We had some decent trends in gaming this year, but here are some of the negative ones, like angry mobs of gamers and ancient aliens appearing in every game franchise.
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" -
INDIE Live Expo, Japan’s premiere online digital showcase series , will debut never-before-seen games & content updates across more than 100 titles on May 25th.
How the hell can you hate A Christmas Story?
Alien thing is a weak out devs.
It's not ok to screw up a franchise. Just look how badly Jay Wilson killed and mutilated Diablo 3. Now they're trying to slowly put it back to Diablo 2 levels.
I agree with everything in the article except for the last one.
I would also mention always online drm is another very very bad trend......
Agree about day one story DLC like Javik in ME3. Can't imagine playing ME3 without him, and it sucks that some people did due to the DLC tag. Cutscenes, conversations and even idle chit chat during missions take such a dramatic turn when everything you thought you knew about the Protheans for two games gets turned on its head. Doubly so when he's better written than some of the main cast like Loco Vega.
Even the Leviathan story DLC. Sheds so much more light on the Reapers and Starchild AI. For a trilogy finale, woulda been nice to have put everything out on the table together instead of piecemeal for extra buck$.