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.