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[HeisenbergFX4]

Thanks, I was not aware of this.

Also not saying I would bet a ton of money Helix ever makes it to market, just that Tweet was from someone who by looking at their posting history did that very intentionally

Any Helix news in that wall o text?

Nope

 

[jshackles]

I'm more shocked that she signed "Asha and Matt" as much as anything. No true leader does shit like that.

Yep this is loser mentality. You put someone else's name on your work when you want them to take all or part of the fall.

 

[bender]

Correct me if I'm wrong but weren't M&As like ABK the reason Xbox found itself in such a bad state that they "had" to start going fully multiplatform? I don't think more M&As are going to work, at least of major 3P devs and pubs, considering almost all of them seem to enjoy their independence and given all the rampant layoffs over the years due to M&As, can't blame 'em.

Now OTOH, if this means what I first thought of when reading, that MS are going to pull an Apple and start designing their own silicon, now that's a different story. I mean, Nvidia are already doing that right? Architectures like RISCV are free to utilize, proven, and you can make your extensions proprietary if you wish. You get ARM-like thermals and battery life with at least as good of performance if not better, depending on how you engineer your silicon implementing the ISA.

Companies like MS would still be beholden to TSMC for fabbing, but they could have more control over the silicon design process itself and that directly benefits costs. It'd be a return to what companies like Sony did during PS1 & PS2 days; if you design good enough silicon you can probably get away with cheaper nodes and spin up your own fabs easier or have more options for fabbing besides just TSMC & maybe Samsung.

Also this part...

I'd guess the M&A of ABK was a "careful what you wish" for situation. I'm sure the idea for the ABK acquisition was very similar to what Xbox did with ZeniMax and that was quickly tamped down by both regulators and Microsoft book keepers (you're spending how much?). Those intentions were as naive as thinking they added Donkey Kong to their catalogue when they purchased Rare.

Custom silicon like you described probably isn't the right move for anyone either and especially not the company with the smallest install base. Development is already expensive enough, multiplatform is a necessity for most games, and often cross generation compatibility as well. Going that route with Microsoft's other decisions would have led to even more games skipping the platform. It also doesn't solve the storage/memory problem everyone is facing today.

 

[DarkShadowXI]

I'm more shocked that she signed "Asha and Matt" as much as anything. No true leader does shit like that.

Certainly not one that takes accountability or responsibility for their actions and results. That's for damn sure

 

[Loomy]

This is absolutely embarrassing that they put out a memo like this because it reads like a teenager/kid wrote it. Sometimes saying nothing is better than saying anything at all.

You're going to have to expand on that.

 

[German Shocks]

Yep this is loser mentality. You put someone else's name on your work when you want them to take all or part of the fall.

Yikes!

I bet she would take Matt's name off the memo if things were Great.
They only want the credit, but none of the responsibility.

 

[Shifty1897]

I appreciate that she came in and acknowledged that things were completely effed up. Acknowledging the problem is the first step to solving it.

I hope she does, having real competition would cause Sony to actually try rather than fart out Concord 2.

 

[DarkShadowXI]

Guys, Xbox is cooked.

I love to have options and competition in the gaming space, but this feels very corporate in the worst way possible.

 

[Three]

"a reliable pipeline of ..third-party exclusives"

I wonder what the crowd who spent years complaining about "slimy platform things" and how "xbox doesn't do that" think about this?

 

[KyoZz]

Cool more PR talk

 

[Stafford]

Studio closures are going to happen. Aren't they? Ffs.

 

[consoul]

There seems to be a broad assumption that Asha has been tasked with making the Xbox business a success.

Have you considered that maybe that's not what she's there for?

If Redmond set her the task of winding up the unprofitable console arm of Microsoft's business, this is pretty much what it would look like. To manage public sentiment, they need to be seen as trying to make a go of it in very tough market conditions. Messaging like this is designed to be leaked to the public.

100 days until 'we did our best but hard realities have to be faced'. The Xbox console business is already over.

 

[jshackles]

I wonder what the crowd who spent years complaining about "slimy platform things" and how "xbox doesn't do that" think about this?

We knew all along it was just cope. This same crowd will just shift their narrative and tell us it's good business.

 

[Sebastian1295]

You're going to have to expand on that.

When you start off a statement saying

"Team,

Over the first 100 days together, we have started to revive XBOX."


You make your statement sound childish and cult like. And also wtf would any consumer give two shits about a trillion dollar corporations profitability margin. It's absolutely pathetic bringing that up in their statement as well.

 

[neocycle]

XBOX ain't happening anymore.
Microsoft is a loser company. No one really likes their products.

 

[bender]

"a reliable pipeline of ..third-party exclusives"

I wonder what the crowd who spent years complaining about "slimy platform things" and how "xbox doesn't do that" think about this?

They'll remember that the GTA IV DLC exclusivity was pretty neat.

 

[jshackles]

Messaging like this is designed to be leaked to the public.

They skipped the middle man in this case and just posted it straight to news.xbox.com

 

[DarkShadowXI]

Studio closures are going to happen. Aren't they? Ffs.

Brother, the entire gaming division is going to probably get shaken up.

 

[bender]

They skipped the middle man in this case and just posted it straight to news.xbox.com

 

[DarkShadowXI]

They skipped the middle man in this case and just posted it straight to news.xbox.com

I thought this was a leaked memo to employees!

Jesus. What are they doing?

 

[jshackles]

I thought this was a leaked memo to employees!

Jesus. What are they doing?

Link was posted in the OP

I don't know what the fuck they're doing... and I suspect they don't either.

 

[RoboFu]

Asha: "We're reviving Xbox"

*prepares to lay off more people*

Do you move into a dirty house and not clean or throw out the shit the last owners left behind?

This is needed

 

[Magic-DEI-Hire]

Do you move into a dirty house and not clean or throw out the shit the last owners left behind?

This is needed

Running a house is far different than running a subdivision of a multi-trillion dollar company.

 

[German Shocks]

Do you move into a dirty house and not clean or throw out the shit the last owners left behind?

This is needed

At this point, MS needs to abandon Xbox and buy up Sega.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Everything says they should go third party and drop all hardware. It's over.

 

[Arsic]

I don't expect a revolution from them until Helix.

That will be their big chance to truly revive the brand if done right. If they make ES6 and a new halo exclusive launch titles I know I would consider it if it isn't on PC at all.

 

[Stafford]

Brother, the entire gaming division is going to probably get shaken up.

I am trying to see a bit of good news in there too. Like them finally better managing these studios, yeah not likely. This fucking sucks breh.

 

[DarkShadowXI]

Link was posted in the OP

I don't know what the fuck they're doing... and I suspect they don't either.

That's insanity. Ugh this is so gross, wtf.

This is not the type of memo you broadcast globally. Someone needs to enroll in CEO school ASAP.

 

[viveks86]

Any Helix news in that wall o text?

Holiday 2027 is still the plan, at least

And as we plan for the 2027 holiday season…<snip for brevity> …and partnerships for hardware as we remain committed to Helix.

Until there is a new plan

 

[Radical_3d]

One billion customers!

 

[Three]

At this point, MS needs to abandon Xbox and buy up Sega.

They talk about M&A in this too but I'm not sure what they plan to buy. They ambiguously mention 'hardware', PC, mobile and 'vendors'. Could they be trying to buy up AMD? Is it vendors for gamepass as in studios? Or is it that rumour that they were trying to buy steam?

"We've become too reliant on vendors to operate our systems and must become more self-reliant as an engineering culture to build for the future. We must increase the value we ship to players while decreasing the time it takes to do so. Going forward, we'll evolve and rebuild our stack and look at capabilities across all of XBOX and potential M&A to help us win in hardware, PC, mobile, and streaming."

 

[Magic Carpet]

They talk about M&A in this too but I'm not sure what they plan to buy. They ambiguously mention 'hardware', PC, mobile and 'vendors'. Could they be trying to buy up AMD? Is it vendors for gamepass as in studios? Or is it that rumour that they were trying to buy steam?

Or at least a deal?
No Helix means Valve/Steam lose a source of hardware. No hardware and the entire Store might as well crumble.
Maybe Valve made a phone call to MS? Psssst hey MS, you want to increase your userbase? Well we here at Valve need some hardware. Maybe we can come to some sort of deal.

At least that's how it goes in my dream scenario. Win win for me.

 

[Loomy]

When you start off a statement saying

"Team,

Over the first 100 days together, we have started to revive XBOX."


You make your statement sound childish and cult like. And also wtf would any consumer give two shits about a trillion dollar corporations profitability margin. It's absolutely pathetic bringing that up in their statement as well.

So you see the part where it says "Team"?

That tells you that this was a memo emailed or sent through Teams, addressed to the Xbox Team. It's also why it was signed Asha & Matt, and not "Sincerely, Asha".

You shouldn't care about a trillion dollar company's financials. This memo wasn't for you.

But if you're the new CEO of a division within that company, and you just finished what I assume is an audit of that division, it's not outrageous to tell the team exactly what you found that was wrong with the division.

And Xbox is/was walking dead. If she thinks they've started to revive it, why not say it? The rest of this memo is bleak as fuck, why not open with some positivity?

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Xbox reset: