Xbox Business Update Podcast | Xbox Everywhere Direction Discussion

What will Xbox do

  • Player owned digital libraries now on cloud

    Votes: 3 23.1%
  • Multiplatform all exclusives to all platforms

    Votes: 3 23.1%
  • Multiplatform only select exclusive titles

    Votes: 8 61.5%
  • Surface hardware strategy

    Votes: 2 15.4%
  • 3rd party hardware strategy

    Votes: 2 15.4%
  • Mobile hardware strategy

    Votes: 1 7.7%
  • Slim Revision hardware strategy

    Votes: 1 7.7%
  • This will be a nothing burger

    Votes: 4 30.8%
  • *new* Xbox Games for Mobile Strategy

    Votes: 2 15.4%
  • *new* Executive leadership changes (ie: named leaders moves/exits/retires)

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    13
  • Poll closed .
Remember all those usual cheerleaders during merge trials singing

" Think about those smaller teams, only under microsoft coffins they have a chance to prosper and be creative, let there be competition and more games for more people".

Just wait till they open their xbox pc for new stores and push new narrative : "hey console makers lets bring down the walls , race for the bottom will be good for everyone."
 
Remember all those usual cheerleaders during merge trials singing

" Think about those smaller teams, only under microsoft coffins they have a chance to prosper and be creative, let there be competition and more games for more people".

It had a chance of being the case. Gamepass's stalled growth puts a knife into that idea.
 
On these closures:

Some people here have ZERO understanding of how to run a business.

As usual, the devil's in the details. It's childish to look at devs=good and pubs (ie. MS)=bad. For all we know there are huge problems at those studios and the best people have been reallocated to better projects.

Is it a big surprise that Redfall studio is being shut down? Is it a surprise that Alpha Dog mobile is being shut down after MS acquired a huge mobile studio like King?

The other two studios are being absorbed into ES6 team, possibly because the mega success of the Fallout show means that team needs to start also working on Fallout 5.

Detail guys. We don't know anything, so it's silly for us to point the finger just because MS is consolidating. If there are problems at some of these studios MS would be irresponsible not to close things down, depending on how salvageable the situation is. I'm not going to tell you they are doing the right thing, because I don't know the details either.

All I know is that this year MS is putting out: Hellblade 2, Flight Sim 2024, Ara, Starfield: Shattered Space DLC, Sea of Thieves content, Halo content, CoD Black Ops, Avowed, and Indiana Jones which is an amazing lineup of games.

That's the best lineup of any publisher this year, and that's without considering the 6-10 great non-MS games coming to GP like S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2 etc...

It's actually NEVER been better to be a GP subscriber. It's a firehose of good content this year. People should stop complaining.
 
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https://gamerant.com/sony-third-ps5-users-never-owned-ps4/

Unless all of those people are new to gaming, there is a colleration in Xbox sales declining and new PS5 users. They are selling consoles to the same target of users. It's not a question of seeing things differently.
MS says the same thing about Series S owners. Are all those PS players switching to Series S? I don't think so. There's always going to be new entrants and dual console owners, especially given how cheap consoles are now relative to the cost of everything else. Digital owners are pretty locked in from I sit. I'm open to new arguments, but otherwise there's no point in hashing this out further unless new data emerges.
 
"Hi-Fi Rush was a break out hit for us and our players in all key measurements and expectations. We couldn’t be happier with what the team at Tango Gameworks delivered with this surprise release," Greenburg said. Xbox boss Phil Spencer retweeted this statement, affirming his support.

I bet there isn't one dev in a studio at MS right now that actually feels safe and secure in their jobs. If MS couldn't be happier at Tango Gameworks but kills them anyway what chance do the other have? Out of all the big corps MS is one that could ride the rapids every now and then but would rather kill a studio than give it a chance.

And poor Arkane Austin, being forced to make a game that was out of their comfort zone, by MS, and then shafted because of it. I totally agree with the words spoken by the Arkane Lyon head about this debacle.

As a custodian of the games industry from and artistic and cultural perspective MS is a terrible fit. It's fine for the apologists who can see nothing but good things in this, just shows a lack of empathy and a resolute unwillingness to remove the rose tinted spectacles through which they view MS. Sadly it also makes their arguments\statements worthless as they are just parroting the party line without question.

So all in all sad new, but totally expected behaviour from MS.
 
And poor Arkane Austin, being forced to make a game that was out of their comfort zone, by MS, and then shafted because of it.
To be fair, this was officially greenlight under Bethesda publishing, who were in a weird state at the time. Though MS should have absolutely stepped in after buying them and said, "Hey, is this the game y'all really want to make?" and saved them from themselves. Phil is completely useless, though.
 
MS says the same thing about Series S owners. Are all those PS players switching to Series S? I don't think so. There's always going to be new entrants and dual console owners, especially given how cheap consoles are now relative to the cost of everything else. Digital owners are pretty locked in from I sit. I'm open to new arguments, but otherwise there's no point in hashing this out further unless new data emerges.
There is a difference between Microsoft saying it and Sony saying it. One is increasing it's market share while the is decreasing.
 
On these closures:

Some people here have ZERO understanding of how to run a business.
There is nothing MS/Xbox can do that you wont defend, quite obviously. There's seriously no need to hitch your wagon so hard to some megacorp dude. They aren't your friend. I've been an Xbox owner in the past and have wanted to see them do well, but it's impossible for me not to become disillusioned with what they've been doing. That's just the rational side of my brain taking over, and I think that's probably the way it should be.

Microsoft isn't some little mom'n'pop shop, nor are they some bigger tech player who is reliant on the whims of industry trends that can make or break them. No, they are MICROSOFT, the most valuable public company on the planet and have shown that they were perfectly willing to spend tens and tens of billions on Xbox. You cant reconcile doing that with also having to state they 'need to cut costs' or whatever nonsense.

Yes, it's a surprise that Arkane Austin is shutting down simply for one miss on a game they didn't even really want to make. That's no way to treat your talent. And it completely locks off the potential for the studio to do anything great for Xbox in the future. Simply disbanding any studio that has one miss is such a stupidly short-sighted decision because every studio misses on occasion. Going all Stalin on your own game studios will only lead to less and worse games in the future.

Absorbing *some* employees into BGS is also ridiculous. MS could have easily just hired some new guys for BGS if they needed more heads(not that head count was any reason at all for Starfield's lackluster reception). And all this does is put even more risk and emphasis on a SINGLE game that will make or break BGS. And it makes it so MS will have less studios to fill out the kind of schedule they need to keep Gamepass appealing long-term without having to write enormous checks to 3rd party publishers/developers.

It's all so wildly asinine.
 
Oh I don't know, kinect could be used for a lot of great things like head tracing and face over ip.
Yeah, Apple had the same idea, that's why they bought PrimeSense. :) The underlying tech formed the basis of iPhone's AR features and, well, brought us the Vision Pro.
 
And poor Arkane Austin, being forced to make a game that was out of their comfort zone, by MS, and then shafted because of it

It was in the works before the MS takeover. The MS management mistake was leaving Bethesda to (mis)manage the project to it's conclusion. By that point, Arkane had already lost at least some of the talent that made Prey, a critically successful flop.
 
https://gamerant.com/sony-third-ps5-users-never-owned-ps4/

Unless all of those people are new to gaming, there is a colleration in Xbox sales declining and new PS5 users. They are selling consoles to the same target of users. It's not a question of seeing things differently.
That's potential correlating evidence. This is something different to the prior argument. The above is, however, still somewhat inconclusive. It could be a whole load of non-console gamers getting a console for Covid reasons. It's not proof, but it shifts the needle a little more towards the hypothesis of XB owners migrating to PS. We still need a lot more to get real proof one way or the other.
 
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