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[TheKratos]

That's exactly how you 'make' money. Do you want a business generating $500,000 profit a year on $1m revenue or a business generating $1 dollar profit on $13 billion in revenue?



Don't believe what? Revenue is reported publicly every quarter it's easily over $80billion it's been growing each year far out striping any previous generations.

I follow MSFT earnings each quarter, Xbox revenue is hidden within personal computing segment which generates 14b per quarter. However, this segment contains Windows (the majority of the 14b), Bing and surface too. How much Xbox contributes is guesswork and done purposefully so.

 

[Burger King]

Huge success

 

[yurinka]

Netflix was a net loser for a long time.

Well, not over two decades (and counting) and after having spent almost $100B on acquisitions in recent years, which the case of Xbox.

MS has been slowly moving away from their console to become a full multiplatform publisher using Windows as home platform because it makes more sense since they saw that can't compete as console maker against Sony and Nintendo, so they are doing a Sega.

Once they completed this transition, the next one will be to stop the nonsense failure of giving away day games one including their AAA games, on game subs and focus on selling games instead.

 

[havoc00]

Big DIMES PHIL always draws the house.

 

[DeepEnigma]

I don't think they make 24 billion every single quarter but they've been chilling in the 20s for a while now

Bruh!

 

[adamsapple]

Big DIMES PHIL always draws the house.

 

[S0ULZB0URNE]

Now let's see Microsoft's profits. Oh wait, they don't release them specifically for gaming. Funny, that.

Yeah how convenient of them.

 

[ZehDon]

They're not contradictory. I have never ever seen any public company being profitable and not sharing the numbers...

Happens all the time.

... the entire point of that quarterly earnings cycle is to tout your good news to get the share price higher...

Which is why they focus on revenue, which demonstrates a lack of understanding of how this works. Like the threads that get posted when stock prices go down after a press conference because they don't understand speculatory trade cycles. Xbox's profits are likely pretty small. You go to the market with "we took in $80b and made $1b profit" for a single division and Microsoft's shares would tank because that lacks investment growth potential. Do it for multiple periods in a row, and their executives would be cooked - despite making a billion dollars in profit reliably. That's how the stock market works.

If they had profits on the gaming division, they'd declare them, or at least give percentage increases/decreases like they do with revenue numbers. But they don't so they don't.

There are many profitable divisions within Microsoft that don't "declare" their profits. Microsoft presents itself as a wide organisation, and declares its profits and losses as a whole. This allows them to play down less profitable endeavours without their investors demanding they only focus on huge returns.

Also, low profits generally do not prompt the kind of pivot the Gaming division is having at the moment, especially when you consider the speed in which things are happening. This is a division in crisis mode, not a thriving one that wants to merely get better.

Well, the industry has never been in this position before, so we have no idea what "generally" happens. Microsoft is the largest third party gaming publisher in the world, who also make their own consoles, who also have a massive PC install base with their OS, who also ship virtually every product and service on every device in the world. This is brand new territory. You can buy Microsoft Office for Mac, and you can run their services on Linux, their code is open source, and they give away their operating systems. That's what Satya Nadella has brought to Microsoft during his tenure. So, selling their games on everything with a GPU and a network connection sounds about right for his kind of overall strategy. Microsoft have no plans to leave the hardware space, and they're going bigger on games. That's not a division in crisis mode, that's a division at step 4 of a 12 step strategy.

 

[Mr Reasonable]

Another totally normal thread on Neogaf.

 

[Jigsaah]

Well, not over two decades (and counting) and after having spent almost $100B on acquisitions in recent years, which the case of Xbox.

MS has been slowly moving away from their console to become a full multiplatform publisher using Windows as home platform because it makes more sense since they saw that can't compete as console maker against Sony and Nintendo, so they are doing a Sega.

Once they completed this transition, the next one will be to stop the nonsense failure of giving away day games one including their AAA games, on game subs and focus on selling games instead.

You can't logically say they are doing a Sega if they are releasing another console and a handheld next gen. That is a difference people are conveniently ignoring.

What Microsoft is doing is attempting to become the biggest publisher in the world. Though doubtful that they will reach that goal in terms of pure quality (Sony has that locked down, IMO, though it has been brought into question with recent cancellations and GaaS initiatives)...they are in fact looking to flood the market with their products. Another distinct difference from what SEGA is doing.

The reason behind this may seem to be because they can't compete at the console level, but I'm of the mind that even if they were more competitive...they would still do this in some capacity. Their philosophy on games and exclusive have become fundamentally different from Sony, Nintendo and yes, even SEGA. This philosophy has been the case for a long time. It did not start with this generation. It began with "Play Anywhere" which started somewhere around 2016. One could argue that them porting a good number of their games to pc is them just feeding themselves...but you can't say that and also claim that PC is a different platform. That philosophy then extended to Steam and more recently to Playstation and Nintendo as well as TVs, phones, other pc handhelds...etc. I don't think it's a fair comparison to say that this is "doing a SEGA", for these reasons.

 

[Sorcerer]

The article says "helped" so does that mean Windows and Office made 80.7999 billion and Xbox division contributed a dollar?

 

[Woopah]

You think the 20/30 million people on Gamepass on Xbox is something they will drop just to publish games?! They can afford to do both, that's it.

I'm not expecting them to give up on hardware completely, but being a third party publisher will be their main focus going forward.

The article says "helped" so does that mean Windows and Office made 80.7999 billion and Xbox division contributed a dollar?

It means that's how much revenue Xbox gaming generated.

 

[yurinka]

You can't logically say they are doing a Sega if they are releasing another console and a handheld next gen.

I think they won't. I think next gen Xbox hardware will be a just a Xbox/Windows logo sticker in the box of PC consoles made by Asus, Lenovo, Acer, etc., compatible to run their OS (Windows, with the Xbox store/launcher integrated and with with an upcoming consolized optional UI).

What Microsoft is doing is attempting to become the biggest publisher in the world.

Yes. They may already be it. And in the mid-long term their going would be the top grossing gaming company in the world, generating more game revenue than Sony and Tencent.

 

[Ogbert]

It's genuinely sad what Spencer has done to Xbox.

What a rubbish, pointless brand it is these days.

 

[DragonNCM]

Shawn Layton said that Game Pass requires $5 BILLION a month to run. So they're obviously bleeding billions of dollars and will be out of business by Wednesday.



500M subs at $10 a month would be $5 billion a month.

 

[Bungie]

I'm not expecting them to give up on hardware completely, but being a third party publisher will be their main focus going forward.

I can see why some people would believe that, most articles make it seem like Xbox is going all in but it doesn't mean they can't be simply expanding ways to grow their franchises/portfolio while equally focusing on what they always have been doing. Personally just feels dramatic for people to jump to this conclusion no matter how bad some may want it to be true.

 

[Woopah]

I can see why some people would believe that, most articles make it seem like Xbox is going all in but it doesn't mean they can't be simply expanding ways to grow their franchises/portfolio while equally focusing on what they always have been doing. Personally just feels dramatic for people to jump to this conclusion no matter how bad some may want it to be true.

A lot will depend on what their hardware is, and whether it's a mass market console or something more like a Steam Box / Deck.

Either way, I think that the support MS gives to Switch 2 / PS5 in the next few years is going to show they are not as focused on selling consoles as they once were. In fact Phil basically says as much in a recent interview.