Support NeoGAF

[FIREKNIGHT2029]

It's hilarious watching everyone in gaming media slowly come around to what myself and countless others have been saying for years about MS and the fraudulent GamePass business model. You would think they would have done their jobs and asked MS the tough questions back in the day. It only takes record layoffs and angry developers speaking up for them to realize that GamePass and multibillion dollar mass acquisitions was probably bad for the industry. The gaming media has been acting like extended PR wings for companies like MS instead of actually practicing the journalism they were hired for. I don't blame MS for acting like a shitty multi-trillion dollar company, it's what they do and what they will always do. I blame the videogame "journalists" in the media and corporate shills/blind fanboys for the bad turn of events.

 

[Topher]

Because they just fired 1000's of developers and cancelled projects. They want to look like they need to make cuts.

You think this is all a charade? Nah...I don't buy that.

 

[mayham2199]

So without digging through his posts who is the person he is referring to that knows Xbox financials or is it anonymous?

He said he was told this specifically by Xbox. So it had to be someone from PR/Marketing.

 

[PropellerEar]

You see guys? If I build a car and then give it away for $100, spend $5 in advertising and fees, and call it CARPASS, CARPASS makes $95 in profit! Makes sense, right? What about the money to build the car, you ask? Well... fuck you!

Punished Miku

"Get that advanced math out of here."

 

[calico]

This seems like two different issues. Microsoft may (or may not, see below) estimate internally how many sales they think they miss out on due to a game being on Game Pass, but this is not a loss per se. Missing out on income isn't the same as a loss.

Assigning none of the cost of a first party 'Game Pass & Retail' game to Game Pass will ofc be very advantageous in terms of making GP seem more profitable than it is. Stating that it's profitable would be very misleading if that's only made true by allocating all of the development cost to retail.

This may actually be one of the reasons they take the position that being on Game Pass does not lose any sales: so they can claim that the Game Pass revenue is purely a bonus income on games they would have developed anyway, and therefore it is reasonable to assign none of the development cost to Game Pass. It's a blatantly dishonest position, but very difficult to disprove.

 

[Sooner]

All they did was prolong the canning. Cause I definitely feel like it'll happen eventually. Not outright, but prices will go up, more features will be stripped away, and then they'll say "not enough people are subbed now. We can't continue this service."

So basically exactly what they are doing with Xbox, itself.

 

[mckmas8808]

Because they just fired 1000's of developers and cancelled projects. They want to look like they need to make cuts.

But what if it's because they "NEED" to make cuts?

 

[Felessan]

The money left in the business after all expenses was negative up until 2022.
Any business can be as creative as they want in terms of claiming "profit" while opting to ignore other expenses (such as "investments" and other capex - which in Netflix's case was "content acquisition/creation"), but the reality is that cash flow will give you a more honest view on the overall health of the business, hence it was a huge milestone for them.

It a good sign for growing business to not have positive FCF. If you have - you are stuck and can only sit still in your current position. Growing business is to spend money and it's what Netflix did last 15 years. They could stop/shrank their investment program any time and show positive FCF, but it would have impede their growth.
Now they reached point of market saturation so they scale back capex and show positive FCF for the delight of investors, as positive FCF allow better control of debt and also provide cash to pay back investors.
Sony actually do the same, their FCF float around zero. And it's not because they are in trouble or have no profit - they just have quite a few business that would benefit from capex injection, providing better profit opportunities in the future.
But whole FCF story is a strategy thing and has low relevance with actual profit. Why people try to put into profit various bullshit they have zero idea about.

 

[Zacfoldor]

This seems like two different issues. Microsoft may (or may not, see below) estimate internally how many sales they think they miss out on due to a game being on Game Pass, but this is not a loss per se. Missing out on income isn't the same as a loss.

Assigning none of the cost of a first party 'Game Pass & Retail' game to Game Pass will ofc be very advantageous in terms of making GP seem more profitable than it is. Stating that it's profitable would be very misleading if that's only made true by allocating all of the development cost to retail.

This may actually be one of the reasons they take the position that being on Game Pass does not lose any sales: so they can claim that the Game Pass revenue is purely a bonus income on games they would have developed anyway, and therefore it is reasonable to assign none of the development cost to Game Pass. It's a blatantly dishonest position, but very difficult to disprove.

Correct. While I would expect most corporate books to be kept without counting the opportunity costs of 1st party game sales against gamepass, it is also disingenuous to use those figures in an argument for gamepass exactly because they are missing that key detail.

Anybody who said that has a completely covered ass.

The bullshit is not lessened by the above statements. In fact, it makes it worse. Intentionally misleading in a worse case scenario, which is a big fuck you to anybody with common sense who had to listen to this counterargument for years.

 

[mckmas8808]

This seems like two different issues. Microsoft may (or may not, see below) estimate internally how many sales they think they miss out on due to a game being on Game Pass, but this is not a loss per se. Missing out on income isn't the same as a loss.

Assigning none of the cost of a first party 'Game Pass & Retail' game to Game Pass will ofc be very advantageous in terms of making GP seem more profitable than it is. Stating that it's profitable would be very misleading if that's only made true by allocating all of the development cost to retail.

This may actually be one of the reasons they take the position that being on Game Pass does not lose any sales: so they can claim that the Game Pass revenue is purely a bonus income on games they would have developed anyway, and therefore it is reasonable to assign none of the development cost to Game Pass. It's a blatantly dishonest position, but very difficult to disprove.

To be fair, anybody asking (be it a shareholder or journalist) if GP is profitable is asking with the understanding that the cost of 1st-party games is included to some degree. Both the development cost and the marketing of those games. So yeah, that's totally a dishonest position to take and they knew it this whole time.

 

[Astray]

For me it's like they were like « it's profitable » and no question asked for years, and now Dring is like « do you mean subscription revenues minus third party deals and first party dev costs ? » and they're like « no no excluding first party dev costs obviously »

They could have lied today too just like they did for years.

Why did they stop? Your conjecture is as good as mine.

 

[Kenneth Haight]

 

[Astray]

Frankly, they are idiots, becuase I fully believe they would have had a much longer financial runway for this grift if they didn't go and spend 80 billion dollars of Microsoft's money in a vain attempt to get their subscriber numbers growing again.

That's what I was saying to Jigsaah , those retards decided to just up the cost of their 1P content because they thought it would stay counted out forever and they'd take the benefit and let studios take the fall for the "flops".

I'm shocked they haven't been fired yet.

 

[Crayon]

Tell me another one, phil. I'm not ready to stop fooling myself. I love you.

 

[bitbydeath]

Of course it's not profitable. They have like 35 million users paying 12 dollars a month(and a shit ton paying $1). How do you sustain a business off that when no one is buying $70 games???

That 34-35M number probably isn't real either.
That'd be close to 100% of Xbox owners, maybe more.

 

[xrnzaaas]

It's really silly not to include them, sure games like CoD will still sell without Game Pass, but there are tons of games relying on that. I'm pretty sure that Hellblade 2 or South of Midnight had laughable sales numbers.

 

[Sanepar]

Xbox c levels and their special math with numbers that doesn't make sense.

 

[mdkirby]

So they are omitting the salaries of tens of thousands of employees over 40 studios, they use to support gamespass (not to mention the associated acquisition costs) from their calculations as to if the product is profitable? That's batshit crazy, and is quite clearly them saying it is wildly unprofitable.

 

[Gameplay Gods Bless]

Didn't Dring the fuck move to blue sky with many of the soy gaming journos? He's back on x now?

 

[Zacfoldor]

Didn't Dring the fuck move to blue sky with many of the soy gaming journos? He's back on x now?

They all did, don't blame just him.

Dring is a good guy in his heart, no way dude is making shit up, but that said I can't account for every persons social media account but I know an honest face when I see one and I've been following him for a while. Trust me bro(lol).

Anyway, honestly, he's not a new face in the industry. Dude is not just gonna make shit up like some people might.

 

[PropellerEar]

Anyway, honestly, he's not a new face in the industry. Dude is not just gonna make shit up like some people might.

 

[kazuyamishima]

Do games like the last Call of Duty, Doom the Dark Ages and others count as first party games for MS now?

 

[PropellerEar]

Do games like the last Call of Duty, Doom the Dark Ages and others count as first party games for MS now?

Yes

 

[Astray]

Didn't Dring the fuck move to blue sky with many of the soy gaming journos? He's back on x now?

He's on both.

lmfao that moment was amazing.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

damn, this shit exploded on twitter..... how the fuck is Phill Spencer going to appear in public now?

very interesting.

 

[Moses85]

Microsoft is so

And is acting like

 

[Astray]

Looks like other reporters are asking for comment from MS now too.

damn, this shit exploded on twitter..... how the fuck is Phill Spencer going to appear in public now?

very interesting.

He isn't.

All of this is prelude to him leaving imo.

 

[Astray]

S SneakersSO I summon thee.

 

[Jaybe]

Looks like other reporters are asking for comment from MS now too.




He isn't.

All of this is prelude to him leaving imo.

I love that they somehow think Microsoft will give them more information. Basic statistics on Game Pass like number of subscribers have been all but hidden for the last few years except for when they reclassified Xbox Live as Game Pass Core so they could share new peak (and then Bond mistakenly said every Game Pass member would get Diablo 4 lol).

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Looks like other reporters are asking for comment from MS now too.

yep Destin asked too and I bet Jez is on the
case as well:
"What should I say, master Phil?"

He isn't.

All of this is prelude to him leaving imo.

this is massive. at this point to salvage the narrative, the only option is to say that this report is wrong, incomplete or "ignorant".

When the rumor of Phil retiring after the release of the next console started to gain momentum , MS came out and shut it down fast.

This makes me belive this "source" is definitive someone at odds with Phil.

 

[Human 2.0]

It's hilarious watching everyone in gaming media slowly come around to what myself and countless others have been saying for years about MS and the fraudulent GamePass business model. You would think they would have done their jobs and asked MS the tough questions back in the day. It only takes record layoffs and angry developers speaking up for them to realize that GamePass and multibillion dollar mass acquisitions was probably bad for the industry. The gaming media has been acting like extended PR wings for companies like MS instead of actually practicing the journalism they were hired for. I don't blame MS for acting like a shitty multi-trillion dollar company, it's what they do and what they will always do. I blame the videogame "journalists" in the media and corporate shills/blind fanboys for the bad turn of events.

I'm particularly enjoying watching Destin acting like a betrayed husband who's just caught his wife sucking off a hobo for a rock a crack, even though she's given him crabs about 5 times over the last 4 years.

 

[MoreJRPG]

They all did, don't blame just him.

Dring is a good guy in his heart, no way dude is making shit up, but that said I can't account for every persons social media account but I know an honest face when I see one and I've been following him for a while. Trust me bro(lol).

Anyway, honestly, he's not a new face in the industry. Dude is not just gonna make shit up like some people might.

Yeah most journalists moved to Bluesky to appease the woke vocal minority. But most are coming back to Twitter because a post on Bluesky gets like five comments if they're lucky. Zero engagement and exposure over there. Unless you talk about Cyberpunk or Hogwarts Legacy then you'll get 30 angry replies.

 

[SomeNorseGuy]

It's been a bad week, huh.

 

[kazuyamishima]

Yes

Damn, COD games seem to be expensive, and the Dark Ages didn't do well on Steam and PS.

 

[mayham2199]

I'm particularly enjoying watching Destin acting like a betrayed husband who's just caught his wife sucking off a hobo for a rock a crack, even though she's given him crabs about 5 times over the last 4 years.

What's funny is he went through this same shit when they announced Indian Jones. He was like "I feel like Phil lied to me". Now here he is again saying you can't trust MS.

 

[jm89]

They didn't say their service isn't profitable. They were asked if it was profitable.

The way they assess the impact of a 1st party title on a subscription is probably a lot more complex than just completely omitting it. Sounds like total BS to me, but go ahead and enjoy your early Christmas bash.

 

[jm89]

Dustbin is on it

 

[Human 2.0]

What's funny is he went through this same shit when they announced Indian Jones. He was like "I feel like Phil lied to me". Now here he is again saying you can't trust MS.

At this point he's in an abusive relationship and needs an intervention.

 

[mckmas8808]

Dustbin is on it

MS is cooking up a way to give people like Jizz and Destin an answer without getting in trouble with the SEC or FTC.

 

[Nonehxc]

So what are you going to do starting next year when it comes to gaming?

Same as always, play any good games I want to play on any console that has them and PC, same I've been doing since '87, when I first put my paws on a square with a stick and a single button from my first console, an Atari 2600 clone. Hasn't changed for me.

Luckily, as sundowns pass, with less and less fundamentalist sectarians and dishonest paid shills & marketers saturating the channel, besieging us with loads and loads and loooaaads of nasty guerrilla marketing and obnoxious PR tactics.

But I shudder thinking about the ludicrous deluge of crap we're gonna get when Xbox ramps up marketing expenses for all the different little shits they're gonna try to staple to us in that(probably) last blast Hail Mary all guns blazing 360NoScopeNoPantsStickOfTNTUpTheAss

 

[Human 2.0]

I'm shocked that Microsoft, a company with a long well documented history of dishonest and abusive business practices, could act in such a dishonest and abusive way.