Xbox Business Update Podcast | Xbox Everywhere Direction Discussion
- Thread starter iroboto
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the thing is that Steam Deck is a niche but very successful product which pushes Linux as a gaming platform. Xbox is a decent business for MS but nowhere near Windows and other divisions, and most gamers purchase PCs with Windows installed 'cos it's a much better platform for gaming.
But Valve can slowly turn that perception around, productivity nowadays can be achieved on the web too, but Windows is king when it comes to gaming. As a MS fan I can tell you that Playstation and Nintendo aren't the main competition of Microsoft at all, imho, specially when the Xbox is kinda a marginal console nowadays alas.
Some studios but definitely not the ones that delivered "in all key metrics". Consider how hard it is to reconcile the fact that MS praised Hi-Fi rush as a success "in all key metrics" yet today ~ a year after launch is shutting down the studio behind the game. And therein lies the issue, they havent been honest about the performance of their titles, platform and services and eventually it leads to a mismatch in expectations. Out of the blue the studio is axed!! Yet a lot of fans including some on here have been praising the game as both a commercial and critical success and a sign of positive future output. Its this symbiotic relationship between the Xbox leadership and incessant dissimulation aimed at hoodwinking consumers thats causing issues. Eventually the truth is revealed through results and actions.
The word you're looking for is 'coffers', although this error actually also works.
LOL. Yes i chuckled too when i read it again later. That's some prime British humor happening accidently right here be non native speaker.
Phil saw Halo Infinite, Redfall, Starfield, all in their initial builds and thought they looked and played wonderful. They need to hire someone who has a good eye for what actually looks good and is fun. Whoever was the brains behind the Xbox One launch line up(Because it definitely wasnt Phil even though he headed MS studios at the time)
expectations on Starfield were good. Also we must take into account that while MS purchased Bethesda, the situation of Bethesda wasn't good back then, so even if the game wasn't that good, MS isn't the culprit, but yeah if someone at MS could detect the game wasn't that good, they could delay it a little. People expected another great RGP series with Starfield, but it didn't happen.
Yes it's a tough sell since as someone mentioned later on, they unbundled it from XB1 and support didn't go far after the first software wave as opposed to Wii that bundled it from the start and devs used it in all sorts of ways.
Kinect - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
35million is a tough sell ?
I think it can be extremely popular and unlike before MS has plenty of its own studios that can support it. Imagine including kinect functionality into something like Guitar hero where you can get points for stage performance and other things. or the next mmo from Ms supporting face over ip like star citizen. Then there is track ir or eye tracking functionality in game.
2025 kinect with updated cameras at a sub $100 cost would likely sell pretty well esp if it was supported on pc
Don't get me wrong, I regret gifting my 360 system with kinect but I still use my XB1 Kinect on my X1X. I see where they were going with it and enjoy what it can do (even with Fable The Journey
). Had they stuck to their plans they still would not have sold gangbusters and would still have something unique about their consoles today.This is the key part. A lot of games reached advanced stages when Xbox leadership should have stepped in as soon as they saw them and either delayed them or adjusted requirements. I remember the first time I saw the Halo Infinite reveal and it was missing effects that were in Halo 3 like reflections on the gun when you fire!!!. The initial reveals for alot of titles made me wonder what leadership was doing. Exceptions were Gears Hive Busters which was great all throughout and Forza Horizon, etc.
The thing is Xbox under Phil has been trying so many different things in different directions at the same time. Some of which they have done quite well; back compat, game pass, Series X hw. But the core which is the quality and consistency of the games delivered has been spotty. The developer experience has also not been great, devs up to 2023 were complaining about the memory limits/ requirements on Series S and MS engineers were looking for ways to provide more physical ram for games(possibly reducing OS memory requirements?). And now we can see that measuring the success of titles is going to be harder with the subscription model(Hi Fi Rush) so they are now changing strategy to selling their titles on multiple platforms including Playstation. The direction isnt clear at all. Its always good to do core things first before putting alot of effort in other areas otherwise you end up in trouble.
Add to all this the head winds in the industry and after effects of Covid you get a division facing serious problems internally and through external factors. The best thing imho is to replace Phil with someone that has a good eye for great titles considering they're moving towards the third party developer route. There are people who've been at MS for a long time who know the challenges ahead and could replace Phil.
Johnny Awesome
Veteran
Xbox Series has had a comparable overall lineup of games to PS5 according to metacritic. Especially when you throw GP into the mix, so there's nothing wrong to critique there. In 2024 they will begin to pull ahead of Sony in the games department.
Cappuccino
Newcomer
Even in its worst generation the Xbox has sold almost 30x what the SD has.
Yes it's a tough sell since as someone mentioned later on, they unbundled it from XB1 and support didn't go far after the first software wave as opposed to Wii that bundled it from the start and devs used it in all sorts of ways.
Don't get me wrong, I regret gifting my 360 system with kinect but I still use my XB1 Kinect on my X1X. I see where they were going with it and enjoy what it can do (even with Fable The Journey
The blow back was quick. People didn't an always listening device in their home but bought echo's , google , apple mic/speakers in huge quanities. They didn't want cameras but walk around with cell phones with 20 cameras on them now and have previous stated devices with cameras on them.
Azure Kinect DK Windows comparison
Hardware and software differences between Azure Kinect DK and Kinect for Windows v2
learn.microsoft.com
Azure kinect which is already 4 years old is a drastic increase in performance over the Kinect v2 for xbox one. Even just putting out something with similar specs for a next xbox would be really amazing
arandomguy
Regular
I don't believe the blowback was specifically from the kinect but that the Xbox One cost $100 (or 25%) more than the PS4 while having weaker hardware (much larger than the gap with the XSX and PS5) which actually manifested in more tangible differences in order to include the kinect. They needed at least one "killer" launch title (or at least early lifespan) to showcase the kinect and justify that price differenceto sell those trade offs but that never happened.
It's worth keeping in mind demographics as well and that specifically of the Xbox brand. Without getting too much in the weeds here, I believe at the time the Xbox 360's core audience was from US gamers (who go too into the other details here) who preferred military esque shooters (if you look at the top selling 360 they were heavily dominated by CoD, Halo and Gears of War). The kinect functionality didn't appeal to that audience. It was a rather different audience of than those that flocked to Nintendo and the Wii.
It's worth keeping in mind demographics as well and that specifically of the Xbox brand. Without getting too much in the weeds here, I believe at the time the Xbox 360's core audience was from US gamers (who go too into the other details here) who preferred military esque shooters (if you look at the top selling 360 they were heavily dominated by CoD, Halo and Gears of War). The kinect functionality didn't appeal to that audience. It was a rather different audience of than those that flocked to Nintendo and the Wii.
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That was one part of it, however there were lots of article and pushes on forums about it spying on you
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/14392694/DSC_4575-hero_verge_super_wide.1419979721.jpg)
Could the NSA use Microsoft's Xbox One to spy on you?
Skype swore wiretaps weren't possible before recent reports. Is Kinect next?
www.theverge.com
here is an article from that time
Mike Ybarra sticks up for Phil Spencer after the latest criticism received
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People like to pile up on MS but why would they keep the developer who made redfall running ? The game is a failure at all levels.
Even Tango works with hi-fi rush , its a good game but we really don't know the state of their other games.
Then they are folding over devs into other existing teams.
twitter is on fire, even loyal fans are losing confidence on xbox.
yeah Redfall is what it is. However, with the other studios they are sending the message "you better sell like we expect or we are going to close you", which doesn't sound okay. MS focus on continous growth instead of being stable, it seems.
If the games you make, no matter how good or original they are, don't sell, you end up shutting down. Maybe it wouldn't be profitable for Microsoft to keep them open.
It's sad, and it sucks....that's how the business world works, if you don't make a profit you're worthless. I would have preferred them to sell the studios to another publisher tbh.
from august 2023.
twistedvoxel.com
Microsoft Pleased With Hi-Fi Rush Success, Plans To Reinvest In Tango Gameworks
Microsoft is reportedly pleased with the success of Hi-Fi Rush, and the software giant plans to reinvest in developer Tango Gameworks.
twistedvoxel.com
What the hell happened? That's a 180 degree turn. Also Tameem Antoniades left Ninja Theory without explanation.from august 2023.
Microsoft Pleased With Hi-Fi Rush Success, Plans To Reinvest In Tango Gameworks
Microsoft is reportedly pleased with the success of Hi-Fi Rush, and the software giant plans to reinvest in developer Tango Gameworks.
There is a huge difference between the messaging we were getting a few years back compared to the messaging we are getting now from MS.
This is what companies do. Why would they keep paying to have games that don't sell made ? It's not like Redfall was a moderate hit and was bringing in money on the back end with dlc or in game purchases. It was just a wet fart into the world.
Sony bought bungie and then bungie laid off a bunch of people. Nintendo/pokemon company/ ninantic just fired a bunch of people working on pokemon go.
