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Resetting Xbox

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Re: Resetting Xbox

#521

Post by beart »

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…

I can share nearly my entire steam library (~23 years worth) with my kids. There is no way in hell Sony or Microsoft will ever allow that. In fact, I've had to re-buy Minecraft because their account migration was such a shit show. They cannot and will not ever come anywhere close to competing with Steam on this feature. For that alone, I will never buy a console. Just glad I built PCs for my kids before the AI boom...

Re: Resetting Xbox

#522

Post by jm4 »

ActionHank wrote: post #307
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

No, no, you're misreading. This is Microsoft politely saying that not all studios are good enough for them. And by good enough they mean enough of a money printer.

Good read. A studio can be both good and not good enough for Microsoft. They’ve never made a secret of the fact that they are in it for huge numbers. A studio can do well and still make little enough that it’s a management headache for Microsoft.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#523

Post by matchbok3 »

taurath wrote: post #359
matchbok3 wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You must not have ever worked for a company owned by one. The statement is not what I’ve heard, it’s what I’ve experienced, and it matches the experience of others in my large developer network. It’s great for concentrating ownership and mass applying ruthless management tactics at scale, and for using IP as leverage to hollow out a company.

[flagged]

Re: Resetting Xbox

#524

Post by beart »

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.

I agree with your sentiment, but not your conclusion. The new boss is being paid millions to explain that 14 layers of management is a bad idea... I'm sure there are thousands working in the xbox division that could have told you that one for free.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#525

Post by whatever1 »

matchbok3 wrote: post #520
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.

Name 1 case that we can evaluate 10 years after the layoffs.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#526

Post by urbnspacecowboy »

markus_zhang wrote: post #463

Scott Miller on X said that many, if not most of ID was also let go. https://x.com/ScottApogee/status/2074198967550685268

Entire post text:

> This post was about the insider news I got this morning that a majority of Id's studio is being laid off, including most (if not all) coders.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#527

Post by rudimentary_phy »

Honestly, they could try building an interface that doesn’t suck. I have no idea why Valve seems to be the only one doing this.

I’ve found a lot of things just from browsing the Steam store page. I don’t think I’ve ever done this with any of the others, console or otherwise. They are painful to use.

The manager ratio still sounds too high even after the changes as well. Too many managers can really slow down and demoralize a creative workplace.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#529

Post by kridsdale1 »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #153
disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nintendo are basically the only people who held out against in game spending, for which I salute them. I spent a few years in and around the industry and there was so much insanity around the need for in game monetization that it just made things much worse. And because the game studios didn't care about it, none of the money stuff worked, making executives even more upset. All to catch some vision of F2P money which…

Nintendp dabbled briefly with it. But they know their audience and very much did not want to risk any PR hit by associating too closely with the typical gacha/lootbox model. They saw the Roblox/Fortnite smoke long before most of the industry and turned off very quickly. But there's one specific statistic to why Nintendo can keep doing what it does in a way no one else can: 98% retention rate. You get into Nintendo an…

Apple has similar retention. Almost all the senior leaders were ICs or low level managers there 20 to 30 years ago.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#530

Post by jjmarr »

grg0 wrote: post #446
jjmarr wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint is Roblox, which had one of the most innovative game engines ever. It could multiplayer simulate thousands of blocks of destructible terrain in 2006 . This feature was mostly ignored by the playerbase because developers found it easier to create static setups and focus on iterating on other parts of their gameplay.

The technological innovation still needs to be fun, though. Red Faction: Guerilla (2009) had destructible buildings to the point that they were constructed by laying down blocks in a physically correct way and letting the physics engine handle the rest, and blasting the hell out of them in the middle of open combat was incredibly fun.

It was very fun. Brick Battle, Galleons, the game with many towers. The explodey terrain put Roblox on the map initially.

The problem is the opportunity cost of destructible terrain was too high. Developers could get fun for lower effort by creating linear levels with better design/graphics/etc as destructible terrain makes everything "blocky" without significant developer work.

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