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Resetting Xbox

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Re: Resetting Xbox

#291

Post by ebbi »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #52
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…

Compulsively chasing only the highest margins has been toxic for the country as a whole.

What else do you expect from publicly listed companies?

Mix that with the increasingly higher concentration of wealth, and things are just going to get worse.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#293

Post by dsfnajlsdfnafn »

piltdownman wrote: post #26
speak_plainly wrote: post #11

At some point, the games industry decided it wanted to be interactive Hollywood, and the consequences are entirely predictable. Meanwhile, Nintendo just quietly shipped 3.8 million units of Tomodachi Life in two weeks, and 4 million of Pokopia in five. They're making actual games. Sony's obsession with prestige cinematic bloat, like Xbox, has also put them in a slow-motion death spiral that's going to become painfull…

To some extent - but you can't get away with Hollywood Accounting Practices in the same way. Also one must consider the likes of Hideo Kojima who can sell ~7 million copies of a new IP that is effectively a cinematic Walking Simulator as an Auteur acrimoniously splitting from the traditional studio system. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 also shipped over 5.4 million copies as a AA, in what is also arguably an interactiv…

> acrimoniously splitting from the traditional studio system.

Yeah, he split from the traditional studio system to create... his own traditional studio system.

Kojima is precisely what happens when you stop thinking of games as actual an interactive entertainment format and start thinking of it as a "cinematic experience" instead.

Death Stranding is only a game by the narrowest of margins. What it is is a movie with Kojima's Spotify 'favourites' list as the soundtrack that so happens to have one interactive element or two thrown in there for good measure.

It's pretty telling that all he's done after splitting away from Konami and surrounding himself with his own sycophantic group of developers is Death Stranding. Kojima is the direct result and pretty much the face of a lot that is wrong with the games industry right now.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#294

Post by [deleted] »

tracker1 wrote: post #235
ryandrake wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So you think the character looks like a fashion model? Really?

[deleted]

Re: Resetting Xbox

#295

Post by paradox460 »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #131
zitterbewegung wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Xbox used to have remote play together, via mixer. You could allow any viewer to play along side you, from the browser.

Microsoft killed it

Re: Resetting Xbox

#296

Post by ebbi »

Telaneo wrote: post #287
draculero wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just out of curiosity, I checked her Wikipedia page and this caught my eye: > Sharma posted in 2026 that she had recently begun playing video games under the gamertag AMRAHSAHSA to "learn and understand" the games industry Imagine running the Xbox division and only just now picking up a controller.

A part of me wants to be generous in interpreting that and say, OK, maybe it's the first time she's playing games semi-seriously in order to understand the capital G Gamer. Surely she's played games before, like say, the Sims, Bejeweled, Mario Kart, or picked up a Nintendo DS or Switch in her lifetime. Heck, even Wii Sports should count here in some capacity. Most people have played games casually in their lifetime b…

It's a publicly listed company. They needed someone without the emotional attachment to 'Gaming', but with business nous, to make the decisions needed to meet her mandate, which is to ultimately increase shareholder value.

A 'Gamer' would have found that more difficult to do.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#297

Post by Keyframe »

This reads like corporate death rattle. Microsoft never had any clue what it takes to make a console - a console. Now it seems they've also completely lost the plot on what makes a business - a business. They should've been Steam, instead they ran out of it.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#299

Post by xienze »

jerf wrote: post #155
johnnyanmac wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Microsoft really wanted Game Pass to be a steam competitor which is pretty much what everyone in the industry tries to do and fails. Gamepass is quite literally the most anti-steam strategy ever. It's a massive loss leading (or rather, low margin leading) service relying on a pseudo-rental service to provide value. Steam got to where it is by keeping all its costs lean and developing a service around taking a cut fr…

I wrote a while ago about how companies seem to have gotten the idea into their head that subscriptions are unconditionally good, rather than a contingent good based on the exact circumstances of the subscription: https://jerf.org/iri/post/2023/streampocalypse-and-first-pri... Gamepass as a subscription to make sure you always have something to play, that has a lot of old games or indie games and other games that hav…

> it's hard to see how that is an economic win

I _think_ the thinking is that not everyone is going to buy more than a couple full priced new releases per year (in general). $80 or whatever is just too much for most people to drop on a game they "might" like. On the other hand, most people would have few reservations being perpetually subscribed to a service that lets them play every new game "for free" (so long as they keep rolling in on a monthly basis). Theoretically, the subscription money would exceed what they'd normally collect from the average person buying the usual 2 or 3 full priced games per year.

Where I think it breaks down is quite a number of gamers are hopelessly addicted to playing all the latest games, all day every day. MS is surely losing money when those guys substitute buying physical games for a subscription.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#300

Post by airstrike »

sikim wrote: post #236
chrisfosterelli wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With due fairness, these are two different sets of leaders and two different strategies. A lot of the strategy you outlined -- buying all these studios, replicating netflix, giving away day one games, raising game pass -- was a strategy put in place by Phil Spencer. Phil pushed for this investment with the promise it would pay off later for MS. He's talked publicly about having to convince Nadella to put up ungodly a…

Phil and the likes were too hands-off on these studios post-acquisition. They got too complacent enjoying steady paychecks over years of delays while working on their niche games that only highlight their artistic vision over generally fun gameplay. That's where they failed. The Activision/Blizzard acquisition and GamePass fumble were just a nail on the coffin

It's also really hard to buy studios and hope to catch future lightning in the proverbial bottle.

Past performance is no guarantee of future success.

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