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Xbox doing their own thing with no fear?

FMX

Member
I sure hope that we don't see Xbox jump into the next gen in 2026 but if they did I would understand it. They now have Fall Out, Elder's Scroll, Halo, Gears, Call of Duty, Star Craft, Warcraft, Doom. Wolfenstein, Sea Of Thieves, Forza, Fable, Outer Worlds etc. They can pull a Nintendo and not even worry about competition. They have the games that gamers are going to want to play. All of these games will be available on pc as well but it they can go forward without having to fear Sony and operate within their own sphere. It doesn't matter if the PS6 is the most powerful console--there will be dozens of games that you will not be able to play on it. While I am against the idea......it does make sense.
 

Tams

Member
Mad Penguin GIF by Pudgy Penguins
 

SHA

Member
I sure hope that we don't see Xbox jump into the next gen in 2026 but if they did I would understand it. They now have Fall Out, Elder's Scroll, Halo, Gears, Call of Duty, Star Craft, Warcraft, Doom. Wolfenstein, Sea Of Thieves, Forza, Fable, Outer Worlds etc. They can pull a Nintendo and not even worry about competition. They have the games that gamers are going to want to play. All of these games will be available on pc as well but it they can go forward without having to fear Sony and operate within their own sphere. It doesn't matter if the PS6 is the most powerful console--there will be dozens of games that you will not be able to play on it. While I am against the idea......it does make sense.
Parity is dead, underperformed but on paper tells the opposite is the joke of this gen, but it'll no longer be the case and there won't be exceptions like rd2 on the one x.
 
It’s easy to have no fear when you have infinite funds.
but also, I don’t think they’re “doing their own thing”. They’re spending money to compete directly with Sony.
 
Their behavior during the ABK negotiations would suggest that they care quite a bit.
Maybe it was only Jimbo, maybe it wasn’t, but I think they overreacted a LOT and they were extremely desperate. But results have shown that it didn’t affect them too much…. until COD leaves PS, but I don’t think MS will be stupid enough to do that.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
26-27 is fine-ish for a new generation, this gen started in 2020 so it'd be 7 years by the time that happens. It just feels like less time has passed cause 2020-2022 were kind of a blur and a massive lul period due to covid.
Feels like this gen didn’t even start yet properly.
We still have cross gen games, barely any games using these consoles more than low end pcs and people screaming for pro since day 1.
Kinda bad gen and I love dualsense and ps5 is perfect
 

Shubh_C63

Member
Xbox still gonna struggle. You wait till 2028 to get these games going, these legendary IPs of the past and the competition still going to have an equal amount of games as well as new IPs that will probably be better, highly probable.

I would love to be wrong because I got my PC.
 

ReBurn

Gold Member
Microsoft shouldn't worry about Sony. Microsoft should worry about Microsoft. Their biggest problems are internal.
Yep. Xbox has struggled ever since it went devices division corporate style guide with Xbox One. They need to bring in someone new to lead and try to bring back the edge that attracted gamers in the first place. They were strongest when they didn't push Microsoft branding before gaming.
 

cormack12

Gold Member
Gamepass is a sticking plaster at the moment, albeit a good one. Its given Microsoft a platform to at least stabilise the brand a little. The acquisition probably makes sense for the bean counters for long term ROI.

For me, coming primarily from the 360 generation, my opinion is that new IPs are fine (or adding them to the library). But I'd like to see Microsoft prove they have what it takes with their existing IPs first. Gears needs repairing. The technical quality of the games is fine but they just lost the ability to capture people after 3/judgement. Halo needs a proper reboot, small scale and personal like Reach to re-establish the persona of Master Chief.

Horizon is OK, but I think they need to pick a locale that is more inspiring next time. Russia, Japan or Canada for example. Basically they need to start putting out games with real quality.

To be fair, they have improved a lot if we're being objective. And if you think of games/studios like Hellblade II, Plague Tale they are starting to build up that talent pool to complement the likes of the Coalition, Bethesda etc.

Just last week we were reading about how Sony had to tell Insomniac to knuckle down because the game wasn't going to meet the quality requirements for a first party title. At the moment I think Microsoft are missing that. And it's the difference as to why Sucker Punch can put out Ghost of Tsushima but Microsoft released Redfall.

That's not to say everything put out has been a bad game - far from it - but right now, my perception is Microsoft have a very fractured approach to game/studio development and IP/quality management. And just when you think this next title will showcase that commitment, they most often fall a little short. They have all the tools and resources they need, but they do need to find someone in that middle layer to realise the next step imo.

And I say that as someone who has spent most gaming time this gen on the Series X.
 

March Climber

Gold Member
Their behavior during the ABK negotiations would suggest that they care quite a bit.
That was mainly Jim and those around him. He should have never spoken to the media whining about CoD like that. That type of stuff would make any company look weaker in the public eye, even Nintendo.

Not only that, but it made it appear that he didn't understand that a first person shooter isn't the key here, neither is a CoD-killer if they ever decide to make one. The key is just finding their own forever franchise. Nintendo has Pokemon and Mario. Neither are a shooter.
 

ReBurn

Gold Member
Gamepass is a sticking plaster at the moment, albeit a good one. Its given Microsoft a platform to at least stabilise the brand a little. The acquisition probably makes sense for the bean counters for long term ROI.

For me, coming primarily from the 360 generation, my opinion is that new IPs are fine (or adding them to the library). But I'd like to see Microsoft prove they have what it takes with their existing IPs first. Gears needs repairing. The technical quality of the games is fine but they just lost the ability to capture people after 3/judgement. Halo needs a proper reboot, small scale and personal like Reach to re-establish the persona of Master Chief.

Horizon is OK, but I think they need to pick a locale that is more inspiring next time. Russia, Japan or Canada for example. Basically they need to start putting out games with real quality.

To be fair, they have improved a lot if we're being objective. And if you think of games/studios like Hellblade II, Plague Tale they are starting to build up that talent pool to complement the likes of the Coalition, Bethesda etc.

Just last week we were reading about how Sony had to tell Insomniac to knuckle down because the game wasn't going to meet the quality requirements for a first party title. At the moment I think Microsoft are missing that. And it's the difference as to why Sucker Punch can put out Ghost of Tsushima but Microsoft released Redfall.

That's not to say everything put out has been a bad game - far from it - but right now, my perception is Microsoft have a very fractured approach to game/studio development and IP/quality management. And just when you think this next title will showcase that commitment, they most often fall a little short. They have all the tools and resources they need, but they do need to find someone in that middle layer to realise the next step imo.

And I say that as someone who has spent most gaming time this gen on the Series X.
I agree. The issue is lack of focus on the games, both from a quality and release cadence perspective. With all of the studios they have now the release calendar has been remarkably inconsistent. They have the capacity to be releasing 3 or 4 good first party games every year but they don't seem to be able to pull it together, which points to a leadership issue. There's nobody at Xbox who is capable of consistently steering the ever-growing ship.
 

simpatico

Member
MS makes machiavellian moves without having the balls to actually use them for machiavellian means. Drop a new console, make as much Bethesda, Activision stuff exclusive as you can. If they're really contractually obligated to put COD on playstation, it's no ones fault if the netcode is absolute shit on that version...
 

ulantan

Member
That was mainly Jim and those around him. He should have never spoken to the media whining about CoD like that. That type of stuff would make any company look weaker in the public eye, even Nintendo.

Not only that, but it made it appear that he didn't understand that a first person shooter isn't the key here, neither is a CoD-killer if they ever decide to make one. The key is just finding their own forever franchise. Nintendo has Pokemon and Mario. Neither are a shooter.
Neither mario nor zelda make as much money as call of duty.
 

March Climber

Gold Member
Neither mario nor zelda make as much money as call of duty.
What about Pokemon? I didn't mention Zelda. Zelda wouldn't even be close to the conversation.

Edit: ulantan ulantan I'm tagging you to make sure you see this before response: I'm talking about the entire Mario Franchise btw, including Mario Kart, Mario Party, Sports, etc. I don't know if that changes your next response but I think considering all of that, Mario would count. Same goes for Pokemon.
 
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ulantan

Member
What about Pokemon? I didn't mention Zelda. Zelda wouldn't even be close to the conversation.
Pokemon does not release every year at 70 dollars full of micro-transactions and have a continuous battle Royale mode. We just saw that it was in almost every region of the world's top 3 most played lists. Jim would be a fucking fool not to bring that up in court.
 
What seems amazing to me is how MS or its "followers" change the narrative as appropriate, until September 2023 was the year of Xbox, the change of cycle and the comeback in sales, it didn't happen, now it's time to change the discourse and Hopefully a new generation soon to play the games that MS announced in 2019-2020 for this one.

I have read before that MS would have to worry about MS itself and they are absolutely right, what you can't do is change "the plan" depending on what the competition does, they were seriously going to go with a digital x series to compete in 2024 against PS5 pro? Was that the plan? Now it seems that they have changed it and they want to advance the generation, tomorrow who knows what they will do.
 

ulantan

Member
What about Pokemon? I didn't mention Zelda. Zelda wouldn't even be close to the conversation.

Edit: ulantan ulantan I'm tagging you to make sure you see this before response: I'm talking about the entire Mario Franchise btw, including Mario Kart, Mario Party, Sports, etc. I don't know if that changes your next response but I think considering all of that, Mario would count. Same goes for Pokemon.
It is easier making your own live service game than it is time traveling and making one of the biggest brands on earth. And even then the call of duty money is astronomical.
 

Mythoclast

Member
MSFTs problem is not doing third person cinematic action adventures. Im not saying JUST do that, but do some. Especially when you see they're the competition’s top sellers.
 

BlackTron

Gold Member
We were told that MS doesn't care about hardware sales. So why would they release new hardware when they could release their games on all platforms and reach a much wider audience?

They just don't have a cohesive strategy. I do believe they would like it best if they didn't have to sell a console at all and everybody just used the Xbox app on PC. But if you have a PC, you have many other options as well. Options that don't exist in a closed console ecosystem, so that's the best way to hook you into it.

Why not just put all the games on other consoles? Because MS will have to pay a fee on the sale, and it won't be growing their ecosystem where *they* make a cut on each transaction (Xbox Studios game or not). They would love to put Gamepass anywhere they can, except the other players would never allow it on their system. Selling all games on other systems would undermine the proposition of GP and their own ecosystem, where they really make money. They don't give a shit whether you use their ecosystem on a console or not, it just happens to be the way you're most likely to stay in it.

YET, because they're Xbox, they need to make careful considerations on what games, and when, they DO want on other platforms else they'd be eating too much shit.

Again, they just don't have a cohesive strategy. It's a very sad clusterfuck trading blows with itself.
 
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