In Cold Blood
Banned
After listening to Phils interviews, and letting it digest before reacting, I understand what he is talking about.
He is of the belief that the XO/PS4 generation was such that it made alot of people cement themselves into one ecosystem or the other due to the investments made in gaming libraries, and the continued efforts for back compatibility.
He is also of the belief that just making good exclusive games isn't going to be enough to convince people to switch ecosystems.
I think he is honest in his beliefs.
Personally, I think he is wrong on a couple of counts.
One of the downsides of entering a new ecosystem is cost of entry.
For instance, I am going to get a PS5 in the near future. There are alot of high quality games that I haven't played from the PS4 and PS5 game libraries.
It's going to cost me $800aud for the console, plus buying all the individual games I wish to play. Now as they are older in alot of instances, I won't have to pay full price. But, the fact remains that it is going to be quite expensive to jump in.
With how MS has structured their offerings, the cost of entry into the Xbox ecosystem is nowhere near as expensive. For starters, you have the option of the cheaper XSS if you want for your second console.
Then on top of that, you can just buy GP and straight away you have access to a massive game library of exclusive xbox games, including the full array of MS games day and date.
So while he is correct that it's going to be hard to get PS owners to "sell" their PS5s, you don't need them to. They just need to also want to get an Xbox as well. If you create enough high quality exclusives that people want to play, then people will find a.way to play them.
On top of that, every year a new generation of people are joining the console race. If you can persuade a good percentage of them to take up xbox over PS, then that will add up. I think he erred in thinking that all the people who buy PS5s are people who are upgrading from their PS4s. That's just not the case.
In saying all of that, MS has come to the view that they need to create their own place, rather than just trying to take existing market share away from Sony.
A couple of generations ago, Nintendo decided that they could not continue to try and match MS and Sony in the power console race. They decide to go another way with the Wii, and it worked. They again decided to do something different with the Switch, and it worked. They created their own market, a market that has both Sony and MS wishing they had a part of.
The current console market consists of the age old formula of selling a console, and then selling one off games on that console for $70. It's a market that has been successful for generations.
Sony is a well oiled and drilled machine in that market. From console development environments, to a consistent supply of Sony style AAA games from their studios.
Now, there's a sales strategy in business that's says "it's more effective to be different than it is to be better".
This is what MS is following.
They have decided to be a disruptor in the industry and to change the industry in ways that they have an advantage in.
A part of this is "Play anywhere (other than Playstation)".
MS adopted PC as a part of their strategy a fair while ago now, and it's one that is slowly being followed by Sony.
MS will never sell the same amount of consoles as Sony, soley due to the fact that you can play Xbox games on PC. Let's be brutally honest, if Sony was to release their games day and date on PC, it would reduce the amount of consoles they would sell. There are millions of PC gamers who also buy a PS to play Sony games.
How this evolves for Sony moving forward still has to be seen.
On top of having a console and PC presence, MS is also going to leverage one of the key companies advantages, which is cloud. Azure is a massive infrastructure which Sony can never hope to copy. In the future, Sony is going to have to partner up with a company like Amazon or Google to have this ability in a meaningful way.
MS also wants to broaden its reach from just x86 gaming to mobile gaming.
MS is going to release a streaming box in the near future, which again gives people another way to play games. Streaming on a mobile is a bit clunky, so people may prefer to buy a streaming box with a controller than play on their phones.
It will be the cheapest way to get into the ecosystem, and yuppies will buy that shit all over.
We now see MSs vision. Console, PC and cloud. They are looking to diversify their offerings to increase their reach and revenue.
Never forget that profit trumps market share. Tencent has no consoles, but makes as much, if not more, money from gaming as MS and Sony.
To partner with the diversity of access to their ecosystem, subscription services is where they not only see the future, but they are going to drive the future there.
We have seen with movies, audio and even software, that subscription services are taking over.
Cries of "support the devs" and "I don't want to rent my games" are cool and all, but MS isn't going to take away the ability to buy their games outright. They will take your money anyway you want to give it to them, and the market has shown that while you and I may wish to buy our shit outright, the overwhelming majority of the general public don't care. These are the people who will dictate who is successful and who isn't.
So MS is building up GP to be the predominant gaming subscription service, and they have succeeded in doing that. MS knows that one maybe 300 odd games and a new exclusive every couple of months isn't going to keep people paying every month. They know that content is king. We have seen the bidding wars that have happened in movies and TV shows from the streaming companies for the rights to have their shows on their platform. The huge amounts of money that shows like Friends, Seinfeld and the Office got is ridiculous.
That will carry over to game streaming as well.
Knowing this, MS is buying up existing IPs and buying studios to make new content.
They are trying to get in now before the other potential streaming companies like Amazon, Disney, Netflix etc start going hard.
So MS is not walking away from the console market, they are just including more places to play than just console. This is what Phil was talking about. He wasn't saying the war is over.
Will it be successful? Time will tell, but if history is any teacher then gaimg will follow movies.
They have the money to go all out. They have the drive from head office to do it. ABK shows they are deadly serious. If ABK isn't going to happen, then they will move on to another company to buy.
Gamepass is where it is now, without any advertising. It's all just word of mouth and people in the xbox system. When they start advertising GP to the masses then the take up will be greater. Microsoft has been a little tempered in pushing GPU, as they are mindful of their capacity on xcloud, and that is one of the biggest issues for MS now.
With shortages of the XSX still happening, MS is obviously trying to supply enough APUs to both the console market and xcloud. It makes more financial sense to preference xcloud, as any excess capacity can be used by Azure to make money as well.
The lack of capacity in Xcloud is also what is holding back their plans for both a streaming box, and releasing their new family Gamepass plans in all areas. They cannot release their streaming box and then have congestion with it straight away. It would be a disaster.
Now this all goes to the biggest issue facing MS, and might explain why Phil has been caught short with overseeing what happened with Redfall for instance.
They have so many irons in the fire that they arnt able to concentrate on getting them all right. The ABK deal has taken every single resource MS has in their aquisitions team. This has reduced their ability to close off other aquisitions of studios and publishers.
Trying to balance up both cloud and console supply has meant that XSX supplies have been hurt, which has hurt sales.
This is how I see MSs plan moving forward. It makes sense to me, but they don't want to miss the Forrest for the trees.
He is of the belief that the XO/PS4 generation was such that it made alot of people cement themselves into one ecosystem or the other due to the investments made in gaming libraries, and the continued efforts for back compatibility.
He is also of the belief that just making good exclusive games isn't going to be enough to convince people to switch ecosystems.
I think he is honest in his beliefs.
Personally, I think he is wrong on a couple of counts.
One of the downsides of entering a new ecosystem is cost of entry.
For instance, I am going to get a PS5 in the near future. There are alot of high quality games that I haven't played from the PS4 and PS5 game libraries.
It's going to cost me $800aud for the console, plus buying all the individual games I wish to play. Now as they are older in alot of instances, I won't have to pay full price. But, the fact remains that it is going to be quite expensive to jump in.
With how MS has structured their offerings, the cost of entry into the Xbox ecosystem is nowhere near as expensive. For starters, you have the option of the cheaper XSS if you want for your second console.
Then on top of that, you can just buy GP and straight away you have access to a massive game library of exclusive xbox games, including the full array of MS games day and date.
So while he is correct that it's going to be hard to get PS owners to "sell" their PS5s, you don't need them to. They just need to also want to get an Xbox as well. If you create enough high quality exclusives that people want to play, then people will find a.way to play them.
On top of that, every year a new generation of people are joining the console race. If you can persuade a good percentage of them to take up xbox over PS, then that will add up. I think he erred in thinking that all the people who buy PS5s are people who are upgrading from their PS4s. That's just not the case.
In saying all of that, MS has come to the view that they need to create their own place, rather than just trying to take existing market share away from Sony.
A couple of generations ago, Nintendo decided that they could not continue to try and match MS and Sony in the power console race. They decide to go another way with the Wii, and it worked. They again decided to do something different with the Switch, and it worked. They created their own market, a market that has both Sony and MS wishing they had a part of.
The current console market consists of the age old formula of selling a console, and then selling one off games on that console for $70. It's a market that has been successful for generations.
Sony is a well oiled and drilled machine in that market. From console development environments, to a consistent supply of Sony style AAA games from their studios.
Now, there's a sales strategy in business that's says "it's more effective to be different than it is to be better".
This is what MS is following.
They have decided to be a disruptor in the industry and to change the industry in ways that they have an advantage in.
A part of this is "Play anywhere (other than Playstation)".
MS adopted PC as a part of their strategy a fair while ago now, and it's one that is slowly being followed by Sony.
MS will never sell the same amount of consoles as Sony, soley due to the fact that you can play Xbox games on PC. Let's be brutally honest, if Sony was to release their games day and date on PC, it would reduce the amount of consoles they would sell. There are millions of PC gamers who also buy a PS to play Sony games.
How this evolves for Sony moving forward still has to be seen.
On top of having a console and PC presence, MS is also going to leverage one of the key companies advantages, which is cloud. Azure is a massive infrastructure which Sony can never hope to copy. In the future, Sony is going to have to partner up with a company like Amazon or Google to have this ability in a meaningful way.
MS also wants to broaden its reach from just x86 gaming to mobile gaming.
MS is going to release a streaming box in the near future, which again gives people another way to play games. Streaming on a mobile is a bit clunky, so people may prefer to buy a streaming box with a controller than play on their phones.
It will be the cheapest way to get into the ecosystem, and yuppies will buy that shit all over.
We now see MSs vision. Console, PC and cloud. They are looking to diversify their offerings to increase their reach and revenue.
Never forget that profit trumps market share. Tencent has no consoles, but makes as much, if not more, money from gaming as MS and Sony.
To partner with the diversity of access to their ecosystem, subscription services is where they not only see the future, but they are going to drive the future there.
We have seen with movies, audio and even software, that subscription services are taking over.
Cries of "support the devs" and "I don't want to rent my games" are cool and all, but MS isn't going to take away the ability to buy their games outright. They will take your money anyway you want to give it to them, and the market has shown that while you and I may wish to buy our shit outright, the overwhelming majority of the general public don't care. These are the people who will dictate who is successful and who isn't.
So MS is building up GP to be the predominant gaming subscription service, and they have succeeded in doing that. MS knows that one maybe 300 odd games and a new exclusive every couple of months isn't going to keep people paying every month. They know that content is king. We have seen the bidding wars that have happened in movies and TV shows from the streaming companies for the rights to have their shows on their platform. The huge amounts of money that shows like Friends, Seinfeld and the Office got is ridiculous.
That will carry over to game streaming as well.
Knowing this, MS is buying up existing IPs and buying studios to make new content.
They are trying to get in now before the other potential streaming companies like Amazon, Disney, Netflix etc start going hard.
So MS is not walking away from the console market, they are just including more places to play than just console. This is what Phil was talking about. He wasn't saying the war is over.
Will it be successful? Time will tell, but if history is any teacher then gaimg will follow movies.
They have the money to go all out. They have the drive from head office to do it. ABK shows they are deadly serious. If ABK isn't going to happen, then they will move on to another company to buy.
Gamepass is where it is now, without any advertising. It's all just word of mouth and people in the xbox system. When they start advertising GP to the masses then the take up will be greater. Microsoft has been a little tempered in pushing GPU, as they are mindful of their capacity on xcloud, and that is one of the biggest issues for MS now.
With shortages of the XSX still happening, MS is obviously trying to supply enough APUs to both the console market and xcloud. It makes more financial sense to preference xcloud, as any excess capacity can be used by Azure to make money as well.
The lack of capacity in Xcloud is also what is holding back their plans for both a streaming box, and releasing their new family Gamepass plans in all areas. They cannot release their streaming box and then have congestion with it straight away. It would be a disaster.
Now this all goes to the biggest issue facing MS, and might explain why Phil has been caught short with overseeing what happened with Redfall for instance.
They have so many irons in the fire that they arnt able to concentrate on getting them all right. The ABK deal has taken every single resource MS has in their aquisitions team. This has reduced their ability to close off other aquisitions of studios and publishers.
Trying to balance up both cloud and console supply has meant that XSX supplies have been hurt, which has hurt sales.
This is how I see MSs plan moving forward. It makes sense to me, but they don't want to miss the Forrest for the trees.
incresing the install base making more attractive to Third Party Publishers 
