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[In Cold Blood]

After listening to Phils interviews, and letting it digest before reacting, I understand what he is talking about.

He is of the belief that the XO/PS4 generation was such that it made alot of people cement themselves into one ecosystem or the other due to the investments made in gaming libraries, and the continued efforts for back compatibility.
He is also of the belief that just making good exclusive games isn't going to be enough to convince people to switch ecosystems.
I think he is honest in his beliefs.

Personally, I think he is wrong on a couple of counts.
One of the downsides of entering a new ecosystem is cost of entry.
For instance, I am going to get a PS5 in the near future. There are alot of high quality games that I haven't played from the PS4 and PS5 game libraries.
It's going to cost me $800aud for the console, plus buying all the individual games I wish to play. Now as they are older in alot of instances, I won't have to pay full price. But, the fact remains that it is going to be quite expensive to jump in.

With how MS has structured their offerings, the cost of entry into the Xbox ecosystem is nowhere near as expensive. For starters, you have the option of the cheaper XSS if you want for your second console.
Then on top of that, you can just buy GP and straight away you have access to a massive game library of exclusive xbox games, including the full array of MS games day and date.

So while he is correct that it's going to be hard to get PS owners to "sell" their PS5s, you don't need them to. They just need to also want to get an Xbox as well. If you create enough high quality exclusives that people want to play, then people will find a.way to play them.

On top of that, every year a new generation of people are joining the console race. If you can persuade a good percentage of them to take up xbox over PS, then that will add up. I think he erred in thinking that all the people who buy PS5s are people who are upgrading from their PS4s. That's just not the case.

In saying all of that, MS has come to the view that they need to create their own place, rather than just trying to take existing market share away from Sony.
A couple of generations ago, Nintendo decided that they could not continue to try and match MS and Sony in the power console race. They decide to go another way with the Wii, and it worked. They again decided to do something different with the Switch, and it worked. They created their own market, a market that has both Sony and MS wishing they had a part of.

The current console market consists of the age old formula of selling a console, and then selling one off games on that console for $70. It's a market that has been successful for generations.
Sony is a well oiled and drilled machine in that market. From console development environments, to a consistent supply of Sony style AAA games from their studios.

Now, there's a sales strategy in business that's says "it's more effective to be different than it is to be better".
This is what MS is following.
They have decided to be a disruptor in the industry and to change the industry in ways that they have an advantage in.
A part of this is "Play anywhere (other than Playstation)".
MS adopted PC as a part of their strategy a fair while ago now, and it's one that is slowly being followed by Sony.
MS will never sell the same amount of consoles as Sony, soley due to the fact that you can play Xbox games on PC. Let's be brutally honest, if Sony was to release their games day and date on PC, it would reduce the amount of consoles they would sell. There are millions of PC gamers who also buy a PS to play Sony games.
How this evolves for Sony moving forward still has to be seen.

On top of having a console and PC presence, MS is also going to leverage one of the key companies advantages, which is cloud. Azure is a massive infrastructure which Sony can never hope to copy. In the future, Sony is going to have to partner up with a company like Amazon or Google to have this ability in a meaningful way.
MS also wants to broaden its reach from just x86 gaming to mobile gaming.

MS is going to release a streaming box in the near future, which again gives people another way to play games. Streaming on a mobile is a bit clunky, so people may prefer to buy a streaming box with a controller than play on their phones.
It will be the cheapest way to get into the ecosystem, and yuppies will buy that shit all over.

We now see MSs vision. Console, PC and cloud. They are looking to diversify their offerings to increase their reach and revenue.
Never forget that profit trumps market share. Tencent has no consoles, but makes as much, if not more, money from gaming as MS and Sony.

To partner with the diversity of access to their ecosystem, subscription services is where they not only see the future, but they are going to drive the future there.
We have seen with movies, audio and even software, that subscription services are taking over.
Cries of "support the devs" and "I don't want to rent my games" are cool and all, but MS isn't going to take away the ability to buy their games outright. They will take your money anyway you want to give it to them, and the market has shown that while you and I may wish to buy our shit outright, the overwhelming majority of the general public don't care. These are the people who will dictate who is successful and who isn't.
So MS is building up GP to be the predominant gaming subscription service, and they have succeeded in doing that. MS knows that one maybe 300 odd games and a new exclusive every couple of months isn't going to keep people paying every month. They know that content is king. We have seen the bidding wars that have happened in movies and TV shows from the streaming companies for the rights to have their shows on their platform. The huge amounts of money that shows like Friends, Seinfeld and the Office got is ridiculous.
That will carry over to game streaming as well.
Knowing this, MS is buying up existing IPs and buying studios to make new content.
They are trying to get in now before the other potential streaming companies like Amazon, Disney, Netflix etc start going hard.

So MS is not walking away from the console market, they are just including more places to play than just console. This is what Phil was talking about. He wasn't saying the war is over.

Will it be successful? Time will tell, but if history is any teacher then gaimg will follow movies.
They have the money to go all out. They have the drive from head office to do it. ABK shows they are deadly serious. If ABK isn't going to happen, then they will move on to another company to buy.
Gamepass is where it is now, without any advertising. It's all just word of mouth and people in the xbox system. When they start advertising GP to the masses then the take up will be greater. Microsoft has been a little tempered in pushing GPU, as they are mindful of their capacity on xcloud, and that is one of the biggest issues for MS now.
With shortages of the XSX still happening, MS is obviously trying to supply enough APUs to both the console market and xcloud. It makes more financial sense to preference xcloud, as any excess capacity can be used by Azure to make money as well.
The lack of capacity in Xcloud is also what is holding back their plans for both a streaming box, and releasing their new family Gamepass plans in all areas. They cannot release their streaming box and then have congestion with it straight away. It would be a disaster.

Now this all goes to the biggest issue facing MS, and might explain why Phil has been caught short with overseeing what happened with Redfall for instance.
They have so many irons in the fire that they arnt able to concentrate on getting them all right. The ABK deal has taken every single resource MS has in their aquisitions team. This has reduced their ability to close off other aquisitions of studios and publishers.
Trying to balance up both cloud and console supply has meant that XSX supplies have been hurt, which has hurt sales.

This is how I see MSs plan moving forward. It makes sense to me, but they don't want to miss the Forrest for the trees.

 

[nial]

We don't know.

 

[Interfectum]

TL;DR:

Phil believes that the XO/PS4 generation made it difficult for people to switch ecosystems due to their investment in gaming libraries and backward compatibility. While he thinks that creating good exclusive games isn't enough to convince people to switch, the cost of entry into the Xbox ecosystem is much lower than that of PlayStation. Microsoft's strategy to be different rather than better includes expanding their presence on console, PC, and cloud, as well as leveraging their subscription services like Game Pass. They aim to broaden their reach and revenue by diversifying their offerings, while still competing in the console market. However, Microsoft faces challenges in balancing resources for acquisitions, cloud and console supply, and managing their numerous projects.

 

[ChiefDada]

TL;DR:

Phil believes that the XO/PS4 generation made it difficult for people to switch ecosystems due to their investment in gaming libraries and backward compatibility. While he thinks that creating good exclusive games isn't enough to convince people to switch, the cost of entry into the Xbox ecosystem is much lower than that of PlayStation. Microsoft's strategy to be different rather than better includes expanding their presence on console, PC, and cloud, as well as leveraging their subscription services like Game Pass. They aim to broaden their reach and revenue by diversifying their offerings, while still competing in the console market. However, Microsoft faces challenges in balancing resources for acquisitions, cloud and console supply, and managing their numerous projects.

 

[Oppoi]

 

[dotnotbot]

Embrace, extend, and extinguish - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

They have so many irons in the fire that they arnt able to concentrate on getting them all right.

lol

 

[MatrixReloaded101]

 

[TexMex]

yes I’m going to read this

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

.

 

[XXL]

It changes all the fucking time.

That is part of the problem.

Are they in competition with PS5 or Tech companies? Who knows.

Is making great games important to them? Who knows.

Do they like timed 3rd party exclusives? Who knows.

Do they care about selling consoles? Who knows.

Are Xbox consoles all about raw power? Who knows.

Asking people to explain Xbox's strategy is like asking people at a protest what the goal of the protest is.

 

[PendekarRajawali]

Xbox is their trojan horse for azure & cloud services

 

[Captain Toad]

The cloud.

But, don't tell the CMA.

 

[TheGodfather07]

 

[Oppoi]

Xbox is their trojan horse for azure & cloud services

and azure & cloud services is their trojan horse for the automated housewife 3000, worry not they're gender and carbon neutral!

 

[hlm666]

MS is also going to leverage one of the key companies advantages, which is cloud. Azure is a massive infrastructure which Sony can never hope to copy. In the future, Sony is going to have to partner up with a company like Amazon or Google to have this ability in a meaningful way.

Isn't MS having to put xsx hardware in their data centres? It's possible that's why they are still having hardware shortages. So if Sony are not going to put ps5 hardware in the cloud how are they going to use aws or google for their cloud games? Google was already making native linux/unix ports or whatever their cloud os is for their stadia (rip).

Taking this into consideration why do we not expect Sony to organically grow their own cloud infrastructure? Microsoft can't make games but they are expected to not buy their way out of it soooooo.....

Jokes aside (yes the sentence above was tongue in cheek) Sony hasn't done much with emulation so I'm not sure how they do ps5 cloud without putting native hardware in it like MS, is it possible to put your own hardware in amazon or google data centres?. I actually think this is a negative for MS aswell, using xcloud and being stuck with console performance is annoying. Geforce now is better purely because you can at least get better performance than what might be possible for you locally.

 

[zomboden]

I was shopping around at 4 different GameStops near me today for a nice controller (ended up finding a basically new Xbox 20th anniversary controller which is awesome). But I asked how many Xbox's they had out of curiousity and I was actually surprised to see 3/4 locations have the Xbox Series X Forza bundle in stock, but only 1 location had new Series S. And only 2 locations had used Series S. No used Series X's at all.

The one I live nearest the manager usually chats with me for a bit (its a busy store near a college in the center of downtown) and he said he hasn't seen an Xbox shipment in weeks. Wtf?

I'll be honest I expected them to all have Series S stacked to the ceiling in their backroom. The manager guy at the one near me had so many traded in Xbox One's back in 2014/2015 that he had to send them out of his inventory to be sold online because there was no way for him to move them all. He had them stacked in the center of the store on display. Nobody was buying.

 

[Lasha]

The average PS gamer buys and plays third party games. If they aren't buying PS exclusives then why would Xbox exclusives get them to switch to a new console without their existing library? That's what Phil is referring to. There's practically no difference between PS and Xbox to the average user except for a handful of games.

 

[Quantum253]

"He is of the belief that the XO/PS4 generation was such that it made alot of people cement themselves into one ecosystem or the other due to the investments made in gaming libraries, and the continued efforts for back compatibility."

I don't know about that. I was 100% in the Xbox ecosystem. I was one the Wii60s. Playstation 3 was such a turn off with arrogant Sony and the 05/06 E3 presentation ( I eventually got the Metal Gear: GotP bundles and loved the system). Then Microsoft had the worse E3 I
can recall (Don Mattrick and team destroyed any hype) with the Xbox One reveal. Playstaion 4 coming in hard with games first and a ton of them. I pre ordered the PS4 and Playstation has been solid since. I eventually got a non-Kinet Xbox One, but sold it since it was only turned on once a twice a year.

There are hard-core devout brand loyalist, but more over most people want the best gaming experience and games; and will go to whichever system has it (not including Gamepass on PC).
With all the studios Microsoft owns, I hope they do give a firehose of interesting titles. People who stayed with them deserve it, and those who left would jump back in

 

[freefornow]

http://[URL]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish

[/URL]

All this was exposed in late 90's and very early 00's.
Is there any evidence that this is MS current strategy under Nadella?

 

[LRKD]

There is so much they could easily do to compete, I don't by that bs for a second. imo They're just prepping to be a service, not a console. I think that as soon as they believe that both they, and players are ready for it they're happy to rush to a future where gamers own no games, and instead are tied to a subscription service.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

I feel like Phil seems to have given up on MS studios having high quality first party games which is why he keeps pivoting the conversation to GamePass and xCloud.

I think he's just frustrated. Feels like he can't get a win when it comes to his first party and doesn't know what to do about it other than try and shift the conversation elsewhere. But just because he hasn't had luck doesn't mean that shouldn't be his #1 priority.

I think he's definitely wrong to have the viewpoint that Xbox can't be a "Green version of what Team Blue does". I don't think marquee franchises like Halo, Gears, and Fable would be all that dissimilar to Sony's AAA games, just different genres....but the priority should be to make them AAA as they can.

 

[Warablo]

Get as many people as possible to view Game Pass and possibly spend money on it. (Worldwide/Mobile)

 

[NikuNashi]

B+

Well written dissertation.

 

[Quantum253]

There is so much they could easily do to compete, I don't by that bs for a second. imo They're just prepping to be a service, not a console. I think that as soon as they believe that both they, and players are ready for it they're happy to rush to a future where gamers own no games, and instead are tied to a subscription service.

Hard to think that executives running the Xbox division are inept, so there could be merit to that theory since GAAS has taken off and the back-end could be fully supported by Azure and developing AI.

All the profit of selling digital games and content, while all stored and managed on infrastructure that's already operational and owned would be quite temping. Then sell physical accessories/peripherals

 

[feynoob]

MS is going after Netflix gaming. But because of their late investment, they are having issues with their pipeline.
In 1-2 years, their plan will come to fruition, despite all the gloom and meme about Xbox.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

iAfter listening to Phils interviews, and letting it digest before reacting, I understand what he is talking about.

ok let's see.

He is of the belief that the XO/PS4 generation was such that it made alot of people cement themselves into one ecosystem or the other due to the investments made in gaming libraries, and the continued efforts for back compatibility.

i mean, the backwards comparibiltiy card was played in previous generations (especially at the beginning)

He is also of the belief that just making good exclusive games isn't going to be enough to convince people to switch ecosystems.
I think he is honest in his beliefs.

if honest then dumb.

Personally, I think he is wrong on a couple of counts.
One of the downsides of entering a new ecosystem is cost of entry.
For instance, I am going to get a PS5 in the near future. There are alot of high quality games that I haven't played from the PS4 and PS5 game libraries.

It's going to cost me $800aud for the console, plus buying all the individual games I wish to play. Now as they are older in alot of instances, I won't have to pay full price. But, the fact remains that it is going to be quite expensive to jump in.

Or just suscribe to PSextra premium ++

a lot of those gamea are going to be there

With how MS has structured their offerings, the cost of entry into the Xbox ecosystem is nowhere near as expensive. For starters, you have the option of the cheaper XSS if you want for your second console.
Then on top of that, you can just buy GP and straight away you have access to a massive game library of exclusive xbox games, including the full array of MS games day and date.

i just told you that sony has a service similar to GP.

So while he is correct that it's going to be hard to get PS owners to "sell" their PS5s, you don't need them to. They just need to also want to get an Xbox as well. If you create enough high quality exclusives that people want to play, then people will find a.way to play them.

yep.
just suscribe to GP on PC or even through Samsung TVs.

On top of that, every year a new generation of people are joining the console race. If you can persuade a good percentage of them to take up xbox over PS, then that will add up. I think he erred in thinking that all the people who buy PS5s are people who are upgrading from their PS4s. That's just not the case.

In saying all of that, MS has come to the view that they need to create their own place, rather than just trying to take existing market share away from Sony.
A couple of generations ago, Nintendo decided that they could not continue to try and match MS and Sony in the power console race. They decide to go another way with the Wii, and it worked. They again decided to do something different with the Switch, and it worked. They created their own market, a market that has both Sony and MS wishing they had a part of.

Nintendo didn't create their own market. Nintendo double down in what they were already dominant = handheld gaming.

wii was such an anomaly.

The current console market consists of the age old formula of selling a console, and then selling one off games on that console for $70. It's a market that has been successful for generations.
Sony is a well oiled and drilled machine in that market. From console development environments, to a consistent supply of Sony style AAA games from their studios.

nope.

the current console market consist in:

High Quality First Party games to attract consumers incresing the install base making more attractive to Third Party Publishers 30% cut of the digital store

Now, there's a sales strategy in business that's says "it's more effective to be different than it is to be better".
This is what MS is following.

according to your own words

"MS has come to the view that they need to create their own place"

due to their inability to compete directly against PS consoles.

They have decided to be a disruptor in the industry and to change the industry in ways that they have an advantage in.
A part of this is "Play anywhere (other than Playstation)".
MS adopted PC as a part of their strategy a fair while ago now, and it's one that is slowly being followed by Sony.

MS will never sell the same amount of consoles as Sony, soley due to the fact that you can play Xbox games on PC. Let's be brutally honest, if Sony was to release their games day and date on PC, it would reduce the amount of consoles they would sell. There are millions of PC gamers who also buy a PS to play Sony games.
How this evolves for Sony moving forward still has to be seen.

benji sales talked about this.

On top of having a console and PC presence, MS is also going to leverage one of the key companies advantages, which is cloud. Azure is a massive infrastructure which Sony can never hope to copy. In the future, Sony is going to have to partner up with a company like Amazon or Google to have this ability in a meaningful way.
MS also wants to broaden its reach from just x86 gaming to mobile gaming.

MS is going to release a streaming box in the near future, which again gives people another way to play games. Streaming on a mobile is a bit clunky, so people may prefer to buy a streaming box with a controller than play on their phones.
It will be the cheapest way to get into the ecosystem, and yuppies will buy that shit all over.

We now see MSs vision. Console, PC and cloud. They are looking to diversify their offerings to increase their reach and revenue.
Never forget that profit trumps market share. Tencent has no consoles, but makes as much, if not more, money from gaming as MS and Sony.

i will blow your mind

technology implementation is iterative. MS "disruptuve vision" is the same as PlayStation's. the difference is that play station has been cautious in how to approach it.

To partner with the diversity of access to their ecosystem, subscription services is where they not only see the future, but they are going to drive the future there.
We have seen with movies, audio and even software, that subscription services are taking over.
Cries of "support the devs" and "I don't want to rent my games" are cool and all, but MS isn't going to take away the ability to buy their games outright. They will take your money anyway you want to give it to them, and the market has shown that while you and I may wish to buy our shit outright, the overwhelming majority of the general public don't care. These are the people who will dictate who is successful and who isn't.
So MS is building up GP to be the predominant gaming subscription service, and they have succeeded in doing that. MS knows that one maybe 300 odd games and a new exclusive every couple of months isn't going to keep people paying every month. They know that content is king. We have seen the bidding wars that have happened in movies and TV shows from the streaming companies for the rights to have their shows on their platform. The huge amounts of money that shows like Friends, Seinfeld and the Office got is ridiculous.
That will carry over to game streaming as well.
Knowing this, MS is buying up existing IPs and buying studios to make new content.
They are trying to get in now before the other potential streaming companies like Amazon, Disney, Netflix etc start going hard.

it seems you are cluless at what is happening with subscription streaming sevices

So MS is not walking away from the console market, they are just including more places to play than just console. This is what Phil was talking about. He wasn't saying the war is over.

well, the console war is over for them.

the ecosystem/subscription war has been going on since the PS3/360

today's war is about reaching people outside consoles

Will it be successful? Time will tell, but if history is any teacher then gaimg will follow movies.

¿?
you realize that PlayStation is the one implemenring the movie distribution better than xbox right now?

staggered released schedule.

Movies:
Theatrical Window > VOD buy/rent > physical/streaming > TV.

games:
Physical > price cuts > sub service > PC

They have the money to go all out. They have the drive from head office to do it. ABK shows they are deadly serious. If ABK isn't going to happen, then they will move on to another company to buy.
Gamepass is where it is now, without any advertising. It's all just word of mouth and people in the xbox system. When they start advertising GP to the masses then the take up will be greater. Microsoft has been a little tempered in pushing GPU, as they are mindful of their capacity on xcloud, and that is one of the biggest issues for MS now.
With shortages of the XSX still happening, MS is obviously trying to supply enough APUs to both the console market and xcloud. It makes more financial sense to preference xcloud, as any excess capacity can be used by Azure to make money as well.
The lack of capacity in Xcloud is also what is holding back their plans for both a streaming box, and releasing their new family Gamepass plans in all areas. They cannot release their streaming box and then have congestion with it straight away. It would be a disaster.

isnt this ironic.

Now this all goes to the biggest issue facing MS, and might explain why Phil has been caught short with overseeing what happened with Redfall for instance.
They have so many irons in the fire that they arnt able to concentrate on getting them all right. The ABK deal has taken every single resource MS has in their aquisitions team. This has reduced their ability to close off other aquisitions of studios and publishers.
Trying to balance up both cloud and console supply has meant that XSX supplies have been hurt, which has hurt sales.

This is how I see MSs plan moving forward. It makes sense to me, but they don't want to miss the Forrest for the trees.

this is the thing buddy.

we can talk bussnies models, strategies, and all that shit

it does not matter...at the end of the day is about producing High Quality content with consistency


MS/Xbox issues are:

1. they dont have a constant stream of High Quality AAA games.

2. Their processes of producing such content is fucked...therefore acqusitions are going/have been proven to be probematic.

 

[Crayon]

Hey bud Phil is full of shit. It's his most honest interview ever sure but that just makes him honestly full of shit.

 

[Ansphn]

Gamepass, cloud gaming and going 3rd party.

 

[In Cold Blood]

yes I’m going to read this

Make out its the extras menu at your local whore house.

 

[In Cold Blood]

Hey bud Phil is full of shit. It's his most honest interview ever sure but that just makes him honestly full of shit.

It's not so much about Phil as it is MSs gaming strategy.
MS isn't a two bit operation. They would have a roadmap for their buisness model, that's what I am talking about.

 

[Barakov]

After listening to Phils interviews, and letting it digest before reacting, I understand what he is talking about.

He is of the belief that the XO/PS4 generation was such that it made alot of people cement themselves into one ecosystem or the other due to the investments made in gaming libraries, and the continued efforts for back compatibility.
He is also of the belief that just making good exclusive games isn't going to be enough to convince people to switch ecosystems.
I think he is honest in his beliefs.

Personally, I think he is wrong on a couple of counts.
One of the downsides of entering a new ecosystem is cost of entry.
For instance, I am going to get a PS5 in the near future. There are alot of high quality games that I haven't played from the PS4 and PS5 game libraries.
It's going to cost me $800aud for the console, plus buying all the individual games I wish to play. Now as they are older in alot of instances, I won't have to pay full price. But, the fact remains that it is going to be quite expensive to jump in.

With how MS has structured their offerings, the cost of entry into the Xbox ecosystem is nowhere near as expensive. For starters, you have the option of the cheaper XSS if you want for your second console.
Then on top of that, you can just buy GP and straight away you have access to a massive game library of exclusive xbox games, including the full array of MS games day and date.

So while he is correct that it's going to be hard to get PS owners to "sell" their PS5s, you don't need them to. They just need to also want to get an Xbox as well. If you create enough high quality exclusives that people want to play, then people will find a.way to play them.

On top of that, every year a new generation of people are joining the console race. If you can persuade a good percentage of them to take up xbox over PS, then that will add up. I think he erred in thinking that all the people who buy PS5s are people who are upgrading from their PS4s. That's just not the case.

In saying all of that, MS has come to the view that they need to create their own place, rather than just trying to take existing market share away from Sony.
A couple of generations ago, Nintendo decided that they could not continue to try and match MS and Sony in the power console race. They decide to go another way with the Wii, and it worked. They again decided to do something different with the Switch, and it worked. They created their own market, a market that has both Sony and MS wishing they had a part of.

The current console market consists of the age old formula of selling a console, and then selling one off games on that console for $70. It's a market that has been successful for generations.
Sony is a well oiled and drilled machine in that market. From console development environments, to a consistent supply of Sony style AAA games from their studios.

Now, there's a sales strategy in business that's says "it's more effective to be different than it is to be better".
This is what MS is following.
They have decided to be a disruptor in the industry and to change the industry in ways that they have an advantage in.
A part of this is "Play anywhere (other than Playstation)".
MS adopted PC as a part of their strategy a fair while ago now, and it's one that is slowly being followed by Sony.
MS will never sell the same amount of consoles as Sony, soley due to the fact that you can play Xbox games on PC. Let's be brutally honest, if Sony was to release their games day and date on PC, it would reduce the amount of consoles they would sell. There are millions of PC gamers who also buy a PS to play Sony games.
How this evolves for Sony moving forward still has to be seen.

On top of having a console and PC presence, MS is also going to leverage one of the key companies advantages, which is cloud. Azure is a massive infrastructure which Sony can never hope to copy. In the future, Sony is going to have to partner up with a company like Amazon or Google to have this ability in a meaningful way.
MS also wants to broaden its reach from just x86 gaming to mobile gaming.

MS is going to release a streaming box in the near future, which again gives people another way to play games. Streaming on a mobile is a bit clunky, so people may prefer to buy a streaming box with a controller than play on their phones.
It will be the cheapest way to get into the ecosystem, and yuppies will buy that shit all over.

We now see MSs vision. Console, PC and cloud. They are looking to diversify their offerings to increase their reach and revenue.
Never forget that profit trumps market share. Tencent has no consoles, but makes as much, if not more, money from gaming as MS and Sony.

To partner with the diversity of access to their ecosystem, subscription services is where they not only see the future, but they are going to drive the future there.
We have seen with movies, audio and even software, that subscription services are taking over.
Cries of "support the devs" and "I don't want to rent my games" are cool and all, but MS isn't going to take away the ability to buy their games outright. They will take your money anyway you want to give it to them, and the market has shown that while you and I may wish to buy our shit outright, the overwhelming majority of the general public don't care. These are the people who will dictate who is successful and who isn't.
So MS is building up GP to be the predominant gaming subscription service, and they have succeeded in doing that. MS knows that one maybe 300 odd games and a new exclusive every couple of months isn't going to keep people paying every month. They know that content is king. We have seen the bidding wars that have happened in movies and TV shows from the streaming companies for the rights to have their shows on their platform. The huge amounts of money that shows like Friends, Seinfeld and the Office got is ridiculous.
That will carry over to game streaming as well.
Knowing this, MS is buying up existing IPs and buying studios to make new content.
They are trying to get in now before the other potential streaming companies like Amazon, Disney, Netflix etc start going hard.

So MS is not walking away from the console market, they are just including more places to play than just console. This is what Phil was talking about. He wasn't saying the war is over.

Will it be successful? Time will tell, but if history is any teacher then gaimg will follow movies.
They have the money to go all out. They have the drive from head office to do it. ABK shows they are deadly serious. If ABK isn't going to happen, then they will move on to another company to buy.
Gamepass is where it is now, without any advertising. It's all just word of mouth and people in the xbox system. When they start advertising GP to the masses then the take up will be greater. Microsoft has been a little tempered in pushing GPU, as they are mindful of their capacity on xcloud, and that is one of the biggest issues for MS now.
With shortages of the XSX still happening, MS is obviously trying to supply enough APUs to both the console market and xcloud. It makes more financial sense to preference xcloud, as any excess capacity can be used by Azure to make money as well.
The lack of capacity in Xcloud is also what is holding back their plans for both a streaming box, and releasing their new family Gamepass plans in all areas. They cannot release their streaming box and then have congestion with it straight away. It would be a disaster.

Now this all goes to the biggest issue facing MS, and might explain why Phil has been caught short with overseeing what happened with Redfall for instance.
They have so many irons in the fire that they arnt able to concentrate on getting them all right. The ABK deal has taken every single resource MS has in their aquisitions team. This has reduced their ability to close off other aquisitions of studios and publishers.
Trying to balance up both cloud and console supply has meant that XSX supplies have been hurt, which has hurt sales.

This is how I see MSs plan moving forward. It makes sense to me, but they don't want to miss the Forrest for the trees.

 

[PeteBull]

From what i can tell, as an avg mortal- they wanted to get marketshare/make cash w/o even trying to give their customers quality, thats the main reason for gamepass- once players are subbed they gotta take those mediocre games as they are, and basically lose all their consumer rights- to not buy bad products.

What microsoft didnt realise is- many players did indeed look tru them- xbox series x and especially s- that was 300$ at launch and many times 200$ with promos(compare it to switch sales who was priced similary ;p)- sold terribly- so ppl arent tied to their ecosystem and can instead buy quality games.

Thats why we dont get infamous MAU updates anymore, and ofc thats the reason we dont get official xbox series x/s consoles sold numbers.

So in other words-

 

[In Cold Blood]

ok let's see.

i mean, the backwards comparibiltiy card was played in previous generations (especially at the beginning)

if honest then dumb.



Or just suscribe to PSextra premium ++

a lot of those gamea are going to be there


i just told you that sony has a service similar to GP.



yep.
just suscribe to GP on PC or even through Samsung TVs.


Nintendo didn't create their own market. Nintendo double down in what they were already dominant = handheld gaming.

wii was such an anomaly.


nope.

the current console market consist in:

High Quality First Party games to attract consumers incresing the install base making more attractive to Third Party Publishers 30% cut of the digital store




according to your own words

"MS has come to the view that they need to create their own place"

due to their inability to compete directly against PS consoles.






benji sales talked about this.



i will blow your mind

technology implementation is iterative. MS "disruptuve vision" is the same as PlayStation's. the difference is that play station has been cautious in how to approach it.


it seems you are cluless at what is happening with subscription streaming sevices


well, the console war is over for them.

the ecosystem/subscription war has been going on since the PS3/360

today's war is about reaching people outside consoles


¿?
you realize that PlayStation is the one implemenring the movie distribution better than xbox right now?

staggered released schedule.

Movies:
Theatrical Window > VOD buy/rent > physical/streaming > TV.

games:
Physical > price cuts > sub service > PC



isnt this ironic.



this is the thing buddy.

we can talk bussnies models, strategies, and all that shit

it does not matter...at the end of the day is about producing High Quality content with consistency


MS/Xbox issues are:

1. they dont have a constant stream of High Quality AAA games.

2. Their processes of producing such content is fucked...therefore acqusitions are going/have been proven to be probematic.

Nah, that's just hyperbole.
Name me the Xbox first.party exclusives that have bombed in the reviews.
There's one, Redfall.
Let's look at their last 10 games released and their metas.
Redfall - 57
HiFi Rush - 87
Pentament - 86
Grounded - 82
Halo Infinite- 87
Forza Horizon 5 - 92
Psychonauts 2 - 87
Flight Sim -.90
Deathloop - 89
Ghostwire - 82

That's hardly a poor quality release schedule.
Coming out the rest of the year is Starfield (the game Sony was obviously impressed enough by they wanted to make it exclusive), Forza Motorsport and most likely Hellblade 2.
We know Forza will be minimum of 85, and Hellblade 2 is going to be similar to Hellblade 1 which was an 88.

I get that it's kinda edgy to say MS can't game, but the numbers don't support your point of view.

 

[reforen]

We don't know.

User Heisenberg knows better than Phil Spencer

 

[rickybooby87]

Hire Jim Ryan.

 

[DeepSpace5D]

Personally, I think he is wrong on a couple of counts.
One of the downsides of entering a new ecosystem is cost of entry.
For instance, I am going to get a PS5 in the near future. There are alot of high quality games that I haven't played from the PS4 and PS5 game libraries.
It's going to cost me $800aud for the console, plus buying all the individual games I wish to play. Now as they are older in alot of instances, I won't have to pay full price. But, the fact remains that it is going to be quite expensive to jump in.

With how MS has structured their offerings, the cost of entry into the Xbox ecosystem is nowhere near as expensive. For starters, you have the option of the cheaper XSS if you want for your second console.
Then on top of that, you can just buy GP and straight away you have access to a massive game library of exclusive xbox games, including the full array of MS games day and date.

So while he is correct that it's going to be hard to get PS owners to "sell" their PS5s, you don't need them to. They just need to also want to get an Xbox as well. If you create enough high quality exclusives that people want to play, then people will find a.way to play them.

I agree with your ultimate point that they just need to get people to want an Xbox also, but I don’t really agree that the cost of entry is that much higher on the side of PlayStation.

You can get a digital PS5 with PS+ extra and similarly have access to a massive game library of exclusive PlayStation games. So it’s basically what, around $100 difference between the two? That’s here in the states anyway, I’m not sure if the price differences of consoles is much more significant in AU.

 

[Alesimage]

MS is all in on console pc phones and many other future devices.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Nah, that's just hyperbole.
Name me the Xbox first.party exclusives that have bombed in the reviews.
There's one, Redfall.
Let's look at their last 10 games released and their metas.
Redfall - 57
HiFi Rush - 87
Pentament - 86
Grounded - 82
Halo Infinite- 87
Forza Horizon 5 - 92
Psychonauts 2 - 87
Flight Sim -.90
Deathloop - 89
Ghostwire - 82

That's hardly a poor quality release schedule.
Coming out the rest of the year is Starfield (the game Sony was obviously impressed enough by they wanted to make it exclusive), Forza Motorsport and most likely Hellblade 2.
We know Forza will be minimum of 85, and Hellblade 2 is going to be similar to Hellblade 1 which was an 88.

I get that it's kinda edgy to say MS can't game, but the numbers don't support your point of view.

just showing your inability to engage in a convesation. but if you wanna play that dumb game:

MS/Xbox is in this position due to years of complete incompetence to deliver High Quality Games.

 

[TexMex]

Nah, that's just hyperbole.
Name me the Xbox first.party exclusives that have bombed in the reviews.
There's one, Redfall.
Let's look at their last 10 games released and their metas.
Redfall - 57
HiFi Rush - 87
Pentament - 86
Grounded - 82
Halo Infinite- 87
Forza Horizon 5 - 92
Psychonauts 2 - 87
Flight Sim -.90
Deathloop - 89
Ghostwire - 82

That's hardly a poor quality release schedule.
Coming out the rest of the year is Starfield (the game Sony was obviously impressed enough by they wanted to make it exclusive), Forza Motorsport and most likely Hellblade 2.
We know Forza will be minimum of 85, and Hellblade 2 is going to be similar to Hellblade 1 which was an 88.

I get that it's kinda edgy to say MS can't game, but the numbers don't support your point of view.

Ghostwire, Deathloop and Psychonauts 2 are all on Playstation.

So much coping in a single post.

 

[ZehDon]

Their strategy is to disconnect their games from their hardware. They're trying to turn their games into the platform itself, and then allow multiple access points into that "platform". This, effectively, makes hardware and software into different businesses. The thinking behind this shift is that hardware is a loss leader, and its the games that make the money. This allows them to make more money off of their games than their hardware install allows, while still getting all the benefits of the console hardware model.

So, an Xbox Series X is just an access point for their "platform".
A Windows PC is just an access point for their "platform".
A compatible smart phone is just an access point for their "platform".
A cloud server is just an access point for their "platform".

This is similar to the third-party publisher model, in that it puts their games in more places, while retaining the first party console hardware model, where they make money off of other third parties on their platform and they make a higher return per game sold on their own platform. We know there's some validity to this approach because Sony has copied it by bringing their games to PC. However, Sony time-gates their non-console releases to ensure they make as much money as possible from their console users - which seems to be working very well for them.

We haven't seen Microsoft's hybrid strategy before, so it's hard to say if its successful before the end of the generation. All we can say for certain is that it requires very high-quality games and, so far, they've failed on that front.

 

[Alesimage]

just showing your inability to engage in a convesation. but if you wanna play that dumb game:

MS/Xbox is in this position due to years of complete incompetence to deliver High Quality Games.

Couldn't someone just do the same for playstation. Days gone, knack, forspoken, the order, destruction all stars etc

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Couldn't someone just do the same for playstation. Days gone, knack, forspoken, the order, destruction all stars etc

i dont see Play Station's CEO apologizing on a podcast about the lack of quality and quantity of games.

i dont see the narrative of "Doom and Gloom" being discussed around Play Station.


In Cold Blood chose to not engange in a conversation, instead ignoring all my points and trying to deflect with a dumb list...falling in his own trap with the qualifier of "First Party".

 

[Alesimage]

i dont see Play Station's CEO apologizing on a podcast about the lack of quality and quantity of games.

i dont see the narrative of "Doom and Gloom" being discussed around Play Station.


In Cold Blood chose to not engange in a conversation, instead ignoring all my points and trying to deflect with a dumb list...falling in his own trap with the qualifier of "First Party".

Jim Ryan doesn't even really give interviews to be picked apart. So I guess.

 

[buenoblue]

TL;DR:

Phil believes that the XO/PS4 generation made it difficult for people to switch ecosystems due to their investment in gaming libraries and backward compatibility. While he thinks that creating good exclusive games isn't enough to convince people to switch, the cost of entry into the Xbox ecosystem is much lower than that of PlayStation. Microsoft's strategy to be different rather than better includes expanding their presence on console, PC, and cloud, as well as leveraging their subscription services like Game Pass. They aim to broaden their reach and revenue by diversifying their offerings, while still competing in the console market. However, Microsoft faces challenges in balancing resources for acquisitions, cloud and console supply, and managing their numerous projects.

Even tldr is tldr

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Jim Ryan doesn't even really give interviews to be picked apart. So I guess.

Ignoring the second point, i see.

 

[Crayon]

It's not so much about Phil as it is MSs gaming strategy.
MS isn't a two bit operation. They would have a roadmap for their buisness model, that's what I am talking about.

I don't know how to phrase this. The word roadmap is interesting here. It implies something carefully plotted, and that you can rely on. I think maybe roadmap is a strong word for whatever they think they are doing. MS may not be a two-bit operation but xbox is not particularly sophisticated. Make most powerful console. Make most cheap console. Yay we made the most powerful and affordable console. Worked for ps4. Derp.

In the interview, he is apologizing and saying he learned his lesson about hyping up shoddy games. 10 years head of xbox. Didn't know he shouldn't make a big push behind a bad game. Just learned that last week. Just learned he shouldn't bait and switch the pc version. Just learned that now. Where exactly does the boss bullshitting and groveling in front of millions fit into a roadmap? He's out of control. Maybe that filters all the way down the organization. It would explain some things.

I still don't know quite how to articulate this so you'll have to show me some charity. What I saw in that interview, was a head of a work culture that is not steady and clear. I think they have ideas about what they want to do. Lots of ideas. They might even think they have a plan. They've had a few now, after all. I bet that plan is changing again right now with the abk block. Depending on how confident they were in it going through, they may be back at the drawing board as we speak. Speculating about their strategy is grabbing at shadows. It's not exactly mission critical for ms anyway. It's only money.

 

[bitbydeath]

I think they’ll need to come up with a new game plan now that the Activision deal has fallen through. Hopefully it results in positive change.

 

[Soosa]

After listening to Phils interviews, and letting it digest before reacting, I understand what he is talking about.

He is of the belief that the XO/PS4 generation was such that it made alot of people cement themselves into one ecosystem or the other due to the investments made in gaming libraries, and the continued efforts for back compatibility.
He is also of the belief that just making good exclusive games isn't going to be enough to convince people to switch ecosystems.
I think he is honest in his beliefs.

Personally, I think he is wrong on a couple of counts.
One of the downsides of entering a new ecosystem is cost of entry.
For instance, I am going to get a PS5 in the near future. There are alot of high quality games that I haven't played from the PS4 and PS5 game libraries.
It's going to cost me $800aud for the console, plus buying all the individual games I wish to play. Now as they are older in alot of instances, I won't have to pay full price. But, the fact remains that it is going to be quite expensive to jump in.

With how MS has structured their offerings, the cost of entry into the Xbox ecosystem is nowhere near as expensive. For starters, you have the option of the cheaper XSS if you want for your second console.
Then on top of that, you can just buy GP and straight away you have access to a massive game library of exclusive xbox games, including the full array of MS games day and date.

So while he is correct that it's going to be hard to get PS owners to "sell" their PS5s, you don't need them to. They just need to also want to get an Xbox as well. If you create enough high quality exclusives that people want to play, then people will find a.way to play them.

On top of that, every year a new generation of people are joining the console race. If you can persuade a good percentage of them to take up xbox over PS, then that will add up. I think he erred in thinking that all the people who buy PS5s are people who are upgrading from their PS4s. That's just not the case.

In saying all of that, MS has come to the view that they need to create their own place, rather than just trying to take existing market share away from Sony.
A couple of generations ago, Nintendo decided that they could not continue to try and match MS and Sony in the power console race. They decide to go another way with the Wii, and it worked. They again decided to do something different with the Switch, and it worked. They created their own market, a market that has both Sony and MS wishing they had a part of.

The current console market consists of the age old formula of selling a console, and then selling one off games on that console for $70. It's a market that has been successful for generations.
Sony is a well oiled and drilled machine in that market. From console development environments, to a consistent supply of Sony style AAA games from their studios.

Now, there's a sales strategy in business that's says "it's more effective to be different than it is to be better".
This is what MS is following.
They have decided to be a disruptor in the industry and to change the industry in ways that they have an advantage in.
A part of this is "Play anywhere (other than Playstation)".
MS adopted PC as a part of their strategy a fair while ago now, and it's one that is slowly being followed by Sony.
MS will never sell the same amount of consoles as Sony, soley due to the fact that you can play Xbox games on PC. Let's be brutally honest, if Sony was to release their games day and date on PC, it would reduce the amount of consoles they would sell. There are millions of PC gamers who also buy a PS to play Sony games.
How this evolves for Sony moving forward still has to be seen.

On top of having a console and PC presence, MS is also going to leverage one of the key companies advantages, which is cloud. Azure is a massive infrastructure which Sony can never hope to copy. In the future, Sony is going to have to partner up with a company like Amazon or Google to have this ability in a meaningful way.
MS also wants to broaden its reach from just x86 gaming to mobile gaming.

MS is going to release a streaming box in the near future, which again gives people another way to play games. Streaming on a mobile is a bit clunky, so people may prefer to buy a streaming box with a controller than play on their phones.
It will be the cheapest way to get into the ecosystem, and yuppies will buy that shit all over.

We now see MSs vision. Console, PC and cloud. They are looking to diversify their offerings to increase their reach and revenue.
Never forget that profit trumps market share. Tencent has no consoles, but makes as much, if not more, money from gaming as MS and Sony.

To partner with the diversity of access to their ecosystem, subscription services is where they not only see the future, but they are going to drive the future there.
We have seen with movies, audio and even software, that subscription services are taking over.
Cries of "support the devs" and "I don't want to rent my games" are cool and all, but MS isn't going to take away the ability to buy their games outright. They will take your money anyway you want to give it to them, and the market has shown that while you and I may wish to buy our shit outright, the overwhelming majority of the general public don't care. These are the people who will dictate who is successful and who isn't.
So MS is building up GP to be the predominant gaming subscription service, and they have succeeded in doing that. MS knows that one maybe 300 odd games and a new exclusive every couple of months isn't going to keep people paying every month. They know that content is king. We have seen the bidding wars that have happened in movies and TV shows from the streaming companies for the rights to have their shows on their platform. The huge amounts of money that shows like Friends, Seinfeld and the Office got is ridiculous.
That will carry over to game streaming as well.
Knowing this, MS is buying up existing IPs and buying studios to make new content.
They are trying to get in now before the other potential streaming companies like Amazon, Disney, Netflix etc start going hard.

So MS is not walking away from the console market, they are just including more places to play than just console. This is what Phil was talking about. He wasn't saying the war is over.

Will it be successful? Time will tell, but if history is any teacher then gaimg will follow movies.
They have the money to go all out. They have the drive from head office to do it. ABK shows they are deadly serious. If ABK isn't going to happen, then they will move on to another company to buy.
Gamepass is where it is now, without any advertising. It's all just word of mouth and people in the xbox system. When they start advertising GP to the masses then the take up will be greater. Microsoft has been a little tempered in pushing GPU, as they are mindful of their capacity on xcloud, and that is one of the biggest issues for MS now.
With shortages of the XSX still happening, MS is obviously trying to supply enough APUs to both the console market and xcloud. It makes more financial sense to preference xcloud, as any excess capacity can be used by Azure to make money as well.
The lack of capacity in Xcloud is also what is holding back their plans for both a streaming box, and releasing their new family Gamepass plans in all areas. They cannot release their streaming box and then have congestion with it straight away. It would be a disaster.

Now this all goes to the biggest issue facing MS, and might explain why Phil has been caught short with overseeing what happened with Redfall for instance.
They have so many irons in the fire that they arnt able to concentrate on getting them all right. The ABK deal has taken every single resource MS has in their aquisitions team. This has reduced their ability to close off other aquisitions of studios and publishers.
Trying to balance up both cloud and console supply has meant that XSX supplies have been hurt, which has hurt sales.

This is how I see MSs plan moving forward. It makes sense to me, but they don't want to miss the Forrest for the trees.

Xbox + GP (full price) isnt really that much cheaper. Assuming you want to be cheap as possible, so using some time to archieve it:

yes. you can get used XSS for 100€ or less, or new one but it is not same experience as ps5/sxs. On XSS you cant buy used games -> you will lose potential savings -> xss is no good.

On PS5 (or SXS) you can buy used physical games, you mentioned ps4 games too. Majority of used ps4 games are like 5-20€, and PS5 games can be 10-30€ range. Xbox games are usually cheaper as they have low demand.

Gamepass ultimate is like 15-20€/month full price -> you can basically buy 1-4 used physical games/month and then resell them with +-0€ with tiny profit or loss.

Playstation ecosystem is easier to do "buy. play. sell" kind of gaming as they have higher demand so it is easy to sell and buy used games. On my country there isnt even new xbox games available on many big retailers or there is like 5 different games.

I have ps5 and sxs. i have bought 1 game for xbox as I got 3 years of GPU for 91€ total, which is of course great deal, but I would never pay ridiculous 16-20€/month for gamepass as I usually just play 1-2 games.

On long run game pass is expensive, 3 years = 12x3x16 = 576€ and you own zero games vs. buying used games that have at least some value.

 

[Crayon]

Xbox + GP (full price) isnt really that much cheaper. Assuming you want to be cheap as possible, so using some time to archieve it:

yes. you can get used XSS for 100€ or less, or new one but it is not same experience as ps5/sxs. On XSS you cant buy used games -> you will lose potential savings -> xss is no good.

On PS5 (or SXS) you can buy used physical games, you mentioned ps4 games too. Majority of used ps4 games are like 5-20€, and PS5 games can be 10-30€ range. Xbox games are usually cheaper as they have low demand.

Gamepass ultimate is like 15-20€/month full price -> you can basically buy 1-4 used physical games/month and then resell them with +-0€ with tiny profit or loss.

Playstation ecosystem is easier to do "buy. play. sell" kind of gaming as they have higher demand so it is easy to sell and buy used games. On my country there isnt even new xbox games available on many big retailers or there is like 5 different games.

I have ps5 and sxs. i have bought 1 game for xbox as I got 3 years of GPU for 91€ total, which is of course great deal, but I would never pay ridiculous 16-20€/month for gamepass as I usually just play 1-2 games.

On long run game pass is expensive, 3 years = 12x3x16 = 576€ and you own zero games vs. buying used games that have at least some value.

I like this thrifty gaming. This reminds me of around 2012 when I was busted down to a ps2, a wii, and a netbook. All my retro stuff was packed up, too. I was fine lol. Played tons of stuff. It was about a year like that between my launch ps3 burning out and my friend being aghast at the situation and giving me his lol. Highlights were magic carpet, ff12, avernum, kof 2002, gt4, mario galaxy, cubivore.

 

[aries_71]

Sony and Nintendo are happy with the current market model and would like to maintain it indefinitely as it is. That's probably not realistic and MS is trying to exploit that opportunity. Although many gaffers are violently hostile to the concept of cloud gaming, others believe it's the future. Geforce Now and Stadia convinced me that, if you live in an area with a good fiber connection and close to a data center, cloud gaming is perfectly viable. If you are a casual -and the market is composed by a majority of casuals-, you won't be able to tell a local game from a cloud one. Yes, it's that good. MS is looking forward to that future, because they can only improve their position over there, while Sony/Nintendo will drag their feet, because they will lose the current advantage over there. That part of the strategy I understand*

What I find harder to understand is that MS, that is a software company (lets say, THE software company), is so bad at managing the software production of its studios. I believe they should have experienced project managers, tech leads and procedures as to make studios better. But that's not happening. Just to name a few: Halo Infinite is an excellent game, but from a project management POV it was a disaster. RedFall may be a good game, but it clearly missed their quality goals. So, what gives, MS? Why are you so bad at managing these projects when you are one of the most experienced companies managing software?

*Note: I had a very bad personal experience with this new console generation launch. Whether because of COVID, Suez channel blockage or chip manufacturing shortages, it was impossible for me to obtain a new PS5 or XSX for months. I refused to pay a scalper so I basically had to wait for 1.5 years to get one. If Cloud computing would have offered me next-generation quality streaming titles I would have been all over it immediately. This experienced has soured me so much, that I'm not looking forward to any new hardware launch to suffer the same again.