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[DeltaPolarBear]

Your view of how MS or the business in general is operating is really adorable.

I find their 180 degree turn dance much more adorable, don't you?

 

[VolticArchangel]

Microsoft's secret technique to counter bad PR:

 

[ethomaz]

Is that 180 planned?

But they shipped all these new cards to retail... even being paper cards they are costs... how much they lose with these fake rise in price? lol

The F2P being F2P seems like a excuse gift they are giving to players when it should be F2P since beginning.

 

[Black_Stride]

Is that 180 planned?

But they shipped all these new cards to retail... even being paper cards they are costs... how much they lose with these fake rise in price? lol

The F2P being F2P seems like a excuse gift they are giving to players when it should be F2P since beginning.

The same amount as if they printed the old price on them?
They would have shipped the cards anyway whether with the old price or new price....so already costed.
Retailers just need to put the new price on.

 

[ethomaz]

The same amount as if they printed the old price on them?
They would have shipped the cards anyway whether with the old price or new price....so already costed.
Retailers just need to put the new price on.

The card has the price and time stamped on it.
Retail can put a sticker on price I guess but that is really weird lol

That is why I believe the 180 was not planned.

 

[Jadsey]

I wonder...

If MS realise they can’t nickel and dime their customers to pay for Bethesda, will they pull out of the deal?

Seems likely.

 

[Papacheeks]

So it took bad PR backfire for them to make F2P free on xbox?

Talk about out of touch, lol.

A whole gen of paying for F2P games.

 

[MonarchJT]

Caught with their hand in the cookie jar and the rest is just BS excuses. The damage to trust has been done.

Gamers turn their backs again and MS will try this shit again but just wrap it up in a more subtle way.

The "we learned" spiel is empty words. The problem is that they thought it was ok to push out the price hike in the first place and that gamers would just accept it... (well, clearly some like @DarkMage619 were ostensibly happy to).

lol just pls
All the gaf historical warriors out looking for a fight today eh)

 

[Black_Stride]

The card has the price and time stamped on it.
Retail can put a sticker on price I guess but that is really weird lol

That is why I believe the 180 was not planned.

Weird?
Youve never seen retail print new price tags and stick them on products?
Is it a hassle for them? Sure.
Do they still get their cut so they are gonna do it? Absolutely.
Do we know how many of these new cards were shipped? Nope.

 

[Thirty7ven]

Impressive how quick they were. Impressive that not only were they so quick in reversing, but also made F2P free, something that people have been talking about for years but apparently they only realized now?

Makes you think doesn’t it?

 

[Papacheeks]

Honestly this tone deaf move, that now has forced them to backtrack other policies, shows how they have learned nothing.

 

[Dabaus]

I wonder...

If MS realise they can’t nickel and dime their customers to pay for Bethesda, will they pull out of the deal?

Seems likely.

Theyll just make the ones they planned as timed exclusives day one on ps5 and even switch if they can down port it. Remember when the CFO Said "better or first on xbox?" None of these games are going to be permanent exclusives if thats anything to go off of.

 

[Iced Arcade]

Yeah, I'm skeptical about this whole thing.

what generates more hype and media attention... "we are here and listen to gamers and not doubling the price AND removing the paywall for ftp games" or "you can play your free games now for free"

 

[Flutta]

MS wanted to make money with this move, ended up losing alot of money instead. LMAO

 

[DarkParadise]

(Tinfoil hat on)

That one leak was an intentional „leak“ by Microsoft themselves and the photo is indeed a well done photoshop (or they created one card so it seems logical). They went on with their plan to announce that the Xbox live price would indeed rise up. After they seemed to get enough attention, they did the 180 move that they had planned all along. Their alibi is the intentional leak, because „this can’t be planned, since they shipped probably thousands of those cards to stores“.

(Tinfoil hat off)

 

[Majima Everywhere System]

(Tinfoil hat on)

That one leak was an intentional „leak“ by Microsoft themselves and the photo is indeed a well done photoshop (or they created one card so it seems logical). They went on with their plan to announce that the Xbox live price would indeed rise up. After they seemed to get enough attention, they did the 180 move that they had planned all along. Their alibi is the intentional leak, because „this can’t be planned, since they shipped probably thousands of those cards to stores“.

(Tinfoil hat off)

Keep it on, man. You need extra protection against future social media outrage marketing campaigns.

 

[reinking]

This is why you do not defend this kind of behavior even if you are a fan of a company. Glad MS took some flak and reversed course. It also puts Sony on alert if they were planning a price increase.

 

[tusharngf]

microsoft increases price = people .. wtf is going on. who is going to pay for it.. microsoft sucks

microsoft decreases price = this was PR stunt. . wow what a 180 degree turn.. microsoft sucks

 

[sainraja]

An actual announcement is going to generate more data and authentic response than a social media survey, while reversing the decision still leaves them the good guy. If Microsoft truly intended to double the price of Gold, its hard to imagine them trashing the decision, before even allowing it to test the market to some degree. As far as I'm concerned, this was mostly--if not entirely--a stunt. We'll probably never know for certain, but maybe a current exec will comment on things, somewhere down the road.

I am not sure if they are looking like the "good guys" here. If Microsoft didn't truly intend to double the price of Gold, they would have never increased it. Given the backlash they got last gen, this was the stupidest way to test the market if what you are suggesting is true.

I think they expected push back on an increase (it doesn't take a genius), but I don't think they expected it at the level they got. So they pretty much had to reverse course.

 

[Papacheeks]

I want to know wtf is going in over at xbox. Phil runs xbox this would have to go by him at some capacity.

How the fuck does this happen? Its one thing to go up 5$-10$. Its another to double the price just to push people towards the better product GPU.

Honestly sounds like phil has either very little control, or someone else is calling the shots from larger part of the company. Phil would not have signed off on this unless they were getting rid of live altogether.

And this price hike sounds like they are not seeing the money they want from xbox division.

 

[Papacheeks]

Accidentally posted same response double.

 

[YeulEmeralda]

So it took bad PR backfire for them to make F2P free on xbox?

Talk about out of touch, lol.

A whole gen of paying for F2P games.

Lets be real Sony, MS and Nintendo are keeping eachother honest. If one of them ever gains a monopoly games will cost $€100.

 

[Papacheeks]

Lets be real Sony, MS and Nintendo are keeping eachother honest. If one of them ever gains a monopoly games will cost $€100.

Sony had a monopoly all this past gen. And in ps2 era and it didn't raise anything in those out side of ps+ price.

 

[ethomaz]

I want to know wtf is going in over at xbox. Phil runs xbox this would have to go by him at some capacity.

How the fuck does this happen? Its one thing to go up 5$-10$. Its another to double the price just to push people towards the better product GPU.

Honestly sounds like phil has either very little control, or someone else is calling the shots from larger part of the company. Phil would not have signed off on this unless they were getting rid of live altogether.

And this price hike sounds like they are not seeing the money they want from xbox division.

I’m sure Phil knows and even approved the price increase... he probably even had to aprove the PR article before it go online.

 

[VAVA Mk2]

Wow they actually listened.

 

[OmegaSupreme]

They tried. Another awful move from ms.

 

[x@3f*oo_e!]

Is this guy really that dumb or just a shill/MS embed.

Specifically the part where "social media manipulators don't work on friday" forms the basis of his argument.

We also saw how the usual embeds (WindowsCentral etc) were super quick to push back on it. Even had their articles ready to go. Like they knew..

Price increases--especially to the extent originally announced--always result in bad press, which is why it wouldn't have been arbitrary; the decision would have been based on data and projected numbers, suggesting the financial good would outweigh the emotional bad. If they were legitimately committed, Microsoft would have given the increase a few reporting periods to try and prove itself. Today's immediate reversal and uncoupling of free-to-play points more to an instance of fishing for consumer sentiment, rather than attempting to alter an existing business model.

^^ this

 

[devilNprada]

Seems like this opens the door for Sony to combine ps now and plus and charge me double.

And people wouldn't complain because it would still be a better deal than xbox live.

 

[devilNprada]

The games you "receive" and play are tied to the subscription, right? They are a sort of an "offer" right? If the subscription goes up in price, you just tell them to fuck themselves and forget about the "free" games.

And please tell me how i get to keep anything from Netflix if i cancel it. The downloaded episodes you can keep them, is not like on spotify?

Some people have collected the games from the begining it's not so easy to just give up. Price hike of this nature completely diminishes that..

The Netflix comparison was not about ownership..it was about end game when game pass subscription will be closer to a tiered cable TV plan than Netflix.

 

[DaGwaphics]

Seems like this opens the door for Sony to combine ps now and plus and charge me double.

And people wouldn't complain because it would still be a better deal than xbox live.

??? Xbox live is $60 a year bro. You've got to keep up. That viewpoint is soooooo yesterday.

 

[sublimit]

There's something wrong going on with MS and this incident is just more proof of that. Just like with Halo infinite didn't they knew there would be backlash? Who and why did they approve for their suppossedly flagship title to be shown in that state? Same here. Who would approve and greenlight this decision only to take it down some hours later?

There is really some management and PR problem somewhere inside MS and they need to sort it out pronto.

 

[Hendrick's]

What they were trying to do made sense, they just were trying to do it stupidly. They want to kill off Gold and convert the users to Game Pass obviously, so raising the price to match Game Pass makes sense. They would increases the price for new users only and then make f2p free. Then they would eventually announce Gold was ending and those users would be converted to Game Pass. That all makes perfect sense, but announcing a price increase right now, and without any valid explanation, was obviously going to cause a backlash.

Horrible move, unless they were just testing the waters. Regardless, they came back with free f2p so all will be forgiven.

 

[Papacheeks]

There's something wrong going on with MS and this incident is just more proof of that. Just like with Halo infinite didn't they knew there would be backlash? Who and why did they approve for their suppossedly flagship title to be shown in that state? Same here. Who would approve and greenlight this decision only to take it down some hours later?

There is really some management and PR problem somewhere inside MS and they need to sort it out pronto.

I've been saying this for ages. The enterprise part of the company is running the show. Like always, Phil made a deal with Nadella in making xbox come in line with what the rest of the company was moving towards which is a service company. Windows is a service now, office is a service now, server's are now offered for a service without needing physical hardware on the customer side. They just get access to use azure servers.

Xbox is now a service based platform. No need for a box.
Only way phil was getting the influx in cash to invest in xbox was to go this route. Which sucks because it looks like they are calling the shots. I also have to blame phil for how long they have been charging to play F2P. That should have gone away a long time ago. Sony's policy for F2P has been in place since the beginning of last gen.

It took a PR fuck up to push them towards this, regardless if it was in the cards for them to get rid of live at some point. I think the bigger question is, outside of pushing people to gamepass ultimate, why would they want to make it that expensive for a service that's just for online access? Only explanation for this actually being voted on and going to retail, was they are trying to makeup a deficit from all the spending.
Though they have a fairly good install base on gamepass something like 15-20 million, with all the spending and exclusive deals, operating costs must be super high.

It aint cheap to keep a high profile game they dont own on their service, hence why third party titles like red dead 2 dmc v and the likes leave.
Would not surprise me if we here some shuffling going around similar to whats happening over at Sony job title wise.

What they were trying to do made sense, they just were trying to do it stupidly. They want to kill off Gold and convert the users to Game Pass obviously, so raising the price to match Game Pass makes sense. They would increases the price for new users only and then make f2p free. Then they would eventually announce Gold was ending and those users would be converted to Game Pass. That all makes perfect sense, but announcing a price increase right now, and without any valid explanation, was obviously going to cause a backlash.

Horrible move, unless they were just testing the waters. Regardless, they came back with free f2p so all will be forgiven.

It took a big fuck up like this for them to talk about removing F2P barrier. Thats the bigger conversation, regardless if there were talks internally of getting rid of that paywall for F2P. It shows how tone deaf they are in a pandemic.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

So it took bad PR backfire for them to make F2P free on xbox?

Talk about out of touch, lol.

A whole gen of paying for F2P games.

Seriously.

How come everyone knew this was a shit idea except those at Xbox who make these decisions?

Its like the Halo Infinite reveal all over again.

Lets throw this to the public and see how they react.

Oh its super bad PR lets walk it back.

Hmmm reaction wasnt all that bad, ship it.

 

[x@3f*oo_e!]

Seriously.

How come everyone knew this was a shit idea except those at Xbox who make these decisions?

Its like the Halo Infinite reveal all over again.

Lets throw this to the public and see how they react.

Oh its super bad PR lets walk it back.

Hmmm reaction wasnt all that bad, ship it.

The Halo thing seems to be different because they don't seem to have a plan B ..

 

[Jokerevo]

Phil: OK guys, everyone stop. I got it. I got this. We increase prices as planned and see what happens. If not we can Xbox180. Agreed? Am I the man or am I the man?

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

The Halo thing seems to be different because they don't seem to have a plan B ..

I dont know I have a feeling if the backlash wasnt as bad as it was they would have shipped it like that.

 

[Papacheeks]

Seriously.

How come everyone knew this was a shit idea except those at Xbox who make these decisions?

Its like the Halo Infinite reveal all over again.

Lets throw this to the public and see how they react.

Oh its super bad PR lets walk it back.

Hmmm reaction wasnt all that bad, ship it.

HONESTLY right now I guarantee you heads are rolling. Jeff Grubb has no fucking clue wtf he's talking about. He makes some solid predictions, and honestly I think anyone who follows this industry with a brain can see consolidation of services is a thing, so them getting rid of xbox live is totally probably in the cards when gamepass over takes number wise.

But it's still a ways off, and when that happens you can expect a price increase or another tier to gamepass happening. If rumors of ubisoft joining are true, i bet after a grace period you'll see price increase. No way it stays at 9.99 for acces to ea, ubisoft, microsoft firs party. Same goes for ultimate. I can see ultimate going up to 20-24.99 and base gamepass going up to 14.99.

Only matter of time, and when I say time I say possibly in the next year or so. This PR blunder probably put a little halt on that if it was happening sooner rather than later.

I dont know I have a feeling if the backlash wasnt as bad as it was they would have shipped it like that.

To me thats the bigger conversation honestly is that it did ship, these were already made and shipped to stores, the leaks came from stores or warehouse. SO it was already approved at that point. They already made a blog about it which made it official. The fact people signed off on this and it actually went through is beyond bizarre. Especially with phil's leadership, I would have to think he would of been like "we are doing what?, fuck no" but I think he didn't have a say. I think they have been losing shit tons of money with all the spending and deals, so higher up were like we need to make more money until we can offer a higher tier price for gamepass.

You wonder if that Ubisoft deal went through while back on top of the spending for zenimax. Wonder if this was in the cards to re-coup some of that large operating loss. Sounds like thats how they were going to subsidize it was through increasing sub price.

 

[x@3f*oo_e!]

I dont know I have a feeling if the backlash wasnt as bad as it was they would have shipped it like that.

Well it's been in development for x years so somebody must have thought it looked fine ?

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

Well it's been in development for x years so somebody must have thought it looked fine ?

Thats the scary part someone gave that the green light on that demo and this recent price increase.

 

[Magnific0giganticus]

You think this is done? Think again. This price change is the result of long and careful strategic planning, short-term and long-term objectives, it's not something done off the cuff to see if it sticks. They arrived at this resolution to double the price to suit a much more complex strategy to reach *goals*. So think they would just throw all this out the window at first opposition? Don't make me laugh. Expect plan B to follow. This is just course correction, the destination remains the same.

 

[THE DUCK]

You think this is done? Think again. This price change is the result of long and careful strategic planning, short-term and long-term objectives, it's not something done off the cuff to see if it sticks. They arrived at this resolution to double the price to suit a much more complex strategy to reach *goals*. So think they would just throw all this out the window at first opposition? Don't make me laugh. Expect plan B to follow. This is just course correction, the destination remains the same.

Yes its no secret they want everyone on game pass.

 

[THE DUCK]

To those stating ms is losing money from the games division and are ready to quit:

That's complete crazy sauce. They had revenue of 11 billion dollars last year, and they just made a new investment in the division for 6.5 billion. Once they hit critical mass on gamepass, there's no stopping them.
Thry see this and they are still actively looking for more studios to buy.

 

[DaleinCalgary]

To those stating ms is losing money from the games division and are ready to quit:

That's complete crazy sauce. They had revenue of 11 billion dollars last year, and they just made a new investment in the division for 6.5 billion. Once they hit critical mass on gamepass, there's no stopping them.
Thry see this and they are still actively looking for more studios to buy.

They aren't quitting anything and the more MS spends to put content the better it is for me. But revenue is NOT profit, its only half of the equation.

 

[JunkerWoland]

I am not sure if they are looking like the "good guys" here. If Microsoft didn't truly intend to double the price of Gold, they would have never increased it. Given the backlash they got last gen, this was the stupidest way to test the market if what you are suggesting is true.

I think they expected push back on an increase (it doesn't take a genius), but I don't think they expected it at the level they got. So they pretty much had to reverse course.

After retracting the increase, people were quick to commend them for listening to consumers, essentially making them the good guys. The whole thing is low risk: the price didn't increase, and the overall hit to their reputation quickly fades. Testing the market would have meant sticking to the increase and only reversing course, when it was clear the old model made more financial sense; rather, this is likely an instance of gauging consumer reaction, allowing them to immediately change course.

Bad press and consumer push back aren't factors I see playing much, if any, part in the last day-or-so. We're obviously not on the same page, which is fine; and of course, anything is possible, especially without inside confirmation.

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

lol just pls
All the gaf historical warriors out looking for a fight today eh)

Something something pot calling kettle black.

Grow up, dude.

 

[Jdroop]

microsoft increases price = people .. wtf is going on. who is going to pay for it.. microsoft sucks

microsoft decreases price = this was PR stunt. . wow what a 180 degree turn.. microsoft sucks

Right, can’t win with people on gaf.

 

[Rubik8]

This was just testing the waters. Expect a game pass price increase soon.

 

[JLB]

I wonder...

If MS realise they can’t nickel and dime their customers to pay for Bethesda, will they pull out of the deal?

Seems likely.

hahahahaha you probably believe this.

 

[LisaMariaMartin]

To those stating ms is losing money from the games division and are ready to quit:

Pretty sure they are either trolling or completely braindead.

That Zenimax purchase was a long-term investment. We will see if it pans out once their heavy hitters release. So far they managed close to 20 million GP subs with almost no AAA exclusive. People are high if they think Starfield or TES6 won't push subs through the stratosphere.