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Resetting Xbox

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Re: Resetting Xbox

#841

Post by lostglass »

ambicapter wrote: post #830
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.

This is a very different take than I have. People who are good tend to leave sinking ships much faster.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#842

Post by georgeecollins »

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.

Free rein is bad management by definition. You don’t need a manager to have free rein.

I’d be curious what you think the changes in dev culture are. I have worked for or with a lot of these studios and to me they have different cultures. But I could be missing the forest for the trees. MSFT has one culture that imo lacks a creative vision.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#843

Post by ewy1 »

grugdev42 wrote: post #738

Too little too late. Xbox is dying and PS won. Try listening to your customers next time. We don't want to be ripped off with paying for assets we don't own. We don't want another monthly subscription. We want the old games, remastered, with fully functioning multiplayer.

crazy second sentence which makes the rest of the comment not make any sense

Re: Resetting Xbox

#844

Post by ChrisRR »

mtsr wrote: post #781
ChrisRR wrote: post #711

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's not to understand that when you're having to spend 4.85B in order to get 5B in revenue makes your business quite risky. You want to be operating on larger margins than that

Pretty normal margin in some kinds of businesses, like supermarkets. Then again, supermarkets aren’t likely to see all their customers leave at the drop of a hat.

Yes very different business models. Supermarkets have the benefits of frequent repeat customers

Re: Resetting Xbox

#845

Post by philistine »

orloffm wrote: post #688
operation_moose wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been replaying a lot of Gamecube (emulated) games recently and its kindof shocking just how quick you can get into the game. From hitting run Run to first Player Input is seconds in most cases. No console bootup, no system updates, no game patches, no agreeing to game EULA version 5.129912342, no denying the game access to online content on every third screen, etc. I'm sure its loading slightly faster emulated,…

Pretty much the Switch experience. It sometimes downloads updates, but system updates are like 10 seconds, and games are updated in the background seamlessly. I don't play Fortnite, but it's also always updated in the library. Yes, if you don't keep it powered, it won't do that, but why wouldn't you if it just stays in the dock dark and quiet?

Nintendo finally implemented a modern update system that installs the new version in a new volume, reboots you into that volume, and deletes the old one once booted.

It's why it's so fast. The work happened before you pressed update.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#846

Post by philistine »

tangenter wrote: post #7

Game Pass has caused a lot of direct sales losses to game developers in favor of Microsoft trying to find a Netflix-like cash cow for itself. The numbers never added up, but it is not a surprise everyone nodded and went along with it. I wonder what the career repercussions would be for speaking up - but it doesn’t matter because they are getting fired anyway. Call of Duty alone lost $300 million: https://arstechnica.…

Game Pass' finances ignored the one true thing about streaming services: they weren't going after the people buying DVDs, they were going after the people paying for cable.

Cable subscribers did not exist in gaming, and so Game Pass is stuck stealing Xbox's own customers. It just doesn't add up.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#847

Post by philistine »

WorldMaker wrote: post #72
saghm wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think some of these game studios got so content with Microsoft constantly paying that they forgot to make games that would actually sell. I mean, if you're assuming that Microsoft had a fully hands-off approach to managing these companies after buying them, then sure. It's not clear to me that you can make a compelling claim about whether the issues were from the bottom or the top just by looking at the final out…

Plus there's plenty of evidence that Microsoft hasn't been hands off across that time period. At the very least we've seen them cancel a Rare game and layoff a bunch of Rare staff because of it, The Initiative shut down for not meeting game development goals, 343 Industries stripped apart for low results versus expectations with Halo Infinite and the "new" Halo Studios is basically just a shell and an outsourcing ven…

Microsoft's executives lacked time to be hands-on with every acquisition. They were very involved in the decision process at the big studios, and the favoured children, but left the smaller studios without enough input.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#848

Post by zzixp »

markus_zhang wrote: post #465
zzixp wrote: post #43

Impacted non-studio dev here. It's a bloodbath like some of the leaks in the past few weeks have said. Many important platform/infra teams getting gutted, even in areas where there's supposedly a ton of future investment.

Thanks for sharing. I heard that ID also got gutted, from Scott Miller on X: https://x.com/ScottApogee/status/2074198967550685268 Is it true?

Yes from what I can tell :/

I was in the console/platform dev org so not a ton of insight into studios, but I've seen a ton of ESO and Id folks posting on twitter

Re: Resetting Xbox

#849

Post by benatkin »

hollerith wrote: post #777
Drupon wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>150M at 5B revenue is not great: that's 3% margin! Oy vey maybe this kind of money grubbery is not good for our society.

Our society uses return on investment (which is correlated with profit margin) to decide what projects and what processes our society's workers will focus on. So for example, if I can make twice as much money as a software developer as I can as a musician, that is strong evidence that my doing the former kind of work will benefit society about twice as much as my doing the latter kind of work.

I disagree. "Benefit society" means something that can't be defined or tracked so easily. And consumer behavior is heavily biased by things that aren't optimized to benefit society. I have in mind this book, Hooked by Nir Eyal: https://www.nirandfar.com/hooked/

Re: Resetting Xbox

#850

Post by steve1977 »

ambicapter wrote: post #830
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.

I guess it becomes a problem when the money-hungry people still make money, but the larger organization doesn't.
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