Resetting Xbox • Hacker News Board

Re: Resetting Xbox

#131

Post by TulliusCicero » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 6:11 PM UTC

zitterbewegung wrote: post #82

rockyj wrote: post #24

This is a total mess IMHO. - The make around 5 billion in revenue per quarter - The problem according to them is profit margin - around 150-160 million So first of all, they are big! Secondly they are not at a loss. They just have a "thin, non-growing margin". So to fix all this they are trimming down, so they can "return to growth" (which I think is ridiculous). Some points - - They are huge business even now - 5 bi…

Xbox around 2021 had around a 12% profit margin and the gaming industry as a whole was around 17-22% . In 2023 the target for the division was put to 30% . We see this new restructuring because the target was put this high. Microsoft really wanted Game Pass to be a steam competitor which is pretty much what everyone in the industry tries to do and fails. The push for Game Pass prices to be higher was to get the 30% m…

Being a Steam competitor involves making a store that's actually good. All the other major stores/platforms don't really seem to give a shit, to be frank. Steam has like 20x their feature set, and the gap appears to be still growing.

If anything, it should be easier to make cool new features when you own the hardware side of the platform experience too, but no, it's Steam that has stuff like remote play together, not PSN or Xbox.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#132

Post by hbcdbff » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 6:12 PM UTC

“Resetting Xbox”

Gross and classless title. There was a time where people at least had the sense of shame to not do this kind of thing when firing people

Re: Resetting Xbox

#133

Post by righthand » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 6:12 PM UTC

tapoxi wrote: post #69

righthand wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well this is the new Xbox boss, Aska Sharma trying to course correct her own actions after pushing out Phil Spencer (and team). Phil had a deep understanding of the game world about profit margins and how the Xbox is essentially a stake in keeping Microsoft in the minds of consumers, a place in the home. Aska has a shallow understanding and sees only the financials and wanted to increase profits. Now she is burning i…

Are you conflating Asha Sharma with Satya Nadella? Asha just joined Xbox, she had no role in any prior decision making.

Asha came from the AI division of Microsoft, she didn’t pop out of nowhere. She is strongly tied to the Microsoft LLM plays.

IMO Phil was very clearly pushed out by “AI will cut costs talk”. No one makes huge investments into acquiring companies and then suddenly retires (after running the division successfully for decades) and none of his underlings were promoted into the role, they all left when he did.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#134

Post by vel0city » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 6:14 PM UTC

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #121

jamiek88 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone else deeply deeply weary in their bones about people doing this? I hate this timeline. We can’t even talk about fucking corporate margins without some chud shoehorning some of this shit in.

It's by design. The outrage merchants post day in and out to signal allegiance to this bizarre cult. People also don't respect how WILDLY influential GamerGate as been. There's good arguments to be made that Trump and his shitty White House would never have come to pass if not for moot re-enabling political discussions on 4chan at the behest of some combo of Epstein and Bannon, explicitly to stoke reactionary rage at…

I agree. A lot of people assume rational actors and don't understand "meme magic".

Re: Resetting Xbox

#135

Post by ErneX » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 6:14 PM UTC

darth_avocado wrote: post #116

rockyj wrote: post #24

This is a total mess IMHO. - The make around 5 billion in revenue per quarter - The problem according to them is profit margin - around 150-160 million So first of all, they are big! Secondly they are not at a loss. They just have a "thin, non-growing margin". So to fix all this they are trimming down, so they can "return to growth" (which I think is ridiculous). Some points - - They are huge business even now - 5 bi…

> Then they did not have to give away popular games day one on Game Pass A company that sells consoles complaining about not having enough games after 25 years in business and acquiring most popular game studios is hilarious. They keep cutting game studios, killing games and then set ambitious profit margins. At some point you have to question, do the people in charge understand their own business at all? They just g…

Bungie is not a MS studio since 2007.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#136

Post by hbcdbff » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 6:14 PM UTC

babelfish wrote: post #99

12_throw_away wrote: post #59

I want XBOX to be one of the few companies that entertains more than a billion people each day "more than a billion"? What are we doing here? Do you have any idea what your target market is? Surely someone in your organization can provide you with a good stretch goal ... >10% of all humans using an XBox daily is not that. Seriously, I cannot fathom why you would say this. Innumeracy? Narcissistic delusion? Stealth la…

There are approx ~3 billion "gamers" worldwide, why shouldn't Xbox set a goal of 1/3 of them using their platform?

You even felt the need to use quotes yourself.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#137

Post by belthesar » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 6:15 PM UTC

darth_avocado wrote: post #116

rockyj wrote: post #24

This is a total mess IMHO. - The make around 5 billion in revenue per quarter - The problem according to them is profit margin - around 150-160 million So first of all, they are big! Secondly they are not at a loss. They just have a "thin, non-growing margin". So to fix all this they are trimming down, so they can "return to growth" (which I think is ridiculous). Some points - - They are huge business even now - 5 bi…

> Then they did not have to give away popular games day one on Game Pass A company that sells consoles complaining about not having enough games after 25 years in business and acquiring most popular game studios is hilarious. They keep cutting game studios, killing games and then set ambitious profit margins. At some point you have to question, do the people in charge understand their own business at all? They just g…

Point of clarification:

While Bungie had historically been tied to Xbox / Microsoft during the Halo era, Bungie spun out to be its own company in 2007, and then was bought by Sony in 2022. It was Sony, not Microsoft, driving the most recent layoffs at Bungie.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#138

Post by Unkn0wn-d » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 6:16 PM UTC

as a player this feels like the confirmation of what we suspect since years, the gamepass math never closed. the sad part is the 3200 people paying the price for decisions they never took

Re: Resetting Xbox

#139

Post by righthand » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 6:17 PM UTC

nhinck2 wrote: post #48

righthand wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree, it wasn’t Phil that dug a hole but Asha who pushed Phil out with no plan. Why is Asha finally revealing her plan years later if she was such a good fit? She came in trying to automate away peoples jobs with AI for the last year or so and that is obviously failing. It wasn’t Phil that invested the entire company’s well being on stochastic parrots. She has done everything but focus on delivering games (prod…

a) Asha didnt push Phil out. b) She's been in the role for 4ish months, not years.

I can guarantee you Asha has been making this move for years.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#140

Post by johnnyanmac » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 6:19 PM UTC

mjr00 wrote: post #50

rockyj wrote: post #24

This is a total mess IMHO. - The make around 5 billion in revenue per quarter - The problem according to them is profit margin - around 150-160 million So first of all, they are big! Secondly they are not at a loss. They just have a "thin, non-growing margin". So to fix all this they are trimming down, so they can "return to growth" (which I think is ridiculous). Some points - - They are huge business even now - 5 bi…

> - The make around 5 billion in revenue per quarter - The problem according to them is profit margin - around 150-160 million > So first of all, they are big! Secondly they are not at a loss. They just have a "thin, non-growing margin". So to fix all this they are trimming down, so they can "return to growth" (which I think is ridiculous). How is that profit margin distributed though? King (Candy Crush etc) and Moja…

>Double Fine (one of the studios being chopped) has released 2 games since 2021, Keeper (191 peak player count on steam) and Kiln (163 peak players); these would be flops even for a normal indie game, for a studio getting Microsoft salaries those are enormous flops.

Hard to really say. Kiln and Keeper can easily be made up for by the sales of Psychonauts 2. I'm sure an indie Double Fine would not have been able to make those kinds of games.

This takes me back to Pertinent, another small game from a reputable studio, had its main writer saying that "this kind of game would not be possible without Gamepass". Which I 100% believe. Microsoft definitely didn't buy Double Fine trying to make the next Fortnite, but that arthouse strategy clearly isn't a factor these days.