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[adamsapple]

Nope! It's disingenuous to justify Sea of Thieves' possible port by pointing to that Zenimax "case by case" statement.

I mean .. yes and no ? porting games other than Minecraft wasn't even a question in 2020, so we can't directly correlate what they said about one thing 4 years ago to another thing today anyway. Their first official comment on these matters was 'case by case', the insiders now are saying the same thing, that any ports are being considered on a case by case basis.

 

[Astray]

Come on. He said that about Zenimax Bethesda games. Sea of Thieves is not a Zenimax Bethesda title.

I don't know if this is intentional, but the two most confirmed games, Hifi Rush and Sea of Thieves seem almost designed to kill any theories about potential exclusivity schemes.

"oh it's just small games" > Sea of Thieves has been one of their bigger hits.
"oh it's just Bethesda games" > Sea of Thieves is an XGS title.
"oh it's just GAAS fare" > Hifi Rush is certainly not a GAAS.

Whatever they ultimately announce, I personally think the messaging has been a complete mess, whoever was leaking things to tip the scales in favor of the fan-pleasing actions has kinda tanked the brand equity beyond anything else, like, why would you fucking do that lmfao?

 

[ManaByte]

I mean .. yes and no ? porting games other than Minecraft wasn't even a question in 2020, so we can't directly correlate what they said about one thing 4 years ago to another thing today anyway. Their first official comment on these matters was 'case by case', the insiders now are saying the same thing, that any ports are being considered on a case by case basis.

I really want SoT on PS5 just so poeple can get very angry when Rare announces a new player number milestone.

 

[Sanepar]

Now i get the feeling that they saw everyone panicking and they are using this week to re plan everything. A final push/chance for "Team Exclusives" inside Xbox?

WHY care about toxic fanboys who doesn't buy games anymore and miss potential 250 maus(ps and switch combined) consumers?

 

[demigod]

Do like a good chunk of us. I usually avoid ignoring people, but in his case, you will save yourself the needless headache.

Its more funny to just laugh emoji his shit.

 

[skyfinch]

You straight up jackass. Just roll up your sleeve, and reveal the tattoo of the dates in which game of the year Forza and Starfield are coming to Switch. Was that so fucking hard? I'm not even a college graduate of video games and even I know what's best for Xbox.

 

[dorkimoe]

Did people forget mlb the show was on Xbox now?
Porting a live service game like sea of thieves isn’t a bad idea

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

Did people forget mlb the show was on Xbox now?
Porting a live service game like sea of thieves isn’t a bad idea

That was out of Sony's hands, they did not do that out of good will

 

[JohnnyFootball]

That was out of Sony's hands, they did not do that out of good will

I still don't know how Xbox was able to pull off putting that on Gamepass.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

I still don't know how Xbox was able to pull off putting that on Gamepass.

That was an interesting move

 

[Heisenberg007]

I mean .. yes and no ? porting games other than Minecraft wasn't even a question in 2020, so we can't directly correlate what they said about one thing 4 years ago to another thing today anyway. Their first official comment on these matters was 'case by case', the insiders now are saying the same thing, that any ports are being considered on a case by case basis.

Again, no.

Phil said "case by case" for Zenimax Bethesda games BEFORE the acquisition closed - so it could help regulators.

1) Two days after the acquisition officially closed, he changed his stance and said, "If you're an Xbox customer, the thing I want you to know is this is about delivering great exclusive games for you, that ship on platforms where Game Pass exists. That's our goal. That's why we're doing this."

2) Sea of Thieves is NOT a Zenimax Bethesda game. So the "case by case statement" doesn't apply to that anyway.

 

[Heisenberg007]

I still don't know how Xbox was able to pull off putting that on Gamepass.

Talked to MLB (the publisher of the game on Xbox) and signed a deal, just like they normally do with any other published, e.g., Sega for Yakuza and Persona games.

Same way they talked to 505 for Death Stranding on PC Game Pass. But they could not do it for the console version because Sony was the publisher on console.

 

[jroc74]

Which would be exactly what they said back in 2020 (21?) 'case by case basis'.

And ppl...still....just try to dismiss Sea of Thieves by saying this.

Phil said that about Bethesda games in 2020, 2021. And every time it came up since then it was about some Bethesda game.

Again, no.

Phil said "case by case" for Zenimax Bethesda games BEFORE the acquisition closed - so it could help regulators.

1) Two days after the acquisition officially closed, he changed his stance and said, "If you're an Xbox customer, the thing I want you to know is this is about delivering great exclusive games for you, that ship on platforms where Game Pass exists. That's our goal. That's why we're doing this."

2) Sea of Thieves is NOT a Zenimax Bethesda game. So the "case by case statement" doesn't apply to that anyway.

Exactly.

 

[adamsapple]

2) Sea of Thieves is NOT a Zenimax Bethesda game. So the "case by case statement" doesn't apply to that anyway.

Well, porting any other game wasn't even a question back in 2020 so we're just arguing semantics at this point. The latest we know from the 'insiders' is that any other ports at this point are also being considered on a case by case basis.

That was an interesting move

It was a pretty genius move, a rival platforms first party game that is sold at $70 on their own console, available on game pass day 1.

 

[Heisenberg007]

Well, porting any other game wasn't even a question back in 2020

Yeah, that's my point.

He wasn't referring to an XGS game because that wasn't in the plans. Sea of Thieves / XGS ports are a new strategy.

 

[Syphon Filter]

Plenty of console gamers don't want to game on PC so plenty of reason to get an Xbox for them.

there isnt a reason to get an xbox with all games on pc, this isnt the 90's or 00's where pc wasnt that popular.

 

[Topher]

there isnt a reason to get an xbox with all games on pc, this isnt the 90's or 00's where pc wasnt that popular.

PC being popular doesn't mean everyone wants to game there. There are plenty of people here on this very forum who have stated plenty of times that they don't care for gaming on PC. If those people want to play Forza or Halo or want to play games on Game Pass then they factually have a reason to get an Xbox.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

there isnt a reason to get an xbox with all games on pc, this isnt the 90's or 00's where pc wasnt that popular.

I keep saying this but I know a lot of people that will buy the next Xbox that don't game on PCs and would never buy a PS

They grew up on Xbox, all their friends are on Xbox and don't care about Sony's offerings

Xbox will still sell consoles no matter what

I said this before but my adult son only games on Xbox and when I asked him his thoughts on if Xbox goes 3rd party he said who gives a fuck?

He will buy the next console, likely both of them because its what he games on

 

[adamsapple]

there isnt a reason to get an xbox with all games on pc, this isnt the 90's or 00's where pc wasnt that popular.

I bought both current gen consoles instead of a modern gaming PC. All my Xbox library from 360 onward and playstation library from PS4 onward is available.

 

[Moridianae]

I keep saying this but I know a lot of people that will buy the next Xbox that don't game on PCs and would never buy a PS

They grew up on Xbox, all their friends are on Xbox and don't care about Sony's offerings

Xbox will still sell consoles no matter what

I said this before but my adult son only games on Xbox and when I asked him his thoughts on if Xbox goes 3rd party he said who gives a fuck?

He will buy the next console, likely both of them because its what he games on

I think there will always be a market for the Xbox, provided they do everything right. The thing is Microsoft going to be okay with basically being third in HW or third overall?

They've had so many missteps that I think Nintendo and Sony are indomitable at this juncture.

They have a history of backing out of markets they have no course to monetarily muscle their way to first place.

 

[xHunter]

Still believe this one will be true in the end. The OEM stuff might be exaggerated or worded wrong, but i can see them releasing 3-4 xbox branded hardware with the same OS (handheld, streaming device, high end console etc.9

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

I think there will always be a market for the Xbox, provided they do everything right. The thing is Microsoft going to be okay with basically being third in HW or third overall?

They've had so many missteps that I think Nintendo and Sony are indomitable at this juncture.

They have a history of backing out of markets they have no course to monetarily muscle their way to first place.

Just my 2 cents but too many people get caught up in being 1st or 3rd or whatever in hardware sales when all that matters is what the bottom line looks like

 

[Humdinger]

Still believe this one will be true in the end.

Yeah, I am with you on that.

 

[elmos-acc]

Even if the rumors are true, I still think Phil has a pretty easy way out with corporate PR speech.

"Since 2021, with Zenimax Bethesda and Activision Blizzard King joining our Microsoft Gaming family, Microsoft is currently the biggest videogame publisher in the history of the medium. With our bold new direction, we have decided to continue to offer our fan favorite titles beyond our own hardware. We are very proud of the games we make and seek to get them into the hands of millions of gamers all over the world.

To our amazing Xbox community, the Series consoles will still be an extraordinary places to experience thousands of wonderful games, and GamePass will remain the best subscription service in gaming."

 

[Kenneth Haight]

I still don't know how Xbox was able to pull off putting that on Gamepass.

Probably because they’re eating the cost and not making any profit on it.

 

[Elios83]

I still don't know how Xbox was able to pull off putting that on Gamepass.

By sending a huge bag of money to MLB and fully paying the bills for the porting costs?
That was the 2021 phase when they desperately wanted to prove that buying games was not the smart thing to do and Gamepass was the future.
Unfortunately for them things didn't go as expected and we're now waiting to see their next transformation

 

[mckmas8808]

I guess obviously the numbers might not be what they want, but things can't be this dire. For one, every single third party that has released console sales splits (outside of genres that just don't sell to the player base) shows Xbox right where it would be or sometimes over performing based on the current split 2:1, most recently the figures from CDPR about the CP2077 DLC. Second if people aren't buying the consoles (okay, you've got this one a bit because the hardware sales are slowing down), never buy software and don't pay for GP, exactly where does MS's revenue come from? Especially once you figure in the fact that hardware is such a large chunk of the revenue thanks to the prices of the consoles, those lower sales would be putting a lot of downward pressure on the gross number. But, even without ABK factored in MS has been staying flat or having minor gains/losses because GP has been picking up the slack for them. Now, if they have a 40% further decline in hardware next quarter, that might finally be a bit too much for software and services/GP to cover, but still. The picture you paint and the math just don't square for me.

3% growth for Xbox without ABK isn't good after 3 years on the market though. There's a reason they laid off 1,900 people. And they all weren't all redundancies. The GP dollars already aren't covering enough of the cost to make it worth it, hence the upcoming changes.

And keep in mind that Xbox is only 10% of all physical media sales for software and the Xbox hardware today has already fallen behind the Xbox One. And that console ended up at 58 million sold. So if the XBS consoles end at 50 million sold, that would be a double disaster, because most of their Game Pass members are Xbox console owners. And they need 100 million GP members by 2027.

 

[jm89]

Still believe this one will be true in the end. The OEM stuff might be exaggerated or worded wrong, but i can see them releasing 3-4 xbox branded hardware with the same OS (handheld, streaming device, high end console etc.9

My guess we probably won't know the true extent of how multiplat ms are planning on going.

I think the plan was always going to be a slow rollout of more games on ps and switch, so not to spook the Xbox fanbase. But they got caught with their pants down when stuff started leaking and now rushing out to damage control.

 

[leizzra]

I think that going 3rd party could be beneficial for Game Pass.

I think that we all can agree that Game Pass is the most important thing for Microsoft. For now it’s tied to Xbox and PC but in the future will be probably on many other devices that can have streaming app. We aren’t there yet though and two other platforms aren’t probably interested in having GP as it may hurt them in the future. For now GP isn’t growing as MS would want it to and because of that it’s costing Redmond company much. But what if they start to release their biggest games (which cost the most to make) to other platforms? I could make GP more profitable.

By releasing their expensive games to PlayStation (and maybe Switch 2?) they could get back the development cost or maybe even more without GP. Thanks to that their subscription service won’t be burdened by the cost of games and day one option, which eats their profits. On top of that it may convince some people to GP, because if they start to like MS games then they can have them cheap with GP.

Of course that decision won’t make Xbox the most wanted console but I believe it will still sell at the levels that we see today. Of course it means GP won’t grow fast but probably it would grow. MS can relay more on the cloud and release the streaming app at more TV’s. Some people probably would play it this way. Slowly we would see GP being a bigger player. Especially if MS tried to add mobiles to that.

In the end it would be a game of waiting for the future to come. Also I think that MS isn’t good at being patient so they probably will try some other ways to grow GP faster.

 

[Setsuna Mudou]

It was a pretty genius move, a rival platforms first party game that is sold at $70 on their own console, available on game pass day 1.

Xbox has a long history of genius moves like that one.

Which is why they are about to wave the white flag and go 3rd party now

 

[adamsapple]

Xbox has a long history of genius moves like that one.

Which is why they are about to wave the white flag and go 3rd party now

 

[King Dazzar]

So, do we have date, time and format yet?

 

[Topher]

So, do we have date, time and format yet?

We've got nothing.

 

[Heisenberg007]

We've got nothing.

 

[DaGwaphics]

3% growth for Xbox without ABK isn't good after 3 years on the market though. There's a reason they laid off 1,900 people. And they all weren't all redundancies. The GP dollars already aren't covering enough of the cost to make it worth it, hence the upcoming changes.

And keep in mind that Xbox is only 10% of all physical media sales for software and the Xbox hardware today has already fallen behind the Xbox One. And that console ended up at 58 million sold. So if the XBS consoles end at 50 million sold, that would be a double disaster, because most of their Game Pass members are Xbox console owners. And they need 100 million GP members by 2027.

I'm sure they'd like the 3% to be higher, but it's better than being down double digits. I have never seen any direct information about GP profit and loss and have no information about the changes, if any, being proposed, so, I can't really even put forward a simple analysis/hypothesis about that.

 

[Nydius]

I'm sure they'd like the 3% to be higher, but it's better than being down double digits.

The only reason they were up 3% last quarter was because they had the Series X on deep sale for the entire quarter. Every quarter for the fiscal year before (FY23), hardware revenues were down double digits every quarter.

That 3% “increase” came at the expense of taking a massive financial hit on each unit sold. Now that the Series X is back at normal RRP, I expect next quarter’s hardware revenue numbers will be as dismal as they were before.

 

[Eiknarf]

Just checking…

Is it next week yet?
What’d Phil say?

Asking for a friend. Two billion friends to be exact

 

[DaGwaphics]

The only reason they were up 3% last quarter was because they had the Series X on deep sale for the entire quarter. Every quarter for the fiscal year before (FY23), hardware revenues were down double digits every quarter.

That 3% “increase” came at the expense of taking a massive financial hit on each unit sold. Now that the Series X is back at normal RRP, I expect next quarter’s hardware revenue numbers will be as dismal as they were before.

I didn't realize the 3% was hardware specific, I thought that was their revenue growth without ABK (but a quick google shows that as being up about 5%). Too many numbers for me to remember off the top of my head, I thought the hardware was still down overall. My point accidentally still stands though, better to be up than down. I think it's smart to take the financial hit to try and build the base as best as they can. Even with the cuts they still managed to be up YoY in revenue.

 

[skit_data]

I don't believe this is gonna happen.

The business event?

Yeah I guess you never know when it's one of those Phil Spencer promises

 

[Mr.Phoenix]

The biggest problem is that there's just way too many insiders on twitter, every insider who has a podcast was rattling off different game names over the last week.

They have to get those views and clicks so their part in perpetuating unsubstantiated shit is not surprising.

While that is true, I really believe the biggest problem here is how MS handled this. All they had to do was say "Starfield remains exclusive, as do all other announced games and future projects". Their keeping quiet means that something is coming to Playstation, hence why they didn't just say, exclusives will remain exclusive. It also means that they don't want to tie themselves down to something now and be called out on it if they backtrack sometime down the road.

If they are not clear on this, anyone who says x or y game is coming down the road could be telling the truth too just as easily as it could be complete BS.

 

[Gudji]

Just checking…

Is it next week yet?
What’d Phil say?

Asking for a friend. Two billion friends to be exact

Phil on monday:

 

[ViciousAgenda]

The business event?

Yeah I guess you never know when it's one of those Phil Spencer promises

No, games jumping ship. I just can't believe it. Not out of xbox Fandom, I haven't owned one since the 360 but because it'd be such a huge capitulation.

 

[skit_data]

No, games jumping ship. I just can't believe it. Not out of xbox Fandom, u haven't owned one since the 360 but because it'd be such a huge capitulation.

I can see them trickle out over the span of the rest of the gen, I don't think they'll announce everything coming. But I do think that the seeds of doubt have been sown already among a lot of people and I don't think next weeks event will do enough to reassure those people either.

 

[Dorfdad]

100% the should be putting games on all platforms and it has nothing to do with the XBOX brand. They bought AB which already are on all platforms so essentially they already are on Multiplatforms. What they need to do is say were releasing elderscrolls 6 to xbox and PC day 1, 1 year from now we will release them to other platforms. This gives them exclusivity for 1 year and will help sales of the console and games on xbox / pc and than like Sony is doing with PC release these games 2-3 years later on PC. where they get the double dippers etc.

No reason Microsoft shouldn't be doing this and I believe that is what they are going to be doing, but somewhere the message got mistaken and bloggers ran with click bait headlines.

 

[Mr Hyde]

So, do we have date, time and format yet?

The event needs to at least be held at a big stage with Phil or Satya doing the announcement.

 

[Fox Mulder]

I still don't know how Xbox was able to pull off putting that on Gamepass.

MLB wanted it multiplatform as part of Sony’s renewed licensing deal in 2019. MLB publishes it on other consoles.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

MLB wanted it multiplatform as part of Sony’s renewed licensing deal in 2019. MLB publishes it on other consoles.

Multiplatform is one thing. Being on Gamepass Day 1. Something else entirely.

 

[reinking]

I really want SoT on PS5 just so poeple can get very angry when Rare announces a new player number milestone.

 

[DJ12]

When are we getting the announcement of the announcement.

 

[DeepEnigma]

well well ..

Reads like the early on Sony bringing games to the PC energy.

Fast forward to today.