Nall3k

@BacklogBrad You can't sell hardware at a loss or breakeven if the person buying it won't buy from your store (which is how you get the cost back). Microsoft would have to sell the hardware at a healthy profit instead of subsidizing it.

It just comes off ridiculous to demand a competitor to subsidize premium hardware so the customer can buy Steam games. Go buy an actual Steam Machine.

@BacklogBrad How is Microsoft supposed to make money selling hardware at a loss for users who buy and play Steam games? You're essentially asking Microsofto subsidize a Steam machine.

I think she's going to include King (mobile, Candy Crush), PC (Blizzard), Console (Xbox, Game Pass).

@NishimaruX "without the albatross of a company that is Microsoft hanging around their necks."

The studios were given free reign to make whatever they wanted and their games flopped hard. The people at Double Fine even admitted they pitched the most niche game possible with Keeper and went with it. Kiln has like 200 players on Steam.

If anything, they're "cooked" without Microsoft subsidizing them.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner I would just merge what's left into Playground.

All things considered, not the worst outcome. I hope the people who did lose their job are able to find something.

@Lanmanna but the problem is you were 1 out of the 200 playing it, it didn't perform or find an audience.

@Balaam_ Halo, Gears, Forza, etc... Those are the games that perform, so yes, consumers will continue to enjoy them.

Forza 6 is already a massive hit.

@tho_mi if I had to guess:

Safe Studios:
Halo Studios
The Coalition
Rare
Playground Games
Mojang Studios
Obsidian Entertainment
inXile Entertainment
World's Edge

Closed/Sold Studios:
Double Fine
Compulsion Games
Ninja Theory
Arkane
Undead Labs

Wildcard Studio:
Turn 10, they may be kept to help with Forza still or let go.

I understand people want a physical collection, but these games can't even fit on a disc and for performance, you want the game to run off the SSD.

@BacklogBrad retention. For people who maybe considering leaving the platform. It signals that these games are on only on these platforms.

@lacerz not turning their back on PlayStation will only bleed the division even more as people flee their ecosystem, less Xbox users, less Game Pass subscribers. Either be a publisher and kill off your own brand or be a platform, you can't be both.

@Fiendish-Beaver You keep making the same argument over and over again, ignoring the fact that when Xbox focused on exclusives, their profitability was 10-15%.

Now, with their multiplatform strategy, it's 3%.

Having no exclusives and putting it on your competitors hardware only encourages people to NOT buy your own hardware and ergo into your ecosystem. It also causes people to leave your ecosystem, because why stay when you can jump into PlayStation with their exclusives AND Xbox's games?

If they want to a publisher, then they have to rip the bandaid and just kill off Xbox and Game Pass. If they want to right the ship with their own ecosystem, they need to pull back and do exclusives again. E-Day and Clockwork are not about selling hardware, it's about retention: to stop the bleeding.