A response to a suggestion by Soderlund of Electronic Arts that physical games will be gone in a year, to be replaced by digital being the only available way to get games.
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 of right now, there are no monopolies in the games industry, and for the sake of the medium as a whole, they never should either.
And yet the biggest tech companies in America are essentially that. They buy up all the small comps only to kill them off and steal what they have, and if they can't buy em they bleed them to death.
They buy IPs not talent. That's why these buyouts never work and the IPs die. Right now it's too expensive to develop games - but I expect that to shift maybe as AI tools can make it easier. The best games have been indie games for awhile as big developers fuck their ips to death with "games as a service" -
On Amazon, you can't get an RTX 4090 for less than this one from Gigabyte, which now offers great value after an eye-catching April deal.
RIP Physical games
@jose
Bullshit, physical will be around for many more years.
I just recently made the switch today I sold all of my ps3 games,vita games to go straight digital from here on out. I got $400 for all of my games, i just thought why not i already have PS plus might as well go all digital.
Interesting topic. I think this is what the industry wants, only because it'll be more money for them. They'll be cutting out the middle man like GameStop and therefore will have controll over price on games. I believe in the future it may be a possibility but for now I really doubt it only because physical media is still selling and most people like myself prefers physical over digital. CDs, DVDs and vinyls are still around, but at the end of the day it's really up to the industry to faze out physical media if they wanted to, but I know physical media won't be going anywhere for a very long time.
I remember being a kid on Xmas and opening those games up. Could usually tell I was getting a game by the wrapped box but was still in awe when I opened it. I hope my kids can experience that same fun and not have me whip out the credit card on Xmas morning so they can download it.