For PS it looked ridiculous. Glad they fixed it. Co-op split screen should not require ps plus

@Optimumjay it was set a while ago with COD - to play offline co-op split screen you both must have MS accounts (or maybe activision at that time).

It is annoying and unnecessary road block but not new. The only good part is your friend will also get achievements along with you.

If its 30fps I might skip it.

@AI-Generation its a good point and i know some people got into xbox only because of GPU and primarily they only play GPU. That was working for MS (and that was the plan with series s + GP combo) until subs stopped growing at a number where it did not satifsy MS. If you think about it there were only 20-25M of real GP subscribers - the 35M numebr included the 10+ gold subscribers.

They had a sub that was making money - live gold.
GP is sub where they constantly were losing money one way or another.
I still belive it could all work, strategy is not bad by itself but seemingly they needed more subs to work - maybe 50M or even leaked 100M. And i know there was a report saying its sustainable but that excluded 1st party content - which is not right because clearly these games suffer and studious get closed.

So now I think its time to move away from day 1.

I feel like this community (or to be precise certain people) are just never happy. Wasnt exclusives the #1 in player voice? did not everyone want to get back exclusvies in the past 2 years?

No excluvies = people complain
Some exclusives = "oh but why not this or that game"
All excluvies = I bet same people will complain that its not sustainable (which I would agree with)

I think they could do a small step in this direction but not fully dive in which is correct move in my opinion. It is better than nothing

Amazing if that would be the original xbox rog ally x, I would a 100% make it my main handheld.
I have 2 "issues" (not issues but what I would wanted to improve) on the xbax = 7 inch screen and no oled.
THe thing is I own the S2 and it has similar screen but 8 inch. this 1 inch makes a huge difference. I literally wanted xbax to have oled and increase the screen a little by minimizing the bazels - exactly what they did.
Its wild it comes only as a bungle with super expensive and useless AR glasses.
I guess it makes the choice easier - I just fully skip this version.

Its also wild that 450 S2 has better screen that 1000 xbax...

I am still torn between which device I want to use primarily as a handheld. S2 experience is way better but obviously very limited on which software is available on it.

@Banjo- did not xbox increase the prices this gen exactly same as PS/nin? what stopping them to generate more cash from each customer? I do not understand how is it different and how is it bad honestly.

What I do see is becasue the xbox is unhealthy (Asha quote) we are having these cuts, uturns, and new strategy every 6 months.

I dont even care who is better or worse but I want xbox to just pick a lane at this point.

@Fiendish-Beaver I dont mind it and the more fanfare the better! they did a lot of damage with porting most of the series s/x gen games to PS5. To the point people on PS5 expect already these games and that also affects people who moved from xbox to PS thinking they will get games like gears...

@Fiendish-Beaver I think they either need to cut day 1 content (whetehr 1st party or parners) so the COD case wont be unique. Or simply make GPU that expensive that people naturally fall off - more luxury tier for fans costing at some staggering $35 or so. So those 3 people who will stay on it will still make money for MS.

My point is they recently reiterated that excsluvies will stay (at least those 2 announced), which means GP needs to change to adapt - it makes sense to do in in next 100 days.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner I still dont blame him. His strategy for GP made sense at that time but GP needed more content. Funny enough as soon as deal was closed and they finally had a good pipeline, MS did another strategy change to "everything is an xbox" and then increased prices...

In my eyes it was more Satya fault and seemingly Sarah was behing "everything is an xbox" that did not make any sense.

@Shinato2024 not sure how can you talk net profit when both companies dont disclose it for their divisions...

MS does not report anything for xbox division except revenue. only during ABK trial some data was leaked but its not worth looking into now 3 years after deal is closed.

You keep talkin about net profit, but the metric Sony use is Operating income (OI or EBIT). Comparing 2017 vs 2024 (5th year of ps4 vs 5th year of ps5) for example OI near doubled. OI means that both revenues and cogs are in it (and also SG&A where studious employee sit) => surely they charged more for their games but did not costs increase tremendously this gen? bottom line they are more profitable this gen.
And if they produce some components in-house and were protected by these increases - isnt it a good business?

@Shinato2024 @Banjo- I like my SX and I am very positive so far about Asha. However, MS lost a lot of my faith in them over the course of this gen. We cant deny a lot of problems they are facing. From Schreier report it seems like there is a lot of ambiguity within the company and competing strategies/vision in place (clearly exclusives vs GP vs publishing are very different strategies pulling in opposite directions) plus a lot of pressure from investors and Satya.

We have seen it many times that one bad quarter can lead to a lot of changes, uturns, etc.

Despite all that, I consider this gen pretty successful despite lower console sales vs xbox one. But I have a lot of doubts of the future of the brand and their xbox business and specifically next-gen.

I know usually at some point with these conversations we bring up sony and how they also had cancellations, failures, job cuts, etc - that is all true. However, their business model is more stable, the only uturn I remember is pulling from PC (which favors console players actually) and PS5 is the most profitable gen ever which set to sell close to ps4 or even surpass it due to GTA. Sony can afford these Ls. For many years I thought MS can too, but clearly they are at the point where they dont want to infinitely pour xbox with money

@Banjo- obsidian could be on the chopping block too. OW2 and avowed underperformed.

If she keeps GP pricing low and provide more affordable tiers (for example 1st party only tier) and they dont reverse it in a year - surely she will be a saviour. I am just not confident that things wont change. Who knows maybe she was lucky to do some work in these several months but now Satya might have a chat with her...

@Schonks 2 big games per year + some remaster/live service + several 3rd party exclusives. so actually between 4-6 in the end of the day.

My point is MS does need more than 3-4 per year to be on par. the rest needs to be multiplat to get money.

this is basically a modified "red lines" straregy we have been discussing since 2024. I like it more than timed exclusivity

I will be VERY surprised if GPU does not see a big change in next 100 days.
If MS doubles down on exclusives (which is set stone...for now) and cuts many small studious that basically were acquired to get more games into GP => that only means they are left with just a handful first party games every year and likely AA or AAA in scale => so half of your output will be eaten by GP day 1.

I foresee either GPU losing more and more day 1 games or increasing in price again.

Great move. Fingers crossed they dont do uturn in a year or so.

I think having 3-4 big exclusives per year is enough - they can copy sony model. The rest could be multiplat.

I am just going with the flow. I like my series X and it has good synergy with xbox rog ally x. Game pass - regardless of what they do, likely I will not re-sub when it lapses.
So whatever. Exclusivity if stays - sure I will play on my SX gears e-day. If not I have ps5 pro. I still like the xbox play anywhere program and most likely to buy game if it supports it even that I have ps5 pro just for this synergy/ability to play on handeld and console.

I am with them this gen (which will last a min of 5+ years more) and next gen lets just see what happens

@NishimaruX unless you have a lot of subs, $20-25/m is unnoticebale. Not like if you unsub, next month you will be like "there you go, here is my $20". Thats the appeal - anyone can afford it. But buying full year or even whole gen (which is not possible to prepay) is a lot of money for many. and when you start to factor in online access its even cheaper (base ps plus or gp core is another 10-12/m or smth like that)

@Skinny-Pete I agree. you just cant hide from these bad news. This applies to Sony and nintendo as well. My feed is all about nintendo greed and bungie flop lately and now with "bloodbath" from MS.
You cant hide it unless you fully stop following everything gaming-related

I dont see the problem. number one platform for COD is PS (not even steam). so makes sense.

@Banjo- Asha started strong but its all until Satya steps in...

@PsBoxSwitchOwner @themightyant @IllusiveMan I am really interested what happens to Game Pass model.

All M&A started with the goal of having so many studios to have a constant flow of games into the GP produced by 1st party. I suppose its cheaper and provide more control then buying off 3rd party into game pass every time. This is not a new model - netflix and others do the same.
Now if we look at 2025 - we had 8-10 1st party games vs 2022 when it was only pentiment. So yeah the goal was achivied - now lets double down on GP? No, we are going to double the price, then cut a little and remove COD.

Right now I am seeing all these smaller studious that produced niche games to fill in the GP are being cut. So I guess we are moving from producing 8+ games back to 3-4 big hits per year - basically a sony model. Thats fine but then are you happy with GP eating forza 6 or gears e-day sales? I am not sure they are.

I think GP needs to be completely restructured:
1) GPU to be fully removed. GP premium (without day 1) is the main tier now.
2) GPU slowly starts losing day 1. First COD, then TES 6, then to studious like machine games and so on. It becomes "case by case day 1 games".
3) GPU increases in price again but without COD. So to the point where its worse than after $30 announcement.
4) PC GP likely to be cut. Its too good to be true

Looks amazing.

I just hope MS does not change course again on the exclusivity of this title and does not set unreasonable revenue goals. They need to understand exactly why they are doing exclusives - to attract players LONG-TERM on the platform. Each such decision leads to potential underperformance due to availability in GP day 1 and not releasing on PS5. They should not be surprised with the results.

@Banjo- I think we need to be realistic that xbox never ever reaches PS5 level of sales. period. However, I think they could get to 50M mark or so which might be enough for GP and excluvies to make sense. The thing is we are still far from it clearly.

Its a snowball effect that works either in the dirction you want like Sony/Nintendo or the opposite (xbox).

Sony does not need to do anything and PS5 will sell. Same with S2 because even after price hike its the cheapest console and 2x cheaper than any PC handheld. Yeah they slightly cut the sales forecast but they are on track to reach series S/X consoels next year (basically selling 30M+ in 2 years vs 6 for xbox)

@eduscxbox there is definitely a double standard with this. Sony lately sucks - bungie flop, saros underpformance and such. I think the thing is overall threir console business in a good shape so they can afford to take such Ls but xbox is in different position now

@mac_da_man to be fair if you go on push to any bad news about sony, chances are you will see xbox dragged into convo in first 5 comments haha. fanboys being fanboys.

With e-day is a tough call. I think if they DO permanent exclusives like e-day, they cant expect the games to perform as usual. They will underperform because of that, its important that its treated as long-term strategy to attract players rather than making money back today - I am not sure MS execs understand that

@NishimaruX yeah I am pretty optimistic abut the series gen and next 5 years or so. It sold enough to keep going. Maybe they even reach 40M mark due to GTA and exclusvies like e-day. So we are good.

Next gen, the whole xbox PC thing sounds like a road to nowhere. Xbox mode on PC is obviously better than just windows but its too far behind console experience and steamOs.
I dont see them succeding next gen unless they heavilty subsidize helix or release series X successor proper console

@ILuvGames the thing is sony has healthy console business despite all these issues (with bungie, live service, etc). So many people let it slide.
There is also a notion that soon there simply be no choice - if you want a powerful console under the TV then you need PS5-6 as MS moves towards PC and S2 is not powerful enough.

Simply if you want big AAA exclusives, large player base, top 3rdf party support and optimization you need to go with PS5. I dont like it but its where things are headed.

Another factor is Sony gives you more hardware options/accessories => more powerful console, more physical games, speakers, ps portal, rumoredly their own handheld next gen - so people invest more into ecosystem and dont want to leave.

I believe its a correct course to keep several permanently exclusive games BUT for games that are selected as exclusives - MS MUST factor in lost sales due to GP and not releasing on PS5/S2. On top of that they need to understand that the short-term underperformance of these tittles is done to attract more players into xbox ecosystem. You CANT have both - I have big doubts that execs understand that. You cant punish a studio for a management decision to keep a title exclusive.

After all these news, I wont be surprised if in a year or two these studious get cut or suddenly permanent exclusivity becomes not so permanent.

@Fiendish-Beaver yeah I dont think we will have much choice. It will be PS6 or PC. PC you will be able to choose between windows PC, steam OS or these xbox PC hybrids (whether Helix or from partners like asus).
The problem is I tried connecting my xbox rog ally x to a TV and man its an awful experience. Even worse than the handheld.

I am not sure Helix will feature a dedicated OS or an opportunity to load into Xbox OS somehow, chances are it will be xbox mode currently on windows with the main difference being a paired controller out of the box.
But the funniest thing is whether you choose Windows PC, helix, asus xbox pc, steam OS PC, steam machine or any - very high chance steam will be the main storefront. Currently xbox app missing A LOT of games old and new such as recent lego batman. and I dont mean xbox play anywhere - I mean actually purchasable from xbox pc app in case I really want to use it (for whatever reason).

In my current setup xbox series becomes a GP/xbox PA machine mostly top pair with xbox ally. Moreover I see more reasons to keep my xbox ally (as it indeed has a LOT to offer vs switch 2) than actual xbox. Probably the announcement of these few exclusives (e-day and clockwerk) will be the reason why I wont sell it. But I definitely see myself leaning towards PS5-6, S2 and keeping xbox ally for games where S2 is too weak or game is unavailable.
and for real 100% play anywhere steam machine could be an option too...

@Weebleman @AI-Generation @Fiendish-Beaver I dont see them dropping support of xbox series S/X no matter how many studios they decide to cut, any changes to GP or strategy.
Even that xbox sold 1/3 of PS5, its still a noticable piece of pie that cant be ignored by 3rd party and MS itself. GTA will bring more sales as well. This gen has a solid 5-7 years more to offer. I think we are fine with this generation.

However, I have very serious concerns about next gen: Sarah and Phil did everything to retire consoles and go with full PC/cloud with Helix being optional device for fans. With the current economy I dont see them going back into regular xbox consoles.

Moreover I am sure Satya and investors dont want to spend a dime extra an xbox and will be looking for a way out next gen. I think they are done with it - 80B in M&A and 20B invested into content = they dont want to spend anymore. It makes perfect sense to drop consoles, release PC device like Helix that wont be subsidized, maybe even licence out such hybrids - pretty sure they are in talks with someone like ASUS to step in after relatively successful xbox rog all handhelds. Full publishing with game pass shrinking to EA play, no day 1. It just make sense financially right now.

@themightyant I think Bethesda was ok. All games came into service, no price hike, GPU was just $15.
And then notice how the moment ABK closed in late 2023, they already were talking in 2 months about "just 4 games".

I think GP is not what ultimately destroyed it all. But now GP being part of the equation is definitely a problem too

@Grumps859 did not recall a GP problem even after Bethesda deal was closed - every game came into GPU right away and it was $15 at the time with generours $1 deals and conversions from xbox live gold.

I blame ABK - it was too big to swallow. Now its just synergetic effect of everything not working together

I think they will try to extend and focus on milking the current xbox series s/x gen. I dont think it will be dropped by either MS or 3rd party. 35M is still a decent piece of pie.

However, next gen becomes more and more concerning. With Helix at 1000 or 1200 or even 1500 and being a PC - does not sound like selling a lot.
Given the fact they double down on xbox mode on PC - sounds like this will be the way to go. Maybe they do licensing with Asus and others and call it a day and Helix will be very limited until fully dropped.

My gut tells me execs at MS reached a point where they dont want to invest a dime in XBOX, so they need a way to cut costs and move away from consoles or even hardware.

I think publishing on all platforms, PC xbox app, and GP either increasing in price or dropping day 1 is the way to go

@AI-Generation exactly. Slow and steady and it will work out.
The problem is investors seemingly dont want to give them time anymore and thats understandable.
They want quick solutions.

1) spin off
2) sever downsizing (and maybe spin off harder)
3) abandoning hardware, maybe licensing and focusing on publishing.

With raising costs of hardware I think they are pressured a lot to abandon consoles whatsoever. The whole point of helix was to keep a device for fans, convert consoles to windows pc and not subsidize it by saying you have more freedom at a higher price point. That was before Asha so now I dont know

@Fiendish-Beaver but is it worst case to sell it off? MS clearly doss not have a clean vision or strategy.

The problem is xbox especially with ABk is too big. Such deal could be 150-200B easily.
Only a giant like apple/amazon/meta can afford it but dont think they will be interested.

So most likely they will just severely downsize - and they have been doing it since ABk deal anyways. They can keep maybe 15-20 core studious out of how many they have now (40-50 i believe)

@cross717 I think thats exactly was Sarah’s plan with everything is an xbox. They wanted to provide their own pc hybrid but dont subsidize it and without intention of selling it in droves. Just a niche device for fans.
Then they all the money by publishing games everywhere.

However Asha already said many times they want to grow their own platform, she is returning to exclusives and doing 180 now from “xbox anywhere” to “xbox is a console first”. So this report goes against everytbing that she brought up recently.

That said maybe after latest financials Satya had a chat with her…

I think xbox SX is amazing console and with GPU at 23 I still recommend it.
Its not late to buy it even today. It will last for a solid 5-7 years from now, probably for an entirety of next gen.

As for next gen - I just dont know ehats gonna happen and at this point dont care. When time comes and both PS6/helix will come out - then I will see what both are doing and what works for me.
If xbox wont have a proper solution that works for me, I will go with the competition. As simple as that.

The moment you start invest your soul and identity into the brand, thinking of it as “investment into ecosystem” - you are cooked. Its just games - spend money, get your fun and move on

What I can say is I dont know what better for the brand but its clearly in crisis. Overall maybe not the worst idea to sell off the division - MS just doesnt know what to do with this brand.

However, I just like my series X. I do have ps5 pro but I still game predominantly on SX. I just prefer it. And that means something.
What I realized by buying ps5, xbox ally, nintendo - they all have their own issues.
Its just a matter of preference and enjoying your box.
If you cant stand all these bad news either dont read it or sell of your xbox and go with something else. I dont think we as gamers should be putting faith in any of these companies.

@Fiendish-Beaver regarding GP:

an important thing that people are forgetting - surely people who pay for GP wont buy the game (dlc at best), but there are people who wouldnt buy the game regardless but they are paying for GP.
Moreover on average people buy 2-3 game a year while full year of GP costs same as 4 games. Yes some people know about these conversions, etc but not only they were nerfed, they are also not widely known among casuals.
My point is MS surely loses money on GP with semi-hardcore audience. Hardcore like you will buy collectors editions regardless of GP, super casuals dont buy games or likely not even subbed to GP at all. After all price increases it should generate significant 5-8B of yearly revenue which is very solid.

Second what I want to mention - GP is nothing new. Its a sub business model. To make it work you need X amount of subscribers. So I can see how it could work out long-term. The problem is they could double down on console sales and get more GP subs that way...

Thirdly, as I already said GP needs to be factored in the evaluation of game performance - not simply punished for lower sales as its expected. GP is being punished for existing while its just a distribution model in the end of the day.

@Fiendish-Beaver

regarding Helix: I dont think guts will be the same. You can make Helix truly premium and not subsidize it. Series X 2 can have weaker specs + it can be subsidized. Worst case they need PC hybrid Helix S to be priced not higher than 800.
If only next gen SKU is Helix that is a powerful PC at a 1200+ => its cooked.

I believe even lazy series X update that can feel like seriex X pro (same design, just add CPU/GPU and upscaler) will work.
Or double down on Series X and keep it thru the whole gen => they can release very cheaply made Series X similar to PS3 super slim back in a day, no disc drive, less SSD, just to bring price down. Shrinkflation so to say. Sony did it with PS5 slim - it now comes with 825gb (in 2023 it was released with 1tb).

@Fiendish-Beaver I had a thought about Helix. I wonder if they can remove the PC stuff and install xbox OS and subsidizie the device.

With current economic situation it seems such niche PC device will sell even less than we projected. Which was ok with Sarah vision but now Asha wants back to console business - this commands lower price of the device and recouping money via your own storefront, not giving money away to steam.

Xbox PC can be licencsed to Asus and work exactly as xbox rog ally with only difference is being bundled with a controller and being able to power up with a controller. Thats it. Its a regular windows PC launching into xbox mode. THis product line can be separate and go along with traditional Series X successor which would be priced aggressively to compete with PS6

@Fiendish-Beaver I think its a profound problem with how MS assesses failure/success. Since every game launches in GP day 1, you cant expect it to sell like it does not launch day 1 on GP...I have a feeling they dont factor this in properly and somehow want both GP subs and sales. If game becomes big in GP = thats also a success.
Another problem is somehow a studio is treated as a startup that gets shut down if its not successful, while in reality these employees are on payroll - many people there are testers, Q&A, programmers so just doing a 9-5 job. they should not be punished for game underperformance.

They need to fully re-assess how they evaluate performance of each game.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner Its not a mistake becase ABK keeps generating net profit on its own. Prior to acquisition they had roughly 2B in NI per year. So yeah technically in 30 years they can make money back.

The mistake was that MS decided that this acquisition somehow needs to be recouped ASAP. so they started to squeze money off everything. This led to irrevocable damage in my eyes.

Bungie deal is lower on scale obviously (3B and 80) but its a bigger flop in itself. When COD "flops" like vanguard or BO7 it still one of the top games. Plus the King as you mentioned. But bungie are cooked imo: D2 failed and stopped, marathon is on the edge as well, no next project greenlit...

@Schonks @MinervaX76 Sony sucks lately. People were fighting so much for them but it clearly went downhill for them since 2024 or so. Especially the live service push and ridiculously limited first party output.

But because they sell more boxes they are considered leaders in the industry and xbox is expected to take notes.

That said I think xbox can learn from sony/nin as well, especiialy on how to market their boxes and how to deal with excluvies.

I stand firm on xbox having some permanent exclusives or every game to be timed exclusive of at least a year. I dont think they need to go full publishing or full permanent exclusive (technically except COD every game can be permanent exclusive)

@Banjo- its likely too late for such changes as Helix has been in development for years but basically we need Helix to be just xbox series x 2 working on xbox OS. And then license out xbox PC - I am sure Asus can build a desktop xbox rog ally X fairly easy and fast.

They need to have 2 district product lines: a console and a PC.

The whole idea of PC hybrid and Helix made sense because Sarah wanted xbox to be everywhere and a publisher, so helix would be just a side device for "fans". But Asha now wants it back when consoles were for masses, for casual players. That means lower price, subsidizing. Which means money to be spent in xbox storefront only.

I vote for next-gen to be cancelled until AI bubble bursts. Neither Sony nor MS wants to launch next-gen in such economic environment. Sony needs to subsidize PS6 to keep the pricing and MS probably wont subsidize Helix so it will push pricing to be completely unreasonable.
Good news - MS and Sony simply can delay the next-gen until sitatuion stabilizes.
No one talks about it but Nintendo is also bearing all these costs as they actually do have a new product they need to sell and sell in droves. The $50 price hike is generous and they are reportedly losing more but they are in position where they need to convert S1 owners into S2.

Kinda a dead-end for an industry right now.

I think xbox needs exclusives anyways but I think it should be selected games where they are confident it wont harm these studious.

So I am actually against the idea of "all or nothing" regarding the excluvisity that was quite popular on this forum.

Sony does 2-3 first party excsluvies and couple of third-party. Nintendo has little more but not all are AAA in scope.
So MS should follow with only handful of games every year and the rest is multiplat.

Bought all these studious and IPs just to keep closing them as obviously its getting impossible to manage such juggernaut as XGS with Bethesda and ABK.

Such a shame.

The only thing is I would not tie layoff decisions with announcement of 2 games being exclusive. These layoffs are happening every year after ABK was closed.

@TheFakulty counterargument is casuals dont follow gaming news. Sure many unsubbed from $30 GPU, but I dont think many went and sold their xboxes for PS5 - likely continued playing cod, madden and fortnite