Xbox leadership and the Xbox brand evaluation *spawn

[Johnny Awesome]

My thoughts on GP are simple - MS hasn't really produced enough must have content to drive subscriptions through the roof. Until they achieve their stated goal of quarterly AAA 9/10 games we can't know whether or not subscriptions are going to resume their growth path. 30 million subs with 27 million consoles sold so far this gen isn't bad, but it remains to be seen whether or not they can reach 50+ million subs by 2028 (their leaked goal).

They might get to their quarterly AAA goal this year if Hellblade 2, Avowed, CoD, Indiana Jones, and Starfield Shattered Space are good enough.

A bad year in business doesn't mean you should panic and change all your plans and goals. Too much panicking about MS/Xbox. They need to EXECUTE their existing strategy properly before changing course again.

Imagine a world with 50 million subs generating $6 billion in revenue annually. That's plenty of money to develop 5 x $300 million games = $1.5 billion + $.5 billion in 3rd party content + $1 billion in delivery costs = $3 billion profit + MTX & DLC revenue. That's the idea. At 100 million subs the profits are staggering. Then take your GP games and put them on Nin/PS 2-3 years later and the money is rolling in.

I realize the big question is: Can they get to 50 million subs? We don't know, but they haven't executed well enough to say that they can't.

 

[Cyan]

Sorry I misspoke, what I meant was,
Gamepass is one of the most important pillars of Microsoft, it allows millions of gamers, potentially a trillion players, all come together and enjoy the best games of the industry at a very competitive and affordable price. No matter where they come from or what kind of device they own, if they want to play games then Microsoft will make sure it will happen.

maybe going with a 100% gamepass model, and also going fully third party would pay off. They could sell a desktop console and a hybrid handheld to drive gamepass subscriptions, publish the games day one everywhere but selling the games on other stores at regular prices, from 60$ to 80$ while offering those games to gamepass subscribers for "free", giving them the option to buy gamepass those games at a discount --for ownership lovers like me.

 

[eastmen]

GP is not successful, especially not in the long run. Microsoft firing hundreds or thousands of game developers is a sign that their strategy failed

I disagree.

Game pass can be profitable but that doesn't mean each individual game is profitable nor would each developer.


That's like claiming Tesla isn't successful because they laid off their super charger team. Or IOS isn't profitable because Apple laid off the icar team.



I think there isn't enough nuance in these discussions. Just look at the games


Redfal Developers. This game tanked and would need to be rebuilt from the ground up and relaunched to make this successful. Any of that is just a drain on resources. so look at what other games they have made and what other games they may have in early stages. MS did this and decided the money spent on that studio can be spent on another studio that can make more successful games.


Looking at Hi-Fi rush , its a good game with great awards and a lot of downloads but most people didn't even beat the first boss. On a subscription model that is like having a lot of people watch the first episode of a show but then never pick up the second episode. We also don't know what else they were working on but they could have been games similar in scope or also didn't have a draw.


The other thing is Fallout the tv show. It's been watched by 80m people and is extremely popular. I keep hearing more and more people that I wouldn't expect bring it up. Even my mom asked me about it. I didn't even know she knew how to access amazon prime because whenever I vist my parents I have to get her on netflix.

So what do you think is more worth while for MS. Having another redfall and hi fi rush or getting a large enough team together to get a fallout 5 ready and out the door ? If they start building up the team now they could have one ready by season 3 of the tv show (amazon typically has 18 months between seasons)

 

[Cyan]

Matt Booty explains why they closed Tango. His explanation doesn't make much sense to me. He is implying there is something else happening with Tango.

Xbox's Matt Booty implies Tango Gameworks closure was partly due to leadership change

Xbox's Matt Booty has spoken more on the closure of Tango Gameworks earlier this year.

www.eurogamer.net

When you say "out of respect for the people there" you are just saying that something was happening with Tango, and you don't want to go into details.

"I won't get into the real sort of nitty gritty details on you know, what went into the decision, mostly out of respect for the people there (...)" Booty began.

What he is saying below is that they don't trust Tango in the future as a company, from a leadership point of view and there wouldn't necessarily be a future success from them regarding a new game they could make. He is clearly talking about Mikami.

Mikami was the director of the first The Evil Within, but after this he just supervised The Evil Within 2 and Ghostwire Tokyo. He was in the company until february 2023, just after a month of Hi-Fi Rush launch.

"I think the thing to be considered is that for us, it's as much a forward looking situation as much as it is looking back at one certain game... There are a lot of things that go into success for a game. You know, what leadership do you have? What creative leadership do you have? Is the team the same team that shipped something successful previously?

"And we have to look at all of those things together and then ask ourselves, are we set up for success going forward? And while there may have been factors and situations that previously led to success, they may not all still be in place as you look at what you're doing going forward."

Maybe when Mikami left things were happening already.

 

[Seanspeed]

It's mind bogglingly insulting not to just the rest of the people at Tango, but also to Mikami himself who had worked hard to leave a good and functional team behind him as it was known he was on his way out. The studio was still his legacy.

Not that I believe for a second this was the actual reasoning. This is just classic Xbox corporate foot in mouth nonsense to justify their terrible decisions since they cant just say, "We need to cut costs elsewhere after spending $75b on Call of Duty".

Xbox is run by incompetent people. That's simply the truth of things. I dont know how anybody can possibly argue otherwise anymore.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Nah. We don't know. Anything else is just grinding axes.

After seeing the latest showcase, I'm more confident than ever that Xbox is in good hands.

 

[see colon]

Maybe when Mikami left things were happening already.

This is my take as well. I don't know the economics of The Evil Within 1/2, but I think we can infer that Ghostwire might not have been profitable. And while HiFi Rush was a good game that had good reviews and probably OK sales once it launched on all platforms, I keep coming back to the fact that it feels like an indie game in scope but with a AAA budget, and probably didn't make money either. We know from reporting that the game took 5 years to complete so it isn't like they would be capable of churning out games of that quality at an accelerated pace. I think those kind of budgets, coupled with the local economy in Japan* aren't exactly a recipe for success. Sony has been scaling back their domestic studios as well.

*Japan has has a slower than average pandemic recovery, with high inflation, a weak local currency, some of the lowest productivity (based on GDP/labor hours), a historically low birth rate and an aging population. Last time I checked, Japan's population was aging faster than any other country on the planet. People aging out of the workforce will increase the rate of economic shrinkage.

 

[stu11]

Rumor "Xbox and Nvidia could turn your console into a high-end PC gaming rig capable of playing 1,000s more games"

*It seems for right now is only being seen in Japan for the time being. No word on it going world wide*

Link

Xbox could be about to extend its deal with Nvidia to allow full-fledged, RTX-enabled PC games onto the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S.

The brands have previously partnered to bring Xbox-owned games to Nvidia's cloud gaming platform, and now it seems we'll get the reverse. It looks like GeForce Now could soon be available on Xbox consoles.

The PC cloud gaming platform has reportedly been spotted on Xbox consoles in Japan, listed as an option to play certain games – such as Street Fighter 6 and Call of Duty Warzone.

GeForce Now is also a bit different to Xbox Cloud Gaming. While the Microsoft system gives access to 100s of Xbox games as part of a monthly Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription, Nvidia's offering gives you access to PC games you already own on other digital storefronts, such as Steam and Epic Games Store.

This would have the added benefit of giving Xbox Series X/S owners the option of playing many games that aren't available on console at all. In addition, if you pay for GeForce Now Ultimate (at £19.99 / $19.99 per month) you can play them in up to 4K HDR with RTX 4080 graphics.

It'd effectively turn your Xbox into a high-end PC gaming rig.

Maybe the plans for allowing Xbox owners access to other stores (eg Steam, EGS) will be through the cloud via Geforce Now instead of natively?

Along with the recent agreement to bring Game Pass Cloud streaming to the Amazon Firestick, it looks like Microsoft is pushing on with its cloud plans. Now all they need to do is bring out a standalone cloud-only version of Game Pass instead of limiting it to Game Pass Ultimate.

 

[Cyan]

Rumor "Xbox and Nvidia could turn your console into a high-end PC gaming rig capable of playing 1,000s more games"

*It seems for right now is only being seen in Japan for the time being. No word on it going world wide*

Link







Maybe the plans for allowing Xbox owners access to other stores (eg Steam, EGS) will be through the cloud via Geforce Now instead of natively?

Along with the recent agreement to bring Game Pass Cloud streaming to the Amazon Firestick, it looks like Microsoft is pushing on with its cloud plans. Now all they need to do is bring out a standalone cloud-only version of Game Pass instead of limiting it to Game Pass Ultimate.

hope there is something more behind this for future OEM products or whatever, or another approach to get closer to the PC, but I don't like the cloud, I don't find it useful for many people, and I hope there is more to it for the future.

 

[Cyan]

the odd thing here is that they have Xbox Game Pass Ultimate that does exactly the same thing. Am I missing anything?

 

[see colon]

the odd thing here is that they have Xbox Game Pass Ultimate that does exactly the same thing. Am I missing anything?

Are you talking about the nVidia streaming deal? That lets you stream PC games that you buy on various storefronts (or rent from Gamepass) to other devices, powered by nVidia cloud computers equipped with various levels of nVidia GPUs depending on the price tier. There's even a free tier with some time limitations and lower priority. What this means is that alternate versions of some games that are on Xbox already would be available on Xbox, but also plenty of non-console games are also available. Want to play Left 4 Dead 2 with a controller with your PC friends? As long as you own it on Steam, you can stream it with Geforce Now. Want to play Fire Pro Wrestling World on your Xbox, but the game only came on on PC and PS4? You can do it with Geforce Now.

Besides having a different way to get games (Geforce now makes you buy them while Gamepass Ultimate lets you stream Gamepass games), the library is vastly different. Though, not every game is supported. I own roughly 2000 games on Steam, probably about 20 from Ubisoft, and over 100 digital Xbox games. GFN will let me stream 492 of them. None of the Playstation Studios games are supported, so there will be no playing Spider-man or Helldivers 2 on Xbox. Epic Games Store games, except Fortnite, aren't supported. And I no longer see options for GOG, but it still says I can play CP2077, a game I only bought on GOG.

 

[Charlietus]

the odd thing here is that they have Xbox Game Pass Ultimate that does exactly the same thing. Am I missing anything?

I don't understand how Xbox earns anything from this. Maybe there is a revenue sharing agreement?

 

[see colon]

I don't understand how Xbox earns anything from this. Maybe there is a revenue sharing agreement?

Most storefronts get a portion of sales from the platform. Since Geforce Now has paid tiers, it could be that a portion of subscriptions made via the Geforce Now app on Xbox would go to Microsoft. It could also be that the Geforce Now Gamepass partnership (the one that allows you to add your Xbox account to GFN and you can stream PC Gamepass games) was part of a deal where Microsoft traded access to those games for access to Geforce now.

 

[Cyan]

okay, but it doesn't matter how much money you throw at it, Europe and other places don't like the Xbox, for whatever reason.

"We're not blessed with big marketing budgets," Xbox's EMEA marketing lead laments Microsoft's lack of investment

We finally have some real confirmation that Microsoft doesn't really care about marketing Xbox in Europe.

www.windowscentral.com

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Europe and other places don't like the Xbox, for whatever reason.

It's simply because PS was first and did a good job and MS gave up. XB360 was as welcome in Europe as any console but instead of compete directly, MS just shrank away. But then it was probably a wise choice. XBO wasn't a great sell and lost them too much mindshare. They needed a better product after 360 and to back it.

"We're not blessed with big marketing budgets," Xbox's EMEA marketing lead laments Microsoft's lack of investment

We finally have some real confirmation that Microsoft doesn't really care about marketing Xbox in Europe.

www.windowscentral.com

Nice to hear it from the horse's mouth. We were saying this in the AB acquisition, MS's complaints about XB's performance in Europe was self inflicted. How can you expect to sell as much as your rival if you are the second choice and commit but a fraction of their marketing budget?

 

[cheapchips]

 

[XboxKING]

For 70 billion… they could have given 70.000.000.000 / 500 = 15 million xboxes to customers who would need to buy 10 games each probably at 70 dollar, so they could have made 10-20 billion profit

 

[see colon]

For 70 billion… they could have given 70.000.000.000 / 500 = 15 million xboxes to customers who would need to buy 10 games each probably at 70 dollar, so they could have made 10-20 billion profit

Now they can just give them FireSticks, though. And a 10 game tie rate is pretty big. I do think PS2 might have eventually managed that but it had a 10 year life and was the best selling console ever. For a long time it was 9+, I really don't know if it ever hit 10. But other successful consoles never reached that high. Wii was just under 9 IIRC, 360 was around 7. I read once that the console with the best tie rate was the Master System. Which makes sense, because the hardware sales were so low and the games hit the bargain bin at Toys-R-Us pretty quick.

Also, if they didn't buy ABK, they wouldn't be getting ABK revenue, or IP, which means they wouldn't get the mobile expansion from owning King, the subscription revenue from WOW, or the yearly blockbuster revenue from COD. Buying ABK has a certain amount of ROI that's baked into it, and a certain amount of tangible assets (the studios, the IP, the back catalog, the talent) that have value, unlike dumping 70 billion into free consoles. Also, I don't know where you got 15 million from. 70B/500 is 140M.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Even ten games per console isn't 10 x $70 as some will be bought at discount. And that's revenue. And it's 30% for each 3rd party title sold, so only $21 per game, sold at full price.

They'd need to sell 3.5 billion 3rd-party games at $70 to make $20 each to gross $70B. Across an install base of 50 million consoles (those given away free and those sold, or selling them highly subsidised, or whatever to get 50M consoles) that'd be 70 full price games sold per customer!

In short, that's some wonky maths from XBoxKING.

 

[iroboto]

For 70 billion… they could have given 70.000.000.000 / 500 = 15 million xboxes to customers who would need to buy 10 games each probably at 70 dollar, so they could have made 10-20 billion profit

70B dollar immediate loss. To maybe drive your install base by another 20%. With no guarantee that you will get it back and no long lasting titles built to support it.

This somewhat parallels the idea that when the government needs money, you should just print it. No one would ever purchase Xbox again if they could wait around and be gifted one. Or you just flooded your own market with Xboxes that no one wants and then you drop the value of the hardware and it just goes onto be sold dropping the value of Xbox further.