• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

What does MS need to do to succeed?

flying_sq

Member
I think picking up EA actually wouldn't be that bad. Maybe it would get rid of a lot of the EA parts of EA too. Hell it's already integrated into game pass.
 
Last edited:

Heimdall_Xtreme

Jim Ryan Fanclub's #1 Member
Focus on making fun games that don’t suffer from performance issues.

Can’t believe I even have to say such a thing, but gaming (overall, not just Microsoft) truly has gotten so much worse recently.

They also need to go back to the Xbox 360 days of being super aggressive with timed exclusives.


They need to back, In the Xbox, ps2 and Gamecube era... These generation was fun, have Better consoles exclusives and the games was originals.
 
Last edited:
Isn't Series X/S way ahead of Xbox One in sales? Why are people treating MS current generation like a failure?
 
Last edited:

Akuji

Member
That would have to be one of the worst actions possible to take in "salvaging" a company who is reliant on said studios to create content. By gutting your content teams, you inspire fear and potentially hatred in not knowing if you will be next, and also hamstrings any available "cannon fodder" that is capable of producing content padding. Blockbuster games take on average four years or more to develop from creation, so I'm not sure such a response would help coupled with the reduction of staff.

This is the issue, a portion of the responses want immediate action while also stating said action needs to be conducted without rushing. How is one supposed to accomplish these tasks without using literal magic? One could say that Sony is also lacking in the department of games, to a point. However that is ignoring the forest for the trees, much like many are doing in response to Microsoft and Xbox.

just give the people had actually did their work the last years a 5year gurantee for their job. Giving people confidence isnt done by having bad games released lol. Look at twitter, they all scream to fire the head of xbox. That must feel like a nice safe place as of now.
Microsoft doesnt have a money problem. they have a structure problem. Not sure how u wanna combat that. Looks like ur idea is doing the same thing but results will differ?
 

Gamerguy84

Member
Games and more games, that's all, which is the one thing they haven't tried due to mismanagement of studios.

Sony was hurting bad in 06 because of financial collapse, MS was kicking their asses. They made SWWS and went to work and have been at it ever since.

Here's a thing. When you ask a group of people about when xbox was great almost everyone will say early 360 years.

When you ask a group of people when PS was their greatest your going to get all different answers. I've seen it here. Some will say PS1, some will say 2, 3, or 4, maybe even PSP.

The reason is they've had a great library across every system. If MS had a great library right now they'd also have a bigger following.
 

Crayon

Member
While you're at it, stop whipping fans into a frenzy about teraflops all the time. When sony loses, they look bad. When xbox loses, they look worse. If they tie, sony wins by default because you were talking a big game. Stop making this terrible wager. Stop. Stop. Then apparently they lose $200 on a series x but sony profits on a ps5? What the fuck is that about?
 
Last edited:
Continue with the huge third party releases on game pass and I'll continue to subscribe to the end of time. Stalker 2, atomic heart, monster hunter rise, high on life, plague tale, persona 5, etc.
 

Bernardougf

Gold Member
If we are talking MS ?
Go third party, MS games studios, end xbox hardware division and get a team who knows how to make and manage studios, fire Phil and his team , they had their chance.

If we are talking Xbox hardware success?
- end gamepass day 01 launch for AAA games
- steadily lower the games offered on gamepass or up the price making a good profit or simply kill the service eventually
- PC games 01 year from console minimum
- launch a new powerfull xbox console position yourself as a power leading multiplat machine take the money hit as you can and have be doing with game pass
- kill series S
- FIRE PHIL "GREAT GAMES ARE NOT INPORTANT" SPENCER
 

SHA

Member
It's obvious, they need to cook something in-house to show their identity without external interferences, we saw it with 3rd party games, Capcom, Bethesda, Bioware, Sega, Nintendo, Playstation and many others, if it's hard then there's no better explanation.
 

zomboden

Banned
Let them cook. Phil said in the xcast interview that the games pipeline is finally lining up. Games are coming.

If Activision/Blizzard falls thru they will invest in somebody else.
 

Quantum253

Member
Do what they did with Xbox360.
  1. Great hardware (except RROD)
  2. Innovation within online play and community
  3. Deliver amazing games and exclusives
  4. Oversee studios to ensure quality control is met
  5. Have amazing leadership with the vision to put all these moving parts together
  6. Innovate and inspire a generation of gamers by having the best platform to be on.
 
Isn't Series X/S way ahead of Xbox One in sales? Why are people treating MS current generation like a failure?

First time I'm hearing that. It's been recently speculated with the most recent numbers that they are slightly behind the X1.

No idea where this vastly ahead stuff is coming from because I don't believe Microsoft said that at all.
 

Mr Reasonable

Completely Unreasonable
You do realize they are currently having their best year right? I mean it sucks with Redfall and the CMA but this is Microsoft’s best year in gaming so far, and the unit of measurement for that statement is revenue

It's because there's an obsession with charts, scores and ratings.

It's been said many times but if this conversation was about car manufacturers, people wouldn't be jeering at Renault for being a profitable business but selling fewer cars than Ford. Yet in video games, it's a different story.
 

mdkirby

Member
Imo they need to scrap “day one on games pass”, and focus on releasing actual quality games that are worth actually buying. Those would end up on games pass in 6-12 months.

Buying more third party exclusives as the OP suggests would be hard/expensive. The game sales disparity between Sony and xbox for Multiplatform releases is now enormous. Sony is able to crush them on it because they only need to cover the cost of the lost market on xbox. Where as microsoft would need to cover the lost sales on PlayStation, at which point for a big third party IP would be huge sums of money.

For arguments sake, let’s say microsoft bagged exclusivity on hogwartz. They didn’t know it would make over a $1bn in sales, so let’s chop that in half to 500mil. They’d need to cover whatever the lost sales on PlayStation would be (and likely more otherwise, what’s the point in agreeing just to come out even stevens, especially as it damages the reach of the brand, so this would probably include covering a good chunk of dev costs and marketing costs). Hogwartz device split was 83% of all sales were on ps5 which is common for third parties.

It’s actually worse than that, as they’d want it on gamespass, which means they would now need to also cover the lost sales on xbox too. So they need to cover all sales.

So what’s a reasonable cost for Warner to demand in that instance? 600million? More? Even then, now we actually know how it performed, that would have been a bad deal for Warner and they’d still be a couple hundred million out of pocket. And for microsoft, it’s not like they are even gonna recoup those costs in a cut of unit sales, as it’s just released “for free”. Sure they’d get “some” new subscribers, but I can’t imagine it would be anywhere close to covering what it cost to acquire them.

For Sony, it’s the opposite. They only need to cover the 20% of lost sales on xbox. The game will be priced at £70 on ps5. So for them they can probably bag a big third party exclusive for maybe 100-150mil, which if it’s a big hit, they are taking 30% in unit sales on the store anyhow, so the numbers just work infinitely better in Sonys favour.

Microsoft have deep pockets, so they can and still do get some. But xbox doesn’t have infinite resources.
 

Daneel Elijah

Gold Member
I would argue that the perceived perception being "low" for Xbox is only something being vocally discussed in forums like GAF, which are enthusiast-based and tend to go into far greater detail. That doesn't mean it isn't being discussed, mind you, just that the GAF perception is only shared within GAF. Because it has been found time and time again the centric views are not always reflective of the overall industry, it is hard to say that the discussions here reflect the common man. I don't think they should, obviously, because then we just regurgitate without decisive thinking.

The best reflection of this perceived knowledge or reflection of the industry is in how GAF readers/commentators ignore said industry experts/actual developers. Where we have first-hand accounts of development being more difficult now than it has ever been; that budgets are exceeding the past generation's already; and, where increased money does not equate to suddenly creating games at the click of a finger. These logical industry knows are being ignored almost in favour of console warring mentalities to pounce on the next victim (outside rightful discussion on clear failures) because the armchair enthusiast mentality dictates a need to put a personal response in.

There is no right way about platform development, because it is far too unique and separatist to each other that you can't simply say "just copy Sony or Nintendo" without running into problems. I'm an Xbox Series X owner, and I do agree that without Game Pass the offerings would be very slim in the available library of titles. However, I completely disagree that Game Pass is a cause for concern and the bringer of all doom, as it is simply the logical step forward for digital libraries to enable greater console ownership depth of interaction. As Phil Spencer said himself, they lost the creation of digital libraries in the PS4/Xbone generation, however Game Pass is that solution to encapsulating users.

It is, as I said, preposterous to think that throwing money at studios will fix Microsoft's concerns as well, because even if that was actioned on the fruits of labour wouldn't be out for at least three years. So we'd still have people complaining in that time that the games are not there, despite clear work being done at this very moment. Sony was smart in securing third party titles to appear as if first party for padding, be it a coincidence played on the back of COVID or organised from the very get go.

One thing is for certain: COVID royally fucked shit up.


That would have to be one of the worst actions possible to take in "salvaging" a company who is reliant on said studios to create content. By gutting your content teams, you inspire fear and potentially hatred in not knowing if you will be next, and also hamstrings any available "cannon fodder" that is capable of producing content padding. Blockbuster games take on average four years or more to develop from creation, so I'm not sure such a response would help coupled with the reduction of staff.

This is the issue, a portion of the responses want immediate action while also stating said action needs to be conducted without rushing. How is one supposed to accomplish these tasks without using literal magic? One could say that Sony is also lacking in the department of games, to a point. However that is ignoring the forest for the trees, much like many are doing in response to Microsoft and Xbox.
Great answer again. Except this time I disagree with almost all of it.
But first, an apology. There really are threads that are there just to troll and give nothing to the forum. One of those, was locked even if it was close to what we are talking about here. It was the "is the xbox brand doomed". So you are more right than I thought yesterday.

The perception of Xbox from GAF is not the perception at large, if this is what you are saying, is true. But Xbox does have a "low", or "bad" perception from people. When their CEO Phil Spencer say that he has so many knock on his list that he may soon not be in charge, and that someone else will be there to continue their work, this is a low. How do we feel about it can change, yes. And the public at large is not following this and do not care. So in the broader market it is still ok. But there is a PR problem, and Redfall was partially harmed by it's connection with Xbox. And Starfield will have the same thing happen.

Second subject is the platform development, that I will call making games, as it is easier to say. This is linked with Gamepass, but I will let Gamepass on the side for a moment. There is no right way to making games is true. And we often at GAF ignore stuff that would be elemental. Like the 9 women can’t make a baby in a month. But this only work at the moment. What is being said by enthousiasts members in 2023 was often already said in 2017. And if those things were done back then we would maybe not have the same problems now. It makes us go back to the perception problem. Making games is hard. So there is ways to reduce the difficulty. Like not firing people in hard times, like Nintendo did. And creating a bunch of support studios, like Sony did, and continue to do so: Playstation Malaysia, founded in 2020.

And what is getting harder is making the AAA blockbuster games. Because of the ambition that goes with it. Making smaller games is easier than ever. And indies can make beautiful 3d games, just not as big and beautiful as the biggest ones. Not everybody can make GTA, RDR games. But Xbox needs to make them, as they are a net plus for the gaming market at a whole. They failed to grow up with the evolution of the gaming market, and are paying the price in a sense. This is half the problem. The second half is that third parties are not that hard to find and make deals with. I will probably repeat myself and say this often in the coming years, but I loved the genius that Sony showed when they worked out with Devolver to make Fall guys a PS+ exclusive. It worked out well for them. Sony did not do much. They just found a good game, and helped with money. Not that much in the grand scheme of things. And they were no greedy about it : no putting the game for free outside of the first month. No ownership of the IP. No ownership of the studio. Just give us a good game. We want a 1 year exclusivity. It worked out well. And Epic got the studio after that, for a lot of money I suppose? And Sony let that happen, as they were not there to have the studio, but just have a good game for the PS4.

In comparison, Xbox put all games they own/make exclusive on Gamepass. Would Fall guys be a success on Xbox, even with those limitations? Maybe. But I hope that you can understand that they would prefer being able to sell their games instead of being forced to go with Xbox offer. Unless Xbox overpay. I already made this argument in my first post. Gamepass is a complicated discussion in itself. And here I will just say that Gamepass help Xbox, and is causing problems at the same time. It make having third parties on the platform harder, as Xbox may have to overpay because it gives Xbox control of the game revenue. And the PS5 market share make it that going to Gamepass needs to pay for those lost sales too. I believe that Gamepass is not for me, as I can take a few months to finish one game. And will not play other games in the process. Of course I have a PS Extra sub going on. It does help with the games they put on. But it is not as intrusive as Gamepass is to the console business. And this put me on the next part. The Xbox lost the worse gen to loose opinion.

There is some truth to this. But it was said more in the sense that this is the first generation where games from the last one are still relevant today. Fortnite, Minecraft... Phil did not say GTA, FF 14 or Genshin Impact as those are not on his platform or have a Sony marketing deal in the case of GTA. And most of those are not there because of Xbox. They failed to help Genshin Impact when they could. They did not put the money they needed to in order to convince GTA to go with them. Most importantly they failed to work out a deal with FF 14 when they had the means to do so. They refused cross gen when they were in advance in online play on the 360. And they are still paying the price for it now. Can you find fault in Square for it? I hope not. Nintendo found a way to get back on top with the Switch. What we are seeing is the Xbox failure to do the same. Once again, there is some truth in this. But Xbox is the one who failed. And hard.

So, Sony, third parties, and Covid. I think that Sony did what they had to do to help the PS5 users have games. Stuff like Deathloop is perfect as padding as you have said. But a lot of games had delays from those third parties. So I think that Covid harmed them. Just that as they did not have to buy studios at the same time like Xbox did, the harm was less. But it was 100% planned from Sony. They worked hard with a lot of third parties and made a lot of deals. Good for them, and consumers too. Covid fucked out a lot of things. I think that it harmed Sony a lot too. They found themselves unable to make as many consoles as they wanted to, and lost potential clients that way. But they found way to compensate for this. Miles Morales was out on time, and polished too. Same for Demon's Souls remake. So they adapted. Nintendo did the same. Why should Xbox have a pass from it? It help explain their failures, like Halo Infinite. But does not excuse it. This is not a dig at Xbox. Just that we are in 2023 now. Too far away to look at it as a problem, as Covid is behind us. And too close to have a true reflexion on what happened, as this would need a lot more time. If a Xbox studio would make a making of, a behind the scene video of one of their games like the GOW 2018 one we would understand more about how Covid fucked them up.

To finish on what you have said. Xbox and money. They absolutely should put more money on their studios. Give them more or better infrastructure. Stop using so many contractors and give them stable employ. It is not as easy to do as it is easy to say. But we can see Sony and Nintendo studios grow and be better at what they do since decades. To be on par with brought studios and with the lack of experience that some of their new studios have? Difficult. But they have to try at least. Once again. You are mostly right in that it will take time. But we were saying this for a few years now. The sooner they do it, the sooner it may work.

As for cutting studios. It depends of the studio. 343 i has been gutted. So others studios may have the same fate in the future. Saying that is not just trolling, if it is said with a long term view, as a "do not get into the sunk cost fallacy mindset". But this is another discussion and would need for Xbox to be in a better state. Right now it would be seen as a weakness.
This is the issue, a portion of the responses want immediate action while also stating said action needs to be conducted without rushing. How is one supposed to accomplish these tasks without using literal magic?
This is the consequence of actions and mistakes made by Xbox and Microsoft in the last decade of their existence. One of Phil most damning sentence in the last inteview he did was that "Xbox needs to stop self inflicting wounds". It is normal to be harmed by the competition. It is normal to be harmed by external factors, like the Ukraine/ Russia war or Covid. But saying we will have Redfall and all the other games we show you in the next 12 months, and giving us a broken/ incomplete game to fulfill this promise? Promise made hastily to hide the lack of exclusives in this generation? Promise that Phil admitted was not fullfiled in the end? Normal that after such a self goal we are saying a bunch of stupid stuff.
 
One of the issues is embedded within OPs question itself. MS has Xbox and PC. That’s in fact part of the problem. If you want Xbox to succeed we gotta change a few things…
  • No more same day Xbox/PC game launches - Xbox first then PC a little later. This helps counteract the current trend of developers not utilising unique technologies like SFS, VRS2 and DirectML amongst others. Currently, its almost impossible to have every version on point at the same time. We gotta let that hardware shine and keep the initial focus on console. This includes GamePass releases.
  • Mandate all first party developers to utilise unique Xbox technologies. Strongly encourage 3rd party developers to do the same. This helps Xbox separate itself from the competition. If people had any idea what could be done with just the DirectML stuff it would make your head spin - think all the current AI stuff we are seeing.
  • Full review and restructuring of every game studio - every studio should be able to make more than one game simultaneously if structured correctly. Allow developers more freedom to experiment with ideas. More smaller scale projects as a test platform for larger scale sequels.
  • MS should recommend a game engine for use within its internal studios. There are too many separate engines and dev talent is being squandered. First party teams should be more collaborative and should share development tips/tricks. An advanced internal team should be created which specialises in the implementation of unique technologies - these guys should be on hand to assist struggling teams.
  • More transparency with release schedule. Give us a reason to be enthusiastic.
  • Make better use of broad range of IP. So many great franchises collecting dust. Reclaim brand identity and create a franchise system for IP. Make first party teams compete for the right to make a Halo or GoW title. Only the best proven devs should have the right to work on one of Xbox core games. Older IP should go out to teams to revive.
  • Bring meritocracy back. No more of this 343 Bonnie Ross type nonsense. Best person for the job only. Who cares what race/gender they are? We aren’t running a charity - this is the big leagues.
  • Games, games, games. Every successful console needs genres defining system selling games. Microsoft has almost nothing worth getting excited about. The projects that are green light are tripping over themselves. There is no variety. This needs to change.
I stopped because it felt like I could go on forever. My conclusion is that Phil has to go. He has had his time and hardly accomplished anything substantive. No system selling games on his watch. That in and of itself is damning. Complaining that Xbox can’t compete with Sony is loser talk as the investment is there. The real problem is that Microsoft is too scared to do the things it needs to do to win. It would ruffle the feathers of a few people so they won’t do it. Phil Spencer is all about appeasement. You can’t please everyone Phil!
 

L*][*N*K

Banned
It's because there's an obsession with charts, scores and ratings.

It's been said many times but if this conversation was about car manufacturers, people wouldn't be jeering at Renault for being a profitable business but selling fewer cars than Ford. Yet in video games, it's a different story.
Exactly, they think if you are not crushing your opponents then you must be losing, if Microsoft manages to release 3-4 big games in a year, maintain a number of live games such as Sea of Theives and Halo…etc, they will be perfectly fine, hell even if they abandon Xbox in the future and become a third party software developer they will do great, people are acting like since Redfall has low reviews it must mean Phil is eating scraps for dinner now.
 

Sethbacca

Member
Isn't Series X/S way ahead of Xbox One in sales? Why are people treating MS current generation like a failure?
If you're selling into a market that has had a 5x multipler in customers and revenue, of course you're going to sell more. The question is, are you retaining marketshare vs your competitors.
 
Last edited:

X-Wing

Member
As many as we can have until they get better? This is a gaming forum and I understand that for some people it is better to make a new thread than going in another that have a slightly different focus. If you found that the subject already had a good answer please make your own thread and either give us your opinion on it( Go to meta gaf if you believe that this is a members issue instead of a Xbox bad month one) or give us the posts that are the most relevant for you.

Yes, I'm sure that when Phil is out of his depth he comes to GAF...
 
Last edited:

Foilz

Banned
Xbox is succeeding, maybe not as much as playstation but as long as they are making money and justifing the existence of that platform then they are succeeding. I'm sure they would like to do better but Phil was right, he will never out console Sony. He knows that and it's why Xbox/Ms are going outside the box to expand the Xbox brand. They just need to dump Matt booty and bring back J Allard
 

Daneel Elijah

Gold Member
Yes, I'm sure in their times of failure they look for answers in Gaf.


Yes, I'm sure that when Phil is out of his depth he comes to GAF...
Maybe he should. A good AMA from him would be great for GAF. We can do this!
Honestly E3 is coming soon. In the meantime a few more threads will appear and disappear. No need to be salty about it. Once again, if you have a good rebuttal I would like to read it.
 

Killer8

Member
The missing piece of the puzzle is the games, but it's not useful enough to say "just make more games". Everyone already knows this is the solution, including Microsoft. What they need to do, specifically, is have a more unified first-party effort that co-ordinates releases with one another. The whole appeal of Game Pass was quoted as having a heavy hitter releasing every quarter. This has only ever really materialized in the second half of 2021. Xbox had a great holiday season that year: Forza Horizon 5, Microsoft Flight Sim, Halo Infinite, Psychonauts 2. Sony had a comparatively barren holiday season due to delays, and I remember that period being a rare win for Xbox on the forum.

The problem is that this momentum didn't continue. We get a dribble of the occasional great game releasing, but these games are both too infrequent and not nearly major enough. Late last year saw Scorn and Pentiment releasing, while Q1 this year had Hi-Fi Rush - all great games, but also just smaller scale 'passion projects' which only appeal to a niche audience. I don't often agree with David Jaffe but he's 100% correct when he says that you need your big, AAA, bread and butter releases too. That was why late 2021 worked so well for Xbox.

Starfall is the great hope this year, but there needs to be another AAA game waiting in the wings for the Q3 season, and then another for the holiday season. So far we only really know about Forza Motorsport this year and maybe Hellblade 2. But then you also need another for Q1 2024, Q2 2024... and so on. Your smaller Pentiments and your Hi-Fi Rushes should only be your support games to fill the gaps in-between - not the main event.

MS have something like 15-20 studios under their belt now. It really should not be hard to get some coordination going so that the Xbox game factory is churning out one big game per quarter. I also think, controversially, that a bit more executive control needs to be taken over some of the studio output. It's all fair and good saying you're giving the studios freedom to do what they want, but if they're filling the time just doing passion projects then it's wasted potential. I mean you have Obsidian, and you have the license to Fallout - a New Vegas 2 from the original team would be such a no brainier which people would go nuts over. Instead we get The Outer Worlds 2, which I don't think anyone asked for...
 

mdkirby

Member
Wouldn't that be anti consumer for some?

It definitely wouldn't be good PR wise if they did that.
i mean it’s definitely not great PR 🤣. Longer term tho it would imo be better for consumers.

Currently it would barely make any difference as microsoft have released so few first party games. Like their “all first party games launch day one” thing, sounds great; but if their output is negligible it means little in practice (for now). Their release cadence will stabilise tho.

It would still be a great deal if games came 6months later, and if it can mean better quality titles then it’s better all round. PlayStation+ is a great deal and has high quality.

Legally it may be trickier. They can’t do it immediately, as people subscribed based on marketing that gave that promise, so itd need to be a policy that is sunsetted as renewals are due.
 
Last edited:

Little Mac

Gold Member
Just make great games. Market share will increase over time (1 or 2 hardware generations) if they are consistent in outputting quality exclusives for both PC and Xbox. It's very simple but it's going to take time.

When Phil said (paraprasing) "Great games aren't going to get people to sell their PS5s", I was disappointed because that shouldn't be the goal. Great games is what's going to sell more xboxs. That's the perspective MS needs to have going forward.
 

Hawk269

Member
It is not hard...they just need a good run of great games. Yes, easier said than done. It takes time, a lot of time to make a great game and they have been making investments in that regard, it just has not really paid off as of yet. All the companies they have bought have not had any impact yet. We know things are in the pipeline, but it is going to take more time and I know many don't want to hear that. I think Starfield will be the start of a great wave of games that will be coming this year and next year. The new version for Forza Motorsport looks to be promising as well...and that seems to be a 2023 game as well.

I think Redfall was a game that was in that weird place of being something Bethesda already had well into production with MS not having a lot to do with other than letting them keep working on it. Sony has invested years upon years in cultivating their studios, MS is still early in that regard. With the games we know about like Avowed, Fable, Hellbalde 2 and others, there is a bright future coming for Xbox fans. And those are just a few that we know about. I know Xbox fans and I am one of them keep hearing from Phil "We hear you, We need to do better etc".....While i do believe him, we have been hearing this line for quite some time...but what else can he say? He can't wave a wand and pop out a great game...these things take a long time...but I feel that Starfield will be the start as I mentioned earlier of this long road they have been on.
 

lachesis

Member
Make Microsoft hip/fun/underdog. I think this whole MS being Windows/office/boring evil ruling corporation image that derives since 90s is really doing no favor to them.
And to be honest, I think it's pretty difficult to flip the corporate image just like that.

But what they can do is to convince consumers that MS games = great games. So games do speak - but it will take steady stream of quality output for at least 1 full generation with very little falter.
 
If you guys listen to Jaffe reaction to THAT trainwreck of an interview, you know what must be done. Its not the games per se but the behind the scenes machinery that goes into making a great game. Sony has it lock down it seems with execs coming in day in and day out to QA studios no less asking for progress report. Shuhei Yoshida was a cut throat mofo who would cancel games if they made a bad impression. That was the vibe, devs quaking in their boots scared their game wasnt up to standard.

Ms hands off approach is what got us Redfall from a talented dev studio. As Jaffe says, ms biggest mistake was not knowing Arkane needed help in the first place.
 
Yes. He’s wrong.

This is the whole problem.
No he right, Sony only started selling more consoles despite the great games, when they had more consoles out there to buy.

How can Starfield change that even if it's a bigger launch than Halo 3 in a rhetorical scenario? Before Sony got out of through that obstacle Microsoft has a whole year of missteps but didn't end up far behind the PS5 because they were both having the same problem. Since this year Sony has rectified that issue and we are now seeing the results.

I think people are mistaking Phils statement about outconsoling Sony, and reading it as that games won't improve the brands perception, which isn't the actual problem Phil is talking about. That's why he specifically emphasizes consoles in his wording. Because of this misinterpretation, people are taking the interview as a sign that Xbox itself is failing and will drop out soon, ignoring they are making truck loads of cash even being behind PS5.
 
Top Bottom