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Investors want Microsoft’s new CEO to kill Xbox, Bing and Surface

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Re: Investors want Microsoft’s new CEO to kill Xbox, Bing and Surface

#61

Post by uvTwitch »

higherpurpose wrote: post #37
beloch wrote: post #20

One word: Idiots. Seriously, those investors are morons. MS has never been a a company that fits the adjective: "lean". MS is practically a post-secondary institution unto itself! MS' far-reaching speculative research is the stuff of legend, and far too infrequently translated into the commercial sphere. Anyone who thinks they should narrow their focus and ignore more of the fruits of their labor instead of less is a…

Microsoft has never made a profit with Xbox. In fact, they've only lost billions of dollars on it, and the chance to recover them isactually smaller than it was for Xbox 360, not just because I think Sony has a stronger showing this time around (and at a lower price to boot), but because I don't think the new consoles have a life bigger than 5 years in them.

This is false, they broke even midway through the 360's lifespan and are now turning a profit both on it and the xbone.

Re: Investors want Microsoft’s new CEO to kill Xbox, Bing and Surface

#62

Post by uvTwitch »

I don't think many would miss Bing, but killing off the Surface, Windows Phone, and especially the Xbox, to focus on being another Oracle? What a pair of fuckwits these moron 'investors' are! I can think of no better way to give a company like them a slow 10-20 year death. Somebody should fire these poison shareholders.

Re: Investors want Microsoft’s new CEO to kill Xbox, Bing and Surface

#63

Post by CmonDev »

adamnemecek wrote: post #41
rdl wrote: post #29

I wonder if they could sell Xbox to Lenovo for $huge. I don't think consoles are going to do very well this time -- mobile gaming killed the market for 'people who will tolerate lower spec hardware because it's convenient', and IIRC the PS3/360 were better relative to $2k PCs when launched than the PS4/Xbone are today relative to $2k PCs. The PS3/360 have been pretty mediocre for years, so the PS4/Xbone are going to…

I don't play games at all but saying that gamers moved to mobile games is beyond silly.

There will be stronger separation between casual and hardcore when Oculus Rift is out. Mobile is something you play on the train.

Re: Investors want Microsoft’s new CEO to kill Xbox, Bing and Surface

#64

Post by CmonDev »

TrainedMonkey wrote: post #3

Investors would also want Google to kill G+. Product line does not have to make money to be significant part of the brand.

Would make a lot of customers happy as well. I don't want to log in just to view someone's publicly shared Google Docs document.

Re: Investors want Microsoft’s new CEO to kill Xbox, Bing and Surface

#65

Post by actsasbuffoon »

hershel wrote: post #57
adamors wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don't know, especially with Valve's Steambox on the way. It was a losing fight from the beginning, and this generation is already doomed right from the start.

But valve is doomed because of linux. MS don't have this problem. They could easily merge xbox + windows on a steam like platform if they wanted to .

Can you clarify this statement? In what way is Valve doomed because of Linux?

Re: Investors want Microsoft’s new CEO to kill Xbox, Bing and Surface

#66

Post by CmonDev »

pjmlp wrote: post #44
Mikeb85 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well they already killed their XNA framework...

Regardless how much XNA was praised, it was a indie only thing. The majority of professional studios still use C++ based engines. Unity is the Microsoft's endorsed replacement for XNA, as announced in the Visual Studio 2013 release keynote.

Unity is not for everyone though. There is a lot of hobbyists who prefer writing games instead of scripting ready-made chunks.

Also it has a lot of warts (nothing is ideal): http://t-machine.org/index.php/2013/12/27/2014-entity-system...

XNA is a good public image making tool, not just an API. https://twitter.com/search?q=%23becauseofXNA&src=hash

MonoGame is unfortunately still lacking an own content pipeline.

Re: Investors want Microsoft’s new CEO to kill Xbox, Bing and Surface

#68

Post by pjmlp »

CmonDev wrote: post #66
pjmlp wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless how much XNA was praised, it was a indie only thing. The majority of professional studios still use C++ based engines. Unity is the Microsoft's endorsed replacement for XNA, as announced in the Visual Studio 2013 release keynote.

Unity is not for everyone though. There is a lot of hobbyists who prefer writing games instead of scripting ready-made chunks. Also it has a lot of warts (nothing is ideal): http://t-machine.org/index.php/2013/12/27/2014-entity-system... XNA is a good public image making tool, not just an API. https://twitter.com/search?q=%23becauseofXNA&src=hash MonoGame is unfortunately still lacking an own content pipeline.

Since I am comfortable with C++, I tend to play around with engines with C++ bindings.

I rather use C++ than being stuck in .NET 3.5, without any more modern C# goodies.

As for scripting ready-made chunks, I guess one has to decide if they want to make a game or a game engine.

Re: Investors want Microsoft’s new CEO to kill Xbox, Bing and Surface

#69

Post by CmonDev »

pjmlp wrote: post #68
CmonDev wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unity is not for everyone though. There is a lot of hobbyists who prefer writing games instead of scripting ready-made chunks. Also it has a lot of warts (nothing is ideal): http://t-machine.org/index.php/2013/12/27/2014-entity-system... XNA is a good public image making tool, not just an API. https://twitter.com/search?q=%23becauseofXNA&src=hash MonoGame is unfortunately still lacking an own content pipeline.

Since I am comfortable with C++, I tend to play around with engines with C++ bindings. I rather use C++ than being stuck in .NET 3.5, without any more modern C# goodies. As for scripting ready-made chunks, I guess one has to decide if they want to make a game or a game engine.

"I rather use C++ than being stuck in .NET 3.5, without any more modern C# goodies" - I use all modern C# features with XNA - what is the issue (except for async/await maybe)?

"I guess one has to decide if they want to make a game or a game engine" - exactly, but there should be a choice. XNA being a framework rather than engine provided such a choice in a high-level way.

Re: Investors want Microsoft’s new CEO to kill Xbox, Bing and Surface

#70

Post by pjmlp »

CmonDev wrote: post #69
pjmlp wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since I am comfortable with C++, I tend to play around with engines with C++ bindings. I rather use C++ than being stuck in .NET 3.5, without any more modern C# goodies. As for scripting ready-made chunks, I guess one has to decide if they want to make a game or a game engine.

"I rather use C++ than being stuck in .NET 3.5, without any more modern C# goodies" - I use all modern C# features with XNA - what is the issue (except for async/await maybe)? "I guess one has to decide if they want to make a game or a game engine" - exactly, but there should be a choice. XNA being a framework rather than engine provided such a choice in a high-level way.

> I use all modern C# features with XNA - what is the issue (except for async/await maybe)?

The libraries are also important and they are stuck on .NET 3.5 offerings.

Another problem is the old version of Mono they are using, which doesn't not have the JIT and GC improvements of more recent versions.

This is what I was able to gather from online sources, when wondering if it was worth the time and space to install it.

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