Hamza "CTZ" Aziz writes: I owe everyone an apology. This past March, I stated that "Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor validates owning a Kinect." As it turns out, I was so, so wrong. We went as far as having the Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor review pass through the hands of three different Destructoid editors in an attempt to get the game to work, until finally realizing that Heavy Armor is, in fact, simply broken.
Microsoft just posted the third quarter of its 2024 fiscal financial results. The software maker made $61.9 billion in revenue and a net income of $21.9 billion during Q3. Revenue is up 17 percent, and net income has increased by 20 percent.
Xbox content + services up 62% while hardware down 31%... seems about right with the way they tout you don't need the hardware to play. People can play on their phones or smart tv or other means. I don't hardly play on my consoles directly since getting devices like the logitech g-cloud and ps portal. Which is to also say I have been playing more digital than physical because of these devices.
Too expensive hardware when others offer the same or more for less? Good work, Green Team.
"Despite some early successes for Xbox games on rival platforms, Xbox hardware is down by a massive 31 percent this quarter."
"Without Activision Blizzard, Microsoft’s overall gaming revenue would have actually declined this quarter."
"Xbox content and services would have only been up a single percent without Activision Blizzard..."
"It looks like next quarter is going to be a similar story for gaming at Microsoft, too."
That is crazy... so A/B/K is carrying the whole Xbox gaming.
Oh and Microsoft will be fine. Windows, Office and Cloud are growing with each pc purchase.
As part of its plans to cut 1,900 jobs, Microsoft has reportedly shut down operations at Bethesda France, letting go roughly 15 people
Bethesda France was made up of roughly 15 people... they couldn't of being doing much
Bethesda France mainly did publishing and marketing within the region
Bethesda France focused on publishing and marketing in the region. And 15 people lost their jobs as part of the closure.
I wonder if this is part of Microsoft's strategy to abandoned physical media or possibly gamepass advertising makes their roles redundant you don't need to market a game as hard when the majority of players get the game as part of a sub which already promoted upcoming games
Tbh Microsoft I think Bethesda being 3rd party same with Activision would probably more competitive than thus scenario imo
The recently purchased Activision French offices might take over all the licensing and marketing for Microsoft in France from now on.
Hanzla from eXputer inquires: "If Xbox can care about preserving its games and legacy, what exactly is wrong with Nintendo, trying to kill game preservation single-handedly?"
Ahh yes the good old game preservation of saving all your games to a removable hhd on the Xbox 360, taking it round your mates house, setting up multiple tvs to
Be met with “save data corrupted, please re download”
Or how about removing 360 games
From the store
, download them now or else, and, better hope to god that save data doesn’t corrupt, or it’s lost for ever
Nice one ☝️
This is just a scammy PR move to distract from the fact they are going digital only and trying to push streaming and subscriptions only.
No gaming company has pushed harder to remove ownership than Microsoft.
Without discs there is no preservation, preservation can't be done by the rights holders it can only be done by the consumers, anything else is a lie.
Nobody wants this. Sales or the lack of it in the case of XBOX is very telling. I wonder how the adorably all digital series X will fare. Adorably dismal perhaps?
Only time will tell, but for from someone like me suspecting that Xbox is trying to gracefully exit the console market, that "forward compatibility" team is trying to get Xbox games playing on Windows PCs. I mean, it's nice that they're not planning on exiting with a "enjoy your games while the hardware still works" message, so that's nice. They still have a brand to protect via Microsoft so probably feel obligated to have a better exit strategy.
I always find it amazing that bad games come out every day. Steel Batallion was obviously one of those for Destructoid. They gave the game a 30%.
But, it's amazing how when literally one game is bad that means KINECT itself is NOW as bad as that game.
How many standard controller games come out weekly for the 360 and PS3, but you never see these kinds of articles for other consoles even at the height of Wii hate. One bad game doesnt equal them all.
The bottomline bad games come out for Move (Destructoid gave the most anticipated PS3 Move game ever 'Sorcery' a '60'.) Did you see a I'm done with Move article.
We know the mountain of bad games that plagued Wii all those years.
Now you have Kinect which some games work great for and others don't. I've own all of them, but in terms of games that you can play with family and friends Kinect destroys the comp which literally was only Wii.
Every motion control device has it's strength and weaknesses, as for Kinect it's strengths are why 19 million have bought the device. One game won't change that..shame Steel didn't measure up to it's potential. As a fan of the series, I still will give it a try. My Kinect isn't any more special than other review sites but I laugh when they pretend a games controls dont work and your Kinect works perfectly fine.
Evil
Most sane people were "officially done" with the Kinect at the first E3 showing. A few more people found sanity and were "officially done" with Kinect at the second E3 showing of Kinect just prior to launch. The only people who actually thought Kinect could amount to anything were overly-loyal fansites like Destructoid, Kotaku, etc.
We were all "officially done" with Kinect a long time ago. I'm glad journalists are finally playing catch-up *looks at calendar*. We all knew this three years ago.
First hybrid Kinect game tanks, yeah i'm also done with Kinect. No sarcasm.
After reading that article, now I know that a grown man can pout and throw a little fit. Seriously, Microsoft never forced me to buy a kinect.
'After yesterday's review, however, I've come to the realization that the Kinect is a glorified beta test that we've all been suckered into buying.'
Dear God, it took him that long to realise? I've been saying this since we found out that Milo was just a demo. people have been drawn in with the whole, 'so much potential' and bought the kinect based on the fact that MS kept on saying 'the games are coming'.
well Kinect has been a big success and thanks to that success, it's Microsoft's main focus. well done people.