GameSpot UK's Special Report: Despite a massive effort, Microsoft's console is still struggling in the Land of the Rising Sun; executives and game designers discuss why -- and what can be done.
This report includes comments from Xbox Live marketing director Aaron Greenberg, Infinite Undiscovery director Hiroshi Ogawa, Soul Calibur IV programmer Masaaki Hoshino, Ace Combat 6 localization specialist Naotaka Higashiyama, Infinite Undiscovery producer Hajime Kojima, and Microsoft's first-party publishing general manager Phil Spencer.
This could be fun as they make great tables. Go big or go extinct. Prime your senses for a neural handshake and step into the cockpit of a Jaeger. It is on you to cancel the apocalypse when Pacific Rim Pinball comes to Pinball FX on May 16.
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 :)
MS: "Xbox services and content without AB up 1%, with AB up 62%. Hardware down 31%. In total a loss of 350 mill."
darthv72: "Seems about right."
MS: "Excuse m ..."
darthv72: "I don't hardly play on my consoles directly."
MS:
What he said was facts. How he plays games is no concern of you. Don't get too mad about it.
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.
Hardware sales are so bad that Sony and Nintendo are blowing the sales off the water with their hardware.
If Xbox are losers, others aren’t..
Xbox already tried everything with Xbox live then subscriptions went down so much that they had to find something else. Their fans subscribed then reached saturation rather quickly.
Hardware and exclusive games is where it’s at! Keep gamers excited, announce decent software and people will support you
@shin
Well keep it simple Sony 's operating income is down 26% and Microsoft's is up 32%. No MS spin there, just facts. 😉
Cheers
Odd that a company that touts you dont need the hardware to play is already touting another console in the works.
They are not reliant on the HW but still want to maintain a presence (no matter how small) is a good thing. It shows commitment to the craft. It reminds me of SNK and how they made games for their own hardware (Neo Geo) while also making them for others because they knew there was a market to do so. They knew they would sell more to others but also sell to their own niche fan base.
In the last two years they've started exiting the consumer market altogether. All of the newest Surface products are business models only. They can't seem to work out what they want to do with it.
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
The only growth MS will get out of the console industry is if it supports it's rivals platforms. Xbox is a pointless machine now. I can see them on a big push for live next, and they won't give up on trying to buy Steam.
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.
Eventually they’ll realize the value is with the employee not the company. Buying an IP means nothing if the people who contributed are let go. They’ll get it one day.
tech is different because they buy threats and then kill them. Twitter bought Vine and did nothing with it. Despite people seemingly liking it. Could've had tiktok a decade before bytedance. go figure.
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" -
Nice find Round Peg. I don't like Japanese style games at all so it's not a stretch for me to understand that the Japanese aren't too fond of Western style games. If MS can afford to continue to do so poorly in Japan then why not keep trying? I personally think it's a lost cause though. I also think that the 360 can be a success in spite of it's performance in Japan...it's all about the high attach rate the 360 has (Something like 6 games per console).
I have one thing to confess unto you, my fellow Americans, with a solemn heart on the matter, with humility unassumed, I beg you to spread the gospel of the 360's install base. So that many, even our kins in Great England, may recieve the gift of true gameing experience. So that we all as one have & experience a sentiment of what true gameing is. That as being as one mind & mics alike, that we may be as one comprehensive enough to convince the Japanese developers to provide onto us a remake of FFVII, and many others of the like.
What terms shall I find sufficiently simple in their sublimity — sufficiently sublime in their simplicity — for the mere enunciation of my theme?
There, there I have explaind.
Also, for the FONY traitors that tread there filth upon this Great Land of America, renounce yourselves from the black demon that lays in waist, dusted with great....great...ummmm, YES!!! NOTHINGNESS!!! and bring yourselves to the light of the 360. And quit being the fools that hang dangleing upon credulous's & incautious's hook. Amen.
I love japan because they can see how much the 360 sucks.
IMO japan have the best knowlegde of hardware and tech in gereneral, and regardless how good the 360 is or how many great games (if your a westerner)it has the japanese wont except things such as the RROD or having to pay to go on-line.
also just like Americans they are very fickle and try and stay with their home grown companies. Microsoft might as well pack up shop in japan and apply their full efforts into the other territories, although sony are currently attracting alot of the EU's attention so that leaves M$ with US, oh, and Russia, good luck with that one, maybe bill could release a halo themed VODKA.
It's because xbox games are designed FOR westerners and its almost just ported to Japan with the mind of 'Well these games were meant for us, but see what you think of them anyway'. And the Japanese KNOW the 360 is not built with them in mind and therefore show very little interest back
Sony and Nintendo understand Japan completely and what makes them tick. But this where the difference in the 3 complanies lie:
Microsoft mainly design American games, for americans. And just see if anyone else likes them
Nintendo mainly design Japanese games, for Japanese. And just see if anyone else likes them
Sony however has an excellent spit between Japanese and American, while also covering every game genre there is extremely well and incorperating casual gaming as good as anyone. This is why sony has won every console war since