So how did one Twxtter post publish, and the next one didn’t?
I took screenshot unless it’s too long.
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On a very long list of things I dont care about, what Thomas Mahler thinks about anything is pretty close to the top.
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When I was growing up it was always the “family Xbox “(everything was the family console) in the living room. I couldn’t play anything without supervision or permission. Us all having one gamer tag is how my family monitored what us kids played. This was also years ago and parental controls were less common and less known. So idk how it is for families now. Still yeah, it’s a moderately normal thing. It also doesn’t necessarily matter.
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Most of what he’s saying though is either obvious or glib.
For example, listen to gamers - well duh, but if you only do what they want you’ll stay stuck in a rut, as by our very nature most gamers don’t like change.
And while I agree on ignoring / removing those who wish to just use Xbox to fight culture wars, in reality if you want to “listen to gamers” you’ll unfortunately find many very much love to do it.
Saying only to release exceptional games - great, but even PlayStation who everyone thinks can only release bangers really thought Concord was going to be huge and was awesome enough to buy the studio.
It’s all very easy to say, very difficult to do
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IIRC they talked about how the courts backtracked their rulings which would’ve allowed the mobile store to be doable on ios and android. I don’t think Xbox would want to go the fragmented approach (like only having their mobile store on android or only on ios in the EU) like Epic has. Around that time it looked like the courta in the US would give a ruling that’d open up the iPhone enough for a third party store and payment systems. Then they didn’t. Eventually Microsoft even took cloud gaming out of the apps to include the store and adhere to the Google and Apple rules.
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The answers in that article should put to bed any thoughts that they’re not doing next gen or that it’s changing from the hybrid model.
They’re clearly committed to next gen and they confirm they want the GDK to still allow for build once, Play Anywhere - and committed to the Ally etc as well..
It sounds more they’ll focus on marketing that it is a “console” as in a successor to the Series and easy to use, and maybe emphasise less the PC aspect (except when it suits, to younger players I guess).
Also they said they’ll review the exclusivity strategy to see if it fits their plans, but not to expect any answers there anytime soon, so probably until next gen at least I guess it’ll stay the same…
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I believe her commitment to focus on console, the birth place of fans, is truly needed for next gen, let alone now. As interesting it sounds for next gen, we do need that special feeling again, instead of a new device being made. Not sure if I make sense here.
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Good read. I’m cautiously excited to see a fresh perspective and someone who isn’t shy to talk to journalists. I didn’t expect her to be ready for an interview with Jez, for example, but I liked everything she was quoted saying.
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Sounds like a whole load of PR nothing. I must say though that I’m amazes many welcoming layoffs or studio closures just to get back exclusives.
I will always be of the opinion that “ Project Latitude “ should have been a next gen thing. Multiplatform becomes a much easier pill to swallow when the xbox can play just about everything via Steam, Epic stores etc. Sorry but as someone who primarily plays on xbox, I can’t think of a more boring conversation than what Xbox game is going to PS5 , sorry not sorry. I only give a shit about what Xbox is getting.
I don’t see the exclusive genie being put back in the bottle , we’re past that now. But make sure your already existing customer base aren’t missing out on games. There should be no situation where a game ships on literally everything but Xbox, especially now!
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I think transitions like that are better done in the mid gen not at the start. I think it’s much easier to reverse course and also to learn mid gen than start. If the Xbox one debacle had been at the mid gen i think it would have worked out better. Project latitude being next gen would have been a disaster at the start; Fans need to be prepared or walked through this kind of transition till it makes sense. Today everything is online and people taking selfies and recording their selves has pretty much rendered kinect spying mute.
To me I think what they missed was defining what Xbox was. The This is an Xbox was a good idea but it still left some confused on what exactly an Xbox was especially when the Xbox on PC was different from the console.
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I think it should have happened when play anywhere and cloud were viable alternatives.
If I were to take a stab at trying to turn around console sales, while also setting up studios for success with more day one multi plat releases, I’d look at how to bring more games locked to PC over to Xbox. Start to bridge the divide between PC and Xbox where possible.
Would making more headliners like WoW for Xbox consoles attract some attention?
How about all the thousands of indie games that release on PC that never make it to console, or they make it months or years later? Is there some software magic to make that easy? Think how Palworld hit Xbox first and drove a lot of interest.
What about adding value to the Game Pass Ultimate tier that multiplies the rewards for subscriptions and battle passes for games like WoW, ESO, Overwatch, FO76, FFXIV, Fortnite and others? I know that’s a tricky balancing act not to devalue the in game economies, but there’s got to be a good line to walk there.
I feel like there are more effective differentiators that are about being additive versus subtractive.
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I don’t agree. Hardware exclusivity doesn’t make sense. why not allow everyone to play all games instead of select games? It becomes an arms race and the loser is the consumer. I don’t want to revert back to that.
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exactly my thoughts 
interesting questions would have been: How was the process for choosing a new CEO? What was your pitch and why did you get the job?
Lets see what they talk about at GDC.
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