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[Ozriel]

And the Forza devs and Candy Crush devs? Everything is struggling!

Forza Motorsport sold horribly on Xbox and Steam, and failed on GamePass. They've tried to provide significant post launch support but the market seems to have moved on

But you already knew this

It's you always warring and even have a tag for it.

Do you ever see me toeing your line and showing up in PS related threads with shitposts and downplay?

Must be some weird kind of warring when I'm posting in support of Ghost of Yotei and Intergalactic, as well as owning way more PS devices than the average GAF member.

What's funny is that last year I said MS studios cannot deliver anything on time because xbox management is shit and they have no incentive for studios to deliver on time and you were there saying the opposite.

I'd certainly be skeptical at claims that there's no incentive for timely delivery.
We certainly see - with these layoffs - that MS management implements consequences for strong underperformance.

Defending MS and pretending everything is going swimmingly. You defend them and bring up excuses no matter the circumstance.

I consistently provide criticism when it's deserved. Across multiple posts, too.

King(including Candy Crush) probably made ~$1B profit FY25... all to fund failing GamePass?
They were not struggling.

And reports out there seems to indicate this was more about cost-cutting and staff rationalization

Around 200 jobs to be cut at King, says Bloomberg

UPDATE: 96 jobs are gone in Stockholm and 30 in Barcelona, we’re told. The other 70 are believed to be split across London, Berlin and remote workers. Middle management, UX and narrative were…

mobilegamer.biz

[UPDATE: One person close to the company has told us that 96 staff have been cut in Stockholm and 30 in Barcelona. The other 70 or so roles being eliminated are expected to be a combination of King's London, Berlin and remote workers. The entire narrative and UX writing teams have also been let go, and lots of people at risk are in "middle management roles with very few direct reports".

"It's a very bloated and slow org so it's not a surprise that they would cut from there," our source said of the cuts to middle management.

They added: "It's also been handled very poorly from what I hear from those on the ground."]

Hard to tie any of this to 'GamePass', isn't it?

 

[Bernardougf]

Can you explain why Sonys playstation titles are selling less than their previous iterations then?

We are often told how Playstation fans buy games, but they are not buying games. Death Stranding 2 is the latest game to suffer significant drops vs the first and i will place a bet that Yotei sells less that Tsushima. Do you think that is sustainable as budgets increase massively vs the PS4 gen?

How many shitty sequels one have to put out to finally people wake up ? None of their recent sequels had very good reception by fans like the original games, including the last of us 2, people care less and less for high scores from the access/woke media, Sony has clearly gone the DEI/woke path and it shows in their output, most of their sequels looks like safe minimal effort endeavors sprinkled with dei/woke notes.

Death Stranding is easy.. that game is niche as fuck .. a lot of people (including me) bought the first one because of Kojima and didnt like one bit of that game. Naturally a direct sequel would have sold less. Even if in this case its a better game than the first.

 

[Hero of Spielberg]

That's a separate issue. $80+ billion spent on acquisitions finally got the accountants taking a hard look at Xbox division, expecting profitable returns form the money spent.

So due to shit management games got canned, devs fired, etc…. Also, by most reports the MMO by ESO was not in trouble but in a pretty good state.

So the accountants that want a return cancel the games which look amazing and would give a return? Including the games from studios they recently acquired?

And they didn't want the revenue from an amazing MMO that was in a pretty good state, according to who?

 

[PropellerEar]

Hard to tie any of this to 'GamePass', isn't it?

What are you on, I wrote couple of words and did just that.
Not hard at all.

 

[Bernardougf]

Its going to be wild to see this narrative of gamepass killing the industry, to see gamepass go away and then them find the next thing to blame for killing the industry.

Fortnite or whatever.

Or they will just blame us for not buying EVERY big title release when there's just too many for any normal person to play.

Gamepass its not killing the industry.. it would have killed if MS got out with its plans ... it just killed xbox (in part + other factors)

 

[alabtrosMyster]

Feels like everyone is out for blood on MS lately. This news has gone on longer than I thought it would. I figured after a week people would let it go. Dukes had another podcast discussing all of it again. Matty got rid of GP and wont use it anymore.

They broke our ears about it for over 10 years, in gaming giant failures are talked about for decades.

- People still make videos that analyse the 32x failure
- Atari Jaguar and the video games crash of the 80s
- all the failed consoles

MS has bought gaming media coverage, companies, created a giant PR campaign, paid (or not) shills on gaming forums and social media, bought an award for Phil Spencer, general manipulative statements, etc.

There is too much spice in there, you will never ear the end of it. They're part of the problem with gaming, and they took the place of a potential worthy adversary to Sony, one which might have grown the market.

 

[neocycle]

Phil Spencer, weeks ago: "I recognize that these changes come at a time when we have more players, games, and gaming hours than ever before. Our platform, hardware, and game roadmap have never looked stronger."

Why is he so optimistic? Is everyone wrong about xbox? I know xbox consoles haven't been selling well for years. Does he really think a pc is an xbox?

 

[jm89]

Microsoft can't accept the reality they are not going to decide where gaming goes. Sorry this isn't enterprise world where you have a stranglehold on.

All their moves to make their platforms bigger this gen have been desperate, too bad they have ended up as wet farts.

 

[Three]

Forza Motorsport sold horribly on Xbox and Steam, and failed on GamePass. They've tried to provide significant post launch support but the market seems to have moved on

But you already knew this

They delivered late and they delivered a buggy unready game. you were there suggesting Turn 10 were as efficient as ever. The market hasn't moved on from racing sims since others are doing well, they moved on from Forza because forza took an 8 year hiatus then under-delivered. This was a studio issue but you was downplaying what I was telling you

And reports out there seems to indicate this was more about cost-cutting and staff rationalization

Around 200 jobs to be cut at King, says Bloomberg

UPDATE: 96 jobs are gone in Stockholm and 30 in Barcelona, we’re told. The other 70 are believed to be split across London, Berlin and remote workers. Middle management, UX and narrative were…

mobilegamer.biz

Hard to tie any of this to 'GamePass', isn't it?

The entire thing is cost cutting because Amy hood has an objective of trying to hit a certain margin for the MS gaming division. Margins GP did not help when it failed to meet its projections for subscribers. It isn't some punishment for not delivering on time though, all these studios were targeted in a cost cutting measure, some more than others because they had high costs with little potential for profit in the short term.

 

[DerivedDataCache]

They bought publishers for their console business and to feed gamepass. Ended up killing them in the process but now they are the biggest third party publisher as a side effect.
Not what they intended but ironic non the less.

 

[Windle Poons]

I love(d) Forza Motorsport. The latest one was shit. The market didn't move on - it just didn't want to play it.

Post launch yeah tried to fix it - which makes me think it shouldn't have been released when it first was in that case.

The single player (which is my meat and veg) sent me to sleep.

 

[adamsapple]

Why don't you just link the video. Wasn't Project Kestrel a Remedy project that got canned last year?

Kestrel was in the Bethesda docs that were leaked. Remedy coincidentally also happened to have a project by that name.

FHard to tie any of this to 'GamePass', isn't it?

By god they're gonna try their best.

 

[Felessan]

GAAS trash is hurting the industry

Unlike gamepass, which is one company initiative and subsidized, GaaS is a market demand. And it's win is solely on market principles - people like mix of gameplay and social more than just gameplay.
GaaS grew from demand and big ones followed, not the other way around.
And GP tried to undercut the rest of the market and thankfully failed.

 

[DenchDeckard]

I know you know this already but even on PS the vast majority only care about buying their sports titles and COD every year

Absolutely! - It's a shame.

Eventually the zombies would have to wake up to reality. Its the "why should I care?" Mentality some have.... well you should care because eventually, instead of paying low, you will have nothing to pay for.

I am in the camp of happily paying and enjoying gamepass. Do you feel games will go the way of the dodo before gamepass does? If gamepass goes away, those, like myself who pay and enjoy the service will just stop gaming, completely?

I know I wont, I already spend 100s of pounds a year on buying games and Gamepass is an excellent supplement for me.

 

[Ozriel]

Unlike gamepass, which is one company initiative and subsidized, GaaS is a market demand. And it's win is solely on market principles - people like mix of gameplay and social more than just gameplay.
GaaS grew from demand and big ones followed, not the other way around.
And GP tried to undercut the rest of the market and thankfully failed.

But many big GaaS games are a significant driver for games being 'devalued' by many here.

Concord reveal thread? Tons of comments demanding the game be free.

Marathon beta thread? Comments saying Bungie shouldn't charge for the game.

And GP tried to undercut the rest of the market and thankfully failed.

Not sure how GP was trying to undercut the market on PlayStation and Steam, but OK.

 

[Xbox 360 slim]

It has turned the vast majority of Xbox diehards into cheapasses that don't think current gen AAA games are worth more than $15.

They don't support devs and in turn are causing the death of healthy sales...which lead to studio closures. Yes, Gamepass is bad for the industry simply because of how it devalues games.

They aren't wrong.

 

[Baemono]

Why is he so optimistic? Is everyone wrong about xbox? I know xbox consoles haven't been selling well for years. Does he really think a pc is an xbox?

Self-persuasion. Like "next year will be the year", or "the future is brighter than ever". And I believe that's the main (even only) issue with Xbox management: they keep doing the worse and they praising all their bad decisions.

Xbox enthusiasts like to point out Concord but almost every Sony fan was like "this is a pile of garbage, we all hope it dies quickly", and it did. And Sony was like "okay Herman go back being assistant to the CEO".

 

[Felessan]

But many big GaaS games are a significant driver for games being 'devalued' by many here.

In current environment it has little sense for GaaS game not to be free, so many who have a little clue how live service games landscape looks like raising concerns.

Personally I too think that asking money for Concord/Marathon is unwise decision for two reasons:
- f2p games are much more popular and on the same level quality-popularity have roughly 10 time more players
- paid live services are not excluded from ps+/Xbox live requirements that make them on consoles even more expensive subscribe2play games, further limiting playerbase.
It's a quick money grab and "safer" money but it hurt game future as players are live service games life and blood and game scales with player non-lineary. The more players game has, the more it's known, talked and interacted socially (and social is a huge part in these games). Grow big enough and game will be social phenomenon like Fortnite or Genshin and at this point you are pretty much settled at huge profits.