It's worth pointing out that black mirror was originally a channel 4 show that they got the rights to.
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Freelance Yakuza
Member
They needed something to stay relevant, but it didn't work. I wouldn't blame Gamepass; I can't even imagine how much worse it could have been without it.
MS failed because they lacked the talent to foster studios and create IPs. For instance, for many years, Forza was the only IP created under the Xbox division.
They always relied on buying exclusivity or hiring second/third-party studios to make games for them. Owning the IP isn't enough if you can't retain the people responsible for its success. You must keep the talent, which is another problem MS faces, most notably at 343 Industries due to their contracts. People who learned how to use the engine were fired, forcing them to hire and train new employees.
There's an old interview where Seamus Blackley, the father of the original Xbox, explains that MS tried to apply the same strategies that worked for Windows and Office to Xbox. Entertainment works differently. You need time and resources, as well as some freedom, to let creativity shine.
By the way, I never understood why people were happy with MS's acquisitions. They were never able to manage the studios they already had properly; why on earth would they be able to handle even more?
Anyway, MS's strategy worked during the Xbox 360 days because they had good sales in the US. The moment they had to rely on their own studios and games, they struggled. They got carried away by the Kinect success, stopped making "normal" games and never recovered from that.
MS failed because they lacked the talent to foster studios and create IPs. For instance, for many years, Forza was the only IP created under the Xbox division.
They always relied on buying exclusivity or hiring second/third-party studios to make games for them. Owning the IP isn't enough if you can't retain the people responsible for its success. You must keep the talent, which is another problem MS faces, most notably at 343 Industries due to their contracts. People who learned how to use the engine were fired, forcing them to hire and train new employees.
There's an old interview where Seamus Blackley, the father of the original Xbox, explains that MS tried to apply the same strategies that worked for Windows and Office to Xbox. Entertainment works differently. You need time and resources, as well as some freedom, to let creativity shine.
By the way, I never understood why people were happy with MS's acquisitions. They were never able to manage the studios they already had properly; why on earth would they be able to handle even more?
Anyway, MS's strategy worked during the Xbox 360 days because they had good sales in the US. The moment they had to rely on their own studios and games, they struggled. They got carried away by the Kinect success, stopped making "normal" games and never recovered from that.
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midnightAI
Member
At the time I was on some forums talking about this and almost everyone expected them to compete with Apple by them releasing a Surface phone using the design language of their Surface tablet range and bridging the gap between mobile phone and Windows, it could of been huge but they ditched it.Interestingly that experience possibly makes it less, not more, likely for Microsoft to shut the Xbox platform down.
"Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's Biggest Regret Is Ditching Windows Phone."
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's Biggest Regret Is Ditching Windows Phone
Microsoft officially killed Windows Phones in 2017 due to poor performance. Now Nadella admits exiting mobile phones is one of his biggest mistakes.www.pcmag.com
poppabk
Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
It's also worth pointing out that Netflix completely killed their DVD rental business to become the behemoth they are. Redbox, Blockbuster stuck with the incumbent market and we know how that went, even Netflix's Blockbuster show was a flop.
Arsic
Loves his juicy stink trail scent
It’s the only reason they remain relevant to me.
If starfield had been a Xbox console only I would’ve not played it.
And honestly their portfolio is such a shit show for my tastes that I wouldn’t have wanted the machine where in the past I had one always.
As a PC primary gamer gamepass provides more value and keeps me in the Xbox eco system.
If starfield had been a Xbox console only I would’ve not played it.
And honestly their portfolio is such a shit show for my tastes that I wouldn’t have wanted the machine where in the past I had one always.
As a PC primary gamer gamepass provides more value and keeps me in the Xbox eco system.
R3claimer117
Member
WTH is wrong with some of you
Can’t you just enjoy your PlayStation without an Xbox doom and gloom thread every day? They just spent 70 billion dollars they’re clearly not going anywhere and the port begging is pathetic. They just had a direct none of those games are coming to PlayStation that would have been the perfect place to do that. Gamepass is actually a great service and is clearly doing well for them. Subs are the future like it or not.
Can’t you just enjoy your PlayStation without an Xbox doom and gloom thread every day? They just spent 70 billion dollars they’re clearly not going anywhere and the port begging is pathetic. They just had a direct none of those games are coming to PlayStation that would have been the perfect place to do that. Gamepass is actually a great service and is clearly doing well for them. Subs are the future like it or not.
ZoukGalaxy
Member
That's not the only factor but it definitively contribute to the downfall.
Freelance Yakuza
Member
I agree. It's also really sad when people see a mid game and say "perfect for gamepass" unironically.
TrueGrime
Member
The thread title is odd to me. It suggests that a 2 trillion dollar company that just shelled out 70 billion to bolster their first party studios across mediums from PC, to console, to mobile is somehow already dead.
Do you know why Microsoft AND Gamepass will be fine? Because Microsoft also releases their games for sale Day 1 to the largest base of them all. Redfall was indeed mediocre, but Starfield making around $235 million off of steam alone and not even counting the console buyers is why Xbox can continue to take chances with Gamepass like they have been for the last 7 years.
Gamepass and Xbox are fine. Microsoft has enough cash to dictate if they want to start doling out games as a publisher whenever they want. I've been hearing this year after year after year though, so we'll see.
Now, back to non-accidental console exclusive on Xbox Gamepass, high selling PC game Palworld for me.
Do you know why Microsoft AND Gamepass will be fine? Because Microsoft also releases their games for sale Day 1 to the largest base of them all. Redfall was indeed mediocre, but Starfield making around $235 million off of steam alone and not even counting the console buyers is why Xbox can continue to take chances with Gamepass like they have been for the last 7 years.
Gamepass and Xbox are fine. Microsoft has enough cash to dictate if they want to start doling out games as a publisher whenever they want. I've been hearing this year after year after year though, so we'll see.
Now, back to non-accidental console exclusive on Xbox Gamepass, high selling PC game Palworld for me.
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cireza
Member
Shows us a picture of your Apple Pippin then.
Duchess
Member
And their Vectrex!
SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
No it was Phil Spencer. MS continued to keep a guy who just couldnt get shit done for over a decade now. Meanwhile, PS has gone through 4 different CEOs during the same time despite being extremely successful.
it's typical corporate who can suck up to the bosses better nonsense thats kept Microsoft in a state of arrested development in the last 10 years.
The man simply doesnt understand that people play consoles to play video games. Not services. He saw the XBL Gold success and decided to add a new subscription to emulate that success. he saw the Nintendo success and decided to emulate that by releasing a cheap console. He doesnt get that its about video games. Quality video games. The studios he acquired are simply not A tier studios save for Bethesda who released their first true clunker under him.
As soon as I saw cyrstal dynamics, respawn, insomniac, and eidos montreal go for $300 million I knew this man is the problem. He spent $8 billion on b and c tier studios just to get one A tier studio in Bethesda. he spent $70 billion to get CoD only to make it multiplatform. he spent $3 billion on Minecraft only to make it multiplatform. All the while other A tier studios were going for pennies on the dollar.
it's typical corporate who can suck up to the bosses better nonsense thats kept Microsoft in a state of arrested development in the last 10 years.
The man simply doesnt understand that people play consoles to play video games. Not services. He saw the XBL Gold success and decided to add a new subscription to emulate that success. he saw the Nintendo success and decided to emulate that by releasing a cheap console. He doesnt get that its about video games. Quality video games. The studios he acquired are simply not A tier studios save for Bethesda who released their first true clunker under him.
As soon as I saw cyrstal dynamics, respawn, insomniac, and eidos montreal go for $300 million I knew this man is the problem. He spent $8 billion on b and c tier studios just to get one A tier studio in Bethesda. he spent $70 billion to get CoD only to make it multiplatform. he spent $3 billion on Minecraft only to make it multiplatform. All the while other A tier studios were going for pennies on the dollar.
DenchDeckard
Moderated wildly
No it was xbox one and kinect....if anything.
donkey_oaty
Member
Xbox need to rebrand and separate from the edgelord brand name. It was cool in the 90's, now it's just goofy.
Dr. Samuel Hayden
Member
Their downfall was not focusing on quality games and letting shitty studios like 343 obliterate their top franchises with zero consequences (until now)
mayham2199
Member
Probably because PlayStation console sales aren’t cratering.
In 2021 MS CEO emailed Phil about console sales and saying he wants to make sure they are staying in the game. Sales have been much worse since then. Dropping below Xbox one.
So I don’t think it’s to crazy to be worried about MS over Sony.
Nydius
Member
To add to this: Sony is widening the gap despite Microsoft offering a budget version of their console AND the fact that they’ve had the Series S and Series X on sale during the holidays.
They put out a budget version of their console that’s the same price as the Switch and they’re still losing ground. They’ve offered a decent finance-over-time method of buying either console, WITH Game Pass included, and they’re still falling further behind.
That, to me, is the more damning issue for Microsoft. If offering a console that’s hundreds less than the digital PS5 doesn’t drive interest, what more can they possibly do?
Trogdor1123
Gold Member
Serious question, is Xbox revenue up or down (prior to activision) compared to before? I have no idea.
Humdinger
Member
I think we're getting ahead of ourselves. It's like we're trying to agree on a cause of death when the patient is still alive. Why don't we just pause and wait to see what happens? We're jumping to dire conclusions based on scattered, unclear rumors. But of course, #welcome to GAF, lol.
I'm not an Xbox fan by any stretch, but these "What killed Xbox" threads are kind of nuts.
I'm not an Xbox fan by any stretch, but these "What killed Xbox" threads are kind of nuts.
Flakster99
Member
Personally? No. Love it.
Purely from a business/ Xbox perspective? Maybe. They had all sorts of issues before they turned to Game Pass. In the end, they'll be fine.
Purely from a business/ Xbox perspective? Maybe. They had all sorts of issues before they turned to Game Pass. In the end, they'll be fine.
veterangamerUK
Member
Game Pass is like Netflix. The odd thing stands out but the rest is fodder to fill up the catalogue . It’s no system seller
Cert.in.Death
Member
It's fools gold from a business standpoint.
But the backbreaking issue has always been 1st party development/management.
But the backbreaking issue has always been 1st party development/management.
FIREKNIGHT2029
Member
Yes but not GamePass by itself, the idea of
MS putting their AAA games day one on the service. It’s great for smaller games, indies and service games but bad for AAA. Putting their AAA games there day one devalued them and encouraged the Xbox fanbase to wait for everything to come to GamePass and eventually tanked software sales on the platform leading to their current problems.
GamePass also impacted the quality of some of their AAA games as GamePass fostered a culture of dropping games to the service first and worrying about quality and content later.
MS putting their AAA games day one on the service. It’s great for smaller games, indies and service games but bad for AAA. Putting their AAA games there day one devalued them and encouraged the Xbox fanbase to wait for everything to come to GamePass and eventually tanked software sales on the platform leading to their current problems.
GamePass also impacted the quality of some of their AAA games as GamePass fostered a culture of dropping games to the service first and worrying about quality and content later.
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freefornow
Gold Member
Premature Ejaculation, the thread!
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SkylineRKR
Member
360 was a perfect storm because it was appropriately priced and came out well before the PS3. Because of this, devkits were sent out early and MS had a more straightforward architecture. So they won a lot of IP and third parties at first, I believe Namco was pretty much forced to release their projects on 360 because PS3 was not being around for a good while. MS initially was the de facto console for JRPG for example.
Then more publishers wanted to recuperate increasing development costs and all went third party day one, such as Capcom with DMC and Square with FF. But MS celebrated this as an exclusive each time, and spent their budget on acquiring promotion rights and DLC. Instead of building a software empire of their own. These games would still come out on PS3 day one after all.
I've always found their strategy weird. They didn't try to build software themselves, and they let Bungie go while they might've acquired them with the promise that they can work on different projects instead of Halo. They could've been used to supervise Halo 4 onward for example. They had in Bizarre a good 2nd party, granted, their PGR became stale and their non racing projects failed. They also let these guys go. They made a fatal flaw to follow a trend and go all in on it, alienating their core audience. Ofcourse I mean Kinect. They spend their first party studios to work on that. MS went into the Xbox One generation quite muted, the 360 was abandoned for quite a while already. Disconnected from the core gamer while Sony's PS3 had an excellent twilight year with some great send offs. Sony kept going in the same direction, they half assed the Move which is a god send in hindsight.
ShadyAcshuns
Member
Xbox needs (always has) exclusives! No pc or gp this or that, just Xbox exclusivity. TESVI should be Xbox X/S exclusive,
New year, and the game starts all over again. And even if they do With the quality of Sony ports and the delay in releases - who wants to play this on PC?
It's more likely that Sony will be crying next year at this time that nobody is buying PC games, ports aren't worth it and they'll go back to PS entirely and only offer streaming on PC.
It's more likely that Sony will be crying next year at this time that nobody is buying PC games, ports aren't worth it and they'll go back to PS entirely and only offer streaming on PC.
bitbydeath
Member
Playstation (PS3) and Nintendo (Wii U) have gone through similar situations. The difference was they picked themselves up with games, where as Phil just didn’t bother…
Freelance Yakuza
Member
Hell, I remembered yesterday that my Orkut username was a joke about ps3 still getting good games 2 years after Ps4 launched
Xbox 360 was dead for so many years before One launch.
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Hemingwayoffbase
Gold Member
Short answer: yes with an “if”
Long answer: no with a “but”
Long answer: no with a “but”
delirium trigger
Member
The red ring of death crushed consumer trust and then their next console lacked quality exclusives. This is still a step in the right direction.
Despite all the hate around here game pass is a pretty good product.
Despite all the hate around here game pass is a pretty good product.
Pejo
Member
Gamepass probably contributed to weakening the brand. I think their biggest problem was focusing on buying studios and all this tertiary stuff instead of just fucking making good games on a reasonable/strict time schedule. If they did that, I think they'd be in a much healthier position today.
Agreed. They really fucked up with the Xbox One reveal, and they never fully recovered. It gave PlayStation so much extra fuel that console generation. I actually preferer Xbox as a 3rd party/game subscription service over Sony, but Sony's exclusive games are in a league so far ahead of MS is scary.
I am lucky enough to have both systems. I game on Xbox more frequently, since I have been online with them since 360 and never join Sony online, but I always get the Playstation system for the exclusives.
Komatsu
Member
I am sure the executives and leadership of the most valuable publicly traded company in the history of capitalism are tearing their hair out in desperation. A lot of these console war discussions seem to come from either people who fail to see where the industry is going or think that Microsoft is SEGA and this is 1997.
Microsoft's market cap is 2.9 trillion - if current trends continue and its stock price grows in 2024-2028 at the same pace it grew from 2020 to 2024 (an unlikely, but not impossible development), Microsoft's market cap will be larger than the entire gross domestic product of Japan, where both Sony and Nintendo are headquartered and where both are key tickers in the NIKKEI. GDP to Market Cap is a stupid comparison, but it shows how many orders of magnitude separate say, Sony, from Microsoft.
With cloud exploding and the SaaS model becoming the way of selling electronic products, how many more consoles can we expect to have in front of us before the industry drops the practice of selling devices entirely? Two, perhaps three?
Sony's online infrastructure runs on Azure. Nintendo's game streaming services in Japan? Azure. These companies develop their games on Microsoft software (OS), host their content on Microsoft infrastructure, write their contracts on Microsoft word processors and Nintendo at least manages their digital assets using another Microsoft product. And none of these products are sold under perpetual licenses, it's all subscription, all the time.
Far from being the "downfall" of Xbox, Game Pass is a portend of how things will come to be. As Cloud increasingly becomes a duopoly (AWS/Azure), and Microsoft is the only major cloud provider with extensive experience dealing with electronic entertainment, it is not a stretch to imagine that in 2040 over 90% of all gaming will take place within the Azure public cloud.
It's not that Xbox is going "third party", everybody is, sooner rather than later. And guess who will be running the infrastructure?
I am writing this from my personal machine running Fedora 39 and I absolutely hate what modern gaming has become, but the writing is on the wall. We won’t own games, we will pay the major publishers for the right to play them, for a fee. Single player experiences will become a niche thing, most games will be service games. Hardware will be a “controller” connected directly to cloud to avoid latency and “consoles” will be replaced by apps on smart devices. All will require a subscription to play, some, like Nintendo, will likely charge extra on top for their flagship titles.
And every extra hour you spend building some crazy gadget on Zelda: Tears of Whatever XI, Microsoft will make money.
Microsoft's market cap is 2.9 trillion - if current trends continue and its stock price grows in 2024-2028 at the same pace it grew from 2020 to 2024 (an unlikely, but not impossible development), Microsoft's market cap will be larger than the entire gross domestic product of Japan, where both Sony and Nintendo are headquartered and where both are key tickers in the NIKKEI. GDP to Market Cap is a stupid comparison, but it shows how many orders of magnitude separate say, Sony, from Microsoft.
With cloud exploding and the SaaS model becoming the way of selling electronic products, how many more consoles can we expect to have in front of us before the industry drops the practice of selling devices entirely? Two, perhaps three?
Sony's online infrastructure runs on Azure. Nintendo's game streaming services in Japan? Azure. These companies develop their games on Microsoft software (OS), host their content on Microsoft infrastructure, write their contracts on Microsoft word processors and Nintendo at least manages their digital assets using another Microsoft product. And none of these products are sold under perpetual licenses, it's all subscription, all the time.
Far from being the "downfall" of Xbox, Game Pass is a portend of how things will come to be. As Cloud increasingly becomes a duopoly (AWS/Azure), and Microsoft is the only major cloud provider with extensive experience dealing with electronic entertainment, it is not a stretch to imagine that in 2040 over 90% of all gaming will take place within the Azure public cloud.
It's not that Xbox is going "third party", everybody is, sooner rather than later. And guess who will be running the infrastructure?
I am writing this from my personal machine running Fedora 39 and I absolutely hate what modern gaming has become, but the writing is on the wall. We won’t own games, we will pay the major publishers for the right to play them, for a fee. Single player experiences will become a niche thing, most games will be service games. Hardware will be a “controller” connected directly to cloud to avoid latency and “consoles” will be replaced by apps on smart devices. All will require a subscription to play, some, like Nintendo, will likely charge extra on top for their flagship titles.
And every extra hour you spend building some crazy gadget on Zelda: Tears of Whatever XI, Microsoft will make money.
Schmendrick
Member
Halo is Back
Member
Gamepass is the only thing MS has going for the Xbox brand so no.
I find it hilarious that people here think Xbox's output of games suddenly got worse with Gamepass when it was piss poor from the Kinect era of Xbox when the decline of the brand really started to happen. Xbox has been behind the curve in delivering compelling games years before the launch of Gamepass. The console's real downfall was the Xbox One reveal, which the brand has never recovered since. I guarantee most users who consistently talk shit about Gamespass have never used it.
I find it hilarious that people here think Xbox's output of games suddenly got worse with Gamepass when it was piss poor from the Kinect era of Xbox when the decline of the brand really started to happen. Xbox has been behind the curve in delivering compelling games years before the launch of Gamepass. The console's real downfall was the Xbox One reveal, which the brand has never recovered since. I guarantee most users who consistently talk shit about Gamespass have never used it.
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All of these discussions about the Xbox brand dying remind me of the GameCube era and when everyone said, " I wish Nintendo would go third party. "
Here we are talking about Xbox dying the way GameCube was "dying", and none of us care about Xbox maybe going third party because they have nothing to offer.
In my opinion, that speaks volumes about where the brand truly is.
Here we are talking about Xbox dying the way GameCube was "dying", and none of us care about Xbox maybe going third party because they have nothing to offer.
In my opinion, that speaks volumes about where the brand truly is.
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Freelance Yakuza
Member
I think younger gamers think MS downfall started later
People completely ignore how bad ps3 first party department was in the first half of the gen and how hard Sony fought to regain people's interest
They always talk like the interest for ps4 was solely based on Microsoft mistakes
RCU005
Member
At one point they had to realize that their consoles don't sell right? Regardless of GamePass.
The only generation that have sold well is the Xbox 360 and even then, PS3 caught up to them in the end.
IMO, going third party would be an amazing move from Microsoft. While they have a lot of issues managing their studios, and buying Activision just adds to that organization failure. They need to find a way to become one of the most important third party developers. They have the potential to be huge, because they already bought the entire industry.
But not even with all the studios in the world will be enough if they can't output a consistent line up of GOOD games.
The only generation that have sold well is the Xbox 360 and even then, PS3 caught up to them in the end.
IMO, going third party would be an amazing move from Microsoft. While they have a lot of issues managing their studios, and buying Activision just adds to that organization failure. They need to find a way to become one of the most important third party developers. They have the potential to be huge, because they already bought the entire industry.
But not even with all the studios in the world will be enough if they can't output a consistent line up of GOOD games.
YeulEmeralda
Member
Look the only way that Xbox could ever beat PlayStation is with games and that well dried up LONG before GamePass.
pasterpl
Member
Drop the persecution complex, especially when you engage in the same thing on the other side.
Hey mods, how threads like this are allowed?
I don’t see people burning their Xbox consoles on streets. Xbox is still selling, and ms is making money on Xbox. Shit thread, typical fud and warring. But mods here are blue so no surprises.
I don’t see people burning their Xbox consoles on streets. Xbox is still selling, and ms is making money on Xbox. Shit thread, typical fud and warring. But mods here are blue so no surprises.
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MasterCornholio
Member
You got proof that Sony owns Neogaf?
Sorry to bother you
Mod of War
but can we look at getting this thread locked since
pasterpl
thinks it's pure console war bait?For me I don't think its wrong to discuss what effects Gamepass has on the Xbox brand. Things like the impact to Xboxs revenue would make sense in the discussion. My main issue would be how the OP would start a discussion like this. Reading through the OP a third time it doesn't seem like he's coming off as an extreme console warrior.
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He wasn't buying studios, he was buying IPs.
ManaByte
Gold Member
Are you aware of how much money CoD made ABK every single year? It is always the #1 selling game on PS every year (and when MWII came out it was #1 AND #2 with Vanguard). And guess who gets all that money now?