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Resetting Xbox

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Re: Resetting Xbox

#511

Post by dagmx »

nxc18 wrote: post #402
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 don’t think Phil had any other options while existing under Satya and a relentless push to services revenue. If Windows can’t make a case for itself without moving heavily to services (advertising and pushing 365, primarily), how could Xbox? I’m not really sure how the C-suite is escaping blame here.

Oh I definitely agree the C-suite at Microsoft needs blame. Microsoft need everything to be framed as avenue into services.

But Phil was the one who dug two incompatible holes and kept digging hoping they’d meet in the middle with buried treasure.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#512

Post by boca_honey »

wincy wrote: post #100
tracker1 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is where Nintendo is at. It’s hilarious how much fun me and my kids are having playing games like Animal Crossing, Super Smash Bros, Mario Party, Pokemon Pokopia, and the surprise smash hit has been Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream. My kids make all the neighbors and have them get married and laugh about it and it’s just such a goofy concept. The graphics are good enough that you no longer notice there’s graphic…

Nintendo is great for children, yes. I wish there were something like them for a more mature audience.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#513

Post by beart »

jonhohle wrote: post #484
mattfrommars wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. There is absolutely no reason to be in sync with Sony on their console release date. They could have effectively released consoles bit more frequently. But they choose not to do so. Their acquisition has been questiona…

As a Blizzard and Overwatch fan, the acquisition has not been ideal. Activision nearly ended competitive professional Overwatch and significantly scaled back their big esports events to look more profitable. Lately, they seem to be chasing Marvel Rivals for no good reason, but at least in the younger competitive leagues, Rivals is picking up steam and Overwatch no longer looks like a contender, despite being signific…

Overwatch released in 2016, but the merger took place in 2008. I feel like overwatch was always more of an Activision game than a Blizzard game. Or at least, pre-World of Warcraft Blizzard would never have entered that genre of gaming.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#514

Post by mvdtnz »

jjcm wrote: post #492
mvdtnz wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valve doesn't make games. (within the margin of error).

A non-trivial amount of their ARR is still from Valve-made games. Counterstrike still nets a bit over 1b per year from just case unboxings, and Dota is in the hundreds of millions. I wouldn't call 8-10% a margin of error.

Counter Strike 2 is a 14 year old game. DOTA2 is a 13 year old game.

Yes I know Valve makes money selling games. They don't make games.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#515

Post by 3eb7988a1663 »

jjcm wrote: post #492
mvdtnz wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valve doesn't make games. (within the margin of error).

A non-trivial amount of their ARR is still from Valve-made games. Counterstrike still nets a bit over 1b per year from just case unboxings, and Dota is in the hundreds of millions. I wouldn't call 8-10% a margin of error.

Those are maintenance + loot box on existing games. Sure, it still takes art and craft, but not the same kind of development work.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#516

Post by msftgreed »

pibaker wrote: post #450
msftgreed wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft is never going to figure out gaming. That's the thing -- for a while they had figured out gaming. The xbox and 360 were solid consoles with lots of great internal and external games. Halo was incredible. Then the company did the thing that Amazon did, Blizzard is doing, and all the big tech companies do -- they thought their big war chest meant they should make bigger games. Budgets ballooned, game timeli…

> No one wants "the game only Microsoft can make", everyone wants another great Zelda. Or Gears of War. Or Satisfactory. Or Mina the Hollower. Or UFO 50. Or Animal Well. This IMO is a display of what is wrong with a lot of online gaming discourse — it is dominated by people who spend more time playing and critiquing games than 99% of the population and has a tendency to overemphasize indie darlings and ignore the mas…

Sure, I love a Forza Horizons (I'm not much for mainline Forza), but those games aren't really experiencing the same scope creep as the the rest of the industry.

Call of Duty is, but it's also noteworthy that sales of CoD are slumping. Hard. Like down-by-60% hard. And the gamepass numbers aren't really boosting it back up.

Also, I think you'll find my list absolutely included big games. Gears of War? Zelda? These are not "indie darlings".

Re: Resetting Xbox

#517

Post by whatever1 »

Ha! The new boss of Xbox surely has innovative ideas! Layoffs, how nobody had thought about this before?

In every single case layoffs degrade the company’s core product. Unless they plan to completely change the XBox business (for example to one that sells hotdogs), this move will make XBox worse.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#518

Post by worthless-trash »

tonyhart7 wrote: post #494
jonhohle wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Blizzard and Overwatch fan, the acquisition has not been ideal. Activision nearly ended competitive professional Overwatch and significantly scaled back their big esports events to look more profitable. Lately, they seem to be chasing Marvel Rivals for no good reason, but at least in the younger competitive leagues, Rivals is picking up steam and Overwatch no longer looks like a contender, despite being signific…

nah, overwatch current situation is stemming from horrendous blizzard decision of OW2 release sure Rivals is strong competition but remember time where Marvel Rivals didn't exist, OW is already dying by then

> nah, overwatch current situation is stemming > from horrendous blizzard decision of OW2 release

If you played enough overwatch, you'd know that it was messed up from when Jeff started doing his silent fireplace streaming.

This was a silent protest by Jeff.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#519

Post by healsdata »

corimaith wrote: post #485
georgeecollins wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, 3% is terrible. But the point is you spent a fortune buying all these studios-- aka key strategic intellectual properties-- and then you manage them badly. Then you just sell or shut them down at their absolute bottom and you end up just destroying value. Older forms of media understand this. WB loses money and its still really valuable because people see the potential of Batman, Harry Potter etc. IP studios ar…

The mismanagement here was actually Microsoft giving studios free reign and they flopped with projects like Starfield. This needs to be understood really within the larger industry trend of quality decline of AAA, which I suspect has to do with changes in overall dev culture and discourse than corporate decisions. There hasn't been a time when developers have been more disconnected from their audience than now.

> There hasn't been a time when developers have been more disconnected from their audience than now.

There are studios that routinely put out games that people love. For example, my wife and I will happily pre-order the next co-op game from Hazelight Studios. FromSoftware, Ghost Ship Games, and others fall into the same boat for many people.

The difference, in my opinion, is that games from these studios don't focus on creating an "always on" service, microtransactions, day-1 DLC, MRR, etc. Those things that blight games made by corporate studios are evidence of corporate executives putting their thumb on the scale.

There's only so much you can do, as a developer, to polish a turd.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#520

Post by matchbok3 »

whatever1 wrote: post #517

Ha! The new boss of Xbox surely has innovative ideas! Layoffs, how nobody had thought about this before? In every single case layoffs degrade the company’s core product. Unless they plan to completely change the XBox business (for example to one that sells hotdogs), this move will make XBox worse.

Except in the many, many cases where layoffs help the company focus on a core product.
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