Support NeoGAF

[nosoynadie22]

 

[dEvAnGeL]

I think is time they drop consoles and go full 3rd party publisher. The money in games is made in software. And with all the studios they have bought all these years they will make a ton of money if they start putting their games everywhere.

 

[dotnotbot]

I think is time they drop consoles and go full 3rd party publisher. The money in games is made in software. And with all the studios they have bought all these years they will make a ton of money if they start putting their games everywhere.

Problem is their subscription service doesn't sell well outside of Xbox consoles. And without sub service they won't have that sweet total control over gaming industry that they desperately crave for.

 

[Alan Wake]

You guys may think he was off his rocker, but I actually agree with him.

For me, its about the investment and how they choose to go about it. Between Bethesda and Activision, MS has spent $75B. So the question is, what's a better way to have spent that $75B?

• subsidize XSX price b $400 effectively selling them for $100. With a 3-month free gamepass bonus. a $75B can cover 187M such consoles. But you only need to do it for half that, so for 90M consoles.
• still have $37B left. Now, rather than buy Bethesda, or activision, just pay them 500M for a specific game to be on gamepass after like 6 months. this means you also stop day one gamepass, but rather adopt a system where games will all end up on gamepass after 3-6 months.
• And use the remaining $33B to make sure every major third-party release, for the generation, comes to Xbox and ultimately gamepass.

I feel if they did that, right now, Xbox would be the best-selling console on the market. Everyone would buy an XSX by default being it cost only $100. and would have been $75B better spent than the nonsense they have currently done.

We can't say, they don't have the money, they obviously did.

So spend tons of money to sell consoles and make a fraction of it back? That's not a business. Number of sold units is irrelevant if it doesn't mean more revenue and bigger profit in the end.

On the other hand, it's questionable if what they're doing right now is much better. It's fine to own a lot of studios but it's what you get out of those studios that matter. Their track record here is pretty telling so far. It's like the new studios are getting tangled up by the big Microsoft corporation bureaucracy once they're part of Xbox.

Managing studios, that's what Xbox should learn how to do right now.

 

[Elysium44]

Phil Spencer must be a Twitter insider I guess.

Anyway we know PlayStation is profitable because Sony publishes the numbers. We've never known whether Xbox is, but their secrecy and smoke & mirrors approach means we can draw our own conclusions.

 

[jm89]

Phil Spencer must be a Twitter insider I guess.

Anyway we know PlayStation is profitable because Sony publishes the numbers. We've never known whether Xbox is, but their secrecy and smoke & mirrors approach means we can draw our own conclusions.

Who knows maybe they finally reveal profit as they now got abk to prop that number up.

But then again, if xbox really is in the red by a huge amount, they may end up still wanting to hide it. The total profit might get dragged down by xbox(excluding abk) to such ane extent it might actually not look good.

 

[Mr.Phoenix]

hahaha... We are trying to spend $75B here.

What about the generation after that? Do you spend $70 Billion per generation?

hell no! you only need to do it for one generation. Once you have a 100M user base, all on gamepass too, and are buying their games for Xbox, it becomes much easier to retain a user base as long as you can provide the games.

Not everyone is so hard up that $500 is a life-changing amount of money. Say you get an XSX only because it was $100 (or free), which is the only reason you got it - you didn't want it otherwise. Then what? There's still no games you want, it's just a paperweight. It would be a desperate move from Microsoft and destroy their brand's value. 'Our console is so terrible we have to give it away.'

For this gen, doing it would have meant they basically gave the XSX for free ($100), and ensured that every third-party game was on the console. Even if it meant paying like $500M for some of those games. So yes, they would have been paying for things like FF16. then they also just focus on making sure their own first-party studios actually make games worth playing.

Either way, it is a far better way to have spent $75B.

 

[Fess]

SteamDeck essential (even the high quality one)

Steam Deck Essentials (All Handhelds)

This mod aims to improve performance, stability & consistency for the Steam Deck & other low powered handhelds/PCs. Offering up to 46% better performance compared to vanilla Low settings depen

www.nexusmods.com

+ CryoUtilities


get you a very decent portable StarField and with the higher memory bandwidth of the OLED model (both Ryzen 2 and RDNA2 are very bandwidth sensitive) you might squeeze in more improvements too (I play it with a 30 FPS cap).

Cool I’ll try that, thanks!

 

[nosoynadie22]

 

[Mr.Phoenix]

So spend tons of money to sell consoles and make a fraction of it back? That's not a business. Number of sold units is irrelevant if it doesn't mean more revenue and bigger profit in the end.

On the other hand, it's questionable if what they're doing right now is much better. It's fine to own a lot of studios but it's what you get out of those studios that matter. Their track record here is pretty telling so far. It's like the new studios are getting tangled up by the big Microsoft corporation bureaucracy once they're part of Xbox.

Managing studios, that's what Xbox should learn how to do right now.

Naaa this is not true. Not true at all. you have to look at the big picture here. the really big picture.

What you want, is an install base. you want to become the leading platform on every third-party game. MS already has the most powerful box (technically), what the lack is the draw. We are not talking about money they have not spent. So the question is simple, what do you think grows gamepass faster, buying publishers, or buying a userbase?

My strategy would mean, that they use $35B of that $75B o subsidize 90M XSX consoles to $100. If they can also make those 90M consoles in two ears, it would mean that in two years they would literally have an intsall base of 90M. I did wager there is a higher chance those 90M people then go onto sub for gamepass. And mind you, they still have $35B+ left, I did use that to secure every possible major third party release, to (1) make sure its on Xbox and then (2) make sure it's on gamepass 6 months after its retail release.

think about it, you could play Elden ring, FF16, COD, Starfeild, SF6, RE....etc, alll for etnry fee of $100+ game price. I reckon MS makes that $75B investment back before the gen is over after 7-8 years. But most importantly, they would have bought an install base.

let's not kid ourselves, how they have chosen to spend that $75B would not do anything for Xbox, this, however, would.

 

[Woopah]

Naaa this is not true. Not true at all. you have to look at the big picture here. the really big picture.

What you want, is an install base. you want to become the leading platform on every third-party game. MS already has the most powerful box (technically), what the lack is the draw. We are not talking about money they have not spent. So the question is simple, what do you think grows gamepass faster, buying publishers, or buying a userbase?

My strategy would mean, that they use $35B of that $75B o subsidize 90M XSX consoles to $100. If they can also make those 90M consoles in two ears, it would mean that in two years they would literally have an intsall base of 90M. I did wager there is a higher chance those 90M people then go onto sub for gamepass. And mind you, they still have $35B+ left, I did use that to secure every possible major third party release, to (1) make sure its on Xbox and then (2) make sure it's on gamepass 6 months after its retail release.

think about it, you could play Elden ring, FF16, COD, Starfeild, SF6, RE....etc, alll for etnry fee of $100+ game price. I reckon MS makes that $75B investment back before the gen is over after 7-8 years. But most importantly, they would have bought an install base.

let's not kid ourselves, how they have chosen to spend that $75B would not do anything for Xbox, this, however, would.

If this generation's sales have taught us anything its that right now value and brand matters more than price. Even with a $100 price, Xbox Series isn't getting anywhere near 90 million.

There's also the fact that you'd have to account for that $75 billion very differently. I believe the ABK acquisition is CapEX, while using it to subsidise hardware prices would be OpEX. Plus the acquisition makes Microsoft a lot stronger on mobile and PC, Xbox Series price cuts do not.

 

[Elysium44]

Naaa this is not true. Not true at all. you have to look at the big picture here. the really big picture.

What you want, is an install base. you want to become the leading platform on every third-party game. MS already has the most powerful box (technically), what the lack is the draw. We are not talking about money they have not spent. So the question is simple, what do you think grows gamepass faster, buying publishers, or buying a userbase?

My strategy would mean, that they use $35B of that $75B o subsidize 90M XSX consoles to $100. If they can also make those 90M consoles in two ears, it would mean that in two years they would literally have an intsall base of 90M. I did wager there is a higher chance those 90M people then go onto sub for gamepass. And mind you, they still have $35B+ left, I did use that to secure every possible major third party release, to (1) make sure its on Xbox and then (2) make sure it's on gamepass 6 months after its retail release.

think about it, you could play Elden ring, FF16, COD, Starfeild, SF6, RE....etc, alll for etnry fee of $100+ game price. I reckon MS makes that $75B investment back before the gen is over after 7-8 years. But most importantly, they would have bought an install base.

let's not kid ourselves, how they have chosen to spend that $75B would not do anything for Xbox, this, however, would.

So if I have all my friends on PlayStation, I have all my game library there, and there are multiple PS exclusives I want to play, I will give all that up? Again I think you overestimate how important a few hundred dollars is to people.

At least Microsoft buying ABK theoretically could pay off (I suspect it won't but it has a chance). It generates revenue and can also be resold if necessary to recoup at least some of the cost. Throwing tens of billions down the drain to buy friends is a terrible business plan imo. It would be like expecting people who currently buy a BMW to give that up and buy a Hyundai because they are cheaper?

 

[kruis]

Funny how only 3 millions from 6-7 billions outside of Xbox consoles subscribe to Gamepass

And only a fraction of those 3 million Gamepass subscribers actually use Xbox Cloud Gaming. It's silly to boast about 7 billion possible Xbox cloud gamers when only a minuscule fraction of them can play simultaneously in the cloud since MS doesn't have the cloud gaming hardware to even service all of their Gamepass subscribers without huge waiting times.

 

[YeulEmeralda]

And only a fraction of those 3 million Gamepass subscribers actually use Xbox Cloud Gaming. It's silly to boast about 7 billion possible Xbox cloud gamers when only a minuscule fraction of them can play simultaneously in the cloud since MS doesn't have the cloud gaming hardware to even service all of their Gamepass subscribers without huge waiting times.

This is why cloud gaming doesn't work IMO. It simply doesn't scale like Netflix or MS Office.

 

[digdug2]

It's unfortunate that Xbox sales have collapsed, but it feels like Microsoft has 100% brought it upon themselves. Since the Xbox Series launched in 2020, they have not had a single killer app that absolutely made consumers buy their consoles (as I've said in other threads: Halo and Starfield did not have that X factor and Redfall was abysmal) They have no edge over Sony or Nintendo, and unless they can better manage their studios and get some incredible games released sooner than later, this ship will probably sink.

I don't want Xbox to fail and I sincerely hope that they don't. Ultimately, I want to see the rivalry between MS and Sony ramp up because that's what will continue to drive innovation, competitive pricing, higher quality games, and more variety. In theory, anyway.

 

[Ansphn]

I think is time they drop consoles and go full 3rd party publisher. The money in games is made in software. And with all the studios they have bought all these years they will make a ton of money if they start putting their games everywhere.

They will. I bet most of their hardware profit is from their controllers. They will eventually go 3rd party so they can tap into the PlayStation and Nintendo base and continue selling their controllers.

 

[UltimaKilo]

I think is time they drop consoles and go full 3rd party publisher. The money in games is made in software. And with all the studios they have bought all these years they will make a ton of money if they start putting their games everywhere.

No. Microsoft wants you in their ecosystem. The battle they have coming is not against SONY, it’s a much larger one against Apple. Keeping the consumer on Windows, that’s it. Apple is coming.

 

[kruis]

This is why cloud gaming doesn't work IMO. It simply doesn't scale like Netflix or MS Office.

Yep. But still people keep believing that cloud gaming is an inevitability. They think that streaming games is exactly the same as streaming video or running servers for multiplayer games. If you need more capacity, all you have to do is hire more server capacity from Amazon, Google or MS. How difficult can it possible be to provide cloud gaming to tens of millions of simultaneous players when Netflix, Amazon, Disney, HBO, etc have already paved the way?

 

[twilo99]

No. Microsoft wants you in their ecosystem. The battle they have coming is not against SONY, it’s a much larger one against Apple. Keeping the consumer on Windows, that’s it. Apple is coming.

Apple came already..

also, they should just buy Sony. They are already using some Sony hardware on their cash cow and all that gaming IP from PlayStation will help Apple’s gaming push.

 

[DeltaPolarBear]

Yep. But still people keep believing that cloud gaming is an inevitability. They think that streaming games is exactly the same as streaming video or running servers for multiplayer games. If you need more capacity, all you have to do is hire more server capacity from Amazon, Google or MS. How difficult can it possible be to provide cloud gaming to tens of millions of simultaneous players when Netflix, Amazon, Disney, HBO, etc have already paved the way?

This actually remind me of the old days when computers were gigantic, and they were essentially rented out to businesses. What happens is that if you need more power, you pay the computer company to unlock more power that was already in the machine. That was basically no different from a streaming future; it's just that the equivalent of a server was in the same building as you, you just don't own it. The streaming future just placed the server a few blocks away from your house.

Streaming is a rental service, no more and no less. And by design it is almost never worth it to rent anything if you can afford to buy it.

 

[GHG]

It's unfortunate that Xbox sales have collapsed, but it feels like Microsoft has 100% brought it upon themselves. Since the Xbox Series launched in 2020, they have not had a single killer app that absolutely made consumers buy their consoles (as I've said in other threads: Halo and Starfield did not have that X factor and Redfall was abysmal) They have no edge over Sony or Nintendo, and unless they can better manage their studios and get some incredible games released sooner than later, this ship will probably sink.

I don't want Xbox to fail and I sincerely hope that they don't. Ultimately, I want to see the rivalry between MS and Sony ramp up because that's what will continue to drive innovation, competitive pricing, higher quality games, and more variety. In theory, anyway.

I just want more good games across the industry and for companies to be pushing each other to be competing on quality first and foremost. That is what ultimately gets us better products.

How we get there and whether or not there might be some casualties along the way is not my concern.

 

[mayham2199]

No. Microsoft wants you in their ecosystem. The battle they have coming is not against SONY, it’s a much larger one against Apple. Keeping the consumer on Windows, that’s it. Apple is coming.

Until Macs start working in the business environment I don’t ever see them really breaking through.

 

[SkylineRKR]

I won't worry about a monopoly position too much. Its not like PS2 suffered from awful games just when Sega threw the towel and way before Nintendo and MS showed up, which didn't make a dent anyway. People don't buy games if they're shit, even if there is no other system around. The likes of Insomniac, ND etc won't stop creating games if there isn't an Xbox around.

No. Microsoft wants you in their ecosystem. The battle they have coming is not against SONY, it’s a much larger one against Apple. Keeping the consumer on Windows, that’s it. Apple is coming.

Which they can also accomplish by doubling down on PC and other devices GP can be accessed on. They can require MS accounts for CoD on Playstation (which isn't strange in this day and age), etc.

I doubt a Series X will do that much to keep people on Windows anyway. They sell it at a (near) loss to begin with.

 

[onQ123]

Simple way for Microsoft to fix this.

Reduce the price of the X to £299 and the S to £150.

Bundle in 12 months of Gamepass with every console sale.

Watch those consoles fly off the shelves.

They were already losing up to $200 on Xbox consoles & you're asking them to lose even more & give away 12 months of Gamepass which means the devs would be working for free all for a small boost in sales?


They tried the fire sales with the Xbox One X , One S & even Series S already

Xbox as a console brand seems to be really dying lately can Scarlett change that or will it be a short lived project?

There was more hype around Xbox Scorpio than there is around Scarlett , Xbox One X started off with a nice push from Microsoft but it seems like they quickly gave up on it you can get a Xbox One X for $402 right now but no one seems to care that it's $97 off . You can get the Xbox One S A.D for...

www.neogaf.com

Get an Xbox Series S for 149.99! (Verizon required)

Hell of a deal...

www.neogaf.com

 

[64bitmodels]

There are 130 million Steam users + ~65 million Xbox users, so a total of 195 million users even if we ignore duplicates.

And there are ~130 million PlayStation users + ~130 million Nintendo users. A total of 260 million users.

That's a bit dishonest. You were comparing percentages of people with GPUs stronger than the PS5 to actual PS5 owners, then proceed to lump in both PS5 and PS4 sales in the count for Playstation*. While many gaming PCs haven't surpassed PS5 in terms of raw power, most gaming PCs on the market today dwarf PS4 in terms of power. Not only that but you also put in Nintendo too which is funny because their platform is the weakest of all. You can literally argue that 1.4 billion people bought a PC for gaming in that case, if being stronger than Switch is the line.


*which are also still inaccurate as there's quite a bit more than 130 million Playstation users, unless you're implying the PS5's only sold 10 or 20 million consoles...

 

[Lysandros]

What you want, is an install base. you want to become the leading platform on every third-party game. MS already has the most powerful box (technically), what the lack is the draw. We are not talking about money they have not spent. So the question is simple, what do you think grows gamepass faster, buying publishers, or buying a userbase?

Technically? It's much more an opinion and in this sense i can respect yours, why not. Still, don't you think Microsoft needed to be more confident in its marketing at the time instead of quickly retracting this statement if this was an undebatable and objective truth? We may aswell declare PS5 'technically the most powerful box' if we want to play GPU metric favoritism since the base argument is exactly the same and as strong. Not that all those matter much in context of sales we are discussing.

 

[Heisenberg007]

That's a bit dishonest. You were comparing percentages of people with GPUs stronger than the PS5 to actual PS5 owners, then proceed to lump in both PS5 and PS4 sales in the count for Playstation*. While many gaming PCs haven't surpassed PS5 in terms of raw power, most gaming PCs on the market today dwarf PS4 in terms of power. Not only that but you also put in Nintendo too which is funny because their platform is the weakest of all. You can literally argue that 1.4 billion people bought a PC for gaming in that case, if being stronger than Switch is the line.


*which are also still inaccurate as there's quite a bit more than 130 million Playstation users, unless you're implying the PS5's only sold 10 or 20 million consoles...

Because that was the original argument. The conversation got sidetracked into GPU sales by the other guy.

The original comment (by him) was that "more people purchase PCs + Xbox to play games than PlayStation + Nintendo." And that's not true because of the numbers I posted above. Nintendo was a part of the original argument, so of course it was gonna be included. Same is the case with PS4s.

 

[Alan Wake]

Naaa this is not true. Not true at all. you have to look at the big picture here. the really big picture.

What you want, is an install base. you want to become the leading platform on every third-party game. MS already has the most powerful box (technically), what the lack is the draw. We are not talking about money they have not spent. So the question is simple, what do you think grows gamepass faster, buying publishers, or buying a userbase?

My strategy would mean, that they use $35B of that $75B o subsidize 90M XSX consoles to $100. If they can also make those 90M consoles in two ears, it would mean that in two years they would literally have an intsall base of 90M. I did wager there is a higher chance those 90M people then go onto sub for gamepass. And mind you, they still have $35B+ left, I did use that to secure every possible major third party release, to (1) make sure its on Xbox and then (2) make sure it's on gamepass 6 months after its retail release.

think about it, you could play Elden ring, FF16, COD, Starfeild, SF6, RE....etc, alll for etnry fee of $100+ game price. I reckon MS makes that $75B investment back before the gen is over after 7-8 years. But most importantly, they would have bought an install base.

let's not kid ourselves, how they have chosen to spend that $75B would not do anything for Xbox, this, however, would.

This is simply not how you run a business. What you're suggesting doesn't even look good on paper. You don't buy an install base, you attract an install base and try to keep them by offering games and services long term. For reference, Microsoft's been subsidizing and making huge losses on hardware for over 20 years. And even if they did what you suggest, it's no guarantee they "win". Game Pass is undoubtedly the best offer in gaming today but they're still struggling to grow. There are still lots and lots of people who either don't know about Game Pass or just don't see the need.

I believe Spencer was right when he said they lost the worst generation they could lose: the previous one. That's when console gamers started building their digital libraries for real, and when you do you're less inclined to switch from PlayStation to Xbox or vice versa. That doesn't mean Xbox is f*cked, but they certainly have an uphill battle from now on, no matter the cost of hardware or which games launching on Game Pass day one.

 

[Elysium44]

They also shut down the old GFWL marketplace on PC 10 years ago and people with purchased games lost access to them.

Actually just remembered another thing Microsoft did in recent years, made it harder to access your purchased 360 library as well. I have an Xbox 360 console as well as a Series S. For a few years now the Microsoft website no longer shows you what your Xbox 360 owned games are, there is nowhere to access that information. The only place is on your Xbox 360 console, by laboriously scrolling through your download / purchase history and downloading it from there. Also half of the game cover thumbnails no longer download and display any more for installed games. It doesn't make me feel valued as a customer, nor give me confidence to invest time and money into the Xbox platform when I can see they are quick to pull the rug out.

Ironically I suppose, this acted as a perverse incentive for me to get a Series S because at least it is a lot easier to access my 360 games on there, albeit only the backwards compatible ones.

 

[StereoVsn]

Maybe Microsoft needs to buy their own consoles to boost the numbers. 300$ x 100,000,000 = 30,000,000,000. Only 30 billion to brag about 100 million consoles sold, not that much honestly.

Just think for the price of Bethesda plus Activision, MS could have “sold” 300 million consoles! Phil would have won the console wars and it would have been a truly career defining moment.

 

[StereoVsn]

Actually just remembered another thing Microsoft did in recent years, made it harder to access your purchased 360 library as well. I have an Xbox 360 console as well as a Series S. For a few years now the Microsoft website no longer shows you what your Xbox 360 owned games are, there is nowhere to access that information. The only place is on your Xbox 360 console, by laboriously scrolling through your download / purchase history and downloading it from there. Also half of the game cover thumbnails no longer download and display any more for installed games. It doesn't make me feel valued as a customer, nor give me confidence to invest time and money into the Xbox platform when I can see they are quick to pull the rug out.

Ironically I suppose, this acted as a perverse incentive for me to get a Series S because at least it is a lot easier to access my 360 games on there, albeit only the backwards compatible ones.

Sony did the same stupid thing for PS3, Vita and PS Classics games that aren’t on PS4/PS5. It’s beyond annoying.

I grabbed a list before the old store went belly up with some chrome add-in, but that shouldn’t have happened in the first place.

 

[diffusionx]

I've been saying this for a year now at least but I see few reasons why MS, a software company, should focus on a hardware brand that is increasingly becoming irrelevant. The thing about software is that it can run on many types of hardware. If Sony is outselling Microsoft by 4:1 or 12:1 (like in France) then they're just sacrificing what they're good at to prop up what they are not good at. It doesn't make any sense. If they could port their games onto PlayStation and sell games there and even set up GamePass as a service for their games (as EA Play does on PS) and it comes at the cost of the Xbox hardware they should do that.

 

[Pipescl]

Welp, starfield didn’t get momentum everyone expected so…

 

[Alan Wake]

Welp, starfield didn’t get momentum everyone expected so…

I mean, it wasn't even lack of momentum. It was just.... nothing. It didn't even move the needle one bit, which is surprising to me, even though I had limited expectations.

 

[Alan Wake]

The Kinect has become a laughing stock, but we have to remember how successful it was and how Xbox for the first time became a mass market product that everyone talked about. Fast forward to today.

 

[Sw0pDiller]

Welp, starfield didn’t get momentum everyone expected so…

Most of the loyal Xbox gamers allready bought a series x to replace the pain that Xbox one brought. Starfield could not reach the causale because of the bad reception and because its not a game for everybody. Just like Forza. They might be good games but they are not halo or Spider-Man system seller names and ms killed the Halo franchise themselves. Only a cheap series s VS expensive ps5 can save them.

 

[Astray]

I mean, it wasn't even lack of momentum. It was just.... nothing. It didn't even move the needle one bit, which is surprising to me, even though I had limited expectations.

Phil himself didn't expect Starfield to move the needle even if it was an 11/10 game (which kinda came across like he wasn't expecting it to be, classic fox-and-sour-grapes situation imo).

Sometimes, I get the sense that the general masses are waiting for Xbox to die as a brand and get Halo on like, their Nintendo Switch 2 or PS6 or whatever.

Nothing else explains this level of apathy to the Series consoles, which while kinda unattractive from an exclusive software offerings POV, are not bad machines at all imo, we're not talking about another Xbone situation here, where the entire offering is just terrible and completely rejected by the consumer (always on Kinect + aggressive DRM).

 

[Heisenberg007]

The Kinect has become a laughing stock, but we have to remember how successful it was and how Xbox for the first time became a mass market product that everyone talked about. Fast forward to today.

I actually bought the Kinect with my 360, and I actually enjoyed it.

For me, it was at least when Xbox tried something new and fresh. And I appreciated it. The same way I appreciate when Sony does things with PS VR 2.

Nowadays, Xbox is so much on the wrong path that I wouldn't even mind if they quit gaming.

 

[onQ123]

The Kinect has become a laughing stock, but we have to remember how successful it was and how Xbox for the first time became a mass market product that everyone talked about. Fast forward to today.

Yes Kinect gave Xbox 360 a second life it would have fallen way behind PS3 in the last half of that generation if it wasn't for the boost that Kinect gave it.

But haters ignore that Kinect was good for Xbox

 

[Panajev2001a]

Actually just remembered another thing Microsoft did in recent years, made it harder to access your purchased 360 library as well. I have an Xbox 360 console as well as a Series S. For a few years now the Microsoft website no longer shows you what your Xbox 360 owned games are, there is nowhere to access that information. The only place is on your Xbox 360 console, by laboriously scrolling through your download / purchase history and downloading it from there. Also half of the game cover thumbnails no longer download and display any more for installed games. It doesn't make me feel valued as a customer, nor give me confidence to invest time and money into the Xbox platform when I can see they are quick to pull the rug out.

Ironically I suppose, this acted as a perverse incentive for me to get a Series S because at least it is a lot easier to access my 360 games on there, albeit only the backwards compatible ones.

Attracted because of the value of BC while the console tries to push new content for you to buy / engage with instead of spending time with your back catalogue. Genius .

 

[Woopah]

I mean, it wasn't even lack of momentum. It was just.... nothing. It didn't even move the needle one bit, which is surprising to me, even though I had limited expectations.

If we compare how Xbox Series did in September vs. other months, I'd say Starfield did have some effect (just not as much as in the US).

 

[Topher]

Yes Kinect gave Xbox 360 a second life it would have fallen way behind PS3 in the last half of that generation if it wasn't for the boost that Kinect gave it.

But haters ignore that Kinect was good for Xbox

It was good for 360 while the motion control fad was a thing. But Kinect damn near killed Xbox One.

 

[onQ123]

It was good for 360 while the motion control fad was a thing. But Kinect damn near killed Xbox One.

No it didn't Xbox One actually had a good start & sold really good in the beginning PS4 just sold better.

Xbox Series S with Kinect would be selling like 3x better than it is right now.

 

[ByWatterson]

I keep saying this, and maybe people are starting to listen:

Gamepass is a good price, but it is NOT a good value. The audience for Gamepass is core gamers who, presumably, also buy and spend lots of time playing big new titles. Therefore, almost no one who is likely to use Gamepass actually has the time to get their money's worth.

It's just a $200/year expenditure to probably play about two AAA oldies and a handful of indies. And the late date at which AAA becomes available means it's probably discounted several times before it's "free" in Gamepass.

And yes, your average Gamepass player is smart enough to figure all this out.

It's a dead end. I'm like 86% confident of that at this point.

 

[LordCBH]

No matter how bad Xbox console sales are... somehow Sony will always be doomed.

PlayStation: rakes in tons of money and breaks records what feels like every quarter.
Retards on X: “Hurr durr theyre going bankrupt!”

 

[Topher]

No it didn't Xbox One actually had a good start & sold really good in the beginning PS4 just sold better.

Xbox Series S with Kinect would be selling like 3x better than it is right now.

Nah.....that $500 price soon stagnated sales and Phil Spencer was forced to yank Kinect from Xbox One. Wisest thing he ever did. Xbox would not exist as a console if Phil Spencer had stuck with Mattrick's Kinect strategy.

 

[Alan Wake]

If we compare how Xbox Series did in September vs. other months, I'd say Starfield did have some effect (just not as much as in the US).

It moved some Game Pass subscriptions for sure, but apparently not enough for Microsoft to announce exactly how many. It didn't boost sales of the Series X/S.

 

[IDKFA]

They were already losing up to $200 on Xbox consoles & you're asking them to lose even more & give away 12 months of Gamepass which means the devs would be working for free all for a small boost in sales?


They tried the fire sales with the Xbox One X , One S & even Series S already

Xbox as a console brand seems to be really dying lately can Scarlett change that or will it be a short lived project?

There was more hype around Xbox Scorpio than there is around Scarlett , Xbox One X started off with a nice push from Microsoft but it seems like they quickly gave up on it you can get a Xbox One X for $402 right now but no one seems to care that it's $97 off . You can get the Xbox One S A.D for...

www.neogaf.com

Get an Xbox Series S for 149.99! (Verizon required)

Hell of a deal...

www.neogaf.com

You can already pick up an S with 3 months of GP included. What's another 6 months to a company like Microsoft that has some of the deepest pockets on earth? Sure, they'll lose money in the short term, but in the long term........

 

[Three]

You guys may think he was off his rocker, but I actually agree with him.

For me, its about the investment and how they choose to go about it. Between Bethesda and Activision, MS has spent $75B. So the question is, what's a better way to have spent that $75B?

• subsidize XSX price b $400 effectively selling them for $100. With a 3-month free gamepass bonus. a $75B can cover 187M such consoles. But you only need to do it for half that, so for 90M consoles.
• still have $37B left. Now, rather than buy Bethesda, or activision, just pay them 500M for a specific game to be on gamepass after like 6 months. this means you also stop day one gamepass, but rather adopt a system where games will all end up on gamepass after 3-6 months.
• And use the remaining $33B to make sure every major third-party release, for the generation, comes to Xbox and ultimately gamepass.

I feel if they did that, right now, Xbox would be the best-selling console on the market. Everyone would buy an XSX by default being it cost only $100. and would have been $75B better spent than the nonsense they have currently done.

We can't say, they don't have the money, they obviously did.

I don't think it's legal to do this. Having said that they have already been doing something similar with All Access since it is legal to pay in installments.

 

[Alan Wake]

I keep saying this, and maybe people are starting to listen:

Gamepass is a good price, but it is NOT a good value. The audience for Gamepass is core gamers who, presumably, also buy and spend lots of time playing big new titles. Therefore, almost no one who is likely to use Gamepass actually has the time to get their money's worth.

It's just a $200/year expenditure to probably play about two AAA oldies and a handful of indies. And the late date at which AAA becomes available means it's probably discounted several times before it's "free" in Gamepass.

And yes, your average Gamepass player is smart enough to figure all this out.

It's a dead end. I'm like 86% confident of that at this point.

I would love to see some consumer research on this. I mean, how many just let their streaming services tick along month after month despite not using them as regular as before? I believe this is what the distributor is counting on. Once you're in, you rarely leave.