Xbox Business Update Podcast | Xbox Everywhere Direction Discussion

[iroboto]

It's not looking for failure. It's only failure if you have a desired objective. What's being looked for, certainly from me (I appreciate some persons may be looking for evidence of their own narrative), is understanding. If change is happening, I'm neither labelling it good or bad. However, I want to see what and how the change is happening. We might see MS 'Xbox' revenue increase 5% per year every year for 20 years, but that's a different story to what's happening with the XBox console which might reduce 20% year on year...and first we'd know about it is no more consoles, I guess.

The main issue here really is MS constantly evolving how they communicate with shareholders. Sony is very old school, breaks down the numbers, and they are pretty open about what's going on with their businesses as a result. Because MS doesn't have these direct breakdowns we're often left reading between the lines. In this particular news, at least we've been thrown an 8% bone! But we can't interpret that in terms of units sales or subs as it includes the GP price changes.

Yea I respect everyone is looking for their own reasons.

GP price changes are only affecting new subs right. Anyone on grandfathered plans keep their price.

Lumping everything together looks certainly better, a good way of hiding things. But at the same time, if the business continues to grow quarter over quarter, that is probably an even more positive sign that they made the right moves.

MS is going to be very careful about releasing subscription revenue. They don’t want competition, they don’t want their competitors to gain the same learnings as them without paying the price to learn it.

 

[mr magoo]

I heard interesting quote that Microsoft is trying to sell idea that you can play Xbox games anywhere. And people are doing it, they playing anywhere but not on Xbox.
I understand that this statement is hyperbolic but it’s gonna be interesting to see how msft is planning to convince existing users to stay on Xbox and even how to attract new customers.

 

[see colon]

I heard interesting quote that Microsoft is trying to sell idea that you can play Xbox games anywhere. And people are doing it, they playing anywhere but not on Xbox.
I understand that this statement is hyperbolic but it’s gonna be interesting to see how msft is planning to convince existing users to stay on Xbox and even how to attract new customers.

Have you tried cloud gaming? You might want to play that on your Xbox instead.

I'm only half kidding. I think the motivating factor to stay on Xbox is the integration of services. Your friends list, parties, cloud saves, game library.... These things are sharded across PC/Xbox Consoles and Cloud, and some other platforms as well. Minecraft Bedrock uses Xbox friends lists on Switch and mobile, for example. Geforce Now supports streaming of some games purchased from Windows Store, and most (all?) of them were games that once appeared on PC Gamepass and often use Xbox services. Xbox Games Studio games on Steam require an Xbox login as well, and use Xbox services for matchmaking/cloud saves/voice chat/friends. Microsoft is trying to build a bunch of pathways to their services, that's their endgame.

 

[mr magoo]

Have you tried cloud gaming? You might want to play that on your Xbox instead.

I'm only half kidding. I think the motivating factor to stay on Xbox is the integration of services. Your friends list, parties, cloud saves, game library.... These things are sharded across PC/Xbox Consoles and Cloud, and some other platforms as well. Minecraft Bedrock uses Xbox friends lists on Switch and mobile, for example. Geforce Now supports streaming of some games purchased from Windows Store, and most (all?) of them were games that once appeared on PC Gamepass and often use Xbox services. Xbox Games Studio games on Steam require an Xbox login as well, and use Xbox services for matchmaking/cloud saves/voice chat/friends. Microsoft is trying to build a bunch of pathways to their services, that's their endgame.

since i dont have any friends on my xbox i often overlook social aspect of this. Thanks for reminding me

 

[Cyan]

It's already announced for the Legion Go S, they are producing two version of that handheld. One with Windows and one with SteamOS, the SteamOS version is a hundred dollars cheaper and will likely perform way better. It's also been implied that a device agnostic vertsion will be available this year for other handhelds.

It seems that Valve are already, sepecifically, working on Rog Ally compatability (which will be amazing - Windows is the cause of nearly all the issues handhelds have - battery life, game performance etc). If they pull this off, and I have no reason to think they won't, then SteamOS will be a very viable alternative to Windows for Gamers - if their sole reason for having a PC is to play games then Windows becomes the worst option for that. Even if you do need access to other appliactions then SteamOS is a full linux OS under the hood so you still have a desktop and productivity tools available.

Windows has never been a good gaming OS, too much bloat, too much overhead etc. though if I remember 2000 was OK but that was only because the underlying code was bought when they purchased NT.

There's quite a good article here

I disagree on that Windows is the worst OS for gaming. It's the best. Native gaming, HDR, etc etc. But you are right on the bloatware thing and lack of optimisation, which games need.

 

[Cyan]

Is SteamOS spreading anywhere other than SteamDeck? Is there even a roadmap and intention from Valve to do that?

it will be on desktop soon too! That's a huge threat for Windows. I've watched a youtuber who has a RoG Ally X installing SteamOS on it and the title of the video was: "Hi Linux, goodbye Windows". And there were people saying that many of them were waiting for the desktop version of SteamOS to say goodbye to Windows --not the best idea.

But yeah, even a MS fan like me would be curious about Steam OS desktop. I just hope that MS creates a Windows version tailored for gaming on any device, that would be huge.

 

[Seanspeed]

What other parts, though? They bought most of those other parts as well, so if we are going to disregard all of the studios/IP they purchased then the company is... Well I don't even know what Xbox is. The only modern franchise I can think of that Xbox has built from the ground up is Forza. Their other franchises (Halo, Gears, COD, Crash), they're all acquired. So where do we draw this line and say "this is how they are really doing".

The criteria that it has to be built from the ground up is a bit needlessly strict. Halo and Gears weren't massively successful games beforehand, and Microsoft actually took a chance and invested in these because they wanted to bring people good, unique content for their platform. The situation isn't remotely comparable to them buying up Bethesda and certainly not Activision.

Cultivation I think is the important distinction. Xbox/Playstation/Nintendo dont need to necessarily have to build everything from the ground up in house from Day 1 in order to be perceived as part of their home grown success. But the Activision purchase especially had nothing to do with cultivating anything whatsoever. It was purely to help their financials look better. That's it. Gamers didn't benefit, we're not getting great new games we otherwise wouldn't, we're not getting more refined or polished games because the studios just never had many resources before or anything like that.

From a gamer perspective, these things are pretty clearly different and that's where people make these distinctions from. So no, I dont think such a line is that hard to define. In fact, I think simply excluding Activision on its own would be enough for people to get the more clear picture they'd like to see.

 

[see colon]

But the Activision purchase especially had nothing to do with cultivating anything whatsoever.

It was about cultivating money.