Have you tried playing FIFA via mobile? Even on the Xbox cloud, the experience isn’t great due to the issue over a controller when playing via a phone
No, I haven’t but I think you’re missing my point. Mobile has its strength and maybe that strength could be used to build mobile versions of games with mobile controls suitable for such.
I have played a few games on Mobile even campaign games that played well. I really think if the Xbox mobile store had succeeded, they might have been able to develop a better touch screen seeing as they were able to come up with the Xbox Rog Ally X redesign for the side controllers. A lot of 2D games work well on mobile. I certainly think they were hoping to have a native kind of Game pass on mobile for less tasking games. In any case I think Xbox could rather use a handheld of their own.
Again, Sony could hold off raising prices because they had product to sell. Even then their strategies didn’t totally hold off. They raised prices in non US regions first and did stuff like lower the internal storage of their consoles. They didn’t take losses to hold off on raising prices in specific markets. Regardless though, Sony STARTED price increases this generation. Xbox followed Sony in doing that. Originally Sony cited inflation, exchange rates, and global market conditions. You could say they felt okay doing this due to little competition, but not just from Xbox. There’s no actual competition in the console market anymore. Nintendo has its niche monopoly and then Xbox and Playstation customers are locked in with digital libraries. There’s no new gamers to fight over, and sales remain stable with most people upgrading. Under this reality the products are “mature” and businesses are choosing to maximize value and “grow” by increasing prices.
That’s what I said. As Xbox customers we benefit more from a smaller “underdog” Xbox that’s further behind in revenue and has to fight tooth and claw just to try and grow a little bit. Not sure what you mean by bringing up Ubisoft. That’d generally lead to the same outcome. Xbox would skyrocket in growth as a gaming business, and customers would feel left behind as a sharp change is instantly noticed in how the business operates.
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The number of button presses needed to play FIFA at a decent level is really quite a lot & well beyond what touch screen controls offer. Lots of games can work well with a touch screen, I agree, but I don’t think the likes of FIFA or COD are those sorts of games especially with how serious a lot of gamers take the multiplayer side of things, with those games
Paying in more in Europe as been a part of gaming for as long as I can remember. I remember even Xbox with the 360 rising the price of the 360 in 2009 using the old exchange issue for us in Pal land
You would also know that one of the reasons sighted to buy Activision was to give Sony some competition only for Xbox to bring games on PlayStation & put the minimal amount of effort to selling Xbox console for the last 2 years & in fact run a campaign that’s pushes other products other than your own console
I think you overplay this locked in digital libraries a little 
. It’s perfectly possible for users to buy & own more than one console at a time & with GamePass, it’s not like one is buying each game for £70 each
I feel Xbox didn’t do enough deals to get people to buy a Xbox as their 2nd console the last couple of years & putting exclusives on your rival console only devalues your brand & Gamepass more Just as a time Xbox was getting some serious big hitters coming out from its studios like Indy or Doom
I bought up Ubisoft becasue that wouldn’t have cost anywhere near 70 Billion dollars ( it would have been more like 10 billion) or gathered as much backlash from fanboys & the social media trolls & also Ubi got a far more diverse line up of games. I felt it was a better fit, but that’s just my view 
There was a time video game controllers only had 2 buttons, and it wasn’t until Xbox 360 did we get the full controller buttons and triggers and then they brought the paddles. Xbox have been quite the masters of controllers.
I understand the current controllers might not be ideal as you explained with FIFA, but my point is the game should be made to fit the controller. I have tried the touch controller for Xbox, and it can be a chore, but I have to think these games weren’t built with those controllers in mind. FPS games used to be built with mouse in mind and were a chore for consoles until Halo. Bungie built the game with the controller in mind and as the target. Ed Fries recently talked on how Bungie worked hard to make it happen and now it is the standard.
Could be timing, but this era is getting very involved with marketing.
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I think it’s clear why Xbox went in that direction. They were compelled or mandated to push their margins, and they were already selling the consoles at a loss. It’s also unfortunate that apple and Google fought them to the max to stop them from getting a Mobile store which could have been huge and might have been an outlet to get those margins and prevent the multiplatform strategy. On the third party they have had numerous deals and it didn’t do much or perhaps they just didn’t capitalize on it.
I think the locked in digital diaries does factor if they are competing with PlayStation because the consoles are too similar but if it is PC or Nintendo, I’d agree with you that the libraries don’t factor much and I think it all comes to differentiation. Most won’t mind buying their libraries on PC again I think because it’s cheaper and opens a new experience that differentiates it from consoles. I see a lot of people on Xbox going to PC and with new PC capabilities like Path tracing many are double dipping.
To me if Xbox wants to sell consoles, they have to differentiate everything they are from the competition. Look at the start of this gen they had no new first party games, but they made do with FPS boost and clarity or resolution boost and gave a lot of old games new life but now every game released looks and plays just as well on competing platform.
They also have to go hard on marketing not just in the United States but everywhere.
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Now this is nice. looks like another Xbox presents.
The Xbox marketing teams have been on fire since 2023 starting with the dev direct & solid since 2024 with the partner preview, and Xbox has shown they’ve known they need better marketing and presence for a while before. Now they’re just doing sidequests. At this rate Xbox is going to be the number #1 brand associated with shows and reveals.
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Look my 1st love gaming system wise was a Spectrum and that was all about 1 button controls. I don’t want to give you a history lesson or try and be clever, but we had full buttons and triggers in the PS1 era even able to click in the twin sticks too. I agree Xbox have made the best controllers since the 360 age mind & that still continues
I get your point, but touch screen controls aren’t for games like Fifa & FPS weren’t a chore to play on consoles & it was Alien Resurrection on the PS1 that was the 1st game to use the Twin sticks we all now love in FPS & its a shame the game gets so little credit for it & the same goes for Sony with its PS1 analogue pad.
I also feel most non gamers aren’t going to game on the Phone for AAA Xbox or Sony games nor matter how good touch screen controls could be.
I agree something did change with the Activision buyout I felt that was at the cost of Xbox consoles but with the moves Xbox is now making it seems good things are coming.
I get the point about people wanting to take their games with them on a new system, but with GamePass that isn’t such a issue it was. You just sub up for as long as you want to & have hundreds of games to play nor matter if you don’t own them
I also agree with you on FPS boost, BC programme all that helps, so does Xbox amazing VRR support or how it adds HDR to older games too & would also love to see Xbox Live Arcade brought back & Xbox doing a deal with Konami, Sega, Tatio to put some of their classic Arcade games on there
100% with you on marketing too. I also think Xbox should look at full sponsorship of Darts & run promotions @ Premier League darts, with Xbox systems at the events too for people to play. Darts is getting massive, more so with the kids & Xbox should look to do more than a tiny logo in Luke’s shirt
Getting ready to be a believer full time.
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Just don’t drop COD or day one and we are good.
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My bad I thought Xbox was the first to have 4 side buttons. I think most would agree it was a chore. It certainly was clunky and didn’t feel good. I played Golden eye which I believe was hailed as one of the best shooters back then. and can’t imagine playing it back then with the Nintendo controller. Even playing it on the series X was somewhat of a chore to me.
Most non gamers that play mobile games indeed might not be interested in the triple A games you imagine but I will say that’s because they are console games and not mobile games which is why they have to be adapted or built for the platform. I have played Sonic on Mobile, and it works well.
Also, I should say that the phones are not exactly built for long play, to me they function more and better as bridge gaping and marketing tools. I can play on the cloud when I’m out and put in the real time when I’m home. I certainly think games of the past from Arcades to consoles like the 360 or PS4 can be supported natively on modern phones. There is no reason why we can’t have old games as classics on phones, all the Mario, Sonic games as well as the OG Xbox games. I think games like that would be great for mobile.
I also read some of the reviews for FIFA and lagging seems to have been the issue most have with it not the controls. I’m looking to downloading some of these games like Injustice to see how they perform.
You did nothing bad, we all have views & experiences. In my circles everyone who gamed had a ZX spectrum & then moved to consoles with the Master System. So I got completely used to consoles controls & playing FPS on Saturn’s 3D pad or PS1 analogue pad, but I had mates who couldn’t play Sensible Soccer on my Mega-CD because they were so used to the joystick controls of the Amiga/ST versions
I’m not anti cloud, but cloud for me is like public transport, the experience can be great, getting better all the time & it may be the way of the future, but I rather use the car & just use public transport as a fallback. The same is true for Xbox cloud, I use it but only when I can’t access my consoles but I did also have a Rog Alley X for Christmas so that’s not such the issue it was
The push is spreading. They want (hope) Asha take it to consideration completely.
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Dropping COD just makes too much sense from a business perspective, from a business perspective it should have never been on the service at launch.
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I genuinely hope she doesn’t give articles like this any thought because no shade on windows central, but some shade on windows central. This takes early sales estimates to decide that an almost three year old game doing poorly on PS is proof exclusives matter… what? Starfield IS an exclusive for all intents and purposes. It was made exclusive in 2023. No one is buying a PS5 today to play Infamous: Second Son. Everyone who would’ve bought an Xbox for Starfield already did so, and regardless the majority of that community was always going to be on PC.
The problem is they also use Ninja Gaiden 4 and MS Flight Sim 2024 as evidence because they did better than a flagship Bethesda game, but if anything both of those prove that games perform better when there’s as little wait as possible for launching on multiple platforms. This is the same thing with Playstation fans justifying no PC ports. You can’t use low sales as a “Why bother porting exclusives?” when those low sales are a direct result of the game being multiple years old and having a sporadic launch date without much marketing.
Either they should’ve launched Starfield on all platforms day one to maximize sales, or porting the game over to squeeze out some more sales nearly 3 years after launch did no damage because everyone who would’ve bought an Xbox for it already did and current Playstation users especially weren’t going to switch platforms for the privelege of buying a near 3 year old game.
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Agreed I think they can canvas opinion, but then should be led by data insights which no doubt they’ve got a ton of.
I mean look at the Game Pass thread - almost every one of us has different demands, some want Day 1 games tier to come down significantly in price even if it means losing CoD, others want to keep CoD but lose other perks, some are saying Premium needs pushing harder and some are asking for DLC to be included or to have bolt ons (like me wanting to pay a bit extra to include full Ubi+).
Whatever they do, someone will moan - and even if they did do something that somehow pleased all of us, it might be too complex for the average consumer and would still generate bad press, as those who hate Xbox if they couldn’t find an issue would return to “Microsoft is trying to buy domination of gaming with the loss leading Game Pass” bollocks they’ve said for years (despite proof it was profitable).
The key is to take feedback into account, use the data, but then make decent decisions that align with a long term plan (so we stop the chopping and changing of strategy every bloody quarter) and market the hell out of it in simple, engaging ads and social media engagement.
That last part, the marketing, is clearly a strength of the new CEO, so hopefully they’ll knock that out the park (plus the other bits!)
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