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[phil_t98]

Apple has completely changed the world with the iPhone. Their iPods were technological marvel at the time, and while they have slowed down in recent years, the iWatch and iPads are innovative products in every household.

Microsoft on the other hand sat on their laurels after the success of windows. Their foray into gaming is pretty much the only new somewhat successful consumer facing product they have made in over two decades. Zune, windows phone, all disasters. Azure subs, MS office subs, and other services have brought them success, but they are a services company now. They cannot compete with Apple on products. And they cannot compete with Sony and Nintendo on games. So they are chasing the services model on consoles instead of trying to innovate and make products worth buying.

The Apple comparison is literally there to show that this isnt a xbox problem, it's a Microsoft problem. Just like how they werent able to keep up with Apple, they are struggling to keep up with Sony and Nintendo, and pivoting to services to emulate the success of their parent division. Chasing that service model in this industry is entirely flawed because gaming is part of the entertainment industry, and simply offering services without innovating or inspiring will not do.

where your saying Microsoft didn't innovate, you forget they were the first console make to bring proper mainstream online gaming to the console market. their console was designed from the ground up to play online. it changed what came afterwards and how we play games

 

[mckmas8808]

I suppose the shortage of new gen consoles gave them cover to test waters without actually losing customers to a competitor's purchase. But why would they ever do a market test like this? They could have done the same thing with a simple "off the record" phone call to a couple journalists where they leaked the plan in advance. They would have gotten the exact same audience reaction when the possibility of a doubled price was floated on twitter, and then been able to deny that it was ever in the plans when it was resoundingly rejected by their audience.

The more I think about the last few months, the harder it is to shake the feeling that they have been writing or planning to write checks that the shareholders aren't gonna want to see cashed based on internal numbers.

I'm curious what MS is thinking internally now. Clearly, they.....................

- Had a plan in place to increase Xbox Live Gold to $120 a year
- They expected most people to say no to that increase, and then jump on Xbox GamePass (i.e. the best deal in gaming "tm")
- Expected a small section of people to pay the increase of GOLD.


So now that none of this will happen, where do they go next? Some way they are feeling the "NEED" to artificially jack up their GamePass numbers. I do agree that it could be due to them responding to their shareholders and wanting to hit a certain Gamepass subscription number.

Do they go back to the $1 Gamepass thing? Do they offer Gamepass for free for 1 year to consumers that buy "certain" appliances (i.e. A Samsung 4K TV, a Samsung Fridge, a new MS Surface Laptop, etc)?

 

[devilNprada]

where your saying Microsoft didn't innovate, you forget they were the first console make to bring proper mainstream online gaming to the console market. their console was designed from the ground up to play online. it changed what came afterwards and how we play games

Sega was the first but the technology wasn't there yet....

 

[SlimySnake]

where your saying Microsoft didn't innovate, you forget they were the first console make to bring proper mainstream online gaming to the console market. their console was designed from the ground up to play online. it changed what came afterwards and how we play games

what? no. Socom came out in august 2002. XBL didnt launch till november 2002. a full year after the console came out. regardless, online multiplayer was a thing even on Dreamcast which came out before three years before xbox introduced XBox Live.

 

[Papacheeks]

I'm curious what MS is thinking internally now. Clearly, they.....................

- Had a plan in place to increase Xbox Live Gold to $120 a year
- They expected most people to say no to that increase, and then jump on Xbox GamePass (i.e. the best deal in gaming "tm")
- Expected a small section of people to pay the increase of GOLD.


So now that none of this will happen, where do they go next? Some way they are feeling the "NEED" to artificially jack up their GamePass numbers. I do agree that it could be due to them responding to their shareholders and wanting to hit a certain Gamepass subscription number.

Do they go back to the $1 Gamepass thing? Do they offer Gamepass for free for 1 year to consumers that buy "certain" appliances (i.e. A Samsung 4K TV, a Samsung Fridge, a new MS Surface Laptop, etc)?

Expect some changes coming soon on gamepass. I was talking to some people I know in my discord channel couple nights ago, one of them is a q/a Product tester. They were saying that they've heard some things on the backend changing within gamepass from people in the beta programs for the OS who have data-mined a couple of these test builds of the OS which includes updates to the store.

I would assume some changes are coming, but I wonder if they are doing another tier of gamepass if it's going to be postponed because of this incident.

 

[cireza]

where your saying Microsoft didn't innovate, you forget they were the first console make to bring proper mainstream online gaming to the console market. their console was designed from the ground up to play online. it changed what came afterwards and how we play games

Dreamcast was built to be played online from the ground up and had a modem included. I played Quake 3, Chu Chu Rocket and PSO on this console. It was awesome.

 

[FrankWza]

what? no. Socom came out in august 2002. XBL didnt launch till november 2002. a full year after the console came out. regardless, online multiplayer was a thing even on Dreamcast which came out before three years before xbox introduced XBox Live.

Also, the network adapter add on went into a port in the ps2. They had a plan to implement it during development of the ps2

 

[phil_t98]

Sega was the first but the technology wasn't there yet....

As I said designed with online gaming , didn’t have to buy any addons or anything. Also first games console with hard drive in there.

I know Sega did it but you had to buy the online addon

ps2 did it but again you had to buy the online adapter.

The first Xbox was made so everybody could access online gaming and most of the games were designed around it. Remember playing PGR amazing back then.

I used to have the link cable for PS1 were you could link 2 PS1’s up to play doom. First taste of that type of multiplayer. Blew my mind

 

[SlimySnake]

Also, the network adapter add on went into a port in the ps2. They had a plan to implement it during development of the ps2

yeah, i remember buying it when Socom came out. IIRC, it was $40 and cheaper than what MS was charging for their 'service' that we now all know was a scam. They didnt build any dedicated servers. Third parties paid for all online mp. MS's biggest innovation was party chat.

But if we have to go that far back to find a single example of MS innovating then we are literally proving my point. I am mostly talking about games anyway. I dont want them creating new genres or anything like that. I just want a first party publisher to compete in the GOTY space. They havent done that since Halo 3.

 

[FranXico]

Dreamcast was built to be played online from the ground up and had a modem included. I played Quake 3, Chu Chu Rocket and PSO on this console. It was awesome.

And did you have to pay a subscription for that?

 

[cireza]

And did you have to pay a subscription for that?

Not to Microsoft or Sega, but it was far from being free lol.

 

[mckmas8808]

Expect some changes coming soon on gamepass. I was talking to some people I know in my discord channel couple nights ago, one of them is a q/a Product tester. They were saying that they've heard some things on the backend changing within gamepass from people in the beta programs for the OS who have data-mined a couple of these test builds of the OS which includes updates to the store.

I would assume some changes are coming, but I wonder if they are doing another tier of gamepass if it's going to be postponed because of this incident.

VERY interesting point.

 

[FrankWza]

yeah, i remember buying it when Socom came out. IIRC, it was $40 and cheaper than what MS was charging for their 'service' that we now all know was a scam. They didnt build any dedicated servers. Third parties paid for all online mp. MS's biggest innovation was party chat.

But if we have to go that far back to find a single example of MS innovating then we are literally proving my point. I am mostly talking about games anyway. I dont want them creating new genres or anything like that. I just want a first party publisher to compete in the GOTY space. They havent done that since Halo 3.

Also, we needed the HDD from final fantasy bundle for the PSU magazine map add ons. Fucking socom. Amazing.
The original Xbox halo wasn’t big online if I remember. I think it was halo 2. Halo was big in lan parties I thought.

 

[SlimySnake]

Also, we needed the HDD from final fantasy bundle for the PSU magazine map add ons. Fucking socom. Amazing.
The original Xbox halo wasn’t big online if I remember. I think it was halo 2. Halo was big in lan parties I thought.

Yeah. XBL launched in 2002, but Halo 2 didnt launch until 2004. it was easily the most popular online game of all time at the time, but by then Sony had already launched the sequel to Socom which was even more popular than the first. Not as popular as Halo 2, but PS2 popularized online multiplayer way before Xbox did.

I think it's important to note that we are in a thread about being scammed by Xbox Live Gold. A service that was built on a lie. That we need to pay to play online. MS has nothing to do with online multiplayer. Both the PS and Xbox consoles have all the hardware you need to play online. This would be like your tv charging you a monthly fee to access Disney+ and Netflix. It makes no sense whatsoever. We shouldnt even bring this up as an innovation or as a positive in a thread where we are discussing being scammed by its price hike.

 

[phil_t98]

Also, we needed the HDD from final fantasy bundle for the PSU magazine map add ons. Fucking socom. Amazing.
The original Xbox halo wasn’t big online if I remember. I think it was halo 2. Halo was big in lan parties I thought.

List of Xbox network games - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Check out the list of online games,

 

[phil_t98]

Yeah. XBL launched in 2002, but Halo 2 didnt launch until 2004. it was easily the most popular online game of all time at the time, but by then Sony had already launched the sequel to Socom which was even more popular than the first. Not as popular as Halo 2, but PS2 popularized online multiplayer way before Xbox did.

I think it's important to note that we are in a thread about being scammed by Xbox Live Gold. A service that was built on a lie. That we need to pay to play online. MS has nothing to do with online multiplayer. Both the PS and Xbox consoles have all the hardware you need to play online. This would be like your tv charging you a monthly fee to access Disney+ and Netflix. It makes no sense whatsoever. We shouldnt even bring this up as an innovation or as a positive in a thread where we are discussing being scammed by its price hike.

Was brought up do I commmented on it. Back on track.

mad I said Microsoft were ridiculous for trying to double the price

 

[cireza]

The original Xbox halo wasn’t big online if I remember.

It did not have online as far as I remember. At least not in France.

 

[FrankWza]

shouldnt even bring this up as an innovation or as a positive in a thread where we are discussing being scammed by its price hike.

Back on track. I keep going back to why they’re so secretive about gold numbers but now keep flaunting the GP numbers like it’s some sort of milestone.

 

[NickFire]

I'm curious what MS is thinking internally now. Clearly, they.....................

- Had a plan in place to increase Xbox Live Gold to $120 a year
- They expected most people to say no to that increase, and then jump on Xbox GamePass (i.e. the best deal in gaming "tm")
- Expected a small section of people to pay the increase of GOLD.


So now that none of this will happen, where do they go next? Some way they are feeling the "NEED" to artificially jack up their GamePass numbers. I do agree that it could be due to them responding to their shareholders and wanting to hit a certain Gamepass subscription number.

Do they go back to the $1 Gamepass thing? Do they offer Gamepass for free for 1 year to consumers that buy "certain" appliances (i.e. A Samsung 4K TV, a Samsung Fridge, a new MS Surface Laptop, etc)?

Regarding the bolded, I just looked up when they originally removed the 12 month Gold option. The first article to pop up was from 7/31/20 I believe. That suggests to me that they were planning to jack up the price of Gold for a long time, obviously well before launch of current gen, and also before the Halo debacle. And if that is accurate, that would certainly support the possibility that everything they have done the last several months, including console MSRP, taking the hit from Halo's delay, and investing billions of more dollars into gamepass acquisitions, were decided under the assumption that revenue would be significantly increasing in the short term either by new gamepass subscriptions or just people paying more for multiplayer.

So yeah, based on my assumptions / speculations, I think what happens next is a million dollar question, and frankly I'm wondering how much time the division's management team has left before the shareholders get restless. But if an expected revenue influx from the since reversed Gold decision was needed to keep shareholders happy, then I don't see where they can really turn to find that right now. The possibilities you raised might help get subscribers, but can they really expect the immediate cash influx from any of those compared to doubling the price of gold? Maybe they can since it seemed the Gold price was only going up for new customers (at first anyway), but I wouldn't bet on it.

 

[GaviotaGrande]

Expect some changes coming soon on gamepass. I was talking to some people I know in my discord channel couple nights ago, one of them is a q/a Product tester. They were saying that they've heard some things on the backend changing within gamepass from people in the beta programs for the OS who have data-mined a couple of these test builds of the OS which includes updates to the store.

I would assume some changes are coming, but I wonder if they are doing another tier of gamepass if it's going to be postponed because of this incident.

It will be called Xbox Game Studios Pass and contain only games released by first party MS studios.

 

[Vasto]

Xbox Live boomed console online gaming and you all know it.

 

[Shmunter]

Xbox Live boomed console online gaming and you all know it.

Not only that 360 live is better than the last 2 gens of consoles. Everything was consistent, see a friend? Join his game right from the interface. Etc.

Now games are all doing their own stupid shit and it ain’t pleasant.

 

[SlimySnake]

Xbox Live boomed console online gaming and you all know it.

Nah, Halo 2 did that.

It would be like saying CoD 4 Modern Warfare didnt revolutionize console FPS multiplayer, PSN and XBL did.

If anything, XBL delayed it. If Halo had come out on PC, it wouldve launched with online multiplayer but XBL wasnt ready in 2001 when it was launched so everyone had to settle for local multiplayer which was extremely popular before XBL came out.

 

[Vasto]

Nah, Halo 2 did that.

It would be like saying CoD 4 Modern Warfare didnt revolutionize console FPS multiplayer, PSN and XBL did.

If anything, XBL delayed it. If Halo had come out on PC, it wouldve launched with online multiplayer but XBL wasnt ready in 2001 when it was launched so everyone had to settle for local multiplayer which was extremely popular before XBL came out.

 

[SlimySnake]

 

[Hezekiah]

where your saying Microsoft didn't innovate, you forget they were the first console make to bring proper mainstream online gaming to the console market. their console was designed from the ground up to play online. it changed what came afterwards and how we play games

What's also great was how they were charging people to play Fortnite.

 

[THE DUCK]

Oh my sweet child.

Netflix loses the battle, but it's still on target to win Wall Street's war

Netflix shares fell after reporting fewer subscribers than forecast, but the company's main investment thesis remains in tact.

www.cnbc.com

Read that, and know that they had been borrowing money to fund a lot of their ventures for tv shows/ films. It's getting's less, but up till this past year they were still not in the making money hand over fist. And they still are not.

It has been borrowing billions each year to fund its plethora of original and licensed shows and movies. Believers in Netflix have predicted that as the company’s price-value proposition wins over the global population (with a product far cheaper than traditional pay TV in almost all regions of the world), it will eventually be able to fund its own programming without lending. This will propel the company into a reliable money-maker with plenty of growth runway ahead of it.
The company said Tuesday that it’s closer than ever to getting there. The grand plan is on track. Sure, the subscriber trajectory isn’t great -- from 15.8 million additions in the first quarter to 10.1 million in the second quarter to 2.2 million in the third quarter. But Netflix warned investors of this earlier this year, saying last quarter that most people who wanted Netflix for pandemic quarantines had already signed up.
The big story isn’t the subscriber miss. It’s that Netflix gets closer to self-funding. And that’s music to the ears of Netflix shareholders.

Netflix One Question: Is It Losing Money Or Making Money?

Netflix stock has emerged a star performer through the coronavirus pandemic, rising by ~25% year-to-date, as people consume more content while being confined to their homes. The company added close to 16 million subscribers over the first quarter, handily beating its guidance of about 7 million...

www.forbes.com

This shows that over the years they have been starting to make higher net income, but because of other streaming services like Disney+ they now 100% have to rely on original or exclusive content. Which is why they burn more cash than they bring in.

This probably is also Gamepass's issue now as well.

When Will Netflix End Its Cash Burn?

Netflix investors are debating the streamer's outlook more than ever after it lowered its subscriber growth forecast for 2019 on Oct. 16 ahead of November's launch of competitors from Disney and Apple, wondering when it will stop its cash burn.

www.hollywoodreporter.com

Maybe read up a little before making such posts.

Don't confuse cash flow with net income.
They are very well positioned and really have no issues as stated. Oh my sweet child - rude and ridiculous from someone who clearly doesn't understand how to read, or a balance sheet. Just because a company invests income into its future, doesn't make it unprofitable. Q3 2020 they had a net income of $789 million dollars - and its projecting upwards into 2021.

According to you, Netflix loses money, Gamepass loses money, Disney plus loses money, they should all just close up shop and give up! I mean that's why all of these companies are sinking billions into the future if these enterprises, right, because they perform so poorly? Holy crap. But wait Papacheeks says they lose money, so it must be true! Maybe actually understand things before you make a post.

 

[DarkMage619]

As I said designed with online gaming , didn’t have to buy any addons or anything. Also first games console with hard drive in there.

I know Sega did it but you had to buy the online addon

ps2 did it but again you had to buy the online adapter.

The first Xbox was made so everybody could access online gaming and most of the games were designed around it. Remember playing PGR amazing back then.

I used to have the link cable for PS1 were you could link 2 PS1’s up to play doom. First taste of that type of multiplayer. Blew my mind

MS introduced friends lists, universal cross game chat, and achievements to games in addition to quality console online gaming all under Xbox Live. Gold hasn't gone up in price since 2010 I believe but at this point it would be pretty tough for them to raise the price and not significantly improve the value. Focus on quality games and people might be willing to pay more for services.

 

[Papacheeks]

Don't confuse cash flow with net income.
They are very well positioned and really have no issues as stated. Oh my sweet child - rude and ridiculous from someone who clearly doesn't understand how to read, or a balance sheet. Just because a company invests income into its future, doesn't make it unprofitable. Q3 2020 they had a net income of $789 million dollars - and its projecting upwards into 2021.

According to you, Netflix loses money, Gamepass loses money, Disney plus loses money, they should all just close up shop and give up! I mean that's why all of these companies are sinking billions into the future if these enterprises, right, because they perform so poorly? Holy crap. But wait Papacheeks says they lose money, so it must be true! Maybe actually understand things before you make a post.

The charts I showed actually show this, up until the later parts of 2019 Netflix had a big line of credit they were using. A quick google would show you what they make:

Netflix, Inc. (NFLX) Income Statement - Yahoo Finance

Get the detailed quarterly/annual income statement for Netflix, Inc. (NFLX). Find out the revenue, expenses and profit or loss over the last fiscal year.

finance.yahoo.com

Also note the amount of spending they have been doing, they spent in 2019 20 billion.

Netflix, Inc. Common Stock (NFLX) Financials

Find the latest Financials data for Netflix, Inc. Common Stock (NFLX) at Nasdaq.com.

www.nasdaq.com

I don't know man none of that looks great.

Though Disney is losing money, and are spending a shit ton, they own everything on their platform. They dont pay licenses for anything on their service. They are not buying IP's, they fund them.

And yes Disney though content wise in a better position than Netflix still has similar issue:

But Disney Plus’s success is tempered by the investment costs associated with it. A MoffettNathanson report says the division could lose $2 billion each this year and next; Disney had acknowledged it won’t be profitable until 2024.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/11/12/disneys-profits-plummet-coronavirus-keeps-its-core-businesses-flailing/

They generated 14 billion in a quarter, but still are losing money because of other issues in the company and costs associated with streaming services like creating/maintaining content. Netflix is in same position but has been doing this for over 10+ years, and still somehow isn't profitable?

How long or how much do you think the sub has to be to make the deficit that much smaller?

Disney already increased their prices and I would have to assume end of 2021 there will be another hike. Disney + has 73 Million subs. Yet still cant make money. Microsoft is going to be in this for a long time of not making money.

Something that will add as time goes on to Gamepass having more tiers and higher prices.

 

[graywolf323]

List of Xbox network games - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Check out the list of online games,

Halo 1 on the original Xbox did not support Xbox Live

I would know, I played that game a ton at LAN parties in high school, the PC version added online play but if you wanted to play Halo 1 on the Xbox online you had to use various tricks to make the game think you were playing LAN

maybe you should have read Halo's entry on Wikipedia before you shared that link thinking you were proving a point

Although the Xbox version of Halo lacks official support for online multiplayer play, third-party packet tunneling software provide unofficial ways around this limitation.[19] The Windows and Macintosh ports of Halo support online matches involving up to 16 players and include multiplayer maps, not in the original Xbox release.

Halo: Combat Evolved - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[phil_t98]

Halo 1 on the original Xbox did not support Xbox Live

I would know, I played that game a ton at LAN parties in high school, the PC version added online play but if you wanted to play Halo 1 on the Xbox online you had to use various tricks to make the game think you were playing LAN

maybe you should have read Halo's entry on Wikipedia before you shared that link thinking you were proving a point

Halo: Combat Evolved - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Halo 2 did though