Resetting Xbox • Hacker News Board

Re: Resetting Xbox

#821

Post by philistine » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 1:39 PM UTC

monocasa wrote: post #646

mike_hearn wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AWS isn't a utility because utilities sell commodities for which you can switch to a competitor easily, as you're buying the same thing. There are companies selling similar products to AWS but none that sell AWS itself.

Early utilities tend to not be built on standards. See how early electric utilities within a country or even a city couldn't agree on voltage, frequency, phase, or even AC vs DC.

The fact that electricity was quickly commoditized does not guarantee that AWS will commoditize.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#822

Post by jstummbillig » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 1:40 PM UTC

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…

Revenue is just not a useful concept to understand the state of a company. I can easily generate revenue by simply exploding costs. Blockbuster had huge revenue.

If we talked about costs as much as we talk about revenue (which carries roughly the same amount of information) people would judge theses reports very differently.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#823

Post by armoredmeatball » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 1:45 PM UTC

Is anyone familiar with the history of Xbox? I'm wondering how their margins became so much worse than their competitors

Re: Resetting Xbox

#824

Post by tialaramex » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 1:46 PM UTC

jstummbillig wrote: post #769

moron4hire wrote: post #722

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to add to your comment, people do sell dollars for $1.07, they are called mortgages. I've heard it's a pretty big business.

What they do is they sell a dollar for 1.07$ future dollars (and, realistically, less than that because of defaults but whatever).

It's a lot more than $1.07 future money, a mortgage is more like $2 or these days $5

If you're offering even 25 year 75% LTV mortgages at such a low interest rate it's $1.07 future money you're going bankrupt. And these days people are taking 30 year, 95% LTV or even asking for 40 year 100% LTV which is fully batshit.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#825

Post by philistine » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 1:47 PM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #191

hbn wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Game Pass was never a sustainable business model. People liked it because when a new game came out, they could buy a month of game pass for like $15, play through the game in a couple weeks, and cancel. It was a really good deal because Microsoft has spent the past decade+ trying to recover from their terrible fumble of the Xbox One launch, so they were subsidizing gamers to come back to their platform. With the mone…

Traditionally if you're going to play through a game in a couple weeks and then not own it anymore, that means you sell it and someone else buys it for their own couple weeks, and the company should be happy if they make $15 per person in the chain. Also this is part of why I'm really worried about how weak the concept of game ownership is getting. See also how anyone buying GTA6 near launch will be unable to resell…

> near launch

How can you say that? No credible reporting has proven that there ever will be a version of GTA 6 on a disc. The physical versions that are announced will all consist of a one-time code.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#826

Post by steve1977 » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 1:48 PM UTC

> We will reduce management layers to no more than 5, and where possible, 3. 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 does sound quite reasonable actually.

Also, I think I didn't read "AI" anywhere, which is refreshing.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#827

Post by steve1977 » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 1:50 PM UTC

protimewaster wrote: post #42

Xbox has an interesting opportunity going forward, that I expect they'll fumble. Interest in physical media has actually been on the upswing, and, with Sony announcing their plans to abandon physical media, it feels like MS has a chance be the "good guys" like what Sony did to MS when MS threatened to ruin physical media prior to the Xbox One release. However, I'm expecting Microsoft to simply follow Sony's path, bec…

Keep in mind though that Sony is/was actually a manufacturer of physical media.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#828

Post by SebastianKra » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 1:52 PM UTC

Flere-Imsaho wrote: post #305

nkrisc wrote: post #214

Reading this made me remember why I stopped playing my Xbox One: never-ending updates. I never played it very frequently so I disabled the sleep mode so it wouldn’t just stay on in my media cabinet heating my house. But of course that meant any time I spontaneously felt like using it there were 10 minutes of updates to download, so I would get annoyed and just do something else. Oh it can also play movies? Sorry movi…

> Reading this made me remember why I stopped playing my Xbox One: never-ending updates. My experience with Steam is very similar (I don't have it run on startup because I like my PC to do other things from playing games). Online updates really have ruined gaming for a lot of people. Just like vinyl, humans seem to prefer a physical "thing" they pick up - put in the machine - and instantly have access to the "thing".…

It's a combination of two things that never should have been normalized:

- Steam forces game updates, even for single player games.

- terrible delta updates. Baldurs Gate 3 had 8 patches in 3 Years. That's 800GB of updates.

If a patch drops on the afternoon you planned with your friends, you're not playing that night (actually happened to us). Both decisions should have caused outcries, but I guess people would rather overpay for fast internet contracts.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#829

Post by groundzeros2015 » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 1:52 PM UTC

schnitzelstoat wrote: post #812

groundzeros2015 wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does Peter Thiel have to do with Xbox? Are we just saying things we don’t like?

He's referring to this list of invited guests: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/24/peter-...

What does it have to do with Xbox? Should I be worried that people are holding conferences?

Re: Resetting Xbox

#830

Post by ambicapter » Tue, Jul 07, 2026, 1:53 PM UTC

steve1977 wrote: post #826

> We will reduce management layers to no more than 5, and where possible, 3. 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 does sound quite reasonable actual…

The great thing about not making any money in a department is that all the money-hungry people flee the org, and people who are more invested in "doing things right" stick around. The bad news, of course, is that you're not making any money, which is bad for your long-term survival.