Xbox Business Update Podcast | Xbox Everywhere Direction Discussion

[iroboto]

One gripe: Halo didn’t ‘lose forever’ when CoD came on the scene, and Xbox certainly didn’t. CoD4 came out in 2007 alongside Halo 3 and both did extremely well. Halo Reach came out in 2010 and also did very well. The own goals started with 4, but that had nothing to do with CoD, it was Bungie going off and doing their own thing. Similarly, CoD entered into a pretty long period of stagnation shortly after, as most of the Xbone/PS4 era CoDs were not well received (starting with Ghosts and continuing throughout the ‘jet pack era’). They didn’t really come back into vogue until MW2019 at the tail end of the generation. Warzone would come out at this point, and that’s when they went battle royal (although obviously there’s still the traditional multiplayer too). This wasn’t their first BR mode btw, that would be Blackout in BO4, but the fact we all forgot about that is a testimony to how forgettable that era is (with a notable exception in BO3, which many consider to have the best zombies, and is one of the most popular entries on PC to this day partially due to zombies workshop map support).

In my mind, the issue isn't so much that CoD was this insanely better product. But at it's core, CoD has parallels with sports games, but instead of players, it's guns. Mil-Sim as a category is something that I think Halo lost to, not necessarily CoD if that makes sense. At one point in time it was going to be Battlefield, which is also another mil-sim. And I think the idea of what Halo is, the setting and style began to alienate it from success, not propel it forward.

Nearly all of our biggest GaaS fps titles are mil-sim. There are some exceptions, but none that operates in the 'arena' space like Halo does. I've noticed that every single time CoD or BF move away from modern mil-sim, the response is significantly worse. People love their guns, I guess it's not really all that different than playing racing games where your favourite cars are in it.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

4. Everything costs a hell of a lot more to make and produce, and that's for all industries and especially now for AAA titles.

Quoting myself from a generic observation in the Ubi thread:

I dont think $70 pricetags help, either.

Ironically, after that price increase in 2020 afters years of no price increase, world-wide inflation has dropped the value of that. So $60 in 2005 was worth about $80 in 2020, when the price was increased to $70; that $70 being worth ~$53 2005 dollars. Now, that inflation drops $70 now to worth $60 in 2020, nullifying the price increase, and $70 now is worth less than $45 2005 dollars! Games are far cheaper than they used to be and a direct inflation-matching price to 2005's $60 would see games need to be ~$100!!

I guess that shows the increasing need for sheer volume of sales, plus collectors editions to drive up average unit price. Not only have costs ballooned, by revenue per unit has plummeted. Gamers were paying the equivalent of up to $200 a game for SNES.

Games are at their lowest selling price since at least PS1 days in real terms. Devs mare making 25% less per unit sale in 2024 than they were in 2005.