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No, seriously, how would you salvage XBox?

1. End Xbox Series production and drop day one games while rolling back the prices on GamePass.
2. Get console exclusivity deals with Rockstar and Epic.
3. Release a RTX capable hybrid console with full backwards digital compatibility at a low entry cost with free online service.
4. Make all their own games on other systems retroactively crossbuy with this new hardware.
5. Slim Windows down and incorporate Xbox ecosystem outside of MS Store with crossplay and free streaming.

Alternatively, Microsoft can sell the brand to Amazon or Google.
 
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Xbox has always been a scam console that MS aimed at North Americans to keep PlayStation (PS2) from taking over.
Xbox is Mexico's favorite console and at the same time most of the world doesn't know what Xbox is.
 
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>Completely re organize a bunch of your game studios, give them a ton of autonomy and allow them to make anything they want apart from halo studios in which we will hire back 343, and bungie veterans and try to get some talent from ID software in order to make a new halo game, this new halo game will be a return to form, and will retconn all of the post bungie bullshit out of the story

>Non braindead naming schemes, future xbox systems will be named after greek gods or some shit, (XBOX Apollo, XBOX Ares etc)

>total change in the game console theme/design from modern flat "serious" to more 2010's era nintendo with fruitiger aero mixed in

Was bullshitting around with figma and created this



as for the consoles physical design, it should look like a modernized xbox 360

>traditional gaming console, no gamepass

>one easy to develop for, decently powerful base model system with a disk drive, no pro, no digital, just one system

>Heavy focus on establishing IP's that will be CONSOLE EXCLUSIVE, the long term goal is to have 6 different system seller IP's that will have 2-3 releases during the consoles lifespan

>399$
 
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Just some quick thoughts...

- Discontinue the Series S and focus development solely on the Series X. Moving forward, Xbox should never split its hardware base again. A single flagship device keeps the message clear and frees developers from designing around weaker specs.

- Announce a new console revision and controller for Spring 2026. Position this as a mid-gen refresh (even if it's late), with a true next-gen release in 2028. Reinforce Xbox's hardware commitment and give gamers something to get excited about. Line thie mid-gen refresh up with a banger of an exclusive that utilizes the power increase.

- Decouple the current UI from Xbox One's legacy. Build a completely fresh interface for Series X and future hardware—something sleek, powerful, and modern. Retire the outdated Windows tile design and showcase the system's performance.

- Cut hardware prices immediately, even if it's at a loss. Microsoft can afford it. The Series S at $200–$250 becomes a true entry point, while Series X at $300 - $350 makes it competitive again. Pair these with strong bundles to amplify value.

- Increase physical game distribution and retail partnerships. Xbox needs to be visible again—on store shelves, at Costco, everywhere. Physical availability builds credibility.

- Roll back Game Pass pricing changes and reintroduce Xbox Live memberships. The nostalgia of Xbox Live is huge, and Game Pass has lost much of its value at $30/month.

- Stop rushing exclusives to other platforms. Delay PC releases by at least one year to drive Xbox hardware sales—most PC players are on Steam anyway. Exclusives should be a system seller again.

- Maximize the Activision-Blizzard and Bethesda purchases. Make Call of Duty content Xbox-first for at least a year, bring World of Warcraft to Xbox bundled with Live, and push Elder Scrolls VI as a flagship Xbox exclusive. These are billion-dollar opportunities that should define the brand.

- Fix the Branding - Retire the "Series" name. It's confusing and uninspired. Bring back bold, memorable branding—whether it's Xbox 720, Xbox Titan, or Xbox Next. One console, one name, one identity.

Edit - added a few more. Long story short, Microsoft has lots of work to do.
 
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I would tell Satya to immediately begin the process of sunsetting Xbox. It's never been critical to Microsoft as a corporation nor has it ever been a meaningful revenue or profit driver for the company

Discontinue Gamepass. Immediately. It's worse than useless, it is actively destroying their studios by making it impossible to actually sell games for money

Keep Microsoft Gaming and continue to own Activision Blizzard and Bethesda if they don't want to incur the costs of spinning them off again, but the console business and Gamepass should be terminated with immediate effect
 
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I honestly don't think they can come back from this and I don't know what's going to happen.

I can see them cutting their losses, selling off their IPs, and possibly operating under the "Microsoft Studios" brand while going multi-platform. That can be a money pit, too, though.

I don't think we'll see another Xbox console ever again. Game Pass might be around for a handful of years until they take that down, too.

Let's just hope that the franchises we love end up in the right hands…
 
Those skeptics are focus on M$' bad attention right now, remove that subscription price hike tension and Xbox brand is secure. Pepsi targeted #1 pop for years and being #2 is normal, there's a lot of Pepsi fans, Xbox has a ton of support.
 
microsoft should move away from game pass shit and phil's current direction, instead focusing on delivering strong first-party AA titles at competitive prices. Games should launch at regular intervals with content players actually want. the next console should be affordable and budget-friendly.
 
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Put gamepass prices back where they were. Release a cheap console that has lots of AI upscaling and frame gen to make up for cheaper hardware. Include 6 or 12 months of gamepass ultimate with every console. Continue with the plans to let Steam and other stores run on Xbox.

The returns on expensive graphics hardware in consoles are not worth the expense. Hellblade 2 has the best graphics I've seen this gen and most games don't even get near that quality. Devs just aren't even maxing out what we have now so why make a huge, expensive upgrade next gen?
 
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Everything Half price. Console, game pass, handheld etc.
Games max $60.
Create exclusive ecosystem, like Sony (hmmm) and Nintendo does.
I cant believe MS is the largest publisher by far and they dont take advantage of their exclusives
 
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Revert Series consoles price hikes back to launch pricing, $299 & $499.
Moneyhat exclusive cosmetic DLC for GTA VI.
Rerelease 360 and XB1 controllers as part of Xbox Design Lab.
Revert PC GamePass and GamePass Ultimate price hikes.
Make most first party games exclusive to Xbox and Xbox PC.
Resume the backwards compatibility program and regularly add more games, same for fps/res boost.
Make online multiplayer free.
Issue $25 Xbox gift cards to all users in apology statement for past fuckups, confirming new leadership and reaffirming commitment to physical games, backwards compatibility, and core gamers.
Release a Series S with a disc drive.
Work with AMD to bring FSR4 to Series X.

Basically fire current leadership, replace with non-retards, regain common sense and bring back the same energy they had with the launch of Project Scorpio.
For a short while, from 2017-2019 they were undeniably killing it, adding FreeSync Premium support (40hz-60hz window with LFC), UHD Blu Ray support, 4K/1440p res support, and true native 4K definitive console versions of generation-defining games like DOOM '16 and Red Dead 2. The One X was an outright beast of a game machine back then, worth every penny. It walked so the next generation could run, but instead it shot itself in the foot multiple times and fell flat on its face.
Can't facepalm hard enough at how hard they dropped the ball with Scarlett.
 
Walk back/rework these Gamepass changes.
Essential: $10 for Xbox Live, cloud and a smattering of Gamepass games.
Premium: $15 for Xbox Live, cloud and the full catalogue of Gamepass games with "day one" games coming 6 months later.
Ultimate: $20 for Xbox Live, cloud and the full catalogue with day one games.
You can add extra add ons like Ubisoft classics, EA Play, Fortnite whatever, Riot discounts or whatever the fuck for several dollars IF THE USER WANTS.

The next Xbox should be able to play Steam games. Console sold for $800 or less. Marketed heavily as the only console to play PC exclusives. Whatever friendslop game is popping off at the moment should be included in the marketing. Peak, Lethal Company, Clover Pit, etc. If they can get away with showing Sony games being played from Steam on the Xbox, include that heavily in the marketing. Spiderman, God of War, Last of Us. Market the next Xbox as the console that can play ALL the games.

Start releasing good games. They have a good game here and there, Grounded 2, Oblivion Remake. But they need to have a more hands on approach with many of their studios. No more 8 year development cycles. Cut the fat and pump out smaller titles for $50. Fuck the modern audience. Create games for a specific audience and if the games are good, it will capture a wider audience just by the virtue of it being a good game.

Listen to what fans want. If a Helldivers clone with an ODST skin isn't in the works, Xbox is hopeless. The fact there still isn't a Halo Battle Royale is ridiculous. Banjo Threeie doesn't need to reinvent the genre... a smaller title that plays like the first game and has 10-15 hours of gameplay for $30 is great. Where is Fallout New Vegas 2?

Synergize better with multi-media releases. The fact that Fallout 3 Remake/Remaster wasn't ready to drop when the Amazon show dropped is just a huge oversight. And a year or more later when the next season is dropping, that's when you release a New Vegas Remake/Remaster. And get someone who is actually passionate about the IP to create your future TV shows. The Halo TV show was a goddamn travesty. Lets get a Gears of War mini series going. Why isn't there a Call of Duty show in the vein of those Tom Clancy shows? I don't really play CoD but I know there are a swath of characters you could draw on.

It's hard to know exactly what would be the right way to turn Xbox around. Was canceling the Perfect Dark game, closing the Forza Motorsport team down, canceling the Blizzard Survival game, Contraband and the new Zenimax MMO... were those good decisions? Could those games have been good? Could any of them been the next big thing? Huge financial successes? Or were they on track to be the next several Concord-esque failures? Are games currently in the works more in line with what fans want? Is Elder Scrolls 6 going to be amazing? We're years off so we can't know.

The Gamepass thing is such a colossal fuck up that I'm starting to believe they want to kill Gamepass.
 
If you'd asked me this ten years ago I might have had an answer. But in 2025...

Tg89 said:
Nothing to salvage imo. Just take it out back.
Click to expand...

This is pretty much how it looks. I won't be buying another Xbox, assuming they even bother making one.
 
✖️ Release new powerful hardware close enough to GTA6 that Xbox will be seen as the obvious best place to play.

✖️ 360 Blades UI for nostalgia and general positivity from fans of the best generation.

✖️ Release Gears E-Day and Forza Horizon 6 at launch.

✖️ Fable, Halo 1 Remake, launch window titles.

✖️ Gamepass Founders, $12/month. Same library and price on Console and PC Xbox App. 1 year timed Xbox ecosystem exclusivity on new games. Gabe will have to wait just like everyone else.

✖️ Gamepass Standard, $6/month. Available everywhere, including PS5/6/Switch/2. Same library as on Xbox console and Xbox App on PC excluding 1 year timed exclusivity on new games. Allow streaming when no native version is available.

✖️ Steam, Epic Games Store, right on the console dashboard and the full screen Xbox App, not just your purchased games but the actual store fronts. Triggers move between launchers/stores.

✖️ Pay big to make sure no new 3rd party games skips the platform. No paid exclusivity, just make sure there are no Black Myth situations. Either make sure the games are on other store fronts accessed on Xbox or on the 1st party store.

✖️ Restart development of Perfect Dark.

✖️ Bring back a version of Xbox Live Arcade. Small quality games, no indie shovelware allowed. Have it on the dash on a trigger blade. Short demo on everything. Buy with one click after demo ends.

✖️ Xbox Indies, allow users to easily upload their own Unity games and share with other people. No professional games, just free small project to pump up the interest in game development. Allow user rating and have new releases and staff picks up front. Put that on a UI blade.

✖️ $499, 1 hardware version. Take the financial hit to make it happen.

———

🤷‍♂️
 
FStubbs said:
Imagine you get a call from Satya. He's seen your posts and decided you're the one who could turn Microsoft's gaming division around. How would you go about it?
Click to expand...
Starting Monday, I would raise the prices by 5% every day for the rest of the year, until a single xbox whale remains. Then stop, undress, and jump out the office window.

Real talk, COD is too disruptive on Gamepass, I think it kind of hurts the spirit of Gamepass too, its negative effects are more on Microsoft than the players even, look at how much they lost putting it on there. I think it needs a separate subscription, a CODpass which would be much more reasonably priced and easier to sell instead of lumping that monster in with the whole GP deal. It would be nice to have a discount on regular Gamepass if you're an existing CODpass subscirber too, most COD players are probably mono-gamers but that would help cover those who like to explore other stuff from Xbox on GP.

You can even leave older COD titles on the regular GP and maybe do some free-mainline COD weeks/weekends for GP subscribers to market CODpass to them.

That would also look better than just purely reverting prices and give the people at Xbox some breathing room to actually creatively reprice Gamepass to something consumers will be happy about.

It's been a lot of fun noticing people who normally couldn't afford COD MP play it, especially here in Africa, the pre-price increase Gamepass which included COD really brought that game into a new emerging mainstream, it would be a shame and regressive to stop whatever that was by outpricing these markets. Hell, offer CODpass to Playstation and PC too, I just like the idea of that.
 
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Bridges said:
Rug pull and go back to exclusives. People will be mad at first but people are already mad. Every game that isn't Call of Duty or Minecraft is Xbox/PC only. Launch the next console for $100 less than the next PlayStation. Sell your games for $60 on Xbox and $70 on PC. Moneyhat a couple third party exclusives again too.

Seems like it'd be hard to change momentum at this point but they should lean hard into the "best deal in gaming" shit because at least that bought them some goodwill compared to now where every move appears like they're gouging their shrinking base. Terrible optics.
Click to expand...
This is the way.

But even then everything may change gaming wise in the near future. So all that change for a few years of building the platform again for it all to be pointless in the end anyway.
 
Ad would star a tiny Men_in_Boxes Men_in_Boxes who is stuck inside of an Xbox Series X with this as the soundtrack blaring as he looks up through the fan holes on top.


Alternately you could view it as a normal sized Men_in_Boxes Men_in_Boxes inside of a gigantic Series X.

(Turns out putting "seriously" in your title is non-binding)
 
The fix is the one they're already doing.

They don't want to be a platform holder and they don't want GP to keep inhaling losses.

So they've decided to give the finger to the vast majority of their customers in the hope they'll bail on the whole thing. Then "Xbox" will die and "Microsoft gaming" will replace it as a massive third party publisher.
 
1. The only successful Xbox was the X360 and that one grabbed a need players wanted but didn't get, and that was online gaming. Sony in that generation shit it's pants with their expensive complicated console that barely had enough resources to support voice chat in the background while playing.
They need to find an upcoming need by players and some kick ass exclusives.

As for what that is, I can't tell atm. It needs a separate topic exclusively for that question.

2. Their bought studios are shitting their pants with their Woke shit. It's not like every Woke game is automatically bad, but the trend's disastrous overuse made it a red flag for bad games for most gamers.
The answer is Not to make exclusively "bigot games", but rather to have a healthy variety of all of people's wants. If "Fable 6: Rise of the Gays" falls flat, the "Tits out: Skateboarding" will be a success, and even if somehow it's not, then "Mormon Crusade 3" will. Don't limit and censor with HR mandates.

3. The new generation of gamers don't care as much about consoles. Find a way to grab them.
Make kid's games for Tablets, then release "the big cool version" on the console. Make a cartoon about a game and give it on all streaming services dirt cheap (Just don't put gay stuff in it). Have popular ticktockers give it a shot. Advertise it for not having overwhelming controls. Find where the current generation sees things they find cool.

4. Games are becoming prohibitively expensive. Don't focus on graphics for once. Find ways to make development cheaper and easier. Ai 3d sculpting from a 2d drawing. A shared pool of assets for all studios. An easy as fuck programming language. An Xbox RPG maker.

5. Don't send you exclusives to PC so soon. Microsoft no longer owns the PC gaming market for many years. It belongs to Valve, and Xbox is very far behind. It only causes frustration and piracy.
 
I'd come out tomorrow and say;

  • The Series S and Series X are discontinued.
  • Moving forward all games are day one on the Microsoft PC store, Steam, PlayStation and Switch 2 (power permitting).
  • Moving forward there will still be third party hardware configurations for people who want a Windows device to play their Microsoft PC store games with an Xbox wrap.
  • Half walk back some of the new Game Pass announcements. Day one is gone forever. There's only 2x tiers; xCloud for ÂŁ4.99 per month, and the Premium tier. Both give access to the same games.
  • For existing console owners there's no more Core or basic fee for online play bringing it in line with PC players.
 
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Cultivate exclusives. The exclusives were the reason I picked my PS5 over the Xbox.
 
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Easy! Fire Satya.
Zacfoldor said:
Tig ole bitties on every female character going forward. All men would have big dick energy. No more gaas horshshit. Cancel those games. Make Halo, Fable, Gears of War with the original main characters and va. No partners. No friends. Cod becomes a futuristic boomer shooter with 1 online mode and no store. Merit based casting. Social messaging banned. Exclusives back. Gamepiss canceled. Next Xbox is a traditional console with no steam. Cod exclusive to Xbox. TES, fallout exclusive. No pc port. Sell or close studios in California, NY, Chicago, fire any QA/HR dedicated to dei. Shit thunder and piss lightning.

Me calling into the first shareholder meeting:
zjF1JgU.gif
Click to expand...
Also most of this.
 
The only way would to make top tier games and make them exclusive to buy on just the Xbox at reasonable prices, but Microsoft are not going to do that, so i don't think you can save it.
 
It's beyond saving.
The brand value for hardware has greatly diminished.
They tried being the most powerful with Series X, the cheapest with Series S and it didn't work.
They can only continue existing as a 3rd party publisher and maybe with PC gamepass, although I don't know if the number of PC gamepass users is enough to justify the costs.

There is little player attachment to the brand now because they drove their users to not own games, making it worse.
 
Easy.

Launch the new system in conjunction with killing gamepass ultimate. No more day one games. Gamepass essential and premium remain at $10 and $15 and give you access to online play and back catalog games.

Consolidate the multiplatform strategy. Keep CoD, Minecraft, ESO, and FO76 multiplatform but everything else is exclusive. XSX never had a chance to be successful in the post acquisition world because Microsoft already went multiplatform or signaled it the moment the ABK merger happened. XSX would've gone much differently if Doom Dark Ages, Oblivion, and Tony Hawk 3/4 were exclusive.

Stay the course with this simple strategy.

It's not rocket science. People will buy your system if the games are there. Microsoft gave up way too early on exclusivity with the Bethesda and ABK acquisitions and it flat out killed Xbox.
 
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Wait for Orange man to announce new 5K stimmy checks then change the pricing around a month or 2 after those checks have been issued out this way you grab some subs in $30 range for a few months and with the dropped prices more people sub back and then they forget about it and auto renew kicks in pulling in more. I'm convinced that's why all these prices have had major up so fast. These corps know when the FED is printing more currency.
 
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CuteFaceJay said:
Wait for Orange man to announce new 5K stimmy checks then change the pricing around a month or 2 after those checks have been issued out this way you grab some subs in $30 range for a few months and with the dropped prices more people sub back and then they forget about it and auto renew kicks in pulling in more. I'm convinced that's why all these prices have had major up so fast. These corps know when the FED is printing more currency.
Click to expand...
Oh the FED is printing more currency, but it ain't for us.
 
Just release better Exclusive Games, focus on the Xbox Hardware/Fanbase, ditch the everything is an Xbox bullcrap. Make fair Prices, don't release Day One on GP, let the Games sell first. Given that MS is very often a trendsetter in things they do, I'm afraid Sony will one day follow suit, as they "tend" to Copy decision made by MS. I just hope MS hasn't opened the Gates.
 
Make Xbox machines straight up Windows 11 like the Rog Ally X. A PC in Console's clothing.
Counterintuitive to most Gaffers, but MS's biggest enemy now is SteamOS. It's going to hurt the desktop in the long run.
 
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