Don't want to douse optimism, but economics factor in here - if they're not competing in the console ~ $500 price point, they're competing with PCs. They'll be dealing with lower volumes and probably won't be eager to build a lot of bespoke hardware. With lower volumes, creating Xbox specific binaries for games isn't going to be cost effective for them or other game publishers, so with that they'd just be moving to commodity PC equipment that can run any PC store f...
The lan parties were a blast. Halo on a lan with split screen is one of my fondest gaming memories for sure
If we're trying to read what's in the executives heads, they either:
a) don't think exclusives matter to keep Xbox as a console healthy, or
b) don't think Xbox as a console is salvageable
I think those are important distinctions because they drive whether we'll see another Xbox console.
I find it hard to believe (a) because challenging the need for exclusives is like challenging gravity. I can see how people that haven't ta...
Running a business that had a mix of cross-plat and exclusive games is nothing new for MS - they've been balancing that for years, and that didn't need to change with Activision. Xbox could have balanced the exclusives out so that Xbox stayed viable as a console platform. If Xbox as a console business was healthy, the cost to keep games exclusive would be offset by the growth / loyalty on their platform. The fact that they're bailing on that indicates they're recognizing xbox ...
I think more importantly it's passing a threshold where maintaining Xbox console revenue is less important than getting revenue from PS. It's essentially writing off xbox hardware as a strategic asset
He says a lot if you're reading between the lines.
They gave away exclusives.
It didn't impact Xbox console players.
Therefore, expect more of the same.
That's not how competition works. PS wants to eat Xbox's lunch. With every exclusive coming over to PS that lunch gets cheaper. And PS has no reason to stop until all Xboxers are on PS. MS giving away their biggest gun isn't signaling a new era of peace... It's signaling they're throwing in the towel on hardware.
Not sure what multiplat will mean 5 years from now if Xbox doesn't actually do exclusives anymore. They've been struggling WITH exclusives. Does MS really expect to keep making Xboxes without them?
Phil solved the quality problem. Have Xbox players beta test the game for a few months before actually selling it to paying customers
It looks like your data is supporting what I'm saying. Look at the PC related revenue on your first link - it's declining (slightly) year over year. And the title of the study you linked in #3 is "The PC and console market outlook" with subtitle: "Growth will remain modest, with console as the main growth pillar moving forward"
PCs have had several years of decline and now there's a bit of growth - wouldn't be surprised if it's because of Windows 11. I could be wrong, but I see the fascination with building your own PC and tweaking it declining with the younger iPhone generations that are just looking for things to work out of the box. Also I think graphical horsepower is currently not as exciting since game developers don't appear to have budget make games that push the hardware to the max in most c...
In terms of running a successful business, yeah, he's wrong. Embracer is a sh** show. Is PC really gonna grow more than consoles? Don't know but I wouldn't trust this guy as a visionary.
"The company’s sales and profits have dropped sharply year-on-year, even if its executives painted a somewhat optimistic picture mentioning “significantly improved” cash flow and lower net debt."
Old Duffer has got it right is my guess. All logical signs point to this.
If they wanted to stay in the console game they would be taking this opportunity to double down on exclusives, not backing away from them.
I get the sense that there are fewer and fewer gaming enthusiasts on the Xbox platform that will be upset about this. Your average family and average kid just doesn't care about the exclusivity thing as long as they're not missing out.
In terms of FH, I think it was ok, but those characters and their dialogue are so cringe. I know it's hard to tack story on to a racer but the story kinda sucked on that game
Not sure a lot of people care at this point, including the majority of Xbox gamers.
Still not as good as it was a year ago. I think they're walking back on the quality of games just like XBGP is. It's a good thing though...ppl gotta start buying games again.
Witcher? Great game, but been there done that already.
It's been a long time since Xbox could be separated from Microsoft... The incubator days are gone, and the culture has probably blended in at this point. How do we really know what Phil really wants to do vs. what he needs to do? Perhaps if he created a winning strategy for Xbox they wouldn't need to resort to ads.
Once I actually saw it I felt instantly worse about it. It's easy to see how this can quickly get out of control and turn our safe haven of gaming into another annoying experience. Then you'll have to pay extra to not see crappy ads?
https://x.com/The_Socko/sta...
Why conclude that? COD is still selling strong (don't know about Candy Crush) and in the meantime MS has cut workforce, so decreased expenses. On paper why wouldn't you conclude Activision is making more money than before the acquisition?