But not necessarily that new.
Regardless of whether or not the sales figures for the last financial quarter are of consoles sold or shipped, regardless of the extent to which the PlayStation and Xbox numbers were muddied by last-gen console statistics, one thing is clear: Microsoft are lagging behind. By an alarming factor of three-to-one.
It's early days, of course, in terms of Phil Spencer's tenure at the top. For much of 2014, he's been dealing in damage control, and trying to turn the omnishambles that Mattrick left behind into something identifiable, something relatable, something to do with games rather than every other facet of entertainment.
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.
you should apply in MS PR team buddy, I think you will do a great job in my humble opinion :)
I can tell people like you are an absolute minority..
If service is up means their fans and fanboys accepted this model and subscribed to it. The near future you will see a big decline because the service is saturated.
But that's been ms for years. When things aren't going their way they try to change the way things are said. For instance console sales are down, they stop telling how many sold instead telling us how many hours spent in halo or headshots. So it makes sense console sales down just say people are playing on more devices then previous. What they won't say is how many xbox players jumped ship to ps5.
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.
Activision: "we gonna need a bigger rucksack/backpack please"
Microsoft: "why's that"
Activision: "to carry yo' weak ass'
Top brass have also wanted to start seeing returns on the 100 billion they have put into various Xbox related moves so seeing more multiplatform games is highly likely especially from abk
It's basically saying that PlayStation is the reason Xbox is afloat right now thinks to Ps5 versions of COD
As part of its plans to cut 1,900 jobs, Microsoft has reportedly shut down operations at Bethesda France, letting go roughly 15 people
They can form a company if they want, they are just as jobless as if "Microsoft had left them as 3rd party".
"MIcrosoft leaves Bethesda do what they know how to do best" ... close! Oh the irony ....
(Citation from a week old article)
I think Microsoft and other game publishers are letting people go because they think ai will replace them. Doesn’t matter how much profit they make. They were always going to be let go.
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
that's a shame for you to say that, i'm sure Elite loves hearing what you just said.
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
It's France too, there's a high likelihood only 1-2 people on the team even had an Xbox.
Tbh Microsoft I think Bethesda being 3rd party same with Activision would probably more competitive than thus scenario imo
I think it would have been better for all parties really especially gamers
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 ☝️
It's better than what Nintendo and Playstation is doing. It might not be perfect but at least they are TRYING. Unlike the others.
Trying? Take off the blinders for a moment, mate.
1. A failure to preserve games is just that: a failure to preserve games. Don't try to sugarcoat it: NO ONE is doing it properly. Better than awful is nothing to write home about.
2. At the time of this comment, isn't it the case that you need an internet connection to play Xbox games even if you buy physical discs that are hardly in circulation anymore? I don't have a Series X and I can't verify, but I think that is correct. I'm fairly certain you can at least play PS5 games at version 1.0 (not much of a win really when many games require day one patches). I think Microsoft's all digital, licensing approach is by far more aggressive than anyone else's. They really try to push you to game pass where you lose your entire library by umm.... Skipping a month of payments.
I don't think anyone is doing it right whatsoever. Don't get me started on Nintendo, who goes after anyone looking to preserve their games better than they ever would with extreme litigation.
Don't be a simp for any of these companies. Get it together.
@DarX never speak on Xbox again. You lost all credibility with your internet connection comment. Smh you have 0 clue and misinformed yet speaking on something you don't no squat about.
What has Sony done exactly? You guys keep deflecting to Sony but I am not actually seeing any results, and ai am certain nothing that you can come up with even comes close to what Microsoft has done and what they have tried and failed to do, like tie all your disks to your account on xbone.
Microsoft removed their whole indie section when they moved to the xbone because they were going to only allow games on the service that came from a publisher, id@xbox started after xbone launched and it only exists because Sony embraced indie and Microsoft was forced to cancel their plans and reverse course.
And every single game that was part of games for windows live including disk games (I have gta 4 on disk that won't work) so hundreds of games that use that DRM no longer work unless the company themselves patched it out which of course very few did.
Not trying. Tried. they killed of the backcomp program years ago. They set something up again, but sounds like it's more of an attempt to save the current library on whatever they are planning next. With luck they save everything and more, but let's see. I could see them killing off parts of the OG xbox and 360 libraries. Can't imagine that they would allow us to play Forza 5-7 in the future.
With that said, I do like what they've done and really wish they could have done more.
Zeref
So killing off physical media is trying what exactly. Ms don't really give a fk if you think they do your kidding yourself.
They are not trying this team is established for forward compatability the team is. It interested in preserving Xbox or 360 games.
Just because it's digital only doesn't mean you can't preserve it. Just put it on an external and you have the exact same functionality of what a disc does.
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.
Replies(3)Anyone remember xblig which Microsoft removed their whole 360 indie section removing hundreds of games from people?
Do you know you can put your games on an external and preserve them that way? There are no benefits to discs. ZERO. Idk why some of you are still obsessed with them.
Because games like Persona 5 exist. It's STILL V1.00. On Playstation, that's a win because 1.00 is installed on the disc—no need to download anything.
If a game does not require any updates, it's all on the disc.
Extremely low bar in the modern era, of course. It's not much of a win by any stretch.
But for now, physical media does have a purpose, at least on Playstation.
That is factually not how game licensing works, try plugging your hard drive into someone else xbox, It's not going to work, and it won't work if the licensing servers ever go down.
Anyone remember games for windows live.
I have around a dozen games, some on Steam itself that will not work because Microsoft shut off the licensing servers.
I do. I STILL have games (Gears of War being the big one) I cannot access because Games for Windows LIVE is total garbage and no one has held Microsoft accountable.
You don't have an Xbox apparently. Because you can 100 percent plug in your external and play games from it on any Xbox console lol. You just have to be logged in to prove ownership.
"You don't have an Xbox apparently. Because you can 100 percent plug in your external and play games from it on any Xbox console lol. You just have to be logged in to prove ownership."
Damn how many times do people got to explain your idiocy to you? You can take a copy of Persona 5 like someone used as an example and play that game on ANY console WITHOUT logging in which means I can lend the game to a friend without internet and they can play my game. Can you lend your hard drive to anyone without logging in for them to play? NOPE. That is a huge difference and if you think otherwise then sorry you're an idiot.
"No gaming company has pushed harder to remove ownership than Microsoft."
Ubisoft is literally erasing games people bought from their libraries... My PS1-3 discs are useless on modern hardware. Nintendo's re-published and resold almost their entire Wii U library, and the eShop is completely dead with no BC mechanism in the Switch software. Microsoft publishes everything they make today day one on Steam and Xbox/Windows. Sony only brings to PC the titles they think you might want some years later and Nintendo won't even design a functional long-lasting joystick.
You're absolutely trolling and not serious if you think Microsoft today is the worst offender.
Yay steam
Not everyone fks with computers though. The disc is still the best way as a console player. Period.
How do Sony and Nintendo feel about these discs from 2001-2013?
Don't be stupid, you know Xbox is the best at this today.
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.
That is not their plan, their plan is to transfer users accounts to the cloud.
Phil Spencer himself said as much a few months back, plans could have changed but I think people are reading way too much into one statement where Phil said he would allow Epic on xbox because he wants to be able to sell xbox games directly on other platforms. Aka, instead of selling Sea of Thives through PSN he wants to have an xbox store to sell his games on PlayStation without giving PlayStation any money.
Again, it's extremely unlikely that Phil plans to put PC on xbox and licensing would prevent them from just giving out other publishers games purchased on xbox copies of thier games on PC, Microsoft does not own their games.
The thing that doesn't align with the cloud strategy is the giving up on exclusives. You'd still need strong exclusives for cloud streaming - it's still a "platform" , just with a lower upfront hardware investment. I feel like they've learned what PS learned with PSNow long ago. We're not ready to stream games and it's only gonna lose them money to try at this point
I would love that, I'd buy up some of the Xbox games if they could run on PC, like the Rare Replay, Lost Odyssey and Dead or Alive Ultimate, probably a pipe dream though.
"Put simply, if Spencer is to perform a proper reset of the Xbox One brand and realign the console's focus on gaming, he's going to need a new console to do it. Not a generational console, but an Xbox One trimmed of all the fat. One that gets rid of everything apart from the core system hardware and a big fat hard-drive."
I see your point but these extras aren't, apart from the kinect, really costing Microsoft anything. Getting rid of them seems more anti productive than productive. The best thing to do is to change the focus and not release another completely different SKU. Another completely different SKU increases confusion amongst consumers (which I feel is one of the problems with the Kinectless SKU). This would be taking it a step too far.
Microsoft needs to find a way of making the Xbox even cheaper to start making ground on the PS4 but removing stuff isn't going to help. Remember Microsoft spent a fortune on the new kinect (rumored to be as much as the console). It is something you can't just write off. The damage was already done then (so removing more stuff isn't going to help them that much; we talking about taking very little off the manufacturing price here with these things gone)
Good article, really enjoyed the read.
I think we all know that the 'slim' version of consoles will come out, not sure if it will be next year or in 2016. But even if we assume Microsoft release the xboxone-slim in 2015, trimmed of any excess fat, and at a further reduced price; we know that Sony are in a position to do the same, and potentially still have the cheaper, but still more powerful console.
Microsoft needed a killer app that demonstrated the integration of Kinect, media and gaming, to really show their vision for the xboxone. I was really keeping an eye on Quantum Break, because it promised to bring all three components together for a true next-gen experience. But now that kinect has been unbundled, and xbox entertainment studios has closed, I'm not actually sure Microsoft can still fulfill that vision in the same way.
First party exclusive games are what can bring Microsoft upto par, but even that is not necessarily going to bring new converts to the console, but will help migrate the last-gen adopters to the new gen. It seems Sony on the other hand have been able to bring in new converts into the playstation ecosystem, if the 3-1 statistic is true.
Bottom line - Microsoft have tried a re-launch by unbundling Kinect from xboxone, now they need to show up strong on the games front going forward. That's really the only way they can get back up to par.
That would be crazy , but if they do so am ready to buy me a new one when released.
Ms is not releasing any new console atleast for the next 5 years
And, the solution is to release a new console within about 10 months of releasing the ONE, knowing there a many projects in development for it. There are 26 countries that have yet to receive the ONE.
I understand that it's you're job to blow sh!t out of proportion to get hits but, damn.