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Resetting Xbox

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Re: Resetting Xbox

#321

Post by weberer »

manytimesaway wrote: post #98
saghm wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nintendo also shipped Metroid Prime 4, with massive delays and unsatisfied customers, following the same "interactive Hollywood" philosophy which disappointed Metroid fans. I'm not convinced that Metroid at least really is a great data point for "Nintendo is ruining things in-house". From Wikipedia[1]: > Nintendo announced Metroid Prime 4 with a teaser trailer during the Nintendo Direct presentation at E3 2017, and…

My point wasn't about Nintendo ruining things in-house rather than them following the exact same trends than Sony & Microsoft, only a few years late. MP4 is what OP was talking about, an "interactive Hollywood" experience that betrays previous Metroids, adds discutable open-world design cues, and locks features behind $30 figures.

Prime 4 was a fine game, except for the MacKenzie character who would never shut the hell up. It was like having a redditor in your ear for 10 hours. Absolutely insufferable. If they would have just removed him and worked on the desert hub world a bit more, it probably would have been 2025's game of the year.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#322

Post by mapontosevenths »

WorldMaker wrote: post #232
VikingCoder wrote: post #83

"And we will streamline how we work across our tools, with a cleaner code base, shared services, and 50% reduced vendor spend." How will they achieve cleaner code, with fewer workers? Seems like a well-intentioned platitude.

They'll use a magic "Copilot for Game Dev" LLM genie that produces nothing but clean code.~

"Write a new Halo game. Make no mistakes."

Re: Resetting Xbox

#324

Post by Dig1t »

butlike wrote: post #56
manytimesaway wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things are not that black and white. Nintendo also shipped Metroid Prime 4, with massive delays and unsatisfied customers, following the same "interactive Hollywood" philosophy which disappointed Metroid fans. Same thing goes for Star Fox, a remake of a remake of a remake, with poor visual and dialogue choices. And meanwhile, the same silent push for digital-only, forced upgrades and the like...

I'm curious about the Star Fox comment. Tell me if I got this wrong: A remake (1) of a remake (2) of a remake (3) (1) A remake (Switch 2 Starfox, a remake of StarFox 64) (2) StarFox 64 (A remake of Super Nintendo's StarFox) (3) ??? I don't know what the 3rd level of remake you mention is, but I'm curious!

Starfox 64 (N64) -> Starfox 64 (3DS) -> Starfox (Switch 2)

I assumed that's what OP meant, all of those are the exact same game with the same story and dialog, remade in 3 different game engines.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#325

Post by tormeh »

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…

Microsoft is focused on AI and enterprise sales. I don't think they're institutionally capable of making a good end-user experience. You might just as well ask why SAP makes bad UIs - it's because the executives just don't really care.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#326

Post by brikym »

artyom wrote: post #279
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…

Those metrics are hugely misleading because they account for current fiscal year revenue and margins . For Xbox being what it is today, which is mostly about the subscription and not the hardware console or the exclusives, you have to compound their acquisition frenzy of 2018-2020 or so, which totals about 75 billion+. They didn't want the developers nor the catalog. What Microsoft wanted is to change the economics a…

It seems really odd to have a Netflix consumption model for games. Generally people want to play a few favourite games for a long time and get very skilled at them. You just don't need to churn through content like movies.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#327

Post by trashface »

chrisfosterelli wrote: post #120
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…

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…

Asha sounds like the kind of person you bring in to shut down a division cleanly. "Headshot!" as we gamers might say.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#328

Post by msftgreed »

This is purely greed on Microsoft's point. They absolutely have a profitable business with some great games, and they are sad that their management decisions led to this outcome.

But it's the rank and file who will pay the price for these poor management decisions. Like it always is.

To hear that the new boss wants to increase capitalization on Minecraft, to make it more like a Roblox, is horrifying and truly goes to show Xbox has leadership with near zero understanding of what they have or how to run it.

I wish good landings for all those affected, I hope for the best for all the studios whose future is uncertain now.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#329

Post by greatgib »

They don't realized that it is their business decisions that ruined the experience of the console gaming and they probably still double down on that.

Before, you would buy and play a console to be able to play in a minute, eventually with buddy around. Playing time duration was a key metric in game reviews.

Now, as they want to milk us the maximum it is a nightmare, game are mandatory online, you wait minutes and even dozen of minutes to be able to play like 3 minutes rounds, you are constantly nagged with restrictions, hours updates in the middle of game that prevents you to play, they force you to subscribe, register, give up on your data and all, consent screens everywhere, upsell barriers everywhere, and little opportunity to play with your friends...

So, after a few months, everyone will lose interest in buying games and even play. It's not fun, lot of lost time and frustration.

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