Resetting Xbox • Hacker News Board

Re: Resetting Xbox

#181

Post by dagmx » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 6:52 PM UTC

righthand wrote: post #34

dagmx wrote: post #20

This is incredibly sad for a lot of my friends who are finding themselves out of work despite delivering well received products. But at the same time I appreciate the candor of Asha saying that the corporate management are to blame and letting studios go back to being independent where possible. Phil Spencer really messed up. Everyone in the industry knew Microsoft were making bad calls trying to dig themselves a hol…

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…

How would Asha pull him out? How do you think she even had that kind of authority or seniority?

Re: Resetting Xbox

#182

Post by tracker1 » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 6:52 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #164

tracker1 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

None of those examples are political. They might be things you don't like, which is fine, but that doesn't make them politics. What makes the attractiveness of a 3D game character "politics"? What makes a useless gay side quest politics, but a similar useless straight side quest not-politics?

Injecting LGBTQ+, then excluding it for certain markets is absolutely political.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#183

Post by taurath » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 6:53 PM UTC

saghm wrote: post #47

athorax wrote: post #12

It is neither possible nor desirable to own every great independent studio. We have also learned that we are not the best home for every type of studio This is shockingly self-aware for microsoft

Yes, but only because the bar is so low. "We can't commodotize innovation" is not an especially subtle insight, and pretty much everyone other than executives at companies like this understand it without having to spend billions to try it out.

They say that only after they buy up like half of the IP in the entire gaming industry without a plan and it doesn't end up being a fast enough money printer. Activisions back catalog is the result of hundreds of acquisitions and IP purchases.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#184

Post by dec0dedab0de » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 6:53 PM UTC

sunaookami wrote: post #167

bashmelek wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is encouraging, but my stock portfolio paints a different picture. Nintendo is unfortunately doing terribly this year. I still believe in their core mission, even if some of their litigiousness and anti consumer practices have put me off

Nintendo is also a Japanese company and japanese stocks aren't doing great due to their economy and the weak yen. Also, stock price does not correlate with good games or a healthy business.

Nintendo is also much older than Sony and Microsoft. They don't really chase short term gains to appease shareholders.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#185

Post by johnnyanmac » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 6:56 PM UTC

righthand wrote: post #139

nhinck2 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think a long time executive leaves, and the expected successor (Sarah Bond) refuses to suceed because of some intimate backstabbing behind the scnes. Especially not by an executive who was previously running the AI division during an AI gold rush.

Occam's razor: Spencer and Bond jumped off a sinking ship, Asha wasn't doing enough in AI. Push her to be the fall gal for the sinking ship and put in whoever will milk AI more in her place. Win-win. Asha will be gone in a few years with her job done and a cushy parachute, and Xbox will be a shadow of its former self. But that's not a failure; that's the goal.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#186

Post by adithyareddy » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 6:57 PM UTC

foepys wrote: post #159

tracker1 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the margins, that's crazy thin for the size of the org... One bad quarter could turn from a few million in profits to hundreds of millions in losses. It's too close, and there's no way to build/store funds for any kind of storm at that level. Now, I think the vast majority of the pain is more than self-inflicted... I think actual business, marketing and focus need to start taking priority over idealistic political…

Billion USD grocery chains operate on 2-3% margins just fine...

If you're a grocery chain you know exactly how much an item costs and exactly how much you sell it for. You also simply order more or less stock of the item depending on how it's selling.

If you're a video game company, you invest millions of dollars in a project up front, for years, and you don't know until after release whether you:

- Make back all the money you spent plus a healthy profit on top.

- Just break even, but you lost the opportunity cost of all the other things that money could have been spent on with better utility.

- Your game flops and you wasted all the money you spent developing it.

It's also highly uneven. Extremely likely that King (Candy Crush) and Mojang (Minecraft) are making a ton of money, and everything else is a money pit where you pour in millions of dollars and you don't even make your money back.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#187

Post by kingleopold » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 6:57 PM UTC

badsectoracula wrote: post #115

markus_zhang wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea why they didn’t realize that earlier, or if there is any insider dealing involved, from my cynical thoughts.

> I have no idea why they didn’t realize that earlier 14 layers of management :-P

also board and man. that approved all acq. got lots of 8-9 figure bonuses in total, so they say that after all TOC and years. They will never say these acq. made our man. teams and some board members great ROI and personal wealth, lmao. Corp. games are sometimes flat for corp and amazing for the groups that decide them.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#188

Post by johnnyanmac » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 7:00 PM UTC

taurath wrote: post #170

> We will deliver success through a flatter organization that is built around makers (individual contributors focused on building), player-coaches (leaders who remain deeply involved in the work while developing their teams), and directly responsible individuals (DRIs) who own key decisions and outcomes. This is the new trendy management style - a few executive owners and then everyone else are expendable ICs, with a…

Sounds like an awful model for making a game if I understand the model correctly . Forget tight-knit, multidisplinary teams. Everyone's just a special cog to switch in and out from project to project, and laid off when we need a little bit better of an earnings call. Add in micromanagers and directors who need to have their fingers and every project (instead of focusing on the individual needs of a team and game), and you truly embrace the Microslop.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#189

Post by catigula » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 7:00 PM UTC

taurath wrote: post #170

> We will deliver success through a flatter organization that is built around makers (individual contributors focused on building), player-coaches (leaders who remain deeply involved in the work while developing their teams), and directly responsible individuals (DRIs) who own key decisions and outcomes. This is the new trendy management style - a few executive owners and then everyone else are expendable ICs, with a…

Paying people less and replacing them with AI is the literal explicit strategy; I get that this was supposed to be a cynical comment but it's basically just factual.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#190

Post by freedomben » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 7:03 PM UTC

tracker1 wrote: post #75

hbn wrote: post #16

It was pretty rich seeing armchair video game industry analysts act like the new CEO was gonna usher in a new age for Microsoft's gaming division because she got to announce the updated logo and some games that would have obviously been in development long before she became CEO. Microsoft is never going to figure out gaming. It's more art than engineering and they can barely manage the engineering with all the interv…

To me, the graphics abilities have been there for a decade... what we need are better games and gameplay. More fun games without gotcha, pay to win, loot box efforts. Too much effort is going for dazzling graphics at the expense of overall gameplay. How many people are still playing CoD, WoW and so many other games from over a decade ago? How many refreshes of Final Fantasy have we seen? The graphics can only carry y…

> Too much effort is going for dazzling graphics at the expense of overall gameplay.

Yes, 100%. I love good graphics, but game play is the most important thing. If you don't have good gameplay the graphics mean nothing. A game with great game play and great graphics is something to behold.

I recently finished Split Fiction and they really nailed it. I hope studios take notice!