cireza
Member
As an Xbox player since the OG days, I thought I wanted to share my vision of what should happen in the future if we want Xbox to survive as an hardware brand. Especially as we are getting some glimpses and directions at where things are headed.
Note : Xbox can die (and most certainly will), I don't care much. Life will continue. I felt like making this thread for fun
Here are my thoughts, and I hope that Mister Nutella and Phil Spencer will eventually read them. These will be organized as a "Series" (lol) of mistakes to avoid. Honestly, it's nothing special. Mainly common-sense.
Mistake 1 : giving up on selling a ton of hardware
That's a terrible decision, you need to build a strong install base because this is the simplest KPI understood by people making games. If there are 50 millions of your console out there, then that's a great argument compared to "there are only 10 millions". Publishers will know they are talking to 50 millions people. If you tell them that gamers spent 1 billion hours playing, it doesn't mean anything for them.
Also, you don't have to be the top selling console to have a profitable business.
Mistake 2 : making an expensive product
Obviously if you want to sell consoles, releasing an overpriced PC disguised as a console and sold for 1000$ is not going to help build a large install base. This is why 399$ should be a definitive target in my opinion. Makes the product affordable to a lot of people, and even for families with less income as a Christmas or Birthday gift.
How do you achieve such a price in the current days ? There are many issues.
First of all, raw materials and manufacturing are getting more expensive, fine. But that's everyone's problem. The key is to make better designs, not just throw money at hardware. Nintendo's been doing that for decades.
Other economical factors, such as an orange clown taxing everything he sees, don't help either.
The key here is to find a way to have a single product (NOT SEVERAL) and optimize to death the manufacturing process.
What tells you you can achieve this ? Nintendo.
They are selling an overpriced Switch 2 for more than 399$ and you don't have to include :
- a dock
- shitty joycons
- a shitty screen
- a battery
Making a simple console + controller + 1 TB (no disc drive) should be affordable enough and offer good power at 399$. It will be barely more powerful than Series X ? Okay, but it will be cheaper to manufacture and you will make money on it. Not like Series X is an unsatisfactory console in anyway, we could run on this machine for 5 more years easily, maybe 10. I don't feel like developers are limited in any way by this console.
Mistake 3 : losing money when selling a console
Who the hell thought that it was a good idea to lose money when selling a console ? Stop with this nonsense already. You need to make a few bucks and cover the costs. Are you running a charity ? Well Microsoft do have a ton of money, but you might as well don't lose money when selling a console because it help turning a profit and not having Mister Nutella shutting down everything.
Mistake 4 : giving a fuck about the performance of the competitors
Nobody gives a shit about performance when your product is 200$ less than the competition. Don't make your product depending on what the others are making, because this is the best way to make the same thing as them, but being not as good as them at making it. Who cares what the PS6 will be ? Just make the right console for your business.
Mistake 5 : thinking that we give a fuck about AI
You lost a bet ? And now your company has to invest trillions of dollars on AI ? We don't give a fuck, and Xbox has no reason to pay for this.
I already know how AI works. I have been using it daily. AI will be the entity sending planes with our moms/dads/kids into the ocean/mountains. AI keeps stating stuff as if it was an absolute truth and soon people will be so dumb they will be copy/pasting exactly what AI says into the code of software and drivers used in our everyday life. Already happening by the way. We don't need AI in our consoles. Make a competent console that you don't sell at a loss, that's the priority. Ray-tracing was utter shit and didn't serve any purpose. Don't put these kinds of dumb feature in your console. Need a marketing argument ? Do like Sony : create one (even if it doesn't exist, nobody cares). The Emotion Engine, the Cell, the Power of the SSD. All made-up nonsense that looks good in a marketing campaign. Blast Processing on the MegaDrive worked well too.
Mistake 6 : thinking exclusives don't matter
Sorry Nutella and Spencer bros, but exclusives matter. Always have. Learn how to make and release good video-games again, because right now, most of Microsoft studios are incapable of releasing anything. When your last resort, for a franchise such as Halo (so your main franchise), is to make a visual remake of Halo 1, a game that was already remade, on top of cutting out the Multi-Player, you fail as a publisher. Are Nintendo stuck at re-releasing remakes of Mario 64 ? Wake up, your studios are creatively bankrupt.
Cure your studios and simplify their objectives. But simply making remakes of old games will not be enough, because right now, the incompetent people/management in the studios are able to do this, but a time will come when they will fail at even this. What will you do then ?
Put your games on Xbox and PC, but don't put it on other consoles. Why ? Because you are trying to build an install base with a 399$ product. So PC is not a competitor : you can get PCMR's money with your games, that's fine (supposing you actually release games lol). But on Sony and Nintendo ? That's dumb, and you know it.
Well, if you have any comment, please go ahead !
Note : Xbox can die (and most certainly will), I don't care much. Life will continue. I felt like making this thread for fun
Here are my thoughts, and I hope that Mister Nutella and Phil Spencer will eventually read them. These will be organized as a "Series" (lol) of mistakes to avoid. Honestly, it's nothing special. Mainly common-sense.
Mistake 1 : giving up on selling a ton of hardware
That's a terrible decision, you need to build a strong install base because this is the simplest KPI understood by people making games. If there are 50 millions of your console out there, then that's a great argument compared to "there are only 10 millions". Publishers will know they are talking to 50 millions people. If you tell them that gamers spent 1 billion hours playing, it doesn't mean anything for them.
Also, you don't have to be the top selling console to have a profitable business.
Mistake 2 : making an expensive product
Obviously if you want to sell consoles, releasing an overpriced PC disguised as a console and sold for 1000$ is not going to help build a large install base. This is why 399$ should be a definitive target in my opinion. Makes the product affordable to a lot of people, and even for families with less income as a Christmas or Birthday gift.
How do you achieve such a price in the current days ? There are many issues.
First of all, raw materials and manufacturing are getting more expensive, fine. But that's everyone's problem. The key is to make better designs, not just throw money at hardware. Nintendo's been doing that for decades.
Other economical factors, such as an orange clown taxing everything he sees, don't help either.
The key here is to find a way to have a single product (NOT SEVERAL) and optimize to death the manufacturing process.
What tells you you can achieve this ? Nintendo.
They are selling an overpriced Switch 2 for more than 399$ and you don't have to include :
- a dock
- shitty joycons
- a shitty screen
- a battery
Making a simple console + controller + 1 TB (no disc drive) should be affordable enough and offer good power at 399$. It will be barely more powerful than Series X ? Okay, but it will be cheaper to manufacture and you will make money on it. Not like Series X is an unsatisfactory console in anyway, we could run on this machine for 5 more years easily, maybe 10. I don't feel like developers are limited in any way by this console.
Mistake 3 : losing money when selling a console
Who the hell thought that it was a good idea to lose money when selling a console ? Stop with this nonsense already. You need to make a few bucks and cover the costs. Are you running a charity ? Well Microsoft do have a ton of money, but you might as well don't lose money when selling a console because it help turning a profit and not having Mister Nutella shutting down everything.
Mistake 4 : giving a fuck about the performance of the competitors
Nobody gives a shit about performance when your product is 200$ less than the competition. Don't make your product depending on what the others are making, because this is the best way to make the same thing as them, but being not as good as them at making it. Who cares what the PS6 will be ? Just make the right console for your business.
Mistake 5 : thinking that we give a fuck about AI
You lost a bet ? And now your company has to invest trillions of dollars on AI ? We don't give a fuck, and Xbox has no reason to pay for this.
I already know how AI works. I have been using it daily. AI will be the entity sending planes with our moms/dads/kids into the ocean/mountains. AI keeps stating stuff as if it was an absolute truth and soon people will be so dumb they will be copy/pasting exactly what AI says into the code of software and drivers used in our everyday life. Already happening by the way. We don't need AI in our consoles. Make a competent console that you don't sell at a loss, that's the priority. Ray-tracing was utter shit and didn't serve any purpose. Don't put these kinds of dumb feature in your console. Need a marketing argument ? Do like Sony : create one (even if it doesn't exist, nobody cares). The Emotion Engine, the Cell, the Power of the SSD. All made-up nonsense that looks good in a marketing campaign. Blast Processing on the MegaDrive worked well too.
Mistake 6 : thinking exclusives don't matter
Sorry Nutella and Spencer bros, but exclusives matter. Always have. Learn how to make and release good video-games again, because right now, most of Microsoft studios are incapable of releasing anything. When your last resort, for a franchise such as Halo (so your main franchise), is to make a visual remake of Halo 1, a game that was already remade, on top of cutting out the Multi-Player, you fail as a publisher. Are Nintendo stuck at re-releasing remakes of Mario 64 ? Wake up, your studios are creatively bankrupt.
Cure your studios and simplify their objectives. But simply making remakes of old games will not be enough, because right now, the incompetent people/management in the studios are able to do this, but a time will come when they will fail at even this. What will you do then ?
Put your games on Xbox and PC, but don't put it on other consoles. Why ? Because you are trying to build an install base with a 399$ product. So PC is not a competitor : you can get PCMR's money with your games, that's fine (supposing you actually release games lol). But on Sony and Nintendo ? That's dumb, and you know it.
Well, if you have any comment, please go ahead !
Last edited:
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