NattyKing

@TheEstablishment If you think Kadokawa is available to purchase for $2bn I don't really have anything to say to you.

Even market cap isn't a true indicator of a company's worth, and its market cap is nearly $4bn. It's incredible how limited your knowledge is on anything related to finance. But not understanding the difference between revenue and profit does say a lot tbf....

@TheEstablishment One quick Google shows how simplistic your 'analysis' is:

Sony Group's net debt to EBITDA ratio of about 2.1 suggests only moderate use of debt. And its strong interest cover of 1k times, makes us even more comfortable. Sony Group grew its EBIT by 2.9% in the last year. Whilst that hardly knocks our socks off it is a positive when it comes to debt.

https://simplywall.st/stocks/jp/consumer-durables/tse-6758/sony-group-shares/news/is-sony-group-tse6758-using-too-much-debt

@TheEstablishment This isn't anything other than a written coping mechanism. Pure waffle.

Interesting that this broke company is working towards buying Kadokawa, and it's share price has just hit its highest peak since March 2000

@TheEstablishment They went ages without giving any update on numbers, what does that tell you. The service is stagnant and those game likely did nothing for long-term figures. For example if you like playing CoD multiplayer, you're better off just buying it. If you want to play the campaign you can sign up for a month and ditch it.

If GamePass really has taken off I'm sure we'll get an update and MS will be shouting it from the rooftops. Think we might be waiting a while....

@TheEstablishment The cope is real. You really holding on to Sony being bought out by a US conglomerate because they keep eating Microsoft's lunch.

I'm sure they'll be sold any moment now....

@TheEstablishment Lol Sarah Bond mentioned the 34m figure in February, when Xbox was only porting four games.

Real foolish.

@TheEstablishment For all the talk about subscriptions etc, Xbox growth has ground to a halt.

All current growth comes from ABK.

It's that acquisition that brought greater focus on the Xbox division. To sell subscriptions you need a healthy userbase and lots of good exclusives...and even then putting them on a service day one doesn't make sense.

So now you have the Series consoles a mile away from even hitting the 58m Xbox One did, and GamePass stuck at 35m even accounting for merging of Live users.

And the rest as they say is history.

@HonestHick I can assure you that Nintendo makes more money from its gaming business than Microsoft does on much less revenue.

You're like a lot of people in that you don't know the difference between revenue and profit .

@TheEstablishment I'm not being funny but you sound clueless.

For starters you're obsessed with revenue, ignoring the fact that lack of profit is a big part of the reason that Xbox has no choice but to it's games on Playstation.

I think you might be in for a surprise though when next year's figures are released. Still doesn't matter though, Xbox is firmly in third place when you look at the console manufacturers and is now a third-party publisher.

Next "Xbox" will be even more niche.

@Banjo- They are struggling, that's why Xbox hides its profit figures.

28.7m Xbox's sold as of June, 65.5m PS5's sold as of September, and the gap is only increasing. What's worse is that Xbox users have been trained not to buy games, and yet subscription numbers are stagnant.

This all means Xbox has been FORCED to go multiplatform and put its games on Playstation and Switch.

And no the $75.4bn ABK merger hasn't "paid itself off". It's an asset to be sure, but MS paid a big premium for it. What's worse is that ABK is solely responsible for the growth in Xbox. Hardware sales continue to crater, and first-party games likes Starfield have under-delivered. Even Indiana Jones with its good review scores has seemingly flopped in terms of sales, and it won't do anything for GamePass because the churn continues on that service and it's basically hit it's ceiling. That's before we get to Redfall, Forza Motorsport, Halo Infinite and Hellblade which have all pretty much failed.

Sony won't be doing Xbox ports because it isn't worth it for the reasons highlighted above - tiny userbase which doesn't buy games. And as far as the debt goes, it apparently isn't stopping Sony pursuing a deal to buy the Kadokawa Corporation which would of course include From Software whose games will likely be kept on PC, but taken off Xbox.

@TheEstablishment Dropping $75.4bn on Activision - Business 101.

The fact is they are miles behind in terms of revenue (and even further in terms of profit which is why it's hidden), and even Microsoft's biggest ever acquisition won't be enough to surpass Sony.

This has been obvious for ages. There have been numerous statements to this effect over the past year or so, it's now Microsoft Gaming - a third-party publisher.

@Banjo- https://www.tweaktown.com/news/99727/big-3-console-hardware-revenues-compared-xbox-made-just-13-of-annual-earnings-from/index.html

@BigRedPaper You pay to rent games, and then you pay to buy all the third-party games not on the service (which is most of the best ones). Now Playstation owners will have access to Sony and Microsoft first-party games.

In the meantime expect even more GamePass price hikes.

@TheEstablishment July 2023 to June 2024 Xbox made $21.5bn in revenue. Playstation made $29.3bn. Going multiplatform won't close that gap, and it will boost Playstation too. And while hardware makes less than 15% of their revenue, Xbox sales continue to drop significantly.

And Xbox will no doubt continue to hide its profit figures.

@HonestHick That's plainly false. There's far more money to be had out of controlling your own ecosystem, plus Sony and Nintendo will take 30% of everything Microsoft Gaming publishes on their systems.

Microsoft is doing this out of necessity. They would make more money by having a successful hardware platform but they have failed massively in that regard.

@GamingFan4Lyf 28m as at the end of June, and over the last 12 months Xbox sales have cratered. There's simply no need for Sony to port it.

@gollumb82 They're really not. Nintendo doesn't port games, and Sony only ports games a couple of years later to PC unless they're live service, or if they're forced to like MLB/Lego.

Xbox is transitioning to becoming a third-party publisher because it's hardware sales continue to be low.

@Rsl1974 The Xbox userbase is tiny, and Sony isn't desperate like Xbox is.

@BacklogBrad False, it's about 50-50. Helldivers 2 is doing amazing on PS5 and PC:

https://twitter.com/Chris_Dring/status/1761092649392427103?t=RX1OHmQ290HCdgHZXWDsZQ&s=19

@CenturianShark No, the game just isn't very good. Poor graphics and terrible A.I., all at 30fps with plenty of bugs and glitches to boot.