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Phil Spencer: The Xbox business will become ‘untenable’ if it remains ‘irrelevant’ on mobile.
- Thread starter Eddie-Griffin
- Start date
Ghost of Caelid
Banned
Ghost of Caelid
Banned
A few failed gimmicks but also arguably the most innovative of the big three in the modern era. Either them or Nintendo. Nintendo with gameplay mechanics and Xbox with services
GhostOfTsu
Banned
I don't get how "Xbox" will be relevant if the Microsoft Corporation get Candy Crush or COD Mobile? Sounds to me like they just want to add that revenue to their excel and that's it.
Those players are already playing on their phones. They don't need Xbox.
Those players are already playing on their phones. They don't need Xbox.
YeulEmeralda
Linux User
Vaguely, indie flavour of the month game?
IFireflyl
Gold Member
You and I haven't always agreed with each other, but I support this 100%. Console/PC gaming is completely different than mobile gaming. These are the top downloaded mobile games (combined between iOS and Android) as of July 30, 2022:
1. Roblox
2. Candy Crush Saga
3. Coin Master
4. Fishdom
5. Evony
6. Pokémon GO
7. Call of Duty: Mobile
8. Stumble Guys
9. Royal Match
10. Homescapes
11. Dragon Ball Z Dokkan Battle
12. Diablo Immortal
13. Bingo Blitz
14. Candy Crush Soda Saga
15. Top War: Battle Game
16. Gardenscapes
17. Jackpot Party – Casino Slots
18. RAID: Shadow Legends
19. State of Survival: Zombie War
20. Puzzles & Survival
21. Solitaire Grand Harvest
22. Toon Blast
23. Township
24. Slotomania Slots Casino Games
25. Garena Free Fire
26. Genshin Impact
27. Fate/Grand Order
28. Clash of Clans
29. Parking Jam 3D
30. DoubleDown Casino
31. Cashman Casino Las Vegas Slots
32. Subway Surfers
33. Marvel Strike Force: Squad RPG
34. Lightning Link Casino Slots
35. Empires & Puzzles Match 3 RPG
36. Fill The Fridge
37. Cash Frenzy – Casino Slots
38. Woodoku
39. Among Us
40. Collect Em All! Clear the Dots
41. Crowd Evolution!
42. Count Masters: Crowd Runner 3D
43. Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes
44. Star Trek Fleet Command
45. Junkyard Keeper
46. Wordle!
47. Wordscapes
48. The President
49. Dig Deep
50. Hoard Master
Source: https://www.singular.net/blog/top-mobile-games/
The vast majority of these games are not games that you see on console/PC, because these aren't the types of games that console/PC gamers want to play. Keeping console/PC games and mobile games under the Xbox umbrella has a very real chance of causing one or the other to suffer as the approach for these types of games are, generally speaking, radically different.
If Microsoft gets into mobile gaming, whether through their own devices or if they acquire a mobile studio/publisher (such as King), it would be better for them to have that under Microsoft Mobile or some other division. There are far more people with smart phones than with an Xbox, and calling it Xbox Mobile sounds misleading since the majority of mobile games under Activision/Blizzard/King aren't console/PC games.
remember_spinal
Banned
Why is he doing so many interviews lately? Feels like theres a new one every week now
Scotty W
Banned
I am not so sure the Kinect was a failure.
The games seem pretty bad, and maybe they even lost money on it, but I have always got the impression that it is a kind of future investment. I recall seeing a lot of creative non commercial applications of it, which makes me think it is a learning opportunity.
I would be interested to know the kinds of applications that Kinect knowledge has already been involved in, ie Military our home tech related.
I say this as someone who has no interest in Xbox or mobile gaming.
I was in Laos a few years ago, in an area that was pure jungle just a few yeas ago. All the kids there are playing games on their mobile phones. The size of the mobile market to be opened up is staggering and expanding exponentially, whereas traditional gaming is expanding arithmetically and is expensive and slow to develop for. Sure, that is bad for those of us who care about quality, but progress is not inevitable.
Gaming may get worse in the future.
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Kacho
Gold Member
I think he does the rounds periodically to get people talking about Xbox
Punished Miku
Human Rights Subscription Service
Kinect was Alexa 15 years too early, and more advanced.
Bernkastel
Ask me about my fanboy energy!
Except, they just hide their mobile gaming efforts from you by using the label Aniplex.
Heard a lot of you guys were predicting Sony would buy Shift Up, the devs of Stellar Blade next. Stellar Blade is just a new side project. It's a mobile game dev studio that first made Destiny Child and now this
Too late Phil, the GOAT mobile game just released a week or so ago:
Compared to almost every other publisher, Xbox is very late to the free to play online mobile gaming business.
Bernkastel
Ask me about my fanboy energy!
It's just turned into way too of a big market to keep ignoring forever. Almost all the big publishers have entered it into some way and all of them made billions out of it, so Microsoft is like "better late than never".
Heck you even said this in the NC soft thread.
For example there are so many Age of Empires clones in the Play Store, half of them probably made more money than Age of Empires 4 and reach to a way bigger audience. So Microsoft is making its own mobile Age of Empires game.
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Raven77
Member
Allow me to translate:
We need to constantly be making more and more money every quarter forever or else our stock price will drop. Because of this, we will eventually make terrible mistakes that do damage to our brand and to our revenue. We'll blame that though, when it inevitably happens, on outside factors.
We need to constantly be making more and more money every quarter forever or else our stock price will drop. Because of this, we will eventually make terrible mistakes that do damage to our brand and to our revenue. We'll blame that though, when it inevitably happens, on outside factors.
Bernkastel
Ask me about my fanboy energy!
What are these "terrible mistakes" you speak of?
FoxMcChief
Gold Member
I play most of my Xbox games on my phone, so, yeah.
GhostOfTsu
Banned
??? Candy Crush, Diablo Immortal and COD mobile already exist. They are just adding those same customers to their spreadsheet. Nothing is gained. Nothing is created.
Horizon Online doesn't exist. They are making it from scratch so your cheap gotcha doesn't work. What a stretch to link both
Raven77
Member
Those mistakes I allude to are in the future.
Some guesses are, a huge push on mobile that pulls resources from console games development, trying to please everyone and ending up pleasing very few, spending a fortune buying mobile developers pulling more funds from console games, making bad mobile games as they try to just copy whatever fad is currently hot.
They will then be unable to grasp how their obvious path to failure was so not-obvious to them.
I love Microsoft, but this next gen has been a bit of a letdown.
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Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
I haven't read/watched the full interview yet.
Is Phil saying that Xbox's current trajectory and business model are untenable? And only mobile can save it?
Is Phil saying that Xbox's current trajectory and business model are untenable? And only mobile can save it?
For everyone.
You’d buy fewer games because console makers invested in mobile gaming?
bitbydeath
Member
Xbox has been committed to reach 3 billion users.
Xbox Wants To Get to 3 Billion Players With or Without Consoles, Says Publishing Head
Xbox wants to gain a massive amount of market share in the future: 3 billion players and they plan to bring their games to people with or without Xbox consoles.
www.techtimes.com
To obtain that number he needs mobile users.
PC and consoles alone won’t do it.
bitbydeath
Member
Nintendo and Sony are both trajecting upwards.
GhostOfTsu
Banned
Those are ABK customers. They right-clicked and renamed the file Xbox.xls and said "we reached new customers". That's it.Xbox has been committed to reach 3 billion users.
Xbox Wants To Get to 3 Billion Players With or Without Consoles, Says Publishing Head
Xbox wants to gain a massive amount of market share in the future: 3 billion players and they plan to bring their games to people with or without Xbox consoles.
To obtain that number he needs mobile users.
PC and consoles alone won’t do it.
Benniewise de Clown
Banned
So basically, Xbox as a brand is becoming irrelevant.
Straight out of the horses mouth.
Who would've guessed?
They should just become a 3rd party publisher,.
Straight out of the horses mouth.
Who would've guessed?
They should just become a 3rd party publisher,.
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Bernkastel
Ask me about my fanboy energy!
Why is it "pulling more funds from console games" and "making bad mobile games" and leading to "obvious path to failure"? Why would not it help there own console business?
If they are, then why are they investing so much in to mobile like Pokemon Unite or Fate Grand Order. By your logic should not it be Xbox that should have entered mobile first, since there console business. They stayed out of the free to play online mobile market the longest.
People have been saying they will close down Xbox since forever.
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Flutta
Banned
He also could’ve said the sky is green and without fail you would be in the frontlines ”protecting” his slimy ass.The interview is fine. He could have said the sky is blue and some posters here would still find ways to call him a liar for that statement.
Helghan
Member
But you will also have the developer that created these games for future mobile game development.??? Candy Crush, Diablo Immortal and COD mobile already exist. They are just adding those same customers to their spreadsheet. Nothing is gained. Nothing is created.
Horizon Online doesn't exist. They are making it from scratch so your cheap gotcha doesn't work. What a stretch to link both
Xbox is more than just the console. It’s the brand for everything gaming towards consumers. PC, console, cloud, mobile (thanks to the acquisition), and who knows VR if it ever takes off.
Bernkastel
Ask me about my fanboy energy!
Its known that COD mobile actually helped the sales for COD in PC/Console, so a lot was gained. I even gave you the example of Age of Empires Mobile for gods sake.??? Candy Crush, Diablo Immortal and COD mobile already exist. They are just adding those same customers to their spreadsheet. Nothing is gained. Nothing is created.
Horizon Online doesn't exist. They are making it from scratch so your cheap gotcha doesn't work. What a stretch to link both
Not sure either. I'm not sure why he brings up "xbox" to that strategy. The "niche" (as he calls it) of consoles in general are on the decline and that's true but xbox for him would be irrelevant as a brand if what he is saying is true.
In around 2017 there was a major shift by MS in terms of strategy to gamepass and acquisitions and not 'xbox'. He was promoted to "CEO of Microsoft Gaming" and got rid of xbox from his title, Gamepass on PC was renamed to "PC gamepass" from "xbox gamepass" . Why would they try and say xbox is the relevant brand that would live on mobile? Either say xbox as a brand will become irrelevant and we will have mobile gamepass or don't spend the last few years removing the name from your products and titles. Are they trying to play 4D chess with regulators in terms of separated products? So they concentrate on xbox now instead of gamepass?
Anyway, on topic, what's wrong with supporting a niche as long as it is profitable? I think that has been MS biggest weakness with xbox throughout its life. It's the reason they didn't have the smaller new IPs (gamepass made that possible), the reason they abandoned game output at the end of 360 (because motion controls were more mainstream), and the reason they have no VR support, it all comes down to not supporting the smaller markets and chasing only the mainstream. I guess mobile is the new one to chase and again abandon the hardcore niche.
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GhostOfTsu
Banned
You edited your post after I replied. There is nothing wrong with making Age of Empires on mobile. No one is against that.
It proves they don't need Candy Crush to reach "new" customers on mobile.
Silver Wattle
Gold Member
Reusing a classic shitpost.
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https://www.gamespot.com/articles/m...e-name-of-xbox-game-pass-for-pc/1100-6499352/
They specifically removed xbox from gamepass branding to make it clear a console isn't required. Not sure why they are not doing the same for mobile but I suspect they will at some stage when they don't primarily use the app to install things on consoles.
If they start providing future mobile games like Candy Crush, Diablo Immortal, etc in a service like Apple arcade does it would just be adding mobile games to gamepass and calling it "gamepass" or "mobile gamepass". Unless they reneged on that idea of removing xbox branding not to confuse it with the console and plan to reintroduce xbox branding to the service on other devices.
Bernkastel
Ask me about my fanboy energy!
Can you say the same thing about Bungie's upcoming mobile game. The NetEase partnership was known since 2018 or 2019. Why would they need that game to reach "new customers".
Or if they eventually acquire Shift Up?
They don't need Destiny Child or Goddess of Victory: Nikke to reach new customers do they?
They don't need Destiny Child or Goddess of Victory: Nikke to reach new customers do they?
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bitbydeath
Member
You’re asking why they started down the mobile path a decade or so ago?
ChiefDada
Member
Panajev2001a
GAF's Pleasant Genius
Not sure third party store catch on that that much on Android and on iOS still a non starter… :/.
Bernkastel
Ask me about my fanboy energy!
I meant the investment into free to play mobile gacha games. That started around 2015. Pokemon Go was a test, after that Nintendo self published the mobile games and pushed a lot more into the mobile business.
Definitely if the US OAMA bill doesn't pass and/or the DMA as written isn't enforced.
Even if those two things roll out, then it's an uphill battle especially on IOS.
I think the likelihood for 'success' is low in general but honestly it's probably worth the risk. Success being an actual competitor to the current app stores.
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Mephisto40
Member
Waiting for the announcement Xbox Series X2 wont work unless you have a mobile phone tethered to it at lease once every 30 seconds
DeltaPolarBear
Member
Sony already is making phone games. You might have heard of it. A game so big that it funded multiple TV shows by itself.
Note that this ONE game, earned combined 4 Billion in revenue from debut to last year.
Note that this is entirely separate from PlayStation and is from Sony Music. There is no reason why Xbox as a brand need to go into Mobile, they have nothing in common.
They have absolutely no chance and it's a red herring in the deal. Even on PC other game specific stores struggle against Steam. They have absolutely no chance competing against the Apple App store or Google Play on mobile.
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Benniewise de Clown
Banned
I also remember people who stated what Spencer has been talking about lately being labeled a "fanboy" when the writing has been on the wall since the Xbox One reveal.People have been saying they will close down Xbox since forever.
I remember when ZhugeX said Microsoft will reduce investment to first party projects for Xbox, and next year Microsoft announced buying Ninja Theory and other devs.
MS is in a tough spot. They are far from a direct competitor to both Sony and Nintendo in the traditional sense.
So the gambled on GamePass, announcing it as the second coming of Jesus.
Recently, they came out saying GamePass isn't sustainable (which was obvious from the beginning).
Now they have to gamble on the mobile market.
They're pretty clueless about the gaming-space, really.
I honestly don't see how this gen isn't a transitional phase for MS to quitting competing with Sony mainly (and Nintendo indirectly) and becoming a 3rd party publisher.
Just release Xbox 1st party titles on all competing platforms, as well as GamePass, remove the XBL-requirement and everybody will win, incl gamers.
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He is not wrong.
We can clearly see it. Sony is expanding to PC market because consoles are not providing growth they need. They are expanding into live service to provide additional revenue stream and it is only matter of time when they dive deep into mobile gaming (they recently bought mobile games studio) and cloud streaming.
Only reason why Nintendo does not need to do this is because budget for their first-party games is lower than Sony/Microsoft and also because Switch is monster success after WiiU's failure. Also, Nintendo is tapping into previously untapped revenue streams like multiplayer paid gate. But they are also tipping their toes into mobile gaming.
It's funny. Because Spencer from the beginning claims that this deal is more about Blizzard and mobile than it is about Call of Duty. And it makes sense. Blizzard will give Microsoft more presence on PC, while whole ABK will give Microsoft great chance to break into mobile gaming through games like Diablo Immortal, Call of Duty Mobile and Candy Crush. And if Microsoft is smart, they will tie in some benefits for those games into Game Pass, so they can grow subscription in that way also.
We can clearly see it. Sony is expanding to PC market because consoles are not providing growth they need. They are expanding into live service to provide additional revenue stream and it is only matter of time when they dive deep into mobile gaming (they recently bought mobile games studio) and cloud streaming.
Only reason why Nintendo does not need to do this is because budget for their first-party games is lower than Sony/Microsoft and also because Switch is monster success after WiiU's failure. Also, Nintendo is tapping into previously untapped revenue streams like multiplayer paid gate. But they are also tipping their toes into mobile gaming.
It's funny. Because Spencer from the beginning claims that this deal is more about Blizzard and mobile than it is about Call of Duty. And it makes sense. Blizzard will give Microsoft more presence on PC, while whole ABK will give Microsoft great chance to break into mobile gaming through games like Diablo Immortal, Call of Duty Mobile and Candy Crush. And if Microsoft is smart, they will tie in some benefits for those games into Game Pass, so they can grow subscription in that way also.
feynoob
Banned
Straight lie, like it's normal.
At least check facts first.
Bernkastel
Ask me about my fanboy energy!
You guys have been saying the same thing since 2013, Game Pass just became the new ammo for this argument. As mentioned in this very page, compared to other two console manufacturers Microsoft is 6-7 years late to the free to play mobile gaming market. So are they all in "transitioning phase" to abandon their platform because they are "gambling with the mobile market". Somehow, the writing has always been the wall that Microsoft close Xbox, instead they just keep expanding.
Funny that you are trying to find argument for defending ZhugeX's deleted tweet of Microsoft decreasing Xbox first party investment when the reverse happened. There are no receipts to any of these claims you make just more "muh Game Pass" essays.
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