I don’t care about PS outselling Xbox & that’s not the point I’m making. I’m just looking to counter how, for some people, consoles are old news & in a massive sales decline
I also don’t agree with you over SONY or Nintendo being better manufacturers & fully support Xbox move not to make a Pro model. I just feel XBox should have produced more Series consoles & done better promotions & special deals, but that’s my take on it.
The issue there is Xbox isn’t making the kind of games that the youth of today are interested in other than Mindcraft, its TikTok & simple mobile phone fluff, or do you really think the non-gamer kids of today, have any interest in AAA games like Forza 5, Fable, Gears E-Day
That’s not me trying to be funny or clever just I don’t see casuals going for the type of games PlayStation or Xbox look to offer (yes I know Xbox got KING) For me the focus should be on the core gamer, both young & old alike, They are the ones who will pay £70 to play Gear’s E-day not the Tiktok generation & there’s still enough kids out there who are core gamers
I like what Xbox has offered & done this gen for the most part, but the last 2 years were a disappointment & put that down to the Activsions deal being far harder & more complex than even Microsoft expected.
I also feel COVID set both Sony & Xbox expections far too high with the thinking that even after lockdowns people would contuine to play the numbers of hours & spend like they did when locked in house. I think both Sony & Xbox went too far on spending billions on buying new studios & expanding, with the thinking that COVID gaming would be, the new norm
Hopefully we’ll have no such issues next gen with the Next Box, which I’m so looking forward too
That’s very difficult to tackle because younger generation gaming experience is vastly different. I think the average gamer seem to fall into early Gen Z to millennials , and those games still appeals to that demo. So, it’s very difficult to see which games take off
I think helix value proposition could entice many markets . Pc gaming is seeing the largest growth. Many of the streamers the younger demographic watches seem to play on pc. Project helix could provide a device that is attractive to younger demographic looking to get into pc gaming or console gamers making the transition . The key for Microsoft will be marketing. I see the potential of a pc hybrid but can Microsoft market this product to disrupt pc market?
I never said Xbox or any console was in a sharp decline or “old news”. The console market IS very stable, but it also hasn’t been growing for a very very long time now. The Xbox console core is important but growth will have to come from elsewhere, and they also aren’t leaving in droves. In this reality exclusives don’t have a strong functional role in saving or killing the business. But they can still play a part in the brand prestige and pleasing vocal gamers who care online.
I mean it’s not really opinion. Microsoft’s strong suit isn’t manufacturing, production, and product distribution. Neither is Xbox. That’s just going to be a shortcoming. For example, Sony was able to hold on its pricing and offer deals during the tail end of last year because they had product to sell. Xbox couldn’t because they didn’t, and producing new product would’ve cost Microsoft too much. Price is also going to be an issue of supply and demand. With Microsoft’s financial mandates and current economic conditions and Xbox’s lack of hardware on hand, they couldn’t do much.
Xbox is pretty sold in that degree actually. They figured out live service and having games for “modern” games mid Xbox one generation. Sea of Thieves and Forza Horizon are incredibly popular. They also own Minecraft and COD which are two of the biggest games period. In terms of gaming revenue Xbox is now one of the most lucrative publishers out there. As a platform they’ve also done a great job pulling in the highly popular “mobile” games that have cracked the younger audiences like Genshin and Wuthering Waves and evm Fortnite (all these games have GP benefits and Fortnite Crew is even in Ultimate now).
To only mention the big tentpoles of Halo, Forza, Fable, and Gears is myopic of what Microsoft offers. Along with what you mentioned, they also seem to be doing well with Grounded 2 and have Minecraft Dungeons 2.
Xbox has gotten a really great mix of games for their pipeline and Xbox Game Studios especially has been great letting studios pursue new IP! They’ve got their popular live service, pillar franchises, and frequently do creative games and new IP. I’m really happy with where they’ve gotten to as a publisher.
I certainly think that Xbox does have a good deal of games for casuals and today’s youth. They have grounded Sea of thieves, Forza, the upcoming KILN and I think some of their games like Halo could work in there as well. The problem is they really don’t have a mobile presence due to not being able to have their store on mobile. I think just like COD had a mobile counterpart Xbox could have some of their games have one as well. Their games like marvel snap that’s huge on mobile which a lot of Xbox games could replicate.
I’d say the issue is knowing how to adapt an IP for mobile. In that way an Ip should be adapted differently to suit the platforms they appear on; this I believe was something that publishers and developers did in the Nintendo and Sega days.
GTA, COD, NBA, FIFA and some sports games are games that the casuals go for. Though these kinds of games are for the majority both casual and hardcore.
There’s Age of Empires Mobile (assuming you’re talking about XGS specifically and not like candy crush). They’re probably exploring doing more like that. But I think they had really hoped that they could do their own mobile store and judges would open up Apple and Google.
As always, there is always a profit motive with corporations, but I will take it.
They are going to have to do a handheld that has communication capabilities. They need something of their own that can mirror their goals.
Any PC handheld has communication capabilites - you can use Teams, WhatsApp Web and Discord on them for example.
Phone calls aren’t really needed to appeal to younger generations - most of the ones in my family I don’t think have ever used the call functions (and to be honest I’m the same as I like a heads up what a call is about first unless it’s very close family and friends)
I get that but the communication capabilities to me need to be more intuitive. On the Xbox for example the store is very prominent not so on windows where you could end up missing them.
Now that you mention it, I think an Xbox handheld would do well and be a hot commodity.
I don’t want to come across as a killjoy, but most of those games don’t work well on a mobile phone for touch sceen & require complex button controls rather than touch screen
My nephew is a FIFA nut, but he & his group of friends like realism & player likeness Ect which is why he still games on a console/PC rather than mobile for COD/FIFA & GTA is going to have issues running on a console, never mind a mobile & to play FIFA well needs complex button control which a touch screen simply can’t replicate. While I know you can use a pad with your mobile or buy attachments, you aren’t going to see many non-gamer people, carry that around with them day to day IMO
The type of games that Sony & Xbox are spending big on are not the type of games that are going to get the non-gamer phone users into games. I feel its better if Xbox & Sony look after the core gamer above all else, but of course make some games for the mobile sector, which I feel most gaming corps do anyway.
I do agree with you over a lack of store presence on mobile, but MS dropped the ball big time in the mobile sector by letting WinCE lose out to Android, this when MS (with WinCE) had like over 40% of the mobile OS all to itself, much the same happened with MSN when you look back, now with how many people use Messenger from Meta today
Oh I get you, sorry. I think the console sector is doing very well all the more amazing given COVID & well all the other forums of entertainment & the widespread explosion of fast internet & Wi-Fi . It just sad that the high price of consoles 6 years after their launch is holding back any growth. When in times gone past, they’ll be price cuts to get consoles sales following along
I take your vaid point about production, but SONY a long way from the days when it joined with Toshiba to manufacturer & pump out its PS chipsets & did a lot of production in-house. Now a ton of it is outsourced to China
I feel (could be wrong) that the deal with Activision was so big in terms of its price that Xbox had to show profitability in its all its divisions & that ment an end to subsidising Xbox consoles & no black friday deals Ect, etc
That looked great on paper & or on spreadsheets in practice it killed Xbox sales & hurt the bottom line & came back to bite Xbox on the bum. Sometimes you need to do deals to entice people & get them spending on your product & spark life back into it
Hopefully, with fab games coming, more consoles in production our new boss will do some deals & Xbox won’t mess up this year’s Black Friday 
We don’t know what’s going on internally at Microsoft and what Microsoft’s financial targets are for Xbox at every level. We also don’t know why Microsoft makes the financial decisions they make. There’s likely multiple factors going into every decision. The Activision purchase probably did influence Microsoft’s oversight of Xbox and there is the rumored 30% margins (but that rumor also comes with additional rumors that Xbox was already close to that and rumors that it’s not in place for everything or is in place for everything or who knows because we aren’t flys on the walls inside Microsoft). However, Xbox was also the last holdout subsidizing hardware and they had already started to break that hold and raise prices along with the market and economic condition. At launch the Series S was sold at a pretty noticeable loss and the Series X was more powerfully built than the PS5 and cost more to make. Sony had always designed the PS5 to be sold at cost. Nintendo had really figured out how to make a profit on their hardware. Part of the reason why may very well be that the console market isn’t growing. If everyone’s just upgrades and zoomers and gen alpha aren’t buying consoles as new gamers, then why bother with subsidized hardware? As the core console base ages, they also (generally) become more affluent and that’s in addition to the lower worry of them switching platforms.
Nothing that’s happening is just Xbox, so it feels illogical to place blame solely on the ABK purchase. Not sure what you mean by “good on paper” when it has led to Microsoft’s Gaming Revenue jumping a massive amount and they’ve even managed to maintain steady consistent growth after that. I think it’d be more prudent to say that we as consumers felt closer to and benefited more from a smaller Xbox. For profit businesses aren’t altruistic. Everything people love Xbox for today, they only did because they were in third place and desperately needed to gain ground somehow. The mid Xbox One gen was easily the best for Xbox gamers in terms of customer value and consumer friendly practices. Microsoft Rewards used to go stupid. Now Xbox has skyrocketed to a much more financially mature place. Their gaming revenue is much closer to PlayStation and Tencent. That’s going to affect how they choose to treat customers.
I own up mate, I don’t know , I don’t work in the industry or know anyone who works in the game industry, either. I’m just going on what I feel as someone who been gaming since 78, importing video games since 89 & who fell in love with Xbox in 2001 & who still loves gaming just as much today as in 2001.
That Activision deal was bigger than anything we’ve seen before & it changed even the way Xbox looked to add on the games to Game Pass from any corp it bought , there’s now even talk that the next Call Of Duty won’t be Day One (which for me makes sense should we have a price cut to Gamepass)
I think Xbox went too hard to get everything making a profit with the Activision deal & that really cost Xbox sales. You’re a clever chap you would know & could see Series consoles sales were relativity healthily before the Activision buyout, something happened over the last couple of years
If not for the last couple of years, things were going well for sales. Hoping our new boss can get some sales & momentum back for Xbox. Please don’t read that’s me thinking Xbox is doing a SNK, Atari, 3DO or SEGA. Just things really need to be better than last year, at least
Vibes aren’t any sort of financial data though, and there’s a lot of reasons that could go into why console sales are what they are. If we’re pointing to pricing, well Nintendo and Sony didn’t buy Activision and they raised prices just the same as Xbox.
Xbox is making more money now than ever. Far more. The OG Xbox in 2001 you fell in love with is a good example because it was unprofitable as hell. The thing lost a lot of money. But the decisions they made at the cost of profitability brought people on board and made customers very very happy. However, it’s still an unsustainable business, and it’s genuinely a miracle Xbox continued past that. As far as we know that’s only because Microsoft didn’t want “Japan” (Japanese companies (Nintendo and Sony)) to take over the living room. The 360 similarly benefited from very aggressive tactics. However, now Xbox is more financially healthy and bringing in more revenue than ever, so it doesn’t really need to use those aggressive tactics anymore and the business doesn’t tolerate losses as much because there’s no reason for them.
When the purchase happened, Phil Spencer just sad ABK aligned with their long term vision and would accelerate their plans. That’s what it did. The thing is that bigger companies that make more money and have more customers, just have less reason to be an aggressive underdog. From a business perspective the Activision purchase was the best thing ever. However, we as consumers don’t necessarily want or benefit from business success.
I get that, but SONY heled off price rises & even gave a price cut while Xbox was increasing the price of Series consoles. One could say Sony felt it could increase the price of its consoles now due to little competition from Xbox?
I know consoles cost a lot of money to make & I don’t expect Xbox to give everyone a free breakfast. Sometimes you need to do deals to generate sales, last year was bad in terms of sales & also seeing an increase in the price of Gamepass.
I don’t want to talk down the Activision buyout, becasue no doubt it’s great for the shareholders & director’s, but for me as a Xbox console fan, it wasn’t the best deal made & would have rathered saw Xbox go for Ubisoft
I also felt it was a mistake by Xbox not to bring out the Brooklin Xbox. That looked nice & maybe the new design might have helped with price deals & felt it was poor that the new Series consoles (6nm process) didn’t offer Wi-Fi 6E like Brooklin
I just more hopeful with the new boss than the last & she’ll be more savvy
I recall saying the following.
I said the above because the games as they are might not work well which is why they need to be adapted to the different platforms. Mobile is a different platform and there are games on console that have been adapted or modified to work well on them. Games used to be 2d before and took a while to get good in the 3d space. It was thought that FPS games couldn’t work on consoles without a mouse until Bungie figured it out. I think in time some of the controls will be ironed out. Jez was even talking about a Netflix download that made your phone a controller.