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Where does Microsoft go from here?

Where does Microsoft go from here?

  • Stay the course

    Votes: 177 57.8%

  • Change Gamepass (no more Day 1 drops)

    Votes: 73 23.9%

  • Abort - Gamepass on other platforms, stop worrying about console sales

    Votes: 56 18.3%
  • Total voters
    306
ByWatterson

ByWatterson

Member
With a year of disappointment behind Xbox, and an uncertain 2023 ahead (where is Hellblade? Fable? Avowed?) Microsoft's plan doesn't appear to be working very well. Yes, they've had a reputational comeback and, yes, Gamepass remains a tremendous deal.

But growth is stagnating, hardware isn't moving fast enough to grow console Gamepass subscribers, and the first party offerings needed to pump up numbers haven't delivered momentum.

I may be catastrophizing, but assuming the Activision deal fails (fair at this point), what is Microsoft's next major move? Seems they either really DO have a pipeline of great games coming in a timely manner, or they need to reorient away from Day 1 drops, OR....

There's a decent case to be made that Gamepass ought to be a subscription on other platforms.
 
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bender

bender

What time is it?
To the country.

Movin' to the country
Gonna eat a lot of peaches
Movin' to the country
Gonna eat me a lot of peaches
Movin' to the country
Gonna eat a lot of peaches
Movin' to the country
I'm gonna eat a lot of peaches
Peaches come from a can
They were put there by a man
In a factory downtown
If I had my little way
I'd eat peaches every day
Sun-soakin' bulges in the shade
Movin' to the country
Gonna eat a lot of peaches
Movin' to the country
Gonna eat me a lot of peaches
Movin' to the country
Gonna eat a lot of peaches
Movin' to the country
Gonna eat a lot of peaches
Took a little nap where the roots all twist
Squished a rotten peach in my fist
And dreamed about you, woman
I poked my finger down inside
Make a little room for an ant to hide
Nature's candy in my hand or can or a pie
Millions of peaches, peaches for me
Millions of peaches, peaches for free
Millions of peaches, peaches for me
Millions of peaches, peaches for free
Look out
Millions of peaches, peaches for me
Millions of peaches, peaches for free
Millions of peaches, peaches for me
Millions of peaches, peaches for free
Look out
 
Rudius

Rudius

Member
They need to start investing in exclusives again, but that takes years to pay off.

For me personally some VR investment on their part would suffice as a reason to buy a Series X. The Forza Horizon games alone would be worth the price of a headset.
 
Kilau

Kilau

Member
Ass of Can Whooping said:
Bow before the king
Click to expand...
We can always use your pic as an inverse to judge the state of Xbox.

776166.jpg
 
reinking

reinking

Gold Member
There is no magic to the console business. They need to do what they should have been doing all along. Get their studios in order and start releasing games consistently. Make marketing deals when it makes sense. Let Game Pass evolve naturally and stop saying stupid shit like "play everywhere." That sends the wrong message when you are trying to build a strong console following. Game Pass is a fantastic service to go along with Xbox but it should have never been the focus this early.
 
N

NahaNago

Member
Focus on making smaller amazing games around 12 hours long or less to fill out gamepass. So that they can pump out games quicker and have a steady supply of games and then they can work their way up to the big heavy hitters. Use this generation to get their groove back and go hard on the next gen.
 
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Jaybe

Jaybe

Member
ByWatterson said:
There's a decent case to be made that Gamepass ought to be a subscription on other platforms.
Click to expand...
Microsoft wants this badly. Steam would allow it but it would only be Microsoft first-party games, the same way EA Play bought on Steam is EA games only and not the full EA Play catalog. This is why they want Activision, adding the full catalog to their first-party roster makes Game Pass on Steam more viable and give Microsoft more negotiating power with Steam, and potentially the other platforms if desired.
 
ByWatterson

ByWatterson

Member
Jaybe said:
Microsoft wants this badly. Steam would allow it but it would only be Microsoft first-party games, the same way EA Play bought on Steam is EA games only and not the full EA Play catalog. This is why they want Activision, adding the full catalog to their first-party roster makes Game Pass on Steam more viable and give Microsoft more negotiating power with Steam, and potentially the other platforms if desired.
Click to expand...

For sure, but the big one is Sony.

And maaaaaybe Sony would allow it if Xbox were not also a platform holder.
 
JohnnyFootball

JohnnyFootball

GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
Rudius said:
They need to start investing in exclusives again, but that takes years to pay off.

For me personally some VR investment on their part would suffice as a reason to buy a Series X. The Forza Horizon games alone would be worth the price of a headset.
Click to expand...
They have been doing this. They've just wasted so much due to poor management.
 
T4keD0wN

T4keD0wN

Member
Nothing, they still make tons of money.
They can just sit on their bottoms and collect their 30% cut from selling products they had no hand in making and make insane amount of money by doing nothing besides keeping their services alive and manufacturing more consoles.

Of course they have a pipeline of (maybe great) games coming. They are a company and companies require infinite growth so they will spend money to develop games in order to make even more money.

0% chance of others (aside maybe steam) allowing gamepass on other platforms.

They are not the market leaders so they need to be more consumer friendly.
Sony and Nintendo can get away with being abusive to customers, but Microsoft cant, they are way weaker (at least in gaming space) and have to play nice so i doubt they would abandon day 1 releases on gamepass, that would hurt their long-term growth and only help them in the short-term.
 
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SlimySnake

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Change leadership. Definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting things to change. Nothing will change unless people at the top go.

Restructure their studios to make them more productive. Pick ONE director. Give him 2-3 years. He answers to the CEO and no one else. Anything more and find a different directors. Games shouldnt take 4-5 let alone 6-7 years to make. Reduce the scope and release polished 10-15 hour games with high production values instead.

They had their Xbox game reveal 2.5 years ago. Out of Forza, Hellblade, State of Decay, Fable, and Avowed, only Forza is releasing later this year. With no release date so it might push to 2024. Thats unacceptable. Get these studios the bodies they need to ship on time. Tell them 6 month pre-production period max then all hands on deck to make something and then iterate for the sequel. Uncharted 1 was a good first start, it wasnt until uncharted 2 did they really take the game to its fullest potential. Same thing with AC1. Chasing success with the first game is what gets you into 6-7 year dev cycles with games constantly in development hell.

They have the studios. They have the bodies. They need to become more productive. No more 3 year incubation periods. You have 3 years to get a game out. If not, GTFO. Doom Eternal was released 3 years ago. WTF is that team doing?
 
B

bluecowboys

Banned
SlimySnake said:
Change leadership. Definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting things to change. Nothing will change unless people at the top go.

Restructure their studios to make them more productive. Pick ONE director. Give him 2-3 years. He answers to the CEO and no one else. Anything more and find a different directors. Games shouldnt take 4-5 let alone 6-7 years to make. Reduce the scope and release polished 10-15 hour games with high production values instead.

They had their Xbox game reveal 2.5 years ago. Out of Forza, Hellblade, State of Decay, Fable, and Avowed, only Forza is releasing later this year. With no release date so it might push to 2024. Thats unacceptable. Get these studios the bodies they need to ship on time. Tell them 6 month pre-production period max then all hands on deck to make something and then iterate for the sequel. Uncharted 1 was a good first start, it wasnt until uncharted 2 did they really take the game to its fullest potential. Same thing with AC1. Chasing success with the first game is what gets you into 6-7 year dev cycles with games constantly in development hell.

They have the studios. They have the bodies. They need to become more productive. No more 3 year incubation periods. You have 3 years to get a game out. If not, GTFO. Doom Eternal was released 3 years ago. WTF is that team doing?
Click to expand...
Forza is more than likely coming out this year for sure. Its like saying Spiderman 2 won't be out this year because no release date. Avowed, Hell blade and Fable reboot should be out by next year. AAA games take 5 years to make. Look at God of war or TLOU2
 
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Mr Hyde

Mr Hyde

Member
I would love to see MS keep producing smaller, more experimental games like HiFi Rush and Pentiment. Now that they have Double Fine on board they could make a case of carving out a niche of weird quirky games. Unfortunately, these type of games don't typically capture mind share like big AAA games, but these games instantly made me more interested in Xbox than anything they've done with their big IPs like Halo and Gears.

And when I think about it, XGS, for me at least, has been more consistent in quality with their smaller output than with their tentpole franchises. For example, Ori 1 & 2 are some of the best Metroidvania games ever produced, and it is a franchise MS should be putting out front and center. And now they have the Psychonauts IP, which has garnered great acclaim, so why not continue with that?

It feels like whenever MS is trying to go head to head with Sony in the AAA department, they fail. It's obvious they don't have the talent and know how to produce games of that magnitude. And when they do produce a big tent pole game it always gets compared to one of Sonys games. So why not scale it down and focus on more originality and creativity? Maybe it's a space that is starting to get left out in this desire to be high end? Game Pass is obviously perfect for these games, you can even shadow drop them and they will find an audience.
 
Mr.Phoenix

Mr.Phoenix

Member
MS can come out very ok, just that OK wouldn't be what most think.

First off, forget consoles. They have tried for over 20 years now, and the closest they came to making any real inroads there was with the 360, and even that was due to sony fucking up. It's safe to say, that a good Xbox console, simply lacks the market presence to compete with a good PlayStation console. They have lost 3 of those fights and are on track to lose the 4th.

So enter gamepass. For all intents and purposes, gamepass is still their best play. Unless we expect them to keep trying the same things but expecting different results. Which would be as stupid as sony trying to make a handheld to compete with Nintendo. The issue they have with gamepass is that they are not being true to themselves and are still trying to use it to corner the console space. Which simply won't work.

What they need to do, and this is something I have ever understood why they haven't tried to do, is focus on the PC space and (most important) being a multiplatform publisher. They don't need to have a console to make a ton of money in the console space. they have PlayStation for that and PC. But with the PC, that's where they can have gamepass. Gamepass is what they can use to buck the stranglehold steam has on the PC space.

They do this, and they would be back to having exclusives that ship over 10M copies, and they stand to be making more money than they are now from gaming as a whole. But I fear there really is something wrong with MS, they are too slow to act and their priorities seem outta whack. They keep finding themselves in this situations where they are being cut at the knees, and all they need to do is just do some forward thinking. I mean if done right, they can even have a $3 - $5 PS+ add-on for gamepass... and sony wouldn't object to that if there is no Xbox console.

Eg... right before their very eyes, steam is shifting away from windows and they can't even see it. Steams Proton right now means that pretty much any game that can run on windows can run on Linux. And they are continually building out their Linux arm. So what happens when they have Linux developed to a point where you don't even need windows? MS is fighting sony when the real prize is the PC space. And that is actually a much easier battle to win because windows is pretty much everywhere.
 
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Pelta88

Pelta88

Member
The Apple VS Epic kickstarted the alarm bells for me. The admission by Microsoft's own internal review system that despite having a few trillion in the bank, they lacked the talent or knowledge to create something comparable to The Last Of Us 2. To quote them directly they said TLOU is

"significantly ahead of anything that other teams have been producing on console and PC."

Consider how far they fallen since that point in 2021. Console sales down significantly, in only their third year of a new gen. Admissions to regulators that the service they hyped, ie Gamepass, will only ever bring in 15% of revenue while cannibalizing front loaded and back end software sales of any game added to it. They're down across the board in their strongest territory and being obliterated outside of the US. They even admitted that the thing they touted as the future, ie cloud gaming, is largely dismissed by their own consumers. It's a path they've been led down because they seem to care only about truly meaningless PR instead of actual gaming.

Microsoft's problem is that the most important thing in gaming, is mindshare. And unfortunately for Microsoft, mindshare in gaming can't be purchased. It can only be built on the back of great games. And as a corporation, Microsoft's go to strategy is to purchase and price out the competition. But after 26 years in gaming that strategy hasn't and continues to be flawed.
 
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ByWatterson

ByWatterson

Member
ResilientBanana said:
I don’t think gamepass is the issue, it’s the lack of good quality, blockbuster level, games.
Click to expand...

But I guess the point is that big blockbuster games won't drive enough subscription revenue unless delivered with amazing quality, regularly, and on time.

Right now they're doing none of those. All respect to Hi-Fi Rush, but it's not a blockbuster title.
 
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