Support NeoGAF

[SneakersSO]

But how much do you suspect this actually costs? Wouldn't it still be worth it even if the Xbox platform sales are lower?

Oh, dev costs for any platform are always significant btw. The XSS and XSX are far more different than say, the X1 or X1S to the X1X. The games require their own platform specific optimizations and such, which then requires a dual-submission process to go through cert, which means you on the publishing side have to have a larger QA team to account for the added platform, as well as engineers who are dedicated towards supporting those builds. And all for the same userbase, mind you.

The XSS & XSX dual platform elevated 3rd party dev costs while promising to introduce new users to the eco on the XSS side that would hopefully offset those costs. Only, that never happened.

 

[TheDarkPhantom]

Good God almighty, I've been saying for *years* Phil is the world's greatest used car salesman but I never knew it was to this degree.

Looks like the used car lot is going out of business.

 

[onQ123]

So many times I gave Neogaf a heads up

Xbox Series X - $349 (clearing stock for refresh?)

There are a multitude of agreements between manufacturers and retailers that we are not privy to including clauses and commitment breaches. My point is that there is little use arguing as to who is taking the hit, as we'll probably never know. True, I’m sure they have some agreements, but I...

www.neogaf.com

 

[semiconscious]

I still think that the plan always was to make COD exclusive of Xbox/Gamepass and that the CMA fuck it all up .... add to that it to the fact that Starfield did jack shit to move xbox units ... well... bad strategy....can only think that the higher ups in MS decided enough was enough and pulled the plug "fuck xbox/gamepass show us the money bitch"

yeah, whatever your personal feelings may be about it, it's become obvious that the performance of starfield became the deciding factor afa the future of both game pass & xbox is concerned...

 

[SegaSnatcher]

I feel for Phil, he's going to get demolished by hardcore Xbox fans, but I feel he truly believes the best way forward for the games is going multiplatform. Look even Sony is releasing their exclusives to Windows.

 

[FunkMiller]

As an ex-tech journo I can say with confidence that MS PR just shot their dick, legs and other important bits.

First of all, if there's anything to debunk, you debunk it outright to stop the speculations. Or you just ignore the microphone and wait until the official announcement.

Secondly, you never-ever want to announce a monumental pause in communications without debunking anything. Now MS has a glorious week of uncontrolled meltdowns and severe damage to brand's reputation. Terrific.

The fact that Phil tweeted what he tweeted is another signal that he is the passenger in this story and his car is driving flat out into the proverbial abyss.

Xbox 3rd party is happening and nobody can stop it at this point.

As an ex-corpo comms person, I 100% agree.

 

[Stooky]

Was this really the MS long play or did they totally fuck themselves with this ActiBlizz acquisition and are saddled with this albatross?

They fucked themselves with ActBlizz purchase. Phill Spencer's bosses boss saw xbox GP, hardware and software sales and with that 70 bill purchase. Xbox needs to make money and not 10 years down the road. big poppa microsoft pulled the plug. Nothing official yet, we'll see what happens.

 

[GHG]

Stop, you'll give rofif nightmares.

 

[SneakersSO]

I feel for Phil, he's going to get demolished by hardcore Xbox fans, but I feel he truly believes the best way forward for the games is going multiplatform. Look even Sony is releasing their exclusives to Windows.

Phil was one of the folks most ardent against releasing titles on other platforms. He is not the one making this call. Its being made for him.

 

[Topher]

I feel for Phil, he's going to get demolished by hardcore Xbox fans, but I feel he truly believes the best way forward for the games is going multiplatform. Look even Sony is releasing their exclusives to Windows.

He truly believe the best way for is going multiplatform because he has to make a shit-ton more money for Microsoft than he has made so far. I think Phil Spencer hates every bit of this, but ultimately he doesn't answer to fans.

 

[XXL]

 

[SlimySnake]

Next week? This is everything that's wrong with Phil Spencer and MS in a nutshell. I bet they are in a meeting room trying to spin this news and come up with something corporate that absolves them of all blame and makes them look good. They dont give a fuck about their fanbase. If they did they wouldve simply tweeted a simple response.

Just be honest. You dont need a week to be honest. You dont need a team of lawyers and PR people to be honest. If you are porting games to PS then just come out and say it. If you're not, then come out and say it.

Be mother fucking honest and people will respect you for it. Just say that making $200 million games and releasing them once every 7 years on one console is not enough. Especially not with gamepass. Tell them its the cost of doing business. Tell them you messed up. Own up to your mistakes. You can put this all in a 3 sentence tweet.

 

[GHG]

Holy fuck I actually can't stop laughing at this. It's too good.

 

[SegaSnatcher]

 

[Hot5pur]

If Microsoft goes third party that means no more money from online play.
No more % from every store purchase.
Banking on GP, is it even sustainable. Maybe they will release GP tiers and highest tier gets day 1 releases.
Xbox going 3rd party or whatever is an end of an era. The console wars will never be the same.

 

[SegaManAU]

It's going to be a looooong week!

 

[reinking]

So many times I gave Neogaf a heads up

Xbox Series X - $349 (clearing stock for refresh?)

There are a multitude of agreements between manufacturers and retailers that we are not privy to including clauses and commitment breaches. My point is that there is little use arguing as to who is taking the hit, as we'll probably never know. True, I’m sure they have some agreements, but I...

www.neogaf.com

Not sure adamsapple knew this was going to be the focus of the big announcement.

 

[SlimySnake]

Stop, you'll give rofif nightmares.

nightmares? knowing his unhealthy obsession with all things forspoken, he will probably jerk off to that gif.

 

[ShaiKhulud1989]

You dont need a week to be honest.

I think it's just Satya too busy to record some sort of PR message for the press. But yeah, reeks of corporate 101.

 

[GHG]

Next week? This is everything that's wrong with Phil Spencer and MS in a nutshell. I bet they are in a meeting room trying to spin this news and come up with something corporate that absolves them of all blame and makes them look good. They dont give a fuck about their fanbase. If they did they wouldve simply tweeted a simple response.

Just be honest. You dont need a week to be honest. You dont need a team of lawyers and PR people to be honest. If you are porting games to PS then just come out and say it. If you're not, then come out and say it.

Be mother fucking honest and people will respect you for it. Just say that making $200 million games and releasing them once every 7 years on one console is not enough. Especially not with gamepass. Tell them its the cost of doing business. Tell them you messed up. Own up to your mistakes. You can put this all in a 3 sentence tweet.

Being honest requires humility, something Xbox have never had as an organisation.

 

[Desprado123]

People are acting like MS make's it own hardware. No Console makes it is own hardware and always 3rd party like Intel, Nvidia or AMD does it for them.

Coming to exclusive, this is where Xbox lost against Sony.

Xbox has invested more than 100 billion in buying gaming industry so that they can earn the return, and this is master stoke to earn money and future plans.


Xbox One was the real end of Xbox but MS did not understand that till than but now they have.

 

[SneakersSO]

Next week? This is everything that's wrong with Phil Spencer and MS in a nutshell.

The thing that really got to me was that, they threw that Developer_Direct knowing full well what their plans were. A Direct that also happened a week before they executed laying off 1,900 game devs.

Its an organization that wants to have their cake and eat it too, at all times. Various parts of their org just don't communicate well with one another, and there isn't a proper leadership team in place to manage their communications so they can cohesively talk to their potential consumer-base.

They made a big deal of Indy being Xbox exclusive, while the devs are actively porting it to other consoles. There is no reason to go this route outside of some self-serving need to cater to a fanbase that isn't large enough to sustain their business, and never has been.

 

[onQ123]

Not sure adamsapple knew this was going to be the focus of the big announcement.

Oh he knew what I was alluding to but him liking it was probably more of a laugh because he didn't believe it lol

 

[ShaiKhulud1989]

Being honest requires humility, something Xbox have never had as an organisation.

I still rememder the self-patting culture and circlejerk in Xbox internal emails, yeah. Hard to expect anything human from Xbox after reading those.

 

[peish]

Phil just doing what he envisioned. Microsoft is swimming in profits, they already quietly stopped their Surface line.

There's no Xbox, only Gamepass /ghostbuster

 

[LordCBH]

me being the bored man thst I am, I'm watching the original Xbox one reveal from 2013. It is truly incredible how they never really recovered from that. Like 15 minutes in and it's all tv and movies. It still blows my mind how massively they missed the mark there.

 

[FatallyYours]

How sure are we that Phil isn't going to pull out the big guns next week?

Indiana Jones bedsheets
3 new exciting controller colours
Palworld plushies

 

[Moridianae]

Well, this week will bring some interesting tidbits.

I'm very curious now, as our previous poster alluded to, if any third party companies start taking the initiative this week. That would mean that it's all true.

Either way, I feel the damage to the brand and faith in the console is irrevocably shaken now, honestly.

Similar to the Mattrick debacle in 2013, but this is much more severe. I still can't believe they allowed all that to go out, didn't deny anything and put everyone on pins and needles for a week.

Ridiculous, imo. Still--tis been clear for a while now that Xbox was never going to make any headway, no matter how many billions they chucked out.

Reeks of their go-to "Tried to buy our way to market dominance. Didn't work, so we quit."

 

[SlimySnake]

I think it's just Satya too busy to record some sort of PR message for the press. But yeah, reeks of corporate 101.

Should be the CEO of Ms gaming and face of Xbox, not Satya. Here, i will write something in two minutes:

I would like to confirm the rumors that some Xbox games are going to be ported to PS and Nintendo. I share the frustration some xbox fans might be feeling. I apologize to any fans who felt misled by my words. I want to assure everyone that Microsoft will always prioritize Xbox gamers for their loyalty and support whether it means Day 1 Gamepass releases or Exclusive Xbox content and discounts. I will discuss this in more detail in the upcoming weeks. Rest assured, it's my job to ensure that Xbox remains the best place to play Xbox games.

 

[Mister Wolf]

me being the bored man thst I am, I'm watching the original Xbox one reveal from 2013. It is truly incredible how they never really recovered from that. Like 15 minutes in and it's all tv and movies. It still blows my mind how massively they missed the mark there.

The beginning of the end. Completely destroyed everything they built up with the 360.

 

[LordCBH]

How sure are we that Phil isn't going to pull out the big guns next week?

Indiana Jones bedsheets
3 new exciting controller colours
Palworld plushies

I have a feeling they won't be putting out a video or stream for this one lol. I think it's going to be a short web article. Phil will be drinking from a PS5 branded coffee mug when they hit publish though.

 

[Topher]

Next week? This is everything that's wrong with Phil Spencer and MS in a nutshell. I bet they are in a meeting room trying to spin this news and come up with something corporate that absolves them of all blame and makes them look good. They dont give a fuck about their fanbase. If they did they wouldve simply tweeted a simple response.

Just be honest. You dont need a week to be honest. You dont need a team of lawyers and PR people to be honest. If you are porting games to PS then just come out and say it. If you're not, then come out and say it.

Be mother fucking honest and people will respect you for it. Just say that making $200 million games and releasing them once every 7 years on one console is not enough. Especially not with gamepass. Tell them its the cost of doing business. Tell them you messed up. Own up to your mistakes. You can put this all in a 3 sentence tweet.

And you don't need to wait for a "business event" either. That right there seems like a massive middle finger to their fans. It says this isn't about you anymore. It's business. My gut is telling me that the Timdogs of the world are scared that they are about to be cut off and this bromance they thought they had with Microsoft executives is about to be shattered.

 

[ShaiKhulud1989]

Should be the CEO of Ms gaming and face of Xbox, not Satya. Here, i will write something in two minutes:

I would like to confirm the rumors that some Xbox games are going to be ported to PS and Nintendo. I share the frustration some xbox fans might be feeling. I apologize to any fans who felt misled by my words. I want to assure everyone that Microsoft will always prioritize Xbox gamers for their loyalty and support whether it means Day 1 Gamepass releases or Exclusive Xbox content and discounts. I will discuss this in more detail in the upcoming weeks. Rest assured, it's my job to ensure that Xbox remains the best place to play Xbox games.

- Written by Microsoft Copilot

 

[Tal Shiar Agent]

Phil was one of the folks most ardent against releasing titles on other platforms. He is not the one making this call. Its being made for him.

Iirc he convinced Nutella to keep Xbox around after the XBO failed, guess he failed to live up to his end of the bargain.

 

[adamsapple]

I just want to say, I have had the most @ tags in the last 24 hours than ever before.

I love you too, GAF. We will make it through!

 

[LordCBH]

The beginning of the end. Completely destroyed everything they built up with the 360.

I remember it being bad. I remember getting off work from target at the time and rushing home to watch. 360 was my most played console that previous gen. And I was so so let down.

Also, 20 minutes in and still just tv lol. How no one told Yusuf Mehdi to shut the fuck up I will never understand.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

I just want to say, I have had the most @ tags in the last 24 hours than ever before.

I love you too, GAF. We will make it through!

why so many? what happened?

 

[LordCBH]

I just want to say, I have had the most @ tags in the last 24 hours than ever before.

I love you too, GAF. We will make it through!

adamsapple just tagging you to say hi

 

[GHG]

I just want to say, I have had the most @ tags in the last 24 hours than ever before.

I love you too, GAF. We will make it through!

How was Seattle my darling?

 

[SRTtoZ]

Timdog in shambles

 

[64gigabyteram]

No more drop this time, actually.
It's literally zero..

you do realize negative numbers exist right?

 

[SneakersSO]

Iirc he convinced Nutella to keep Xbox around after the XBO failed, guess he failed to live up to his end of the bargain.

100m subs in 10 years, starting from 2017, so ending in 2027. With an investment/expansion budget that was much, much smaller than the >$80b used thus far.

Yeah, Phil/Xbox is colossally off the mark they promised.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Oh, dev costs for any platform are always significant btw. The XSS and XSX are far more different than say, the X1 or X1S to the X1X. The games require their own platform specific optimizations and such, which then requires a dual-submission process to go through cert, which means you on the publishing side have to have a larger QA team to account for the added platform, as well as engineers who are dedicated towards supporting those builds. And all for the same userbase, mind you.

The XSS & XSX dual platform elevated 3rd party dev costs while promising to introduce new users to the eco on the XSS side that would hopefully offset those costs. Only, that never happened.

Surely MS must have been aware of the potential cascading effects leading to the inevitability of having almost no 30% cut of their own platform/ecosystem?

They seem to be in a pickle. Releasing content on PS5 hastens Xbox's death, leaving Sony almost 100% console share.

I don't see how they still support Xbox hardware with this approach, other than to compete with PCs instead of consoles

 

[Mister Wolf]

I remember it being bad. I remember getting off work from target at the time and rushing home to watch. 360 was my most played console that previous gen. And I was so so let down.

Also, 20 minutes in and still just tv lol. How no one told Yusuf Mehdi to shut the fuck up I will never understand.

It will go down as the most tone deaf gaming presentation of all time. You cant be worse in producing exclusive content and worse in hardware performance at the same time. You have to have something for customers to justify their purchase. They tried to salvage it with the One X, but just imagine if they would have had that performance gap with the base systems out the gate. At least they could have sold to the customers you are guaranteed to get the best versions of your favorite 3rd party titles.

 

[LordCBH]

It will go down as the most tone deaf gaming presentation of all time. You cant be worse in producing exclusive content and worse in hardware performance at the same time. You have to have something for customers to justify their purchase. They tried to salvage it with the One X, but just imagine if they would have had that performance gap with the base systems out the gate. At least they could have sold to the customers you are guaranteed to get the best versions of your favorite 3rd party titles.

30 minutes in and the closest they got to "games" was Kinect lol

 

[TheloniusFabdul]

 

[Moridianae]

A hastily put together shot of something that could potentially happen that I'm sure most never considered:

I, personally, look forward to it if it does come to pass.

 

[kungfuian]

Having their software offered everywhere seems inevitable at this point.

Re Hardware, I see them doubling down on the path they took this gen, only with an even greater divide in specs between their offerings. So a really low spec and really high spec offering.

Their main selling hardware will be very low spec. Basically a cheap, plug and play, streaming, and/or portable style option(s); for as cheap as they can get it in peoples hands (maybe even free with game pass sub). They will still have hardware, just not in the sense people think, as it will be 100% designed as delivery mechanism for GamePass and their store, and not meant to compete in the traditional console space.

On the flip side, it's not hard imagine they throw a bone to their high end audience (maybe the OEM rumors) and serve up stripped down X-box branded gaming PCs. Something maybe in the +-1,000 range that punches way above everything else in the traditional console space; for those that want something higher end (not that games designed for both will actually take advantage of said machine, but that's a different story).

 

[digital_ghost]

Oh nooooooo not RISKIT and KLOBRILLE!

Whatever will we fucking do?

Don't worry MS has enough money to end world hunger and pay a thousand more people to represent them.

 

[SneakersSO]

Surely MS must have been aware of the potential cascading effects leading to the inevitability of having almost no 30% cut of their own platform/ecosystem?

Microsoft is not the sort of environment that enjoys 'measured' approaches. Most often, voicing concerns, even data-driven concerns, gets your loyalty questioned. Its a very kool-aid drinking work environment. Its a large reason why so many of their issues wind up coming out to the public after being unaddressed.

They seem to be in a pickle. Releasing content on PS5 hastens Xbox's death, leaving Sony almost 100% console share.

I don't see how they still support Xbox hardware with this approach, other than to compete with PCs instead of consoles

My opinion is that their approach to hardware is going to be far looser than the regimented generational approach we are used to. I don't really see them trying to make consoles at the volume or reach of any generation that they've delivered thus far, in large part because of how costly it is to actually launch hardware at a WW scale and get it to sell. If they weren't already doing the hardwork when they had a nearly unlimited budget to work with (XS generation), then I doubt they are gonna pour the resources necessary for the next go around.

Besides, within 18months, their software revenue is gonna be so giant that they are gonna basically pretend it was ever a question that they'd go in this direction. Remember how much trepidation they had with releasing titles day 1 on Steam eroding the value perception of the Xbox Ecosystem? Now Steam has been their largest revenue driver prior to the ABK buyout, and you would never see anyone at Microsoft suggest they should not do Steam Day 1 just to prop up a Windows/Xbox store on PC.