SweetTooth
Gold Member
Its happening now except they burned $70B to delay it 3 years
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[The Information] Nadella considered winding down Gaming (Xbox) business in 2021; chose to pursue an acquisition-based strategy instead
- Thread starter HeisenbergFX4
- Start date
DenchDeckard
Moderated wildly
The hardware situation is pretty crazy. There's so little stock, no deals over black friday. No deals at all.
They've either given up this generation and are all hands on dick for next gen or they are literally giving up on console hardware but are trying to not tell anyone.
They've either given up this generation and are all hands on dick for next gen or they are literally giving up on console hardware but are trying to not tell anyone.
laynelane
Member
It's taken this long for an article to state what has been apparent for years. There's no doubt Game Pass appeals to some people, but there's also no doubt that it does not to the majority of gamers. Other companies are not going to put it on their platform, it's not going to reach 100 million, CoD isn't going to save it, etc. - all that's left is to see is how long it will continue in its current state.
Insanemaelstrom
Gold Member
From what I recall, Xbox was never profitable and the only reason ms continued it was to ensure Sony doesn't dominate people's living rooms. Pretty sure ms has throughout the years regularly held such discussions. Not to mention how situation can change pretty frequently in the corporate world.
Personay I think that MS is now going to be focusing on being the biggest 3rd party publisher in the world. If PS consoles sell well, MS profits by bringing their games to it, if Nintendo consoles perform well, MS profits by bring their games to it,etc. They might even launch a version of gamepass for ps and Nintendo in the veins of EA access. A stripped out version focusing only on ms studio productions. It might even be a bigger priority than regular gamepass is currently.
As for hardware, I think MS is going to avoid making their own hardware. Maybe license out to 3rd party publishers but it will most probably be Xbox in name only. Personally, I figured, it will be a pc with Xbox aesthetic and Xbox storefront available preinstalled. They are probably going to do the same for their handhelds.
Personay I think that MS is now going to be focusing on being the biggest 3rd party publisher in the world. If PS consoles sell well, MS profits by bringing their games to it, if Nintendo consoles perform well, MS profits by bring their games to it,etc. They might even launch a version of gamepass for ps and Nintendo in the veins of EA access. A stripped out version focusing only on ms studio productions. It might even be a bigger priority than regular gamepass is currently.
As for hardware, I think MS is going to avoid making their own hardware. Maybe license out to 3rd party publishers but it will most probably be Xbox in name only. Personally, I figured, it will be a pc with Xbox aesthetic and Xbox storefront available preinstalled. They are probably going to do the same for their handhelds.
Burger King
Member
The ABK acquisition was a huge mistake. Huge.
I wonder if someone at PlayStation immediately realized it and was laughing under their breath the whole time...
I wonder if someone at PlayStation immediately realized it and was laughing under their breath the whole time...
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Lord Malachite
Member
Those numbers for "Cloud First Gamers" seem utterly ludicrous. This graph indicates that Microsoft is expecting more growth among them than of PC first gamers. We're still seeing significant issues in most of the world streaming games that are from multiple generations ago in 2025. But by 2030 tons of people will be streaming the latest games to their smart TVs, streaming stick apps, low end PCs, and limited mobile devices.The goal was based on PC and cloud growth. This is the chart of their projections
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xrnzaaas
Member
A lot of wishful thinking from Microsoft. Game Pass was never going to hit 100m subs just from Xbox, PC and cloud. They would need to appear on PlayStation to start thinking about that milestone, but Sony is not going to agree to that, at least not in its full form (with first-party MS titles only - maybe).
They're doing the same thing now with cloud gaming. It's not going to become the main way of playing games or even see dramatic increases in the next few years. In many countries the infrastructure isn't there yet and besides a lot of people don't have unlimited fast internet.
They're doing the same thing now with cloud gaming. It's not going to become the main way of playing games or even see dramatic increases in the next few years. In many countries the infrastructure isn't there yet and besides a lot of people don't have unlimited fast internet.
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Fabieter
Member
They expected 40% yearly grow. They didnt actually grow it this much
Mattyp
Not the YouTuber
Come on let’s hear from the financial experts on Neogaf on how purchasing one of the greatest revenues in gaming was a huge mistake…
Please do not start with it needs to recoup $80billion… otherwise go back to middle school finance before continuing.
ChoosableOne
ChoosableAll
Is there really a market of 100 million players worldwide willing to pay around $100 annually? Even the most famous F2P game, Fortnite, has only reached a maximum of 13 million concurrent users. The casual audience wouldn’t spend this much money anyway. The number of Steam and console users is already known. This is just a foolish dream.
DavidGzz
Gold Member
I asked Copilot to write me a song and I made an edit or two...(all in fun Xbox bros.)
They don't exist anymore, mayne.
jm89
Member
The graph to me seems completely arbitrary. They even added random dips and trajectory changes. It appears completely handwavy at best.Those numbers for "Cloud First Gamers" seem utterly ludicrous. This graph indicates that Microsoft is expecting more growth among them than of PC first gamers. We're still seeing significant issues in most of the world streaming games that are from multiple generations ago in 2025. But by 2030 tons of people will be streaming the latest games to their smart TVs, streaming stick apps, low end PCs, and limited mobile devices.
What is more funny that among the big gaming cloud services xCloud is arguably the worst quality-wise. It's like they are living in some kind of delusion making these projections.Those numbers for "Cloud First Gamers" seem utterly ludicrous. This graph indicates that Microsoft is expecting more growth among them than of PC first gamers. We're still seeing significant issues in most of the world streaming games that are from multiple generations ago in 2025. But by 2030 tons of people will be streaming the latest games to their smart TVs, streaming stick apps, low end PCs, and limited mobile devices.
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Kenneth Haight
Gold Member
It’s crazy you can’t get a Series X on Amazon in the UK right now.
The competition is over which is a shame as Sony have free rein now to 1. Not release any games until they have to and 2. Innovate at all.
They are now on complete easy street in terms of competition which is never good.
The competition is over which is a shame as Sony have free rein now to 1. Not release any games until they have to and 2. Innovate at all.
They are now on complete easy street in terms of competition which is never good.
Daniel_Mallorca1985
Member
Mircosoft Empire Fall
I have a feeling they may be regretting it.
Overwatch lost 2/3rds of its players to rivals
Warcraft expansion doing very poorly, and venting players.
COD rapidly lost 80% of its players quickly after black ops 6 release (saw a ridiculous trailer of rainbow farting unicorns, bright colors and weird girly K-pop style stuff for it the other day, like who the fuck do they think their audience is?)
Diablo losing its players to path of exile.
Dunno how candy crush is doing.
But that’s a lot of negative signals from their biggest IP.
Overwatch lost 2/3rds of its players to rivals
Warcraft expansion doing very poorly, and venting players.
COD rapidly lost 80% of its players quickly after black ops 6 release (saw a ridiculous trailer of rainbow farting unicorns, bright colors and weird girly K-pop style stuff for it the other day, like who the fuck do they think their audience is?)
Diablo losing its players to path of exile.
Dunno how candy crush is doing.
But that’s a lot of negative signals from their biggest IP.
Burger King
Member
In my opinion, the acquisition of ABK has forced Microsoft to publish its games on all platforms.
If Microsoft had continued to build a catalog of exclusive games, the situation for Xbox I think would have been much better and perhaps recoverable.
I believe the console market (i.e. Xbox) is now totally compromised for Microsoft.
However, I advise you to stay calmer: there is no need to respond so acidly since we are on an open forum and everyone talks about everything without the need to show any card of dubious value
GHG
Member
Warning: if your chicken tastes bitter it means it's well past it's expiration date.
Considering the farm this one came from, it's quite apt.
Unknown Soldier
Member
TheGodfather07
Member
They had potential this gen, but of course they done completely fucked up. Remember the hype around the showcase in 2021 where they would reveal halo infinite? Literally killed momentum in its tracks. Imagine if the showcase was a banger instead? I think gamepass was a mistake aswell. Should have stuck to the traditional model of selling games, made some actual good ones that people want to play and marketed the shit out of the console. They would have been in a much better position than they are right now.
HeWhoWalks
Gold Member
Xbox hasn’t been real competition in sometime. Besides, as we always have to point out to doom/gloom posts like this, Nintendo and Steam very much are competition to PlayStation. The best three will remain.
Roman Empire
Member
Well, look at the bright side of it. Microsoft is one of the few companies out there that can burn money in such stupid stunt and still live to tell the tale. Anyone with a brain (a thing that most CEOs are missing these days) would have seen that an acquisition based future expecting said acquired studios would turn out profit magically was a bad move. But here we are...
20 million units this year? Lol.
Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
4 out of 5 biggest games of 2024 could only be played on the PlayStation console.
Nobody buys this narrative of "Sony being as bad as Xbox."
HeWhoWalks
Gold Member
He doesn’t either. It’s just that chickens have very little to do in life. Either grift or become
Microsoft has no one in the gaming department that knows about gaming. The people who knew about gaming has long left Seamus Blackley, Ed Fries, Jay Allard, Kevin Bachus, Peter Moore etc. These guys knew about games and they loved gaming. Now MS is run by a bunch of clowns in suits who know nothing about gaming and are just throwing stuff on the wall to see what sticks.
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Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
$20 per month (for the tier that has day-one first-party games).
And that's a lot of revenue to walk away from. If the operating expenses are higher than the operating revenue, and Game Pass is making a net annual loss, earnings per share would increase if Microsoft decided to shut down Game Pass / Xbox business.
All that revenue gets offset by the amount they pay for 3rd party publishers to put their games on the service. It varies but they have paid up to $300 million for a single game. I remember reading an article where they paid $250 million for Suicide Squad. They paid $12 to $15 million a month for GTA V.
Mibu no ookami
Demoted Member® Pro™
This is true, but they did just have presumably their worst CY Q3 ever, which indicates that casual gamers are abandoning them too.
They're phasing out physical gaming as they pivot to an all digital future across Hybrid PC.
They've all but discontinued their physical models, they're barely making hardware in general, and they're not pushing for any serious exclusive 3rd party deals.
This is killing it off without saying you're killing it off, but even if they officially announced they were discontinuing hardware, there would not be legal ramifications for that. Maybe you're thinking if they shut down GamePass and disabled online gaming on Xbox. Sure, that would result in legal issues. Instead of that what you'll see is they'll continue to raise the price of GamePass for those who REALLY want it, while it becomes less and less feature rich. That was foretold by the lack of stacking. You can't stack GamePass for more than 3 years now. By the end of this year, they'll probably prevent stacking beyond 1 year as they phase out Day 1 after a certain date.
No refunds are happening.
Mibu no ookami
Demoted Member® Pro™
I've never heard "all hands on dick before."
I doubt Microsoft is genuinely looking to get rid of hardware in the future, but I will tell you future hardware is going to be sold at a premium and not subsidized and that it's likely to be pretty much off the shelf PC parts in a small chassis, that let's you virtualize old xbox titles to keep your old game catalog.
Their days in the traditional console space are clearly numbered, which is why it makes no sense not to put games on PlayStation and Switch.
ShaiKhulud1989
Gold Member
It's Sunsetting in IT-Slop dialect of English
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
proandrad
Member
They had to make some ridiculous goal like that to get greater Microsoft to approve spending 70 billion on Activision. At this point even the ceo is tied to trying to make Xbox work because shareholders would call for his head if they decided to get out of gaming after that sale.
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GHG
Member
PC GP is $11.99 and gets all the first party games 1.
So why aren't you on PC then?
ShaiKhulud1989
Gold Member
For now. But their main GP audience is on console. PC GP experience is a horror show or a comedy of errors, depends on the game. The amount of growth from PC is very-very low.
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Horseganador
Member
It's incredible how the entire Xbox strategy has collapsed, nothing has gone well for them, not hardware sales, not the increase in GP subscriptions, not software sales, etc... and all this after a huge investment.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Mibu no ookami
Demoted Member® Pro™
The idea was to keep GamePass as cheap as possible initially, expand GamePass on PC, and xCloud on mobile and TV to get to the 100 million.
They didn't think they were going to get 100 million console gamers, but the decline of the Xbox console business made getting to that number pretty much impossible. I'd say at least half of it needed to come from console gamers. After initial subsidies, you gradually increase the price to bring in more operating income.
It topped out and there is no growth when you factor in churn. Now the only thing to do is to get that money from those who are subscribed and drastically cut costs.
Their best bet is to take advantage of Sony's poor relationship with other vendors probably delaying or preventing PS+ cloud streaming on things like Samsung TVs. Even Apple was able to get Apple TV on Samsung TVs... Though they had the ability to dangle AirPlay. Sony's inability to get cloud streaming on more devices may come back to bite them in the future. It should be a standard at least on their TVs or Google TVs in general.
Everything in console gaming stems from the strength of your console. It's the starting point. Software sales and GP subs were never going to grow without console growth. When GP numbers start to decline as the price goes up, eventually Microsoft will put the kibosh on it and they'll just become a company that publishes software.
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GHG
Member
It's a valid question considering you're using that as a retort but yet you're not taking advantage of it.
So what's in it for you in this case?
Astray
Member
NGL, part of me wants to put down $200 and get a month's sub to read the entirety of the piece, but that would honestly be better spent on like, games.. lol.
One thing I want to say is that the mass-porting is a reaction to the HW sales decline (which incidentally started really showing in the Starfield launch quarter lol), not a reason for it happening.
I'm seeing some Xbox podcasters trying to make the business case for keeping exclusives, and it's entirely nonsensical.
Yep that sales baseline has to be beyond awful at this point. I simply don't see a way back for them, even if they make 10 1P AAA exclusives of top quality in one year, it's simply too much of an uphill battle rn, those acquisitions should have happened during the One gen so they can hit the ground running with strong exclusives this gen.
One thing I want to say is that the mass-porting is a reaction to the HW sales decline (which incidentally started really showing in the Starfield launch quarter lol), not a reason for it happening.
I'm seeing some Xbox podcasters trying to make the business case for keeping exclusives, and it's entirely nonsensical.
Phil Spencer himself asking the tough questions lol.
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adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Mibu no ookami
Demoted Member® Pro™
I think the next gen Xbox(es) could be direct to consumer only.
I think the HW sales decline happened well before Starfield. Starfield was meant to right the ship and yet when it released there was no change at all.
People simply aren't buying Xbox for any specific game Microsoft puts out and their studios don't have the pedigree to pump out 10 top quality AAA exclusives. They really haven't done that in the 20 years they've been on the market. What success have they had outside of Bungie and Epic Games?
Even had they made the same acquisitions 5 years earlier, it wouldn't have made a difference. They acquired the wrong companies. They should have acquired companies like CDPR or Larian. Witcher and Cyberpunk being exclusives would have gone a longer way. Bethesda's best games take way too long to make and their talent profile is seriously going downhill. ABK was also going downhill before the purchase.
Astray
Member
I think retailers almost definitely won't want to take on massive stocks like they did this gen. They're already doing things like outsourcing part servicing to iFixit like Valve does.
They will get their distribution going via OEMs instead imo. The die-hard Xbox customer is about to be gypped big time.
Yep.
What I was mainly talking about is the perception some are trying to push that the multiplat push is what's causing the decline, but it's not because the decline was happening for at least 1-2 year prior.
If there's one thing Jim Ryan did right, it's not allowing Sony to take their foot off the gas while the ABK drama was happening. They built up quite the lead by the time that acquisition closed and essentially checkmated MS in the console space.
Yep, I think the brand is largely getting rejected en masse at this point. Suck for those who love it, but the facts on the ground speak volumes imo.
I think so too, but I think launching with Deathloop and Ghostwire as exclusives for Xbox rather than timed ones for Sony could have made a difference and kept consumer good will going. COD exclusivity being discussed in the build-up to the current gen launch rather than 2 years afterwards might have made a difference and gotten some COD diehards to pick Xbox instead.
GHG
Member
Correcting misinformation is not 'retort'. Wish you'd have done the same instead of this lame 'gotcha', G.
That's all that's in it for me at the moment.
It's not misinformation though when the quoted price is exactly the one that you're paying.
So not only are you getting mugged off, but you're also running defence for the very company that's mugging you off.
rickybooby87
Member
Mr. Spencer I don't feel so good
SEGA acquisition next Wednesday
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