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Resetting Xbox

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Re: Resetting Xbox

#201

Post by beezlebroxxxxxx »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #188
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), an…

The only benefit is, long-term, hopefulyy, the people ejected from this model can often end up forming their own indie teams and creating their own games.

Indie games are at an incredible place right now (I am aware it's crazy cut-throat, though). It would be nice to see what quality comes out in response to this disaster.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#202

Post by joshstrange »

bluescrn wrote: post #199
joshstrange wrote: post #55

I think the Xbox Series X will be my last Xbox after owning Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and the Xbox Series X. I was all-in on their platform and I even paid for Game Pass for many years. But they kept increasing the cost of Game Pass with no new features, the platform has seemed stagnant, and honestly I can't tell you why my Series X is better than my Xbox One. Literally I don't see a difference. I'm sure there is one…

I cancelled Game Pass when the recent price hikes quit. Then realised just how few games I'd actually bought this generation. Game Pass was a mistake, or at least putting big AAA releases on there on day one was.

I think I've bought like 1-2 games this whole generation and even with Game Pass I might have bought 1-2 more max. Yes, I dabbled in a handful of games but never more than a hour or two before I lost interest (and I never had the interest to pay $60 for it).

Mostly I was playing indie/older games that could have been playing on the Xbox One.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#203

Post by Dylan16807 »

tracker1 wrote: post #182
ryandrake wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Having a realistic amount of LGBTQ people/interactions in a big story shouldn't qualify as "political". Removing it for certain markets is much more political, and they should not do that, but I get the impression that isn't the outcome you want.

Edit: Also the average level in the real world is a lot more than 1%. 1% is like just the trans portion.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#204

Post by TulliusCicero »

PaulHoule wrote: post #169
TulliusCicero wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't know if I care about the features, what I do care about is the games and a lean-back experience which is not sweaty. I play games to escape the drudgery of software development and the last thing I want to do is mess with an .INI file. I love the Steam Deck because it feels like a consumer electronics device: it has the reliability of Linux but not the sweat. The Steam Deck is the only device I've seen that w…

I think it's one of those things where people only care about a small percentage of the features, but which small percentage varies.

For example, I used the example of remote play together, which is very neat and a lot of people love it, but I personally don't use it.

On the other hand, I make extensive use of Steam's gifting feature, including its ability to handle multiple gifts to multiple people in a single transaction, and to schedule exactly when those gifts will land. And this is something that the other major stores don't seem to support at all, a big advantage for Steam for me, but I'm sure there's many people who don't care at all about gifting.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#205

Post by pibaker »

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…

> Microsoft is never going to figure out gaming. It's more art than engineering and they can barely manage the engineering with all the intervention from marketing and HR in their products.

Gaming is like cuisine. Can it be art? Sure. But most people will never visit a Michelin starred restaurant in their whole lives. They go to McDonald's and their local equivalent. Mainstream games have been like McDonald's for a long time. It's not about being a thought provoking artistic expression. It's about engineering a predictable entertainment experience that the average Joe can enjoy while being half checked out after a day of work the same way he enjoys a Budweiser or a Big Mac.

Of course, no critic will ever be caught praising McDonald's for its culinary artistry. But it doesn't matter. People will keep spending money on it, and the business continues. Same deal for gaming.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#206

Post by Telaneo »

Can't say I'm surprised. I can't see a reasonable path for Xbox to do anything but just stay alive other than as MS's overarching gaming brand.

Xbox is on the losing side of the consoles, with no distinguishing features to speak of. You buy a console to play games and for it to be convenient. Xbox is no more or less convenient than a Playstation, and what few exclusives there are left are on Sony's side of the fence. Game Pass, while good, isn't really making money. What more is there to Xbox then (beyond the studios and such, which aren't Xbox themselves)?

Re: Resetting Xbox

#207

Post by mattalex »

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…

150M at 5B revenue is not great: that's 3% margin!

The bigger issue is that console manufacturer revenue is highly cyclical. This is hard to see in e.g. Xbox and Sony since they are both part of a larger conglomerate, but really obvious for nintendo.

You generally have a cycle of - "Launch": high marketing costs, low/negative HW margins - "Mid-cycle": lowering manufacturing costs, large game sales, high margin DLCs - "end-of-cycle": falling HW sales, fewer exclusives (-> preparation for next gen), fewer consumers (-> waiting for next gen). Here you usually have maximum profits since you don't subsidize HW and marketing is minimal (platforms are already locked in)

Generally you have to establish a big userbase during the mid-cycle such that you can levarage it during the late-cycle to be able to afford next-gen. Xbox has the big issue that their mid-cycle was catastrophic, which means they now don't have the console base to get into the next generation: If they have 3% margin _right now_ in the end-of-cycle where marketing and development costs are at their lowest, this does not bode well for the overall health of the business.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#208

Post by sinpif »

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

It also means they must have started with the assumption that they were the best home for every type of studio, which, when you say it out loud, sounds very stupid. Second, how can a studio be "independent" anymore when owned by MS? Doesn't make sense. It's all just corpo speak for "we fucked up but we're still getting paid to fire you".

Re: Resetting Xbox

#209

Post by tracker1 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #197
tracker1 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you totally skip the "self-insert"... But I'm sure you'd cast Lizzo as Helen of Troy.

Who was the "self" being inserted here? That's a confusing term for a game made by so many people.

https://www.reddit.com/r/marvelmemes/comments/17h76ej/so_a_i...

Of course, it's not like you couldn't have done a google search yourself, if you really cared.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#210

Post by ryandrake »

tracker1 wrote: post #209
Dylan16807 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who was the "self" being inserted here? That's a confusing term for a game made by so many people.

https://www.reddit.com/r/marvelmemes/comments/17h76ej/so_a_i... Of course, it's not like you couldn't have done a google search yourself, if you really cared.

The top Reddit comment there pretty much sums this whole discussion up. I can't believe I dragged myself into this. It's just Gamergate again and again. I should have known.
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