale, or a SteamOS device? Seems like Microsoft would need the Game Pass app on everything to make that worthwhile for the user and still sustainable for their business. Which would then complete the pivot.

 

[rntongo]

Yes MS is making tons of money with their current plan, there's no dispute. Their largest Game Pass customer though is the Xbox console user. What happens when console dries up, as it's already doing by selling less than even Xbox One? Why would that PC user still using Game Pass for both console/PC bother when they can just get the same content on a Steam sale, or a SteamOS device? Seems like Microsoft would need the Game Pass app on everything to make that worthwhile for the user and still sustainable for their business. Which would then complete the pivot.

This is one thing I'm really looking at as well. Because the growth they've had recently was due to acquisitions (particularly Activision) which are going to now slow down. There will be pressure from investors to hit or exceed eps targets. The mismanaged console business wont drive growth in the next few years as console sales are declining for Xbox, and regulatory pressures will prevent them from more large scale acquisitions in the next 5 years. These conditions I think will push MS Gaming to focus on a multiplatform 3rd party developer approach at its core while telling its core fan base it still cares about Xbox. In the same way they initially told their core fan base they were just sending a few titles to Playstation before saying no red lines. Phil is carrying out a process of gradual socialization or acclimatizing the core fan base in case they need to kill their own hw. Its why you see the marketing campaign to make anything an Xbox, its simply because there is a chance they wont be making a new Xbox as we know it so they need to redefine what an Xbox is. If its something made by Lenovo, Valve, Nintendo, Playstation and it plays games made by Microsoft Gaming then its an Xbox.