160°

Pushing Buttons: What Microsoft’s ‘vision for the future of Xbox’ could look like

So what is Spencer about to announce, and why? The problem he is contending with is that Xbox has become almost unmanageable as a brand.

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theguardian.com
Obscure_Observer79d ago (Edited 79d ago )

Xbox achieve 200 Million MAUs last year way ahead of STEAM, Playstation and Nintendo.

After almost 10 years under Phil Spencer, Xbox have become Microsoft´s biggest product ahead of Windows in the same year Satya Nadella made out of Microsoft the biggest and most valuable company in the world!

I doubt that Phil Spencer´s goal is to leave the Xbox community behind, so I predict that we´ll be getting another next gen console and first party games will continue and be released day one for higher tiers Gamepass subscribers.

I do believe he might throw a bone or two for Nintendo and Playstation gamers to make some quick cash, but I also believe that the Xbox first party heavy hitters will stay in the house.

My bet is that all that rumors and people having meltdowns losing their sh!t was all for nothing. Lol

purple10179d ago

200 million includes people playing candy crush on phones Made by Samsung, oneplus, honour, redmi etc,

to put them in same category as playstation, then say their ahead, is a bit disingenuous,

Obscure_Observer79d ago (Edited 79d ago )

"to put them in same category as playstation, then say their ahead, is a bit disingenuous"

It is what it is, Bro. Xbox has dem MAUs.

If you ask Sony´s CEO Kenichiro Yoshida which gaming company is ahead (as far MAUs is a concern) you know what answer you´ll get.

This is Phil Spencer´s achievement in less than ten years as Xbox´s leader:

Xbox: 200 Million MAUs
Steam: 132 Million MAUs
Playstation: Million MAUs
Nintendo: 112 Million MAUs

You may not like it, you might even hate it. But you can´t spin facts.

Do what you do.

helicoptergirl79d ago (Edited 79d ago )

"I do believe he might throw a bone or two for Nintendo and Playstation"

LOL. That's like saying you're gone to "throw a bone or two" to the 2 fattest men in the village because they're supposedly starving for food.

I also believe there will obviously be another next gen console. Xbox will live forever in some way. Even when MS go 'digital only' and eventually move to 'cloud only' they will make sure you can keep your gamer score and your game libraries. I also believe they will give people digital copies of their physical games eventually too, for free.

But they will also continue to keep slowly releasing games on Nintendo and Playstation. Starfield will come. So will Elder Scrolls 6. Blade. Hi-Fi Rush. Indiana Jones. Doom. etc etc. Just a few "bones" lol But a slow and steady supply of 'bones'.

S2Killinit79d ago (Edited 79d ago )

They are losing market share at an alarming rate. xbox is less relevant than it has ever been. If they aren’t able to hold out until they get some exclusives out of their overpriced acquisitions, they will slowly go third party. Xbox will be there as a service most likely as there is no reason to completely abandon ship, but MS suits will want return on investment I think, at any cost. Even if that means making xbox itself a mere placeholder for a service you can get elsewhere.

Obscure_Observer79d ago

Only in the heads of completely delusional people Xbox is "irrelevant" when some of most played games on both Playstation and Nintendo are Xbox games!

Most Playstation gamers doesn´t care about where´s their favorite games come from, as long they continue to get it.

COD and Minecraft will always be popular among Playstation and Nintendo fans.

gold_drake79d ago

yea, even the stores taking out their stuff will put xbox at a more irrelevant place. cause listen, you need to have those store represantations (spelling ha).

1Victor79d ago

@obscured: “ I do believe he might throw a bone or two for Nintendo and Playstation gamers to make some quick cash, but I also believe that the Xbox first party heavy hitters will stay in the house.”
.🤦🏿
One word for you to learn about today “ INVESTORS “ look it up they’re not Microsoft or your friend.

Obscure_Observer79d ago

"One word for you to learn about today “ INVESTORS “ look it up they’re not Microsoft or your friend."

By the time they wanted Xbox dead and gone back in 2014, Satya Nadella just told them to f&*# off and listened to Phil and embraced his vision for Xbox and here we are.

Under the leadership of those two men, Microsoft is the biggest and most valuable company in the world and Xbox is now bigger than Windows!

So Investors and shareholders couldn´t do sh!t back then, so they can do even less now!

gold_drake79d ago

again, everything you say sounds like propaganda haha why is that xD

you even spell out all the names xDDD

Elda79d ago (Edited 79d ago )

I own all 3 consoles & PS being my favorite out of the 3. COD & Minecraft mean nothing to me. I play Playstation for their 1st, 2nd & 3rd party exclusives first & foremost. The XB division comes in 4th place when it comes to revenue, it's their cloud services, office products & Windows that makes the most money for MS. XB game division will soon become a 3rd party publisher & possibly with a name change after their final console release. XB will more than likely be a thing of the past 10 years from now.

Obscure_Observer78d ago (Edited 78d ago )

I can´t discuss Xbox´s revenue/profit numbers with you, because you clearly are not up to date.

"XB will more than likely be a thing of the past 10 years from now."

The good news in your case is that you won´t have to wait nearly that long if those rumors floating around turn out to be true, because Xbox will be a thing of the past come next week!

All of its games will make its way to your precious PS5 and Switch.

Then, you´ll no longer have any reason to own an Xbox Series X and we´ll not longer have this kind of conversation.

Until then, have faith and cross your fingers.

__y2jb78d ago

This is literally the stupidest take i've ever read. You know obscure spent AGES trying to figure out how he could spin the calamity that xbox is facing.

+ Show (4) more repliesLast reply 78d ago
monkey60279d ago

Absolutely anybodys guess right now with the latest rumour being Microsoft is to completely suspend production of Series Consoles in Q1 2024

Eonjay79d ago (Edited 79d ago )

Where is this rumor coming from? Of all the rumors so far that seems like the most far fetched.

monkey60279d ago

From the same guy that blew the lid on this whole situation to begin with, I believe. I dont really believe it myself. Seems a bit too much too soon

helicoptergirl78d ago (Edited 78d ago )

It's a report from China manufacturing. They said they halfed PS5 production and suspended Series X/S production. The reason being, both companies have an over abbundance of stock that did not sell in the holiday. I know Sony sold a lot, but apparently they wanted to have enough to sell way over than expected just in case. So now they have too much stock so they are halfing console manufacturing for the 1st quarter on the year. Mixrosoft however, have suspended ALL console production. They obviously have too much stock because no one bought their console. So they have suspended production for the forseeable future.

That is if I read it all correctly. This was 'machine translated' so it could be slightly different or a lot. Here is the google translated version

https://www-businesstoday-c...

keegamer8079d ago

There is no way Sony or Nintendo are going to let Game Pass live on their machines. Xbox isn't going to be able to grow Game Pass like they want if they 3rd party their games to competitors. I hope everyone is wrong about Xbox going third party. In the end none of them care about us. They just want our money.

Eonjay79d ago

What's happening is that Microsoft's gaming division has to have higher YoY operating income growth... and now that they have spent $100 Billion to acquire content and studios, there are no more excuses. Everything else is noise.

If you enjoy playing on Xbox, you have to support their attempt to make the division more profitable. That's what's gonna keep the console around.

And if we are being honest here, Microsoft is doing this because Activision increased there revenue A LOT... and where is most of the COD money coming from? Thats right, the gaming division's single biggest customer IS PlayStation. There is every likelihood that they stand to make more money by supporting the PlayStation ecosystem then they will make from the Xbox ecosystem.

gold_drake79d ago (Edited 79d ago )

you know, on a serious note tho, they could have been huge. like good games good hardware, anything they wanted. they have mothergoose ms behind their backs. but it never happend.

all we saw was empty promises and spencers "CONSOLE WAR, SONY BAD, NINTENDO, WE ARE LAST PLACE SO SAD, BEST PLACE TO GAME, GAMEPASS, WE DONT PLAY MONOPOLY BUT WE DO".

and now they find them selves in a position where fans need to wonder whats happening next lol.

260°

Steam’s Refund Policy Change Won’t Affect You Unless You’re A Lowlife

Steam is changing its refund policy, but you probably won’t be affected

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thegamer.com
thorstein14h ago

Should have happened a long time ago. People wanting refunds after 50 hours in game.

fsfsxii10h ago

Pc gamers will take this as an excuse to pirate things

KyRo10h ago

I'm not sure why you're getting disgrees. Whilst not all PC gamers are petty, an awful lot of them are lol

Crows9010h ago

Entirely untrue. Not any more petty than console gamers. The only large difference is console gamers don't have much of a choice.

Michiel19891h ago

Not sure why you're getting agrees. an awful lot of console gamers are overemotional twinks ready to go to war over a plastic box, I'll take being a pc gamer then.

Speaking about overgeneralizing much.

qalpha10h ago

Daily reminder that 'TheGamer' is a corporate-generated, anti-gamer, anti-consumer, clickbait web site. They are mostly A.I. generated articles that villainize gamers. They provide nothing positive and actively try to provoke and divide the community through extreme view points and politics. Do not give them any clicks.

Inverno10h ago

Only scumbags? As if people don't play their games on console put in the most amount of hours and return it to GameStop and trade it in for another game. But also how many people are actually do this? And what games have been allowed to be refunded?

DustMan10h ago

You can refund any game you've purchased as long as it hasn't been longer than two weeks, and you've played less than 2 hours. I wish they would change it to 3 hours because some RPG's have so much exposition that you may only get an hour total of complete gameplay. That's my only knock on it. I've refunded plenty of stuff I was just curious to try. I typically stay away from Early Access titles which are the only ones affected by this policy change.

Inverno9h ago

Apparently early access doesn't count, only complete games with a play early preorder bonus.

Gaming4Life198110h ago

I definitely know if I want a refund in 2 hours.

SegaSaturn6691h ago

I never liked refunding anything. Even if a film is bad, i dont want my money back. Sometimes things just aren't for me, and it's not the creator's fault necessarily.

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110°

Outriders Dev's Next Game Has Been Canceled After Publishing Agreement With Take-Two Fell Through

Outriders developer People Can Fly's next game has been canceled after its publishing agreement with Take-Two Interactive fell through.

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twistedvoxel.com
Tacoboto2d ago

"the capital group of PCF Group S.A."

If you're getting funding from a group that needs two different ways of Acronyming itself, things will not go the way you want them to.

banger882d ago

If it was more online-only crap then good riddance.

jjb19811d 14h ago

Outriders was crap. They slapped that game together and threw in a loot system to get players' attention. This game was absolutely jank and the always online nonsense made it stutter like crazy. People Can't Optimize.

thorstein1d 12h ago

I liked Outriders but I could see where the artistic vision was compromised. The way the industry is now, it wouldn't surprise me that upper management would scrap something that didn't pull in money via gaas, mts, or other means.

290°

Microsoft’s Surface and Xbox hardware revenues take a big hit in Q3

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.

Read Full Story >>
theverge.com
darthv722d ago

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.

solideagle1d 17h ago

you should apply in MS PR team buddy, I think you will do a great job in my humble opinion :)

Sonic18811d 15h ago

I thought darthv72 and Obscure_Observer already work for Microsoft 🤔

dveio1d 14h ago

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:

Lightning771d 10h ago

What he said was facts. How he plays games is no concern of you. Don't get too mad about it.

Cacabunga1d 17h ago

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.

darthv721d 3h ago

to you it may seem like the minority... but your bubble is shrinking because more and more are following suit. convenience is a hell of a drug and its also why physical sales only amount to 30% of overall game sales. times are changing, you either get with them or you get left behind.

neutralgamer199222h ago

Darth

30% physical sales: yet Phil and xbox division are in a rush go give up on that 30%. they don't have any right to give up any piece of the pie since the control such a little of the pie to begin with

also, the market is clearly speaking that the model Xbox is pushing isn't working right now the keyword being right now. you are right about freedom to play anywhere so i hope they put their games on steam

shinoff21831d 16h ago

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.

Cacabunga1d 15h ago

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

itsmebryan1d 11h ago

@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

S2Killinit1d 4h ago

MS is after diminishing consoles as a medium. They want to destroy this market because they couldnt win. MS’s vision is to dissolve console gaming.

romulus231d 10h ago

Odd that a company that touts you dont need the hardware to play is already touting another console in the works.

darthv721d 10h ago

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.

TheEroica1d 3h ago (Edited 1d 3h ago )

Perfectly reasonable post down voted by insecure corporation friendly folk.... But not gamers. Real gamer want accessibility and ease of acquisition for all.... Company shills are the only ones still telling us that hardware locking people from games is good for us.

Chevalier22h ago

@Darth

You should stop parroting metrics like an idiot without context.

"Xbox content and services revenue grew 62% in Q3 from a year earlier, “driven by 61 points of net impact” from the purchase of the third-party video game giant, Microsoft said."

61 of the 62% was from their merger so net increase is ONLY 1%

https://www.mesaonline.org/...

itsmebryan14h ago

@chevalier

It looks like made a great purchase. Much better then Sony buying Bungie. 😉
Cheers

+ Show (4) more repliesLast reply 14h ago
purple1011d 20h ago

Xbox hardware revenue tanks to lowest point of Xbox Series generation

Profchaos1d 19h ago

I'm not surprised surface is struggling they aren't relevant anymore

DOMination-1d 9h ago

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.

XBManiac1d 18h ago

Too expensive hardware when others offer the same or more for less? Good work, Green Team.

SimpleDad1d 18h ago (Edited 1d 18h ago )

"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.

purple1011d 18h ago

Activision: "we gonna need a bigger rucksack/backpack please"

Microsoft: "why's that"

Activision: "to carry yo' weak ass'

Profchaos1d 17h ago (Edited 1d 17h ago )

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

Kornholic1d 16h ago

So basically PS and PC gamers' money is keeping Xbox on life support.

MrDead1d 9h ago

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.

+ Show (1) more replyLast reply 1d 9h ago
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