Comments 847

Re: January Hardware Sales The Worst Since 2020 In The US As Xbox Consoles Decline By 50%

IllusiveMan

@donv2135 And that’s exactly why you’re unable to accept it, I don’t “need” to worship any company, I’m a user of all 3 and enjoy all of them, you’re aggressively clinging to a brand, and yes Microsoft will continue to exist, but where’s Windows Phone now? Or Zune? Or Mixr?

And again, if you’re so bothered by it, ignore me or block me, I’m not going to stop sharing my concerns.

Re: January Hardware Sales The Worst Since 2020 In The US As Xbox Consoles Decline By 50%

IllusiveMan

@donv2135 Of course I’m afraid of “change”, I’ve invested hundreds into my digital library and now if my console fails for whatever reason it’s near impossible to get another Series X, we’re not talking anymore about a +10 year scenario where MS would stop producing consoles, it’s literally happening as we speak.

And the worst imo is Microsoft’s response for Brazilian retailers and customers: “players in Brazil will be able to play on their current consoles, PCs, with Game Pass and on smartphones, tablets or TVs with Xbox", essentially saying “too bad you want a new console, you can play on the Cloud and PC” which is incredibly disingenuous as the game library isn’t nearly the same between the 3 platforms and they’re just shrugging off their console audience, exactly my fear since all this changes started.

It’s Microsoft who’s doing all this, not me, if you think I’m a hater go ahead and look how I stupidly cheered when MS announced and finalized ABK acquisition, I really thought we’d be getting fierce competition with PlayStation, who I’ve been very critical of as you can tell by my comments on Push Square, but they just gave up, they’re speed running the death of the brand and yes, I’m upset and afraid after being an Xbox customer for more than a decade, sorry if my criticisms bother you, I’ve never insulted anyone here and always keep a civil and argumentative debate, if you’re unable to do that feel free to ignore my comments or ask the staff to block me.

Re: January Hardware Sales The Worst Since 2020 In The US As Xbox Consoles Decline By 50%

IllusiveMan

@donv2135 You can read it in private mode or find tons of other articles sourcing that one.

And yes, you can close your eyes, cover your ears and deny to yourself Microsoft is killing its console business faster than anyone could’ve expected, that won’t change the fact that it’s exactly what they’re doing and they don’t care about any backlash, hence Forza on PS5 before many others that wouldn’t have been that huge.

Re: January Hardware Sales The Worst Since 2020 In The US As Xbox Consoles Decline By 50%

IllusiveMan

It’s becoming increasingly alarming how Microsoft is abandoning production or distribution of current hardware, it’s not even a conversation about one console selling more than the other, in many markets there just isn’t any Xbox available anymore.

In Brazil Xbox used to be huge, and now retailers are being informed that there’ll be no distribution for the Series X in the entire country and units for Series S are scarce and currently 30% more expensive than a PS5, source at the end of my comment.

Given all this I don’t know how they got the nerve to confirm a next generation Xbox if they literally don’t even care about producing or distributing their current hardware, I’ve seen comments of scarcity on pretty much everywhere except the Microsoft Store, if the next Xbox ends up being distributed as the Surface devices only in select markets and only through the MS Store then it’s as good as dead on arrival.

Source: https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/tec/2025/02/videogame-xbox-series-x-rival-do-ps5-some-das-prateleiras-no-brasil-e-precos-chegam-a-r-10-mil.shtml?utm_source=bluesky&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=bskfolha

Re: Phil Spencer Says Xbox Is Done Trying To Convince PS5 & Switch Players To Move Over

IllusiveMan

@Fiendish-Beaver Absolutely right, we can’t say all games will take 4 years to be ported because back when FH5 there wasn’t even a concept of plan to bring those games to competing consoles and in fact back then I remember they stated multiple times that all Bethesda games would be exclusive moving forward (just exemplifying further how plans did change).

Indy is good example of how it could work but we’ve seen them change strategy yet again for Doom The Dark Ages which is launching day one everywhere, and I do feel they’re moving eventually to a day one everywhere approach as games do benefit from being as big as they can on launch, but it’s gonna be hard to tell during this transition period, ports are already stacking up for Spring so if they wanted to port something like Avowed it’ll most likely wait a few months or a year.

Re: Phil Spencer Says Xbox Is Done Trying To Convince PS5 & Switch Players To Move Over

IllusiveMan

@fatpunkslim Only for a couple of months actually, since the ‘no red lines’ comment, the Halo MCC leak and the official announcement of FH5 for PS5.

Happy to take on that bet but get it together, you’re already having a breakdown by saying you’re “100% for this multiplatform strategy” while at the same time refusing to accept it, things have changed, it’s not the same porting Ori to Switch than Forza to PlayStation.

Re: Just One Game Is Confirmed For Xbox Game Pass In March 2025 So Far

IllusiveMan

@jesse_dylan I think the report saying that since Microsoft bought Activision many publishers don’t want to get on board with Game Pass had some truth in it, we’re seeing it already, wouldn’t be surprised if EA decided to remove EA Play from GP Ultimate too.

But tbh, I’d be fine if Game Pass ended up with only first-party games, maybe it would be more sustainable that handing out huge payouts to bring games to the service and their 30+ studios in MS gaming is enough to sustain it.

Re: Review: Avowed (Xbox) - Flashy Action & Excellent Exploration Make Up For A Surprisingly Breezy Narrative

IllusiveMan

Looking really solid tbh, the aggregated score is already taking a hit as this is a heavily Xbox taxed game cause there’s no version for PS5 yet announced, currently sitting at 80 when it probably should be around 85 or even higher.

And for the ones that still claim there’s no such thing go read some “mixed” reviews, the downsides they list are a joke, some reviewer gave it 75/100 because “it’s a product of a subscription service” smh…

Anyways, I already have it installed and ready to go on Tuesday!

Re: Xbox Praised For Putting 'Lots Of Effort' Into Store Curation Compared To Sony & Nintendo

IllusiveMan

@Ryu_Niiyama It’s because the user base is much smaller than other consoles and Steam, plus Xbox users tend to not buy games compared to any other platform, logically because of Game Pass, so if a game releases on every platform it just makes way, way less money on Xbox, that’s why even Microsoft themselves are porting first-party games to anywhere else.

That plus being a bit more complicated to port games to the Series S is why some major games just choose to skip the platform increasingly so, quite disappointing tbh.

Re: Xbox Praised For Putting 'Lots Of Effort' Into Store Curation Compared To Sony & Nintendo

IllusiveMan

@Rog-X For Nintendo is outright impossible to get a refund, Sony is very specific with each request, sometimes it’s approved but most of the time it’s denied, Microsoft is by far the best in this regard.
I bought Battlefield 1 for like $2 in December but they gave it away for free two weeks later so I submitted the request for refund and was able to redeem the free game no issues.

Re: New Financial Report Provides Estimated Xbox Series X|S Sales Figure As Of Late 2024

IllusiveMan

What I can’t understand is the fact that 30 million consoles sold is not a disaster, many other consoles have sold less than half of that lifetime… and yet Microsoft already gave up on exclusives plus more concerningly they might have stopped production and distribution of hardware, as there’s a growing global scarcity of both Series X and S on many markets outside the US.

If they keep making hardware on paper but it’s gonna be like Surface devices which are basically never available outside the US MS Store then they shouldn’t even bother, just move our libraries to PC at the very least.

Re: Talking Point: It's Been A Year Since Phil Spencer Announced The 'Xbox Business Update' Event

IllusiveMan

@K1LLEGAL You make a good point but I don’t think Deathloop proved anything or was the catalyst, I think once they acquired ABK they took a look at their financials at how staggeringly more money is being made at PlayStation, specially for Call of Duty, and with the need of recouping those 80 billion spent for ABK and Zenimax, Microsoft just pivoted overnight leaving the Xbox division scrambling to even accept their new reality, what I’ll never be fine with is the blatant lies they repeatedly have said to people who have spent years and hundreds of dollars on building a library around some games we were told repeatedly would never be going to other consoles.

That’s why now I hesitate to spend any money on the Xbox store but just can’t sell my Xbox as I have 130+ games I can’t play anywhere else without having to buy them again, and now for whatever baffling reason there’s less options to buy a new console right now.

Re: Talking Point: It's Been A Year Since Phil Spencer Announced The 'Xbox Business Update' Event

IllusiveMan

The amount of lies we were told back then is honestly infuriating, all the ports being announced right now were already greenlit when Phil was saying on camera “it’s only 4 games”.

And btw, a bit off topic, there’s a growing scarcity of Xbox consoles globally, it’s become hard to get on basically every market outside the US, there’s many threads such as this one already and it’s looking as Microsoft already gave up on hardware. https://www.reddit.com/r/xbox/s/u8xVJPGq1j

Re: Soapbox: As A Huge Forza Fan, I'm Fine With Horizon 5 Going To PS5

IllusiveMan

@abe_hikura Exactly that I believe is the most likely outcome in a few years, they’ll say “Xbox is at the center of everything we do however we tried out best selling hardware but response from fans hasn’t been as expected” essentially blaming us for not buying it, followed by “but since Xbox is everywhere you don’t need to worry as you can still play your library on the Cloud 💀” or some other corporate BS they’ve been feeding us since 2013.

Re: Xbox Hardware Declines But 'Content & Services' Grows In FY25 Q2 Earnings Report

IllusiveMan

@donv2135 You missed my comments where I’ve been pretty critical of PlayStation too, in fact I said this year Xbox could’ve finally capitalized on their mistakes but they choose to shoot both their legs off, being critical of a brand doesn’t mean I’m obsessed with the other one, if I were a troll I could simply say “hehe Xbox dead no exclusives” but I keep elaborating on my frustrations on what they’re doing because I enjoy tf out of my consoles, if I didn’t have an Xbox I wouldn’t even bother to be here discussing.

Re: Xbox Hardware Declines But 'Content & Services' Grows In FY25 Q2 Earnings Report

IllusiveMan

I’m tired chief, these numbers are quite bad, beyond hardware sales which MS seems to just have given up, they had a legit great Call of Duty launch, overall the best quarter ever for Game Pass and revenue not only didn’t grow but shrunk?

Even if GP itself grew by a tiny amount corporate MS is definitely not happy and I see why they’re turning Xbox into a third-party publisher almost overnight without caring for long-term health of the platform, they need that revenue up ASAP to justify shareholders the expense of ABK, which has now proven to be a mistake, it has put way too much pressure and scrutiny on Xbox/MS Gaming from investors that just don’t understand the gaming industry with nothing in return so far, not even most ABK games on GP or new games beyond Call of Duty, or even the same revenue compared to the same quarter last year, quite brutal.

Re: Talking Point: Will DOOM: The Dark Ages Become id's Best Modern DOOM Game?

IllusiveMan

After watching the Dev_Direct with that frankly awesome Doom TDA gameplay I finally sat down to play Doom 2016 and I’m soooo stupid for not playing it before lol, I tried several times but there was always something going on and couldn’t pass from the third mission, now I’m about to finish it and move on to Eternal but getting a bit nervous as everyone say Eternal is frustrating compared to 2016 which so far has been amazing.

Re: Xbox's Multiplatform Releases Made Microsoft The Top Game Publisher In The World Last Month

IllusiveMan

@Millionski I don’t know how you want them to tell you, it’s crystal clear what their future plans are when he said there’s no red lines and he won’t put walls around any game, that quote is talking about old games that may be complicated or just not worth to port, and honestly, don’t put too much attention on Phil’s words, don’t you remember “there’s only 4 games” and “Indiana Jones isn’t going to PlayStation”?

I legit don’t understand you, you change your stance pretty much every week, one week you’re against this multiplatform push, the other you’re all for it, and now you’re negating it’s happening in the first place….

Re: Xbox's Multiplatform Releases Made Microsoft The Top Game Publisher In The World Last Month

IllusiveMan

"64% of the above Microsoft revenue figure was spent on PlayStation platforms"

This is why there's no going back, once they had a taste of that sweet revenue they won't accept anything less, with this and what Phil said in Destin's interview it's now 100% clear, Microsoft Gaming is a publisher, ALL games are going everywhere except the very old ones not worth porting.

And at the risk of sounding exhausting (cause I am) I still believe it's a death sentence for the Xbox platform, with this 64% stat only growing and growing and Xbox' users spending dwindling ever more it's only a matter of time until Microsoft pulls the plug on the least profitable area of MS Gaming, the hardware.