Phil Spencer: announcement this week

The Xbox brand is unsustainable in its current form and any other company would have pulled the plug years ago.

It would be an absolute wise decision from them to release their games on multiple platforms. They are just bleeding money when they keep ignoring the Sony and Nintendo gaming audience.

In the long run, when gaming as a whole has changed (because dedicated consoles are slowly becoming a thing of the past), Microsoft will have been the wisest of the three. That is just my guess.
 
Phil Spencer invites y'all to the next State of Play next week.

F40RO6D.png
 
Do we already have a exact date besides "next week"?
That day Gaf will need reinforced servers because whatever was it goes, it will be flooded with reactions from both sides, that's for sure..

This surely will drive Engagement through the roof!!
 
Ass of Can Whooping said:
Quick rats retreat to PC ahahahahahahaha
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Mr.Phoenix said:
And a new narrative is born.
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It was said multiple times on this forum before - PC is becoming the best platform with most games available that if you have a proper PC you can enjoy in the best quality. Funny enough mostly by blue rats with PCs. So nope, it is not a new narrative. I said it about Sony games months ago myself.

In addition, my friends it is stating a fact - these games truly run best on PC (ok, maybe some time is required for Sony to learn how to develop properly for PC, but with beefed up PC you can brute force better than console performance easily).

Only a real blue rat can argue that if you can afford it, PC is becoming the best platform to play on.
 
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James Sawyer Ford said:
So do you think there's going to be a mass exodus of third party games to only release on PS5, perhaps the smaller ones? How does Microsoft maintain ANY third party support on their own hardware?
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Live-service games are a lot of what the industry is chasing right now, both new titles and new updates to already existing successful live service offerings. Those games still have a financial incentive for chasing Xbox users who want to holdout.

The flipside to these games, though, is that putting a live service game on a console is a commitment to that platform's userbase. If you forecast that the monetizable userbase for the Xbox hw eco is going to dip below the point you need to the stay profitable on that sku, it might not be worth the user and financial headaches that might come with having to pull that support in two years time, when you're still anticipating to be supporting the title for another 3-5 years. You could easily see something like Rockstar/Take-Two with GTA6 having to make this decision, for example.

There seems to be a increased and sustained interest for new co-op and SP titles, more so than ever before, both from Western and Eastern devs. I can imagine a number of projects that might not see any reason to be done now, whether for a new release or a port.
 
James Sawyer Ford said:
So many questions, it almost just makes sense to rip the bandaid off and go full third party and be 100% transparent about their plans. None of this "well, some titles may or may not" nonsense. But going full bore basically signals to consumers that you might as well get a PS5 instead of an Xbox. So can we really expect them to fully relinquish console competitiveness to such a massive degree? Maybe yes, if Microsoft is raising the white flag after so much failed investment.
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to the extent that they already, willingly or not, & after spending 10 years attempting to right the xbox ship, have fundamentally ended up relinquishing console competitiveness to a massive degree, i'm not really sure there's any good reason not to call it a day & go full third party...
 
Three said:
It probably isn't as drastic as people think and it's mostly vocal xbox diehards having a comical meltdown because they've lost some exclusives.

My complete guess is this:

They will announce xbox games coming to PS. They will continue to keep some of the games, at the dev direct, exclusive. They will continue to make "consoles" but possibly not subsidise them anymore hence why OEMs are back in the running. I suspect they will even make some somewhat shitty moves like timed exclusive dlc/games for multiplatform games to appease the fans. What is happening with Gamepass is more of a mystery to me but I suspect they're reluctant to add everything on there now.
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Dude....... Everything you just said is drastic. 😂😂😂
 
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Looking back on the rise and fall of Xbox, you can actually pinpoint where Sony delivered the kill shot. It was at that e3 where they made that commercial about trading games with your friend. That hastily made, simple production actually killed off an entire competing business. It's wild.

This will be studied in marketing classes.
 
semiconscious said:
to the extent that they already, willingly or not, & after spending 10 years attempting to right the xbox ship, have fundamentally ended up relinquishing console competitiveness to a massive degree, i'm not really sure there's any good reason not to call it a day & go full third party...
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If 3rd party publishers will indeed abandon GP and Sony and Nintendo reject it on their platforms, MS might as well pull the plug on Xbox as a whole.
 
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Moonjt9 said:
Looking back on the rise and fall of Xbox, you can actually pinpoint where Sony delivered the kill shot. It was at that e3 where they made that commercial about trading games with your friend. That hastily made, simple production actually killed off an entire competing business. It's wild.

This will be studied in marketing classes.
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Yes it was that decision during the Xbox One days that precisely pinpoint where Microsoft went wrong. Even adding the Kinect to the Xbox 360 was a good idea that ended up hurting their next console. But Microsoft wanting the Xbox One to be always online was the first of many dumb decisions that led to this.
 
SneakersSO said:
Live-service games are a lot of what the industry is chasing right now, both new titles and new updates to already existing successful live service offerings. Those games still have a financial incentive for chasing Xbox users who want to holdout.

The flipside to these games, though, is that putting a live service game on a console is a commitment to that platform's userbase. If you forecast that the monetizable userbase for the Xbox hw eco is going to dip below the point you need to the stay profitable on that sku, it might not be worth the user and financial headaches that might come with having to pull that support in two years time, when you're still anticipating to be supporting the title for another 3-5 years. You could easily see something like Rockstar/Take-Two with GTA6 having to make this decision, for example.

There seems to be a increased and sustained interest for new co-op and SP titles, more so than ever before, both from Western and Eastern devs. I can imagine a number of projects that might not see any reason to be done now, whether for a new release or a port.
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As someone in the industry, what seems to be the feeling around this in regards to what it means for the future health of it? Do you, or anyone you know, feel that Xbox essentially going third-party is a bad thing? Or, are any concerns about the console space overblown and overlooking certain facts? Because if this goes down the way it looks, that will likely be the oft repeated narrative for quite some time. That the console market is doomed with just PlayStation and Nintendo. Especially considering the current situation between them where they almost occupy two different spaces. Any thoughts?
 
ChuckeRearmed said:
I think people are widely overreact to whatever is going to happen.

Though by releasing the games day 1 on Steam, they already lost the ability to win there.
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I've always questioned this line of thinking. Why do they need to win anywhere in order to be a market participant?

Most companies enter and participate in a particular market because they truly believe they have something unique/positive to offer their consumers that doesn't already exist elsewhere. "winning" is often a consequence of continued excellence, not the primary goal.

But I guess that's the reason Xbox lacks an identity as things currently stand. They've been dragged all over the place if you look at the directions they've taken since the mid 360 era.

They went from chasing Sony, to chasing Nintendo, to chasing apple/Netflix/amazon, back to chasing Sony. It's insane. I don't understand how you can operate a business with that degree of paranoia.
 
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James Sawyer Ford said:
Speculating about next week's announcement of business strategy - how exactly do they roll this out?

  1. Do they announce their future hardware roadmap? Yes, I think they must to assure fans they aren't leaving altogether, but to what extent? Do they announce a future OEM approach that's more PC-like?

  2. Do they announce everything is third party from here on out, with Xbox hardware having some advantage with GamePass? Or do they trickle it at first to only a handful of select titles? It's weird how the rumor mill has been spinning for all the major releases Xbox has (outside of Forza).

  3. Are they third party day and date, or console exclusive for a window?
So many questions, it almost just makes sense to rip the bandaid off and go full third party and be 100% transparent about their plans. None of this "well, some titles may or may not" nonsense. But going full bore basically signals to consumers that you might as well get a PS5 instead of an Xbox. So can we really expect them to fully relinquish console competitiveness to such a massive degree? Maybe yes, if Microsoft is raising the white flag after so much failed investment.
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i think they continue making hardware, like OEM PC like.
Game Pass still exist with day 1 release with with alot of ads. Maybe 1 month window before 3rd party releases
Xbox games go full 3rd party possible day1 release to capitalize on sales and marketing.
 
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skit_data said:
The time to adress this was yesterday, but it's possible they might want things to cool down and settle a bit.
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Cool down? You mean burn down?
Someone catching Phil playing Diablo while the house is burning down, and Sarah posting some Persona 3 tweet, says all there is to say. They can pull their standard "We hear you" PR speech all they want but their actions tell me they can't handle this, they're tone deaf on a historical level and the plan has probably gone on too far internally and now they don't know how to reverse it, and the damage to the brand is done and the house will keep on crumbling down for a week now.

I'm not even properly invested since I've been using Gamepass but I'm still pissed because I realize my whole Xbox games library and playtime history will soon go poof unless I keep having a dusty old box plugged in.

And the Xbox timed exclusivity rumours talk about is pissing me off just as much as the timed exclusives on PS before they come to PC. They just want people to invest where they know they wouldn't invest if all options were there from the start. They'll probably start doing some late complete edition bs on the delayed releases just to get people who were there day 1 to double dip too.
 
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Stooky said:
i think they continue making hardware, like OEM PC like.
Game Pass still exist with day 1 releases with with alot of ads
Xbox games go full 3rd party.
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I wish they just know now what to charge for. The basics. Given nature of game subscription I was always failing to justify Gamepass as an option, as well as PS+ Extra after initial backlog clearance.

Quality simply isn't there. And it is not a FMCG market to fight over cost-cutting
 
TheBomb said:
I think Gamepass will come to Playsation 5. Isn't there Ubisoft+? Maybe a name change to move on from the past.
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Doubt it.
Sony would want a generous cut, reducing profitability and wouldn't give access to their servers because of added costs, so MS would have to add a TON more extra server storage to hold the PlayStation versions of every single game on gamepass, reducing profitability even more.
Then you would have account linking, different save data encryptions for cross save functions, all that would be at MS expense. No way GP would remain 12$/month with all that.
 
Wind's Howling said:
In the long run, when gaming as a whole has changed (because dedicated consoles are slowly becoming a thing of the past), Microsoft will have been the wisest of the three. That is just my guess.
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Why? Microsoft's issue is not the hardware, it's the software. They are buying IPs but it doesn't mean they'll produce great content, and right now it doesn't look they can achieve the levels of Sony or Nintendo.

Gaming isn't a hardware business, it's a content business.
 
ADiTAR said:
Why? Microsoft's issue is not the hardware, it's the software.
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No, Microsoft's issue is the hardware as they are unable to sell their platform to mass consumer market. They have a wide software success (see Steam) - not with every game - but overall their software is successful. The issue is the Xbox platform itself.

ADiTAR said:
Gaming isn't a hardware business, it's a content business.
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Gaming is a diverse business. Platform business - is a different matter though.
 
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ChuckeRearmed said:
No, Microsoft's issue is the hardware as they are unable to sell their platform to mass consumer market. They have a wide software success (see Steam) - not with every game - but overall their software is successful. The issue is the Xbox platform itself.
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What's the issue with their hardware? Why are they unable to sell it to the mass market?
 
One of the possibilities concidered and flying around discussion boards is: Games release on Xbox and GamePass day and date, competing platforms months later, making Xbox first party games de facto timed exclusives.

I wonder if that's possible though, at least for Activision games. Wasn't part of the commitments they made to the court in the FTC case that Activision games would release day and date with completing platforms with content parity? Was that commitment limited to ActiBlizzKing games?
 
Sony said:
One of the possibilities concidered and flying around discussion boards is: Games release on Xbox and GamePass day and date, competing platforms months later, making Xbox first party games de facto timed exclusives.

I wonder if that's possible though, at least for Activision games. Wasn't part of the commitments they made to the court in the FTC case that Activision games would release day and date with completing platforms with content parity? Was that commitment limited to ActiBlizzKing games?
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Only limited to Call of Duty I belive.
 
ADiTAR said:
What's the issue with their hardware? Why are they unable to sell it to the mass market?
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Sometimes you just have a less appealing product or branding. Especially in Europe, where PlayStation is the common household brand for gaming. It's very difficult to turn a whole culture around that is surrounding PlayStation. During the 360 vs. PS3 era, the Xbox 360 was cheaper, released more then a year earlier than PS3 ánd had more games than PS3 in the early year of the generation. Yet PS3 outsold Xbox 360. Since that generation the reach of the PlayStation brand got bigger.
 
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So my guess if it's going to be a positive announcement. Prolly adding all the activation bliz stuff to gamepass. Then announces some kind of other service package for it.
 
SneakersSO said:
Platform holders and 3rd party publishers enjoy a symbiotic fiscal relationship. What happens when a platform holder transitions into arguably one of the largest 3rd party publishers, while telling none of them about it?
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Being a 1st and 3rd party simultaneously creates a lot of inefficiencies for either side.
 
Video opens with Phil welcoming Jim to announce a joint partnership to design their next console that will run all XBox Series and Playstation games. It will be called PlayStation Series (PS) 5 Pro.
 
Sony said:
Sometimes you just have a less appealing product or branding. Especially in Europe, where PlayStation is the common household brand for gaming. It's very difficult to turn a whole culture around that is surrounding PlayStation. During the 360 vs. PS3 era, the Xbox 360 was cheaper, released more then a year earlier than PS3 ánd had more games than PS3 in the early year of the generation. Yet PS3 outsold Xbox 360. Since that generation the reach of the PlayStation brand got bigger.
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Works for me, xbox users get the hot garbage, everyone else gets the fixed edition months later.

But I hate to break it to you, I think gamepass about to copy ps+ again.

Day and date will probably be moved to a more expensive teir (or removed completely) this whole thing is because xbox needs to make money, and gamepass and xbox consoles aren't doing it.
 
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