At this point, it’s not even funny how Xbox consoles are performing outside the US. Seems like localization, marketing globally the Xbox consoles (just not its services) is not a priority anymore. Sorry, but this is just wrong, even with the Microsoft focus on cloud/PC. I think they dont even know if this is going to be the right call. Nobody really knows how the future is gonna be, technology is very unpredictable to already point out that the cloud is the near future. So Microsoft, give Xbox Series the importance they deserve.
All purpose Sales and Sales Rumours and Anecdotes [2023 Edition]
- Thread starter Dr. Nick
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Deleted member 11852
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I don't believe in Santa, I believe that market research is a method of feeding data into product and business decisions, but it's pretty damn limited. Like Shifty said above, if market resource where anything like reliable at predicting consumer desires and trends, every product would be a smash hit because of the market research. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
If market research is that good, why are Microsoft struggling to sell consoles? Do you think they have not been doing market research for the last twenty years?
I believe in Sony and Nintendo's market research.
Please explain Zune. Windows Phone. Stadia. Wii U. Virtual Boy. Sony AirBoard or AIBO. Apple Pippin. Why does any company lose many millions, even billions, on products when a bit of Market Research apparently will tell them exactly what money they can make where at what expenditure?
Your faith that a guy (and his Market Researchers) is infallible is equally astounding. Not sure how the position "nobody can really know anything" is arrogance either.
Plus no-one's saying he's wrong - only that a lack of marketing in Europe is what principally accounts for a lack of sales, and MS didn't pursue Europe with the same vigour it did other territories. The exception being XB360, which MS advertised and localised and which sold well, on a pretty even footing with the PS3. I guess the Market Research department told them XB360 was worth marketing but not to waste their dollars trying to sell it's successors...
Johnny Awesome
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I didn't say that Market Research was all-powerful, just that it is a tool that all of these big companies use. I just find it laughable that many of you think that somehow the idea of advertising more in Europe is something that Phil Spencer hasn't thought about until now. It's hilarious.
At lease 4 posters are engaged in bad faith straw man arguments against what I wrote. It's shameful. I never said MR was infallible. The position that "nobody can really know anything" is a lot more defeatist than anything MS is up to. LOL.
To get back to my actual point: The landscape is vastly different than when the X360 was out a year before the PS3 with a better GPU and easier to make games for. People here are often bringing in simplistic arguments like "MS advertised during the X360 era and therefore they are idiots for not blasting ads everywhere now." IMO Phil is actually right when he says that the Xbox One/PS4 was the generation that was critical. Everyone I talk to is pretty much of the opinion that PS5 and XSX are equal machines and why switch when their digital libraries are on their existing ecosystems. Xbox faces a big uphill battle, admittedly of their own making.
I've stated before that I wouldn't doubt if MS made the XSS to target 10 year old kids whose parents/grandparents aren't willing to spend $499 at Christmas, but might spend $250. Kids that aren't in an ecosystem yet. Because I agree that MR isn't infallible this might turn out to be a mistake, but we won't know that for a few years yet.
If a few years from now, a steady stream of games from 40 studios on GP on Day 1 with $250/$500 console options can't make Xbox succeed at least moderately well in Europe after some promotion, they may as well not bother.
At lease 4 posters are engaged in bad faith straw man arguments against what I wrote. It's shameful. I never said MR was infallible. The position that "nobody can really know anything" is a lot more defeatist than anything MS is up to. LOL.
To get back to my actual point: The landscape is vastly different than when the X360 was out a year before the PS3 with a better GPU and easier to make games for. People here are often bringing in simplistic arguments like "MS advertised during the X360 era and therefore they are idiots for not blasting ads everywhere now." IMO Phil is actually right when he says that the Xbox One/PS4 was the generation that was critical. Everyone I talk to is pretty much of the opinion that PS5 and XSX are equal machines and why switch when their digital libraries are on their existing ecosystems. Xbox faces a big uphill battle, admittedly of their own making.
I've stated before that I wouldn't doubt if MS made the XSS to target 10 year old kids whose parents/grandparents aren't willing to spend $499 at Christmas, but might spend $250. Kids that aren't in an ecosystem yet. Because I agree that MR isn't infallible this might turn out to be a mistake, but we won't know that for a few years yet.
If a few years from now, a steady stream of games from 40 studios on GP on Day 1 with $250/$500 console options can't make Xbox succeed at least moderately well in Europe after some promotion, they may as well not bother.
Again Xbox reduce marketing budget and european support. The Xbox division had more marketing budget for Xbox 360 and Xbox One.
Johnny Awesome
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Likely for a good reason that they know and you don't. 
I suppose Sony Playstation executives are very happy. Xbox Series is behind Xbox One and soon 360. And if it is like in USA where the decrease of Xbox Series Sales compared to Xbox One(around 2 millions) is comparable to the increase of PS5 sales compared to PS4(around 2 millions), it means more PS5 sold coming directly from the Xbox failure.Likely for a good reason that they know and you don't.
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Maybe when they have something to market, they may actually start marketing again.
I’m not saying they aren’t trying (they aren’t) , but without something to market it looks like a colossal waste of money. Consumers need a reason for why xbox over PlayStation, and if there isn’t one, there’s no point spending tons of money just for sake of getting the name out there
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I'm confused how that connects with what you said that started this.
You hope MS can improve XB's sales in Europe over the next few months. The response to that was without advertising, they can't. Your response to that is MS research tells them advertising would be a waste of money which is why they don't do it, and we're foolish to suggest advertising when MS have clearly weighed up the pros and cons and determined there's no point. So what is the strategy for growth in Europe if their market research has told Phil they can't get anywhere advertising? How do they turn around fortunes in Europe if telling people about the XBox option isn't the way to do it?
It doesn't serve them well either, not to have a frequent XB advertisement cycle or presence in those challenging (sales) geographical locations, especially if they expect potential future gamers to recognize their brand and gaming ecosystem more easily during the 10th generation. At the very least, Microsoft can pretend to show some type of positive corporate attitude or front that they care and haven't abandoned the XB brand completely in those locations, regardless of the current sales figures.
I dunno, maybe Microsoft's end goal is to phase out the XB hardware division if things don't turn around during the 10th generation and focus solely on their cloud gaming efforts (and possibly go full third-party support).
It's a massive losing battle for them, yes of course they can't get people if they don't advertise so how do they knoow if they don't try. However their competition is entrenched for 20+ years, it looks like for most generations NA+UK is about 75% of total Xbox sales by a very quick guesstimation meaning very little spread over remaining markets. Then with the Xbox One launch they shot themselves in the foot and soured a lot of people's opinions because it wasn't marketed at them, it was the US focused TV TV TV box.
Do you choose to spend potentially billions on advertising, hardware shipments etc over 10+ years and very possibly get very little back for it? How I imagine that conversation would go:
"Hey boss, I want to spend billions on advertising to broaden our reach in untapped markets!"
"Great, how long will it take to make our money back?"
"Make it back? Oh no there's a very good chance we're throwing it all away as they're all ikely to buy a Playstation instead like they have done the last couple of decades"
"....."
They don't want to spend billions to make millions so they're playing it safe and conceding. Nobody wants to risk their job for a losing battle, I get it, easier than answering shareholder questions of "why is this division losing billions" and potentially getting ousted because you're the one that signed off on it
We have it but like PS plus, there is only an interest from hardcore gamers not the casual gamer who buy 2/3 titles per year like COD, FIFA, NBA 2K or a GTA or play free to play like Fortnite, Apex Legends, Genshin Impact.
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It's a lost battle if you don't turn up to fight. As for having an entrenched competitor, this was Sony's situation when entering the market in the 1990s where Nintendo and SEGA had been entrenched for 20 years. Sony arrived on the scene, with zero videogame credentials and began a media and advertising blitzkrieg for PlayStation and they just kept that going for five console generations.
There are people growing up who will be gamers in the future and most of them in Europe will know PlayStation because they'll have been surrounded by PlayStation marketing for years.
Because advertising is proven to work. It is not a coincidence that companies behind the most successful brands are also those that advertise the most. Do you think Coca-Cola advertise because they think people do not know what cola is? It's because they want consumers who are thirsty and want a drink to think about buying a Coke before anything else.
Microsoft have brand recognition but most people will associate it with Windows and Office because that this software is endemic.
It's a mixed bag. Some countries have all GamePass options, but quite a lot have limited GamePass options, e.g Cyprus, Romania, and Ukraine only have basic PC GamePass. You can use the region drop-down on this Xbox support page to see what games services are offered in which regions. I am quite surprised Russia is showing as full services given most tech companies (Apple, Google, Nintendo, Sony, Valve) pulled out to comply with US sanctions on goods and services.
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Inuhanyou
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Believe it or not....Sony was only 6 years into the gaming industry officially when Microsoft jumped in
this "mega huge insurmountable head start" nonsense is silly. Especially because as others have said, nintendo and Sega actually were entrenched in the industry for decades already and Sony blew past both of them both due to their own mess ups and sonys smart thinking.Ms got an edge on Sony in the PS3 era and atleast put in an effort to market in a strong way, and even in Japan one of their historically worst ever markets, they got over 1 million consoles sold for their troubles. Practically unthinkable for the first console and every console afterward.
MS simply doesn't try and then blames others when they are in a bad position. This is exactly why I dont support their acquisition rhetorical nonsense. Their lack of competitive spirit didn't have anything to do with not being able to eat entire publishers with an easy cash payout. But because they refused to even put marketing in half the places their competition did to begin with, or appeal to those places.
And they still aren't which is why this is happening. Yeah their revenue through subs and other things is fine. But the console is the bedrock of that. Take the console sales away like have been happening and the ceiling becomes much lower for any potential growth.
I think if they had a library of games to showcase you’d see more marketing. Large scale marketing deployments with no change in the current product doesn’t seem like a good use of money. Game pass is probably doing a better job marketing Xbox, than Xbox marketing itself at this point in time.
But they need the games. Back in the day hardware mattered, we had exotic technologies that made significant differences between platforms so you could always market that all year around. But in the age of multiplatform engines, the engines are king, and that makes library the most important thing to market -they really needed Starfield and Forza to have a super critical response, and unfortunately they missed the mark.
I’m all for saying getting your name out there matters, but if you actually aren’t marketing anything better than your competitors it doesn’t really seem like a strong ROI.
People know Xbox exists. They are regularly at E3, game awards etc. they are a known brand globally in the console space. But they aren’t a very good global supplier, and they are still struggling with getting out marquee titles players would like play for the masses
Like Phil knew that Xbox Series was going to sell well, according to e-mails where he states “We are on a pretty good position”.Likely for a good reason that they know and you don't.
You can’t just assume that they are precisely right on their strategy. Also, we can’t assume what they think about this because we don’t have access to current internal discussions.
All we know is Xbox Series is performing badly. And I’m sure Microsoft does care about that.
Johnny Awesome
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I don't assume they are exactly right. They might be wrong, but it's not because they "forgot" to advertise.
If what Chris1515 says is true about no one caring about GP in EU then that's another reason for MS not to promote heavily there. GP is the linchpin of their strategy. They aren't going to make a big promotional pinch until they can make GP more appealing.
In the meantime they're probably hoping the affordability of the XSS will improve their fortunes at Christmas
If what Chris1515 says is true about no one caring about GP in EU then that's another reason for MS not to promote heavily there. GP is the linchpin of their strategy. They aren't going to make a big promotional pinch until they can make GP more appealing.
In the meantime they're probably hoping the affordability of the XSS will improve their fortunes at Christmas
The amount of advertising I see for PS5 in the US is probably triple what I see for the Xbox. It's anecdotal, but at least in my experience Sony has more marketing presence in the states. I suppose they'll be making a larger push for PC and cloud from here on out with gamepass because their growth will be limited if they continue half assing it like they are.
Still think a mobile Series S would do wonders for them. Or a mobile Series system that's a little more open that has an S profile for games
It's not all doom snd gloom. With steady releases they'll at least have the content flowing which is what matters the most. Couple that with hiring a new marketing firm and maybe some stsff changes at the head if Xbox could go a long way in turning things around. And the amount of exclusives they'll have fro. The Activision purchase should help them immensely.
Still think a mobile Series S would do wonders for them. Or a mobile Series system that's a little more open that has an S profile for games
It's not all doom snd gloom. With steady releases they'll at least have the content flowing which is what matters the most. Couple that with hiring a new marketing firm and maybe some stsff changes at the head if Xbox could go a long way in turning things around. And the amount of exclusives they'll have fro. The Activision purchase should help them immensely.
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