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Microsoft Xbox Helix My Thoughts

ShadowkillXNA

ShadowkillXNA

Member
So come at for the following, but this is what I think.

With the recent discussions about exclusivity, the reasons for
Xbox's lack of sucess has been mainly in my view that their 1st party games have been good enough to play on a system you own already, but simply havent been good enough to buy a system for in the eyes of most.
I think the lack of significant impact on xbox system sales from something like Starfield in combination with the fact the xbox games released on ps5 have sold well so far proves that.
Good enough to buy and play on a system they own - but not good enough to buy a new system for.
And even though I enjoy the playstation more, clearly, I do like some xbox stuff, love the 1st 3 Gears games, haven't tried the last few xbox made entries, and I understand the Forza Horizon series is really good, probably xbox's best system seller right now. Of course there's COD, I'm not much into it personally anymore though.
So Xbox, get your studio management together and crank out games good enough to make people want to buy system to play them, and incentivize it by not releasing your games on other systems.
And stop giving your big games away day one as well.
No company got big success in this market NOT doing these things.
And you're a gigantic fucking company, if you can afford to blow 70B on Activision for Phil's career moment, you can afford to figure out how to subsidize this fucking thing and make it affordable.
Oh one more thing: Tell your exec's to SHUT THE FUCK UP for 5 minutes please. Just do your jobs, keep busy until you have something really meaningful to share and do so.
But we dont an interview, x post or whatever for whatever random thought floats through your heads at work, thanks.
It's one thing I like more about the nintendo/sony exec is that they dont yap nearly as much lol.
Not that they dont have stupid exec's as well, i will celebrate when Hulst is fired lol.
 
Last edited:
giphy.gif
 
Helix DEEZ NUTS buddy.

Fake edit: but real answer, Xbox set itself for failure with Game Pass and trying to ape Snoy with games feeling a bit too much like each other. They also had too many idiotic decisions in the past and their big IPs got stale or shit or both. There isn't a clear path to relevance.
 
Xbox's struggle is attributed to first-party games being good but not compelling enough to drive console purchases. Strong sales on other platforms reinforce this. The argument calls for better exclusives, tighter studio management, fewer day-one releases elsewhere, and less executive chatter to strengthen the brand and boost hardware sales.
Click to expand...

Thanks ChatGPT
 
ShadowkillXNA said:
Oh one more thing: Tell your exec's to SHUT THE FUCK UP for 5 minutes please. Just do your jobs, keep busy until you have something really meaningful to share and do so.
Click to expand...
I agree with this part. Until there is actual hardware in the hands of actual gamers. I don't want to hear any more CEO anything.
Until they have actual games that are actually worth it, I don't want to hear about exclusive talk either.

I blame Topher Topher He keeps making Xbox threads that have no real information. It's all that guys fault.
 
ShadowkillXNA said:
personally anymore though.
So Xbox, get your studio management together and crank out games good enough to make people want to buy system
Click to expand...
It's crazy that this statement is the one valid statement since Xbox One.

Just let that sink in.

SONY fixed their Bullshit in like 5 years.... from that second half of the PS3 era and culminating with the entire PS4 generartion

Today, wound be exponentially harder, expensive and more time consuming to do what Sony did back then.

Everyone knows what Xbox has to do... But they will never be able to accomplish It.

People invested in that brand and their acquired IPs... Just need to pray for MS not to completely destroy them.


mission impossible GIF
 
ShadowkillXNA said:
Someone posts a legitimate criticism of your favorite toy and you respond with this?
Ahh yes, the old no xbox criticism allowed song and dance routine.
As if my opinion is isolated lmfao!
Click to expand...
Nah, I don't care if someone makes fun of a toy. I just needed some help to make sense of the rambling word salad.
 
People who already play on console have already chosen. They already have a big enough library somewhere and there will be no swapping sides.

And new gamers will choose what's the most popular, PS or PC.

Meaning Helix's golden ticket here is it's PC side. If Microsoft can avoid to restrict the PC side, and still make it feel like a proper console with access to PC stores, then it could grow out of the 70:30 split console bubble it would otherwise be stuck in or worse.

Exclusives build up hype but also pull in more negativity from those left outside. So it's a struggle to handle PR.
Might be better to pull in more people from exclusive features, from allowing access to PC stores, plus 4 generations of Xbox backwards compatibility. If they don't mess up it's going to look very appealing for those not already stuck with a big prebuilt library somewhere else. But luring over PlayStation fans at this point ain't possible.
 
ShadowkillXNA said:
So come at for the following, but this is what I think.

With the recent discussions about exclusivity, the reasons for
Xbox's lack of sucess has been mainly in my view that their 1st party games have been good enough to play on a system you own already, but simply havent been good enough to buy a system for in the eyes of most.
I think the lack of significant impact on xbox system sales from something like Starfield in combination with the fact the xbox games released on ps5 have sold well so far proves that.
Good enough to buy and play on a system they own - but not good enough to buy a new system for.
And even though I enjoy the playstation more, clearly, I do like some xbox stuff, love the 1st 3 Gears games, haven't tried the last few xbox made entries, and I understand the Forza Horizon series is really good, probably xbox's best system seller right now. Of course there's COD, I'm not much into it personally anymore though.
So Xbox, get your studio management together and crank out games good enough to make people want to buy system to play them, and incentivize it by not releasing your games on other systems.
And stop giving your big games away day one as well.
No company got big success in this market NOT doing these things.
And you're a gigantic fucking company, if you can afford to blow 70B on Activision for Phil's career moment, you can afford to figure out how to subsidize this fucking thing and make it affordable.
Oh one more thing: Tell your exec's to SHUT THE FUCK UP for 5 minutes please. Just do your jobs, keep busy until you have something really meaningful to share and do so.
But we dont an interview, x post or whatever for whatever random thought floats through your heads at work, thanks.
It's one thing I like more about the nintendo/sony exec is that they dont yap nearly as much lol.
Not that they dont have stupid exec's as well, i will celebrate when Hulst is fired lol.
Click to expand...
Interesting perspective. A couple of things that stand out (long essay ahead):

1) Exclusives absolutely matter, but it's more than just about a game being exclusive. Think about games like Horizon or Ratchet & Clank on PS5. If you ported those games to Xbox, will the experience be the same? The controller features alone guarantee that the Xbox version would be noticeably lacking in comparison.

It's really important for people to remember that Xbox did have exclusives for years. And some of those exclusives weren't terrible. But due to a lack of innovation elsewhere (e.g., console features, controller features, OS features) buying an Xbox was still undesirable for the mass market.

When Phil Spencer said they lost the worst generation possible, he didn't tell the full story on why they lost. It wasn't just a lack of killer games or digital libraries or Don Mattrick fumbling his PowerPoint presentation. Sony successfully avoided a repeat of the PS3 launch, and they did it by focusing on innovation(s) all-throughout the PS4 business — the console was affordable and easy to develop for, the controller had a lightbar and touchpad, the Share features instantly made the console more social, exclusives (like GoW) literally played different than they ever had before, they said fuck it here's a VR headset as well, etc. Meanwhile, the XB1 was weaker than the PS4 but cost more money, the XB1 controller was a reskin of the 360 controller, the main OS feature was the ability to play old games you've already played, they did nothing remarkable with Achievements, the list goes on. Anyone who claims Titanfall 1 or Sunset Overdrive were trash and that's why the platform completely tanked is missing the bigger picture. Xbox failed and continues to fail because most of their ideas are still rooted in things that the mass market does not want.

2) Studio management alone won't change a lot of the perception(s) around Xbox IP. The elephant in the room is most of Xbox's core IP aren't creatively interesting. Halo, Gears, Crackdown, mainline Forza — all of these games stopped setting the world on fire because a bunch of other games (from other studios) just did the shoot shoot bang bang vroom vrooooooooom better. Fable sorta looks interesting and FH is still fine, but Xbox's core IP isn't radically changing what it is.

Contrast that to what Nintendo did with Zelda and what Sony (masterfully) did with GoW. Old IP that radically changed what they were. And guess what happened? 25M+ sales of each. On top of that, both Nintendo and Sony introduced new IP. When was the last time 343i/Halo Studios or The Coalition had a brand new IP greenlit? Sucker Punch, Guerrilla, Naughty Dog, The Order, Bloodborne, Ring Fit from EPD, Labo, etc. Playing it safe and giving people "comfort food" is fine if it works. In Xbox's case, it's not working and they're still playing it safe. Even if stuff like Everwild and Contraband weren't looking like the next 20M+ sellers, taking a creatively degenerative approach towards your overall game development is just not a winning strategy.

3) The reason they continue to release ActiBlizz and Bethesda games on PlayStation is because the audience is on PlayStation. Liars like Jez Corden, Destin Legarie, and Parris Lilly have successfully tricked people into believing that the multi-platform push was just cause of a 30% profit target from Microsoft. In reality, whenever we get to see the (platform) sales splits for those games, it's usually 70/80/90% in favor of PlayStation.

Not a single business-literate executive can consistently ignore 70/80/90% of their product audience. For example, if COD sells 30M units and over 20M of those sales come from PlayStation, it's pretty much career suicide if you decide to stop putting that game on PlayStation. The same applies to everything else. So it's really important to understand that if Asha Sharma decides to stop putting games on PlayStation, then the Xbox business is going to be deeper in the red. They're already 80-something billion spent with zero meaningful return, and I strongly doubt both their CEO and CFO want to add another 10-20 billion onto that burning pile of cash.

4) The reason their execs rarely shut the fuck up is because (and this is just my dumb theory) most of them truly can't offer much else other than words of encouragement and hope and legal lies. They can't do what Mark Cerny can do, what Miyamoto can do, what Kojima can do, etc. They're mostly suits with zero background in game development, so guess what? They have to consistently justify their massive paychecks by doing interview after interview, talking in circles, overpromising as usual. Hell, for as much as Hulst is dropping the ball on live-service, he's still capable of offering significantly better insights into game development than 99% of his 'peers.'

Furthermore, Xbox has someone in their ranks who has yet to figure out why both Sony and Nintendo rarely (if ever) jump into the laps of their hardcore supporters. Someone at Xbox is still measurably confused about brand touchpoints, social media impressions, influencers, you name it. I'm guessing it's someone who genuinely believes it's a net positive for Xbox execs to foster parasocial relationships. I don't want to sound mean, but there's clearly someone in their PR team who has an undercooked understanding of how those relationships actually come across.

There's a massive difference between a casual supporter and a serial stalker, and someone at Xbox truly believes-in and supports the latter. I won't say his name (it rhymes with DimCog), but there's a guy on X/Twitter that I 100% believe has already made it onto multiple FBI lists. It's disturbing behavior that's actively encouraged by Xbox because they still don't see the wider consequences of shacking up with people who (I shit you not) are zooming into the background of an execs bedroom to figure out if there's a hidden message.
 
ShadowkillXNA said:
So come at for the following, but this is what I think.

With the recent discussions about exclusivity, the reasons for
Xbox's lack of sucess has been mainly in my view that their 1st party games have been good enough to play on a system you own already, but simply havent been good enough to buy a system for in the eyes of most.
I think the lack of significant impact on xbox system sales from something like Starfield in combination with the fact the xbox games released on ps5 have sold well so far proves that.
Good enough to buy and play on a system they own - but not good enough to buy a new system for.
And even though I enjoy the playstation more, clearly, I do like some xbox stuff, love the 1st 3 Gears games, haven't tried the last few xbox made entries, and I understand the Forza Horizon series is really good, probably xbox's best system seller right now. Of course there's COD, I'm not much into it personally anymore though.
So Xbox, get your studio management together and crank out games good enough to make people want to buy system to play them, and incentivize it by not releasing your games on other systems.
And stop giving your big games away day one as well.
No company got big success in this market NOT doing these things.
And you're a gigantic fucking company, if you can afford to blow 70B on Activision for Phil's career moment, you can afford to figure out how to subsidize this fucking thing and make it affordable.
Oh one more thing: Tell your exec's to SHUT THE FUCK UP for 5 minutes please. Just do your jobs, keep busy until you have something really meaningful to share and do so.
But we dont an interview, x post or whatever for whatever random thought floats through your heads at work, thanks.
It's one thing I like more about the nintendo/sony exec is that they dont yap nearly as much lol.
Not that they dont have stupid exec's as well, i will celebrate when Hulst is fired lol.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the AI slop. Next time, try writing it yourself. Don't be a GPTard.
 
Unfortunatecookie said:
Interesting perspective. A couple of things that stand out (long essay ahead):

1) Exclusives absolutely matter, but it's more than just about a game being exclusive. Think about games like Horizon or Ratchet & Clank on PS5. If you ported those games to Xbox, will the experience be the same? The controller features alone guarantee that the Xbox version would be noticeably lacking in comparison.

It's really important for people to remember that Xbox did have exclusives for years. And some of those exclusives weren't terrible. But due to a lack of innovation elsewhere (e.g., console features, controller features, OS features) buying an Xbox was still undesirable for the mass market.

When Phil Spencer said they lost the worst generation possible, he didn't tell the full story on why they lost. It wasn't just a lack of killer games or digital libraries or Don Mattrick fumbling his PowerPoint presentation. Sony successfully avoided a repeat of the PS3 launch, and they did it by focusing on innovation(s) all-throughout the PS4 business — the console was affordable and easy to develop for, the controller had a lightbar and touchpad, the Share features instantly made the console more social, exclusives (like GoW) literally played different than they ever had before, they said fuck it here's a VR headset as well, etc. Meanwhile, the XB1 was weaker than the PS4 but cost more money, the XB1 controller was a reskin of the 360 controller, the main OS feature was the ability to play old games you've already played, they did nothing remarkable with Achievements, the list goes on. Anyone who claims Titanfall 1 or Sunset Overdrive were trash and that's why the platform completely tanked is missing the bigger picture. Xbox failed and continues to fail because most of their ideas are still rooted in things that the mass market does not want.

2) Studio management alone won't change a lot of the perception(s) around Xbox IP. The elephant in the room is most of Xbox's core IP aren't creatively interesting. Halo, Gears, Crackdown, mainline Forza — all of these games stopped setting the world on fire because a bunch of other games (from other studios) just did the shoot shoot bang bang vroom vrooooooooom better. Fable sorta looks interesting and FH is still fine, but Xbox's core IP isn't radically changing what it is.

Contrast that to what Nintendo did with Zelda and what Sony (masterfully) did with GoW. Old IP that radically changed what they were. And guess what happened? 25M+ sales of each. On top of that, both Nintendo and Sony introduced new IP. When was the last time 343i/Halo Studios or The Coalition had a brand new IP greenlit? Sucker Punch, Guerrilla, Naughty Dog, The Order, Bloodborne, Ring Fit from EPD, Labo, etc. Playing it safe and giving people "comfort food" is fine if it works. In Xbox's case, it's not working and they're still playing it safe. Even if stuff like Everwild and Contraband weren't looking like the next 20M+ sellers, taking a creatively degenerative approach towards your overall game development is just not a winning strategy.

3) The reason they continue to release ActiBlizz and Bethesda games on PlayStation is because the audience is on PlayStation. Liars like Jez Corden, Destin Legarie, and Parris Lilly have successfully tricked people into believing that the multi-platform push was just cause of a 30% profit target from Microsoft. In reality, whenever we get to see the (platform) sales splits for those games, it's usually 70/80/90% in favor of PlayStation.

Not a single business-literate executive can consistently ignore 70/80/90% of their product audience. For example, if COD sells 30M units and over 20M of those sales come from PlayStation, it's pretty much career suicide if you decide to stop putting that game on PlayStation. The same applies to everything else. So it's really important to understand that if Asha Sharma decides to stop putting games on PlayStation, then the Xbox business is going to be deeper in the red. They're already 80-something billion spent with zero meaningful return, and I strongly doubt both their CEO and CFO want to add another 10-20 billion onto that burning pile of cash.

4) The reason their execs rarely shut the fuck up is because (and this is just my dumb theory) most of them truly can't offer much else other than words of encouragement and hope and legal lies. They can't do what Mark Cerny can do, what Miyamoto can do, what Kojima can do, etc. They're mostly suits with zero background in game development, so guess what? They have to consistently justify their massive paychecks by doing interview after interview, talking in circles, overpromising as usual. Hell, for as much as Hulst is dropping the ball on live-service, he's still capable of offering significantly better insights into game development than 99% of his 'peers.'

Furthermore, Xbox has someone in their ranks who has yet to figure out why both Sony and Nintendo rarely (if ever) jump into the laps of their hardcore supporters. Someone at Xbox is still measurably confused about brand touchpoints, social media impressions, influencers, you name it. I'm guessing it's someone who genuinely believes it's a net positive for Xbox execs to foster parasocial relationships. I don't want to sound mean, but there's clearly someone in their PR team who has an undercooked understanding of how those relationships actually come across.

There's a massive difference between a casual supporter and a serial stalker, and someone at Xbox truly believes-in and supports the latter. I won't say his name (it rhymes with DimCog), but there's a guy on X/Twitter that I 100% believe has already made it onto multiple FBI lists. It's disturbing behavior that's actively encouraged by Xbox because they still don't see the wider consequences of shacking up with people who (I shit you not) are zooming into the background of an execs bedroom to figure out if there's a hidden message.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the AI slop. Next time, try writing it yourself. Don't be a GPTard.
 
vaibhavpisal said:
Xbox is gonna succeed no matter how much you guys moan and cry about it.

Just wait for Helix launch.
Click to expand...

My filthy Green Rat hands are excited. I used to be Team Blue Diseased Pidgeons till PS4 exclusively but they're pompous and arrogant. I like rooting for the underdog. Watch when Helix turns out to be the moment for our lords and saviours: Asha and Gabe 🤝. Fuck you Hulst lovers. Even though I love Killzone and Horizon, but still!
 
The goal has to be rehabilitating the Xbox brand after the multiple generation long slide its been on.

Software/Hardware offer doesn't matter much when brand trust is gone, Xbox has SEGA'd itself.
 
ShadowkillXNA said:
Someone posts a legitimate criticism of your favorite toy and you respond with this?
Ahh yes, the old no xbox criticism allowed song and dance routine.
As if my opinion is isolated lmfao!
Click to expand...

Also your opinion - Legendary meltdown over the xbox one x

ShadowkillXNA said:
Four years of xbox loving cunts here shitting up digital foundry and other technical threads with "xbox has better controller getting it there" "xbox live is better getting it there" "friends are on xbox getting it there"
Click to expand...

ShadowkillXNA said:
Lmao, you'll be ok man. Its just uncle phil going ass to mouth on you. Honestly thought you'd be looking forward to it after so many times. ...
Click to expand...

ShadowkillXNA said:
Xbox fans are just as stupid as Trump supporters so things have to be repeated.
Btw xbox fans constantly lose track of the competitions first party and exclusives library.
Many times more quality exclusive games than that pile of "games" that stink more than a post Chipotle explosive diarrhea outpouring that xbox fans call a first party.
Click to expand...
 
The issue is nowadays it takes probably six years to develop and ship a AAA-title, two generations ago it was probably only two. Its just not feasible amy more to develop a catalogue of exclusives titles that distinguishes your console from the competition. Back then MS also had the advantage of being able to bring over many PC exclusives to the console space and pushing online multiplayer enabling them do differentiate from Sony and Nintendo. All this things are now taken for granted and MS is struggling to find a similar impacting differentiator.
 
Fahdis said:
My filthy Green Rat hands are excited. I used to be Team Blue Diseased Pidgeons till PS4 exclusively but they're pompous and arrogant. I like rooting for the underdog. Watch when Helix turns out to be the moment for our lords and saviours: Asha and Gabe 🤝. Fuck you Hulst lovers. Even though I love Killzone and Horizon, but still!
Click to expand...
Gabe? 1) It won't have Steam and 2) Gabe/Steam is not an underdog.
 
ShadowkillXNA said:
So come at for the following, but this is what I think.

With the recent discussions about exclusivity, the reasons for
Xbox's lack of sucess has been mainly in my view that their 1st party games have been good enough to play on a system you own already, but simply havent been good enough to buy a system for in the eyes of most.
I think the lack of significant impact on xbox system sales from something like Starfield in combination with the fact the xbox games released on ps5 have sold well so far proves that.
Good enough to buy and play on a system they own - but not good enough to buy a new system for.
And even though I enjoy the playstation more, clearly, I do like some xbox stuff, love the 1st 3 Gears games, haven't tried the last few xbox made entries, and I understand the Forza Horizon series is really good, probably xbox's best system seller right now. Of course there's COD, I'm not much into it personally anymore though.
So Xbox, get your studio management together and crank out games good enough to make people want to buy system to play them, and incentivize it by not releasing your games on other systems.
And stop giving your big games away day one as well.
No company got big success in this market NOT doing these things.
And you're a gigantic fucking company, if you can afford to blow 70B on Activision for Phil's career moment, you can afford to figure out how to subsidize this fucking thing and make it affordable.
Oh one more thing: Tell your exec's to SHUT THE FUCK UP for 5 minutes please. Just do your jobs, keep busy until you have something really meaningful to share and do so.
But we dont an interview, x post or whatever for whatever random thought floats through your heads at work, thanks.
It's one thing I like more about the nintendo/sony exec is that they dont yap nearly as much lol.
Not that they dont have stupid exec's as well, i will celebrate when Hulst is fired lol.
Click to expand...
The problem here is believing that they really want to sell a console to 30+ gamers while most people don't care.

The strength is games; msft has plenty of options via windows and emerging markets. Pc exclusives plus advertising; unfortunately it may piss off oems. Unless helix console is just reference hardware and helix pc is designed to pull xbots into it. Aka they share everything allowing msft to say we have turned the pc interface into console friendly environment… btw here is your helix pro and every year is a helix pro.
 
ShadowkillXNA said:
So Xbox, get your studio management together and crank out games good enough to make people want to buy system to play them
Click to expand...
You said a lot, but this is the only thing that matters.

Xbox has not put out enough good games over the years. Sony botched the PS3 launch, and survived because they consistently released good games. Xbox hasn't done that since the Xbox One. The executive responsible for making sure their teams deliver is Matt Booty.

Somehow he keeps surviving and getting promoted. So whatever Project Helix ends up being is all meaningless if they can't deliver games. And I honestly haven't seen anything that tells me they're going to address that.
 
Xbox hardware is dead. They screwed it up with the Xbox One, and everything after that has just been fruitless, sometimes desperate, attempts. I don't give Helix even 5 million sales.
 
Cakeboxer said:
Xbox hardware is dead. They screwed it up with the Xbox One, and everything after that has just been fruitless, sometimes desperate, attempts. I don't give Helix even 5 million sales.
Click to expand...
That giant underpowered VCR looking, External power supply having, Kinect overpricing, sad sap of a machine is indeed the reason. Microsoft will never gain console players because of that.
But,
I think there is a real possibility to gain PC players. There are millions of Potato PC having gamers looking to upgrade, but can't because the industry has priced them out.
Those millions might look at Helix and see that it's far better than what they got now.
I'm going out on a limb and say they will sell 5 times your 5 million. 25 million at least.
 
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