Indeed, is it. Without numbers it’s hard to say. When some of the games are hardly breaking a million worldwide one has to wonder.
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Whoof. Whole market is down
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True.
I’m expecting a very bad year to be honest overall, but if MS can knock it out the park with a second half heavy in releases (we know that to be the case due to the upcoming slate of titles this year) along with COD and heavy Gamepass marketing and bundles they could turn things around and rejuvenate the brand for the rest of the generation.
If that doesn’t work I guess it’s time to plan for next gen.
Like at this point they should open up the budget and sell those things at a loss bundled with some form of COD and/or 3 months GamePass Ultimate (both Series S and X) and max out transition for last gen owners as they’ll then be able to ride the GTA6 wave next year much better.
Microsoft has had the stance for a while consoles arent going to last. At least not at pricepoints the mass market accepts. And lets face it…its not sustainable as it is. Even with hundreds pf millions of PCs backing them up.
It will be interesting to see what the PS5pro retails for. I think $599, but if its something ludicrous like $749…then next gen consoles aint gonna be cheap. Not remotely. And thats a greatly shrinking market.
I can’t imagine the Pro costing that much. I mean, for what? It’s not even going to be a shockingly huge upgrade from I’ve read. What about it could Sony decide to price it super high?
Look at the size of the PS5 “slim” and look at the price. Same price it was 4 years ago. The Pro is supposed to be something like 3 x as powerful. Imagine the size, imagine the price…
Hmmm, you got a point
https://twitter.com/matpiscatella/status/1795842752456134995?s=46
Considering how much better their first party lineup has been PLUS the incentive of Game Pass and a cheaper console. The strategy change makes sense. They just didn’t gain any ground in spite of having amazing offerings.
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Just scrolling through days worth of posts catching up on this thread.
I know you don’t like the dooming and glooming and I understand all the business rational
& I don’t have a particular attachment to any studio so I aren’t making any emotional takes
Like I say objectively I understand the business financial decisions taken in terms of numbers
But surely you have to admit the last 4 months have been a disaster in terms of PR for the name Xbox.
And that is what I find that is being missed completely when the responses are just focussed on finances
If PR didn’t matter no business would be worried about PR they’d do and say what they like and not care
But unfortunately it does matter and there doesn’t seem to be a balance in thinking currently and in a lot of podcasts discussing it, it doesn’t seem to be taken into account.
They are making objectively correct business decisions that can be quantified in numbers on a spreadsheet but are seriously damaging the brand which likely won’t be able to be quantified for years to come
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Yeah that is a depressing read for console sales across the board.
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Maybe, I don’t really care about the business of video games and have not defended the move a single time because I hated it. So I’m not sure what your point is.
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Agreed. next gen systems will also have NPU which will be a new cost added.
The answer to executive burnout should have been to recruit more executives to manage the bigger studio base, not close the studios. The timing is just an excuse as to when they pulled the trigger. The simple fact is, they should not have done. Timing is irrelevant.
The location being defined as “a problem” shows that MS simply refuse to become a true global player. To be one you HAVE to have a presence in places like Japan. having a Japanese studio all alone should have been a motivator to buy MORE studios in that part of the world, so they have exist in their own “bubble”/timezones, to support each other. Not close the studio to make it all easier to manage/oversee.
Their short-sightedness in this instance will hurt them in the long-run and for the first time ever, I really hope it does. They’ll never learn otherwise…and I say this as a Don Mattrick apologist who specifically bought Xbox One for Xbox Fitness back in 2013.
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Has the first party lineup been better? Looking purely at AAA, mass appeal titles:
Xbox One had Halo, Gears (4&5&Hive Busters), Forza, Titanfall, Sunset Overdrive, Quantum Break, Killer Instinct, Halo Wars 2 amongst others.
Series has had:
Halo, Forza, Starfield, Hifi Rush, Senua’s Saga (I’d struggle to pitch the latter as mass appeal, but I included it anyway).
As said above, Xbox’s problems are a lack of well reviewed exclusives. The hardware is excellent, the strategy of a low price entry to the market could have been a winner, Gamepass is great.
All that stuff is great, but absolutely hampered by having no games.
Ironically, this strategy change comes at a time when Xbox’s studios are starting to deliver games. Just in time to put them on Playstation as their first party release schedule begins a drought.
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We’ve had Gears Tactics, Halo Infinite, Minecraft Dungeons and Legend, Tell Me Why, Age of Empire 2 and 4, Psychonauts 2, Flight Simulator, Forza Horizon 5, Forza Motorsport, hi-fi Rush, As Dusk Falls, Pentiment and Hellblade 2 and Grounded was still in early access Technically. Maybe not all AAA but definitely a bunch in there I’d consider AAA or worthy of it.
Personally we’ve had a lot of variety I think and I know some of those games were cross gen or some only temporarily exclusive, but they were still best on Xbox Series initially if you forget about PC.
I think that even due to delays because of covid that Ms had a very solid lineup of games and didn’t need 3rd part moneyhats unlike the competition to at least put out this amount of games on their platform.
So to me I’ll always feel like they did genuinely tried and the fact that people say they didn’t is disingenuous and mostly online clout to continuously have that negative Xbox agenda.
Mass appeal I think is irrelevant in a world where the most basic and unappealing games can sometimes sell more than 10 million copies on steam.
Agreed. I also think they can always pivot away from any strategy that doesn’t work. If people are so sure multiplatform won’t work, then let them do it and fail and know for a fact that it doesn’t work rather than non-factual speculations.
They seem to think it won’t really result in a loss of console sales and actually reach more players. If their numbers tells them exactly that then like you said, let them experiment.
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Yeah, like I said, “looking at AAA, Mass appeal titles” taking your list and removing the titles, I listed you end up with:
not exclusive (Minecraft)
not AAA (Tell Me Why, Psychonauts, As Dusk Falls, Pentiment, Grounded)
And not really mass appeal games:
Gears Tactics, Age of Empire 2 and 4 Flight Simulator.
So, that kinda goes with my point, that they haven’t delivered the games. You can say that turn based Gears Tactics is a mainstream title if you like, I don’t agree, but I won’t argue. The rest though, eh, they’re just not the titles that get people excited.
I say that having played a good amount of Grounded, and Psychonauts. I’m not saying they’re bad games. I am saying they aren’t the kinds of titles that get people to sit up and pay attention.
I’d trade Gears Tactics, Age of Empires, Tell Me Why for Gears 6 immediately.
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