They’ll have to do something with PC game pass as well. Audible has a thing where you get one credit a month to purchase any book if you’re a member. I don’t have audible but that always sounded like a truly dope perk. Of course that still sounds like something you’d give only to the higher if not highest game pass tier.
Outright replacing paid online will probably be difficult because it is kinda the perfect manufactured baseline perk. It’s something that’s “needed” for a lot of online experiences still (even with the takeover of free to play) and that feels cheap enough that it can be added onto all tiers as justification for their price without you thinking about how much it is actually valued. I think the best would be just that enough people praise the decision to remove the pay wall that no one notices that they’re still paying as much for GP as they did when there was a pay wall that they paid for. And it does feel like people are getting more and more used to their subscriptions. Since they’ve changed it to all game pass tiers maybe people don’t even think about gold/paying for online anymore. Heck, maybe that’s the goal and they’ve already replaced it with cloud gaming access since every tier including the lowest let’s you play your library of games on the cloud.
Wasnt she the one who brought our 360 avatars back to the modern UI? I remember a couple years ago after some tweets of her that my OG Banjo avatar did resurface.
Xbox’s marketing has the challenge they have always had of just dealing with this industry and console gamers. The reality shows in the numbers, but no one really wants to accept that which has just bled the entire industry more and more. Despite hardware improving, games getting better, and there being more games than ever each console peaked multiple generations ago. New gamers aren’t buying consoles. One could argue that the entire market has flatlined. Existing gamers are stable and spending more money than ever, but that’s also hemorrhaging platforms because gamers are spending more time in forever games making console upgrades less valuable to them and making it harder for individual games to succeed. In some ways gamers should recognize that the Xbox Series Consoles (despite everything they’ve complained about branding wise) haven’t failed like the Nintendo Switch as a concern. None of the things people consider “ways consoles compete” seem to really matter anymore. Each platform hardware wise is doing “about as well as they always have.”
I truly don’t think exclusives matter and people need to move on from that. But they won’t, so maybe throwing them a bone with exclusives will shut them up so they stop attacking Xbox’s attempts to grow. I don’t know. What Sony and Nintendo are doing is concerning though. All we’re seeing at this point is them squeezing as much “value” out of existing users as possible. The console market is no longer creating value for consumers, but instead just squeezing more and more out of consumers. We have long since hit a point where the increasing costs in the industry far outpaces the growth in users of each platform, and it really shows. I hope Xbox really really actually succeeds in properly growing their platform with new users, because the industry itself needs it. I don’t care if that’s the OEM plan, exclusives & other things to please brand loyalists, cloud gaming, first party hardware/Helix itself, or whatever.
Xbox’s hardware team is probably nearly done with their work, but Xbox’s marketing teams have like waves of annihilation to face to still. It’s also difficult when their direct console competitors are pushing against really and hankering down because that’s all they really know how to do. Then you have all the gamers and journalists pushing that narrative and then that becomes public perception. It’s crazy because any other industry would probably consider consoles a joke by hardware sales alone. These are closed ecosystems unlike Windows, so it’s the only way each company can make money off of users. Less than 200 million in 7 to 8 years…. isn’t fantastic, and I don’t think the PS5 is surpassing the PS4 120million even; there’s no way the Switch 2 will surpass the Switch 1 sales. These aren’t bad numbers, but becomes a problem when the entirety of monthly active users Nintendo and PlayStation can make money off of are tied to these numbers. iPhone sales aren’t an entirely fair comparison, but they are a really good example of an incredibly successful closed ecosystem consumer hardware product. Unlike Google, Apple doesn’t license out iOS so it’s only their first party hardware. And yeah these are smartphones with more general purpose use but the disparity in sales and users is so immense. Apple also gets a similar 30% commission off software sales on the platform, and at this point I don’t really think it costs that much less to make an iPhone than it does a PS5 (or at least will a PS6). Yet Apple sales as many iPhones in a year as consoles do in their lifetime at peak. Again, not an entirely fair comparison but I’m not sure business financials care about “fair”. Especially when even as gaming devices more general purpose hardware like smartphones and PC are showing growth and have far more users than consoles. It becomes a question of, “What IS the point of a console?” and the industry increasingly answers that it isn’t exclusives but existing narratives push back against that. I also do bring up iPhone because Apple has done that stint of proving their mobile hardware can support ports of older AAA games and they are also pushing mobile gaming more with their subscription.
We do know that last Gen will be increasingly sticky and the numbers will grow through that, but that’s also just not enough growth for how much it costs to make the hardware and develop games these days. I think exclusives work to an extent, but with very very limited impact and that impact even keeps shrinking. If the mindset around gaming doesn’t change then it feels like the writing will be on the wall for consoles themselves. They won’t go away anytime soon, but there’s not a future if they can’t escape a narrative that hasn’t been true for over a decade now. Lots a lot of doom and gloom from. I do hope the industry and console market turns around, but honestly I will also sit happy with my Xbox Helix if it just serves as a way to future proof my library because gaming is actually growing on PC.
I tell you what, if Klobrille wants all the warm and fuzzies of supporting a platform that pays for others to lose access to games, then go for it. Those platforms exist.
The plan as it was invisioned, mostly, since Sarah pushed the latter 3 more. This image just screams they’re going all in on their Xbox Everywhere plans, just not using the marketing.
Xbox genuinely has a great vision their and that image is truly immaculate to me. I hope they nail the execution, and I hope the industry responds well to it.
One thing I’m wondering is if they update the Series Consoles to run the new OS, as a way to bring everyone forward. While offering the next step in their hardware for people that want more.
I guess only time will tell. They did support the Xbox One OS with most of the software level feature improvements Xbox has gotten (IIRC), but this would be a much more drastic change. Maybe the only support Xbox Series consoles get will be through Xbox Play Anywhere games.
It’s fun to think about what plans Microsoft has for their current user base. We have speculated from how things are currently that crossgen is just going to be longer for Xbox, PlayStation and Switch, specially because Switch 2 support, but also Steam Deck and other PC handhelds.
Further thought into this, maybe it could be a more locked down version (no full pc access) of whatever gaming mode Microsoft creates. With future optimizations being profiles that Microsoft creates for the Series Consoles(and other devices), lowering one of the hurdles for developing a game for multiple devices.
Game development wise it’s definitely possible. The question would be if the game architecture is different but we already know that Xbox and PC games shouldn’t be “that” different in theory at this point. If I were Xbox I’d just make it easy for everyone FORCE Xbox Play Anywhere at least for the first 3 years. They might not even have to force it. I think developers would want to have a last gen version and Xbox Play Anywhere would already make it super simple for them to do that.
As others have speculated I don’t think Microsoft will be able to (and they clearly don’t want to) subsidize the consoles anymore, so there might be major pricing concerns if they opened up the series platform like Helix would be and brought PC storefronts to it. Consoles already aren’t that different from PCs and Xbox especially exists off a fork of windows (AFAIK), but I imagine the Series consoles are just going to have been designed differently from project Helix. Not just in like hardware, but how they planned to make money off them. Like there’s also questions of what the commission will be on project Helix, will it be the 30% on Xbox Console or 12% on Xbox PC? Will there be free multiplayer when Helix launches? If they bring the Helix OS features to Series consoles then they’d also have to deal with those questions and deal with revenue on the Series consoles.
Also anyone remember when this generation started and one of the complaints was that the new Xbox consoles didn’t feel different enough? Maybe Xbox is responds to that “criticism” and purposefully tries to make next gen feel more different and like there’s a “meaninfful” upgrade. I do also think that games just not being as “night and day” per generation anymore there is cause to keep next gen feeling like an evolution in other ways (in this case the evolved ecosystem and being able to play Xbox & PC games).
