@Jenkinss That's what I was thinking. Maybe Microsoft negotiated a deal with Sony so that they get, like, an 88% cut out of all PlayStation games sold on Xbox. That would give Sony an incentive to publish directly on the Xbox store instead of making Xbox gamers use Steam or something.
In Microsoft's eyes, while this may be an unfortunate concession, it's better to get 12% from Sony games than to get 0%.
I say, 12%, by the way, because that's how much of a cut Microsoft takes from games sold on the Xbox PC app, I believe.
@TrollOfWar The Until Dawn remake would have sold more on Xbox than on PS5. I don't think anyone bought that game on PS5, considering there wasn't even an upgrade path from the previous PS4 version.
@Fiendish-Beaver Fair, but notice how they don't even have a specific role for Nintendo ports yet. They do, however, have roles for both Xbox and PC.
"Senior Manager, Platform Sales – Xbox & PC
Manager, Platform Planning & Performance – PC & Xbox"
They wouldn't be hiring a new team of well-paid executives if they only had plans to continue doing what they're already doing. The job listing clearly shows Sony's strategy has changed significantly.
@Fiendish-Beaver You would have said a month ago that there is no chance in hell Sony would ever willingly publish a game on Xbox, live service or otherwise. And yet, here we are with Helldivers 2. Now the goalpost has moved to "it's just live service games."
We have went through this song and dance at least twice already. First, with Sony porting their games to PC, and second, with Microsoft bringing their games to PS/Xbox.
When it comes to multiplatform stuff, corporations are never going to put hard red lines on what they will port over or not. When they see the success they have from their live service/smaller singleplayer games on Xbox and Nintendo, they will make the move to port some older tentpole singleplayer games to other platforms as well.
I've said this before in other comments, but it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when.
@themightyant You're right, but the thing is, the days of exclusives convincing people to switch platforms en masse is over. It doesn't matter if Sony starts porting some of their old tentpole singleplayer games to Xbox. The overwhelming majority of PlayStation gamers will remain on PlayStation.
The only thing that would threaten the PlayStation platform is if Sony started releasing mainline God of War, The Last of Us, etc. games on Xbox day-and-date. Then they would be giving people no reason to buy a PlayStation. But that's not gonna happen.
Older singleplayer titles, on the other hand, make a lot of sense. Sony has won the console war, and no matter how many old games they port to other platforms, people are not gonna leave PlayStation to get an Xbox.
@Balaam_ Who debunked this? Shinobi? That was just his opinion, he doesn't actually know anything about what Sony has in store for Xbox, just like he didn't know Helldivers 2 was going multiplat.
Are you really gonna take Shinobi's word over Sony's? If they meant just live service and smaller games, they would have specified as such in the job listing.
NateTheHate and Shinobi, the two insiders who told people that they're getting carried about with this job listing, don't actually know anything about what Sony plans to bring to other consoles.
PlayStation may not be actively developing a God of War Xbox port, sure, but there is zero chance that Sony is going to just stop at small titles and live service games with its multiplatform initiative. They will see the money they make from these Xbox/Nintendo ports, and then make the move to bring some tentpole singleplayer titles as well, in the future. Not day-and-date, of course, but eventually.
If you asked Nate and Shinobi if Sony would ever bring Helldivers 2 and Lego Horizon to Switch/Xbox a year or so ago, they would have laughed in your face and told you no.
@somnambulance I think it's surprising because it seems like CoD Black Ops 7 will be $70 this year as well, since Microsoft said its holiday games will not be $80. Microsoft could easily get away with an $80 price tag for a COD game, so it's interesting that they are postponing that price hike to next year.
@Gabrie It is terrible that, like, most Koei Tecmo games don't support Smart Delivery and force you to buy both the Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S versions separately (or you can buy the bundle). I'm looking at you, Atelier Yumia.
@IOI It's most likely the bad blood towards Microsoft part, because Microsoft refused to publish one of their games due to the toxic workplace culture accusations from some employees.
There were rumors a few months ago that MachineGames was working on a CS:GO style multiplayer game, so it's possible that one of the projects they're working on is that. Which, I'm sure will upset many, myself included.
@Lanmanna Well, it is, if you're buying a digital game that's about to be delisted, like in the case of John Wick Hex. Better to buy digitally for $2 rather than spend $100 afterward for a physical copy that's no longer in print.
Good job screwing over the one fanbase that made your company become successful. If it wasn't for Xbox players, Ori and the Blind Forest would've flopped and Moon Studios wouldn't be a renowned studio.
I never liked Thomas Mahler anyways, the dude always seemed to be a bit of a jerk who uses culture warring to gain internet points (not to mention the reports about him being a terrible person to work with), but this further cements my disdain for him.
"That said, imagine what MS/their array of devs could do with a game if they were NOT held back by having to scale down for the S as well."
We don't need to image, we can just look at the games that Sony has made for PS5, none of which were "held back" by the Series S. And, from a technical standpoint, these games pretty much look exactly the same as Series X games.
Besides, that and Wukong are literally the only two games in the last five years that have actually been impacted by the Series S. You would be hard pressed to find literally any other examples of games being delayed or downgraded on Xbox because of the Series S.
@dskatter Blaming the Series S, as if it is responsible for the Series X not being fully utilized is so bizarre to me, when Sony hasn't released a single game (aside from maybe Death Stranding 2) that has taken full advantage of the PS5 or the PS5 Pro. Clearly you are not seeing games with drastically better graphics on PS5, and the Series S certainly isn't to blame for PS5 exclusives being unable to take advantage of the console.
@Kaloudz I mean, Spec Ops the Line was like $30 on Xbox before it got delisted, so this isn't that surprising. That was an even more egregious example of a situation like this.
Basically, they got rid of some nudity, a few small details involving minors, and post-mortem dismemberment. You can still dismember people while they're still alive, but you can't dismember dead bodies anymore.
All this stuff honestly isn't that big of a deal IMO. There is a comment in the article I posted that says "It's not about specifics, it's a matter of principle, any amount of censorship is too much," but honestly, I disagree. So long as it doesn't significantly impact the quality of the game, I do not care about censorship that much. I am not the type of person who will boycott a game just because the devs decided to cover up some cleavage on a fictional female character or something lol. I have much more important things to worry about in real life than minor censorship issues.
The only thing I'm firmly against is major censorship, censorship that actually changes the tone of a game and makes its gameplay/plot objectively worse. That, I would have a problem with. Ready or Not is not one of those cases.
Censoring the game on PC for the console release is unfortunate, but it really isn't as bad as people are making it out to be. The game is still pretty much the same, it's not like VOID Interactive got rid of entire chunks of the game to meet censorship standards or something.
I know this is a controversial take, but the ads on the Xbox home screen don't bother me. Sure, I would like the option to get rid of them, but they don't really negatively impact my experience that much, unlike YouTube ads and Spotify ads.
My problem with the Xbox UI is not the ads, my problem is with the lack of innovation and interesting UI designs. It is so disappointing that Microsoft didn't make a new UI for the Series X/S and just used the Xbox One one all over again. The Xbox UI is utilitarian; it's functional and gets the job done, but it isn't that pleasant or amazing to look at. I would like something with a little more pizazz, like this fan-made UI.
@Medic_alert But the next Xbox also won't just be a Windows PC, like the ROG Xbox Ally is, because Microsoft has already confirmed it will be fully backwards compatible with the Series X/S. So it should be able to run games that aren't available on PC.
@Kraven I don't know why you would ever want Microsoft to abandon consoles because that would be devastating for the video game industry, for Xbox players, and consumers in general.
Microsoft is not the only one going third-party, fortunately. Sony is, as well, and we will see many more PlayStation-published games on Nintendo and Xbox consoles in the future. Not as much as Microsoft, but still a sizable amount.
@Medic_alert It's not coming to PS day-one, it'll be an Xbox exclusive at launch. Presumably because Keeper started life as a permanent Xbox exclusive and Double Fine doesn't have the resources to develop a PS5 port simultaneously for a game that won't sell particularly well anyways. They'll probably port it to PS5 and Switch 2 in 2026.
@DaveTheRave You say that as if a million copies sold of Helldivers 2 is a bad thing. That's millions of dollars of revenue that Sony would miss out on other wise, not including microtransaction revenue.
If Sony ports another game to Xbox after Helldivers 2, then it will be clear that HD2 on Xbox was a success, and that Xbox players very much do buy games.
@Artois2 And yet that's why Xbox is the only console with every singleplayer mainline FF game on it. Because Square Enix keeps porting games to a platform where FF games "hardly sell anything." They must be doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, not because they actually make any profits on Xbox ports.
@TheSimulator Agreed, the censorship isn't even that bad, it's not like they're completely removing sections of the game or something. If that was the case, then I'd be upset.
@wildcat_kickz Yep, I can understand why the PlayStation China Hero Project games are timed exclusives, since Sony helps get those indie/AA games funded.
But for AAA blockbuster games like FF16, FF7 Rebirth, and Silent Hill 2 Remake? It makes little sense for publishers to agree to those deals.
@Fiendish-Beaver I agree with pretty much everything you said. I won't lie, I was kind of in favor of the ABK deal, but only because I thought Microsoft would have stuck to its guns about being a competitor to PlayStation. If Microsoft didn't completely pivot away from its original business plan and wasn't so obsessed with AI, I think the deal could have been good for consumers to an extent. I will say, though, I never really cared about ABK games and would have much preferred at the time if Microsoft bought a smaller Japanese publisher instead, to boost Xbox's visibility in that region.
At the end of the day, the ABK deal pretty much killed Xbox as we know it. It turned Xbox into Activision, and not the other way around. We're getting Halo, Gears, and Forza on PlayStation, before a single 360-era CoD game on Game Pass. That's wild.
On a positive note, though, maybe Helldivers 2 wouldn't be coming to Xbox if the ABK deal never happened. If Microsoft was still firm on its exclusivity, then maybe Sony would have never brought the game to Xbox.
@Balaam_ Jim Ryan certainly wasn't advocating against the deal for the industry's benefit, though. He was doing it to protect Sony's interests. If he knew what would actually happen as a result of the deal (Microsoft going third-party), I think he would have been perfectly fine with Microsoft acquiring ABK
@Balaam_ Maybe you're thinking of Replaced. It has a similar name to Routine, and it looked awesome. It, too, was delayed indefinitely, though, but I don't think it's been cancelled.
@Cherrywood Name me at least three developers/franchises that stopped supporting or being released on Xbox after the introduction of Game Pass.
Most of the games that skip Xbox these days, like the ones from Falcom, NIS America, Gust, etc. were never released on Xbox at all. I can't think of many developers that stopped supporting Xbox once Game Pass was released. Instead, the opposite has happened. Atlus, RGG Studio, Level-5, Gust, MiHoYo, Bandai Namco (with franchises like Digimon Story), Hamster Corporation, Natsume, etc. are now supporting Xbox more than they ever did in the past.
Xbox is still the platform that gets the least amount of games, but it's far better now than it was compared to the Xbox One gen.
@SeaDaVie Now, as for the part you mentioned about Game Pass leading to lost sales of games that aren't on the service, I don't think there is any credible evidence out there to support that claim. And if it does impact non-Game Pass game sales, the effect must not be significant enough to deter third-party developers from porting their games to Xbox.
I've said this a lot in previous comments, but if Game Pass really did condition Xbox users to not buy games whatsoever and wait for everything to come to Game Pass, then there likely wouldn't be a lot of non-Game Pass games on Xbox. Third-party support would have deteriorated since the introduction of Game Pass in 2017, but instead, the opposite has happened.
Now, I see how your point can be applicable to some situations, like Atlus games on Xbox. Since Atlus started supporting Xbox in 2022, almost every game from the company (except Unicorn Overlord and SMT V: Vengance) has appeared on Game Pass at some point. Sometimes day-one, sometimes months later. Some Xbox gamers may be deterred from buying Atlus games because they expect most of them to come to Game Pass. In that sense, I can see where your argument holds merit.
The thing is, though, most third-party developers/publishers don't support Game Pass as frequently and as consistently as Atlus/SEGA does. Why would an Xbox gamer, for example, be conditioned to not buy Sonic games, when there have almost never been Sonic games on Game Pass?
@SeaDaVie I could be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure Microsoft has access to all the data of each individual user who buys video games and subscribes to Game Pass.
They, for instance, would probably know if someone bought Doom Eternal and Doom (2016), but didn't buy Doom: The Dark Ages and subbed to Game Pass instead. Data like that they can probably record and definitively mark as a lost sale.
They can also probably tell if someone who plays a lot of first-person shooters decides to play all the Doom games on Game Pass instead of outright buying them.
@SeaDaVie There is some truth in that, but it isn't completely accurate. With games like CoD, it should be pretty easy for Microsoft to determine the amount of sales they lose on Xbox and PC because of Game Pass. If BO6 sold a million copies less than MW3 on Xbox and most of those million ppl played it on Game Pass instead, that's how you know you lost sales.
Now, this is harder to do with new IPs, especially those from studios that have never released a game before. At that point it does just boil down to estimates based off of similar games. But, fortunately for this case, most of Microsoft's games are based on established franchises.
Also, Microsoft doesn't share financial data for literally any of its divisions or products. They obfuscate everything, it's not just Game Pass.
People's response when Microsoft tells Dring that they determine Game Pass's profitability without factoring first-party game costs:
"I knew it! Game Pass is a failure! It's blindingly obvious that there's no way it's sustainable, and thousands of ppl's jobs were lost all because of Game Pass."
Also those same people when Dring hears from his sources that Game Pass is actually profitable, even when you factor in lost first-party game sales:
"Microsoft must be lying, what Chris Dring says isn't true."
Worth noting that Chris's latest statements don't even come from Microsoft themselves. He asked his sources at the company, so this wasn't some official PR statement or anything.
@BacklogBrad Exactly. Game Pass is sustainable, and it is profitable for Microsoft. Otherwise they would have stopped adding day-one games to the service ages ago.
The reason why you are seeing price increases and changes to the service, however, is because Game Pass isn't growing at a fast-enough rate. Microsoft was expecting to hit 100m subs by 2030, but since that obviously isn't gonna happen, they're raising the price instead.
@AverageGamer "Microsoft went into that gen already $5 billion in the hole add on another $1 billion from the 360 plus R&D. I’m not gonna mention the Kinect."
I think the Kinect was a big success for Microsoft, it was one of the best-selling console peripherals of all time back then. It sold around 35 million units as of 2017, according to Microsoft.The problem with the Kinect was the path that it ultimately led to, which we saw with the Xbox One.
"But it took was until 2008-09 for the Xbox division to finally stop being in the red.."
There was an article I found from 2008 that says the Xbox 360 finally started to make a profit that year, so yes, you are right about that.
"That number is count profit across not just PS3… But also PSP and PS2. Sony gaming profit is heavily inflated due to multiple platforms."
Since there weren't that many people buying games on PS2 in late 2010, I don't think the console factored a big role in Sony's profits at the time. In fact, the PSP and PS2 sales were already slumping in that quarter. However, let's just assume that less than half of Sony's profits came from the PS3. Let's say Sony made $400 million per quarter during the PS3's lifespan, and that that is equivalent to what Microsoft made per quarter with the 360, as well.
$400 million times 4 is, of course, $1.6 billion. Now if Microsoft made close to $1.6 billion from the 360 each year for 7 years, then they must have made around $11.2 billion in profit the entire generation. That's more than enough to cover the costs of the original Xbox and the Red Ring of Death, and that is probably close to the profits that Microsoft made with the 360. While console sales did start to slow down near the end of the generation, game sales on Xbox 360 likely didn't.
@AverageGamer As for the other stuff you mentioned, you have a point about the pressure from investors stuff. However, when it comes to cloud streaming, Microsoft is already offering a Stadia-like service with the new Stream Your Own Game feature. While you're right that none of Microsoft's first-party games are available through this manner (though they are available on GeForce Now, ironically), they could add them if they wanted to.
Also you don't have to individually buy every game that you can cloud stream via PS Plus, some of them are included in the PS Plus subscription service itself, like Game Pass.
At the end of the day, Microsoft could just get rid of day-one games, and keep the rest of Game Pass intact without switching to a Stadia model, xCloud stuff included.
@AverageGamer The Xbox 360 definitely did not just "break even," it was a success. Considering that Microsoft sold 85 million consoles that gen as well as hundreds of millions of games/DLCs, it's highly unlikely they generated only 1 billion dollars of revenue the entire gen. Microsoft didn't make any profit on the hardware, of course, but they made a lot of profit on the games.
I can't find a lot of specific revenue data from Xbox during the 360 era, but I did find an apt comparison with the PS3 that shows how unlikely it is that Microsoft only broken even with the Xbox 360. In Q4 2010, Sony sold 6.5 million PS3s, which was similar to what the Xbox 360 sold at the time. At the time, Sony reported that they had made $871.2 million in profit through games, and this was just in one quarter.
Since the Xbox 360 was doing just as well as the PS3 at the time, then it must have made billions of dollars in profit each year. In other words, it was almost certainly a big success for Microsoft.
This may be sacrilegious to say, but despite being on Xbox for many years, I haven't played most of the Halo games yet, even though I'm a fan of first-person shooters. So I don't really have a lot of fond Halo memories.
The only Halo game I've played so far is Halo: Combat Evolved (and a bit of Halo Infinite). I finished Halo: CE a few years ago, and, to be honest, I didn't like it that much. I don't know, maybe you had to be around in the 2000s to really enjoy the first Halo, but I just thought it was okay. Halo: CE is a decent game, but it didn't blow me away or anything. I don't really remember a lot from it, aside from the awesome soundtrack.
Maybe I didn't enjoy Halo: CE as much as I should have because I played it 20 years after it originally came out, but at the same time, I played games like Half Life 2 decades after their original release, and they left a far greater impression on me.
Even still, I'll get to Halo 2 and 3 eventually, as well as the other Halo games.
"Tell that to Zune, MSN Music… and all the other stuff Microsoft killed off early in the 2000s."
That's true but none of those projects managed to take off in the same way that Xbox did. Zune was around for, like, 6 years and no one cared about it. Xbox managed to take off in its 5th year with the launch of the Xbox 360. If the Xbox 360 also managed to flop like the Zune did, then Microsoft would have cut support for it.
"Yet, Satya Nadella and Co gave Phill and Team how many years after he came in to fix the ship after the Xbox One launch? If they didn’t like long-term business strategies… Why not pivot then?"
Satya Nadella was apparently this close to shutting Xbox down after the launch of the Xbox One. It was Phil who managed to convince him to keep Xbox around by pivoting business strategies and focusing on stuff like Game Pass and day-one PC releases. Rest assured, if Satya had his way, the Xbox One would have been the last Xbox.
Lastly, Microsoft wouldn't have to axe Game Pass entirely if they want to keep xCloud around. They could just turn it into a PS Plus-like service and get rid of day-one releases.
Comments 591
Re: Talking Point: So, What Other PS5 Games Do You Want To See Come To Xbox?
@Jenkinss That's what I was thinking. Maybe Microsoft negotiated a deal with Sony so that they get, like, an 88% cut out of all PlayStation games sold on Xbox. That would give Sony an incentive to publish directly on the Xbox store instead of making Xbox gamers use Steam or something.
In Microsoft's eyes, while this may be an unfortunate concession, it's better to get 12% from Sony games than to get 0%.
I say, 12%, by the way, because that's how much of a cut Microsoft takes from games sold on the Xbox PC app, I believe.
Re: Talking Point: So, What Other PS5 Games Do You Want To See Come To Xbox?
@TrollOfWar The Until Dawn remake would have sold more on Xbox than on PS5. I don't think anyone bought that game on PS5, considering there wasn't even an upgrade path from the previous PS4 version.
Re: Talking Point: So, What Other PS5 Games Do You Want To See Come To Xbox?
@Fiendish-Beaver Fair enough, but my point still stands.
Re: Talking Point: So, What Other PS5 Games Do You Want To See Come To Xbox?
@Millionski Exactly, I think it's naive to think it will stop here.
Re: Talking Point: So, What Other PS5 Games Do You Want To See Come To Xbox?
@Fiendish-Beaver Fair, but notice how they don't even have a specific role for Nintendo ports yet. They do, however, have roles for both Xbox and PC.
"Senior Manager, Platform Sales – Xbox & PC
Manager, Platform Planning & Performance – PC & Xbox"
They wouldn't be hiring a new team of well-paid executives if they only had plans to continue doing what they're already doing. The job listing clearly shows Sony's strategy has changed significantly.
Re: Talking Point: So, What Other PS5 Games Do You Want To See Come To Xbox?
@Fiendish-Beaver You would have said a month ago that there is no chance in hell Sony would ever willingly publish a game on Xbox, live service or otherwise. And yet, here we are with Helldivers 2. Now the goalpost has moved to "it's just live service games."
We have went through this song and dance at least twice already. First, with Sony porting their games to PC, and second, with Microsoft bringing their games to PS/Xbox.
When it comes to multiplatform stuff, corporations are never going to put hard red lines on what they will port over or not. When they see the success they have from their live service/smaller singleplayer games on Xbox and Nintendo, they will make the move to port some older tentpole singleplayer games to other platforms as well.
I've said this before in other comments, but it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when.
Re: Talking Point: So, What Other PS5 Games Do You Want To See Come To Xbox?
@Banjo- Bro, even the people on Icon-Era, the notorious PlayStation fanboy forum, are not buying the "it's just live service and smaller games" stuff.
Re: Talking Point: So, What Other PS5 Games Do You Want To See Come To Xbox?
@themightyant You're right, but the thing is, the days of exclusives convincing people to switch platforms en masse is over. It doesn't matter if Sony starts porting some of their old tentpole singleplayer games to Xbox. The overwhelming majority of PlayStation gamers will remain on PlayStation.
The only thing that would threaten the PlayStation platform is if Sony started releasing mainline God of War, The Last of Us, etc. games on Xbox day-and-date. Then they would be giving people no reason to buy a PlayStation. But that's not gonna happen.
Older singleplayer titles, on the other hand, make a lot of sense. Sony has won the console war, and no matter how many old games they port to other platforms, people are not gonna leave PlayStation to get an Xbox.
Re: Talking Point: So, What Other PS5 Games Do You Want To See Come To Xbox?
@Balaam_ Who debunked this? Shinobi? That was just his opinion, he doesn't actually know anything about what Sony has in store for Xbox, just like he didn't know Helldivers 2 was going multiplat.
Are you really gonna take Shinobi's word over Sony's? If they meant just live service and smaller games, they would have specified as such in the job listing.
Re: Talking Point: So, What Other PS5 Games Do You Want To See Come To Xbox?
NateTheHate and Shinobi, the two insiders who told people that they're getting carried about with this job listing, don't actually know anything about what Sony plans to bring to other consoles.
PlayStation may not be actively developing a God of War Xbox port, sure, but there is zero chance that Sony is going to just stop at small titles and live service games with its multiplatform initiative. They will see the money they make from these Xbox/Nintendo ports, and then make the move to bring some tentpole singleplayer titles as well, in the future. Not day-and-date, of course, but eventually.
If you asked Nate and Shinobi if Sony would ever bring Helldivers 2 and Lego Horizon to Switch/Xbox a year or so ago, they would have laughed in your face and told you no.
Re: Microsoft Reverts Price Increase For The Outer Worlds 2, Will Launch For $70 On Xbox
@somnambulance I think it's surprising because it seems like CoD Black Ops 7 will be $70 this year as well, since Microsoft said its holiday games will not be $80. Microsoft could easily get away with an $80 price tag for a COD game, so it's interesting that they are postponing that price hike to next year.
Re: Talking Point: Looking Back, How Useful Has Smart Delivery Been To You On Xbox?
@Gabrie It is terrible that, like, most Koei Tecmo games don't support Smart Delivery and force you to buy both the Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S versions separately (or you can buy the bundle). I'm looking at you, Atelier Yumia.
Re: Award-Winning PlayStation Exclusive 'Viewfinder' Jumps To Xbox In August
@awp69 Well, at least Thunderful never announced an Xbox version of Viewfinder before releasing it for PS5. So there's that to keep in mind.
That said, Moon Studios did lose a publisher for No Rest for the Wicked...
Re: No Rest For The Wicked May Skip Xbox 'For The Time Being' Due To 'Current Market Conditions'
@IOI It's most likely the bad blood towards Microsoft part, because Microsoft refused to publish one of their games due to the toxic workplace culture accusations from some employees.
Re: Indiana Jones Team Confirms Multiple Games In Development, 'Excited' For Its Future
There were rumors a few months ago that MachineGames was working on a CS:GO style multiplayer game, so it's possible that one of the projects they're working on is that. Which, I'm sure will upset many, myself included.
Re: PSA: Movies Anywhere Allows You To 'Sync' Your Xbox Purchases With Other Film Providers
@Lanmanna Well, it is, if you're buying a digital game that's about to be delisted, like in the case of John Wick Hex. Better to buy digitally for $2 rather than spend $100 afterward for a physical copy that's no longer in print.
Re: No Rest For The Wicked May Skip Xbox 'For The Time Being' Due To 'Current Market Conditions'
Good job screwing over the one fanbase that made your company become successful. If it wasn't for Xbox players, Ori and the Blind Forest would've flopped and Moon Studios wouldn't be a renowned studio.
I never liked Thomas Mahler anyways, the dude always seemed to be a bit of a jerk who uses culture warring to gain internet points (not to mention the reports about him being a terrible person to work with), but this further cements my disdain for him.
Re: Opinion: Xbox Series X Still Hasn't Been Fully Utilised Yet, But 2026 Could Be The Year
"That said, imagine what MS/their array of devs could do with a game if they were NOT held back by having to scale down for the S as well."
We don't need to image, we can just look at the games that Sony has made for PS5, none of which were "held back" by the Series S. And, from a technical standpoint, these games pretty much look exactly the same as Series X games.
Re: Opinion: Xbox Series X Still Hasn't Been Fully Utilised Yet, But 2026 Could Be The Year
@dskatter Didn't Larian say that optimizing for the Series S helped improve BG3 as a whole?
https://gamerant.com/baldurs-gate-3-xbox-series-s-memory-optimization-better-performance-improvements/
Besides, that and Wukong are literally the only two games in the last five years that have actually been impacted by the Series S. You would be hard pressed to find literally any other examples of games being delayed or downgraded on Xbox because of the Series S.
Re: Opinion: Xbox Series X Still Hasn't Been Fully Utilised Yet, But 2026 Could Be The Year
@dskatter Blaming the Series S, as if it is responsible for the Series X not being fully utilized is so bizarre to me, when Sony hasn't released a single game (aside from maybe Death Stranding 2) that has taken full advantage of the PS5 or the PS5 Pro. Clearly you are not seeing games with drastically better graphics on PS5, and the Series S certainly isn't to blame for PS5 exclusives being unable to take advantage of the console.
Re: John Wick Hex Is Being Permanently Delisted On The Xbox Store This Week
@Kaloudz I mean, Spec Ops the Line was like $30 on Xbox before it got delisted, so this isn't that surprising. That was an even more egregious example of a situation like this.
Re: Roundup: Here's What The 'Ready Or Not' Reviews Are Saying Ahead Of Its Xbox Release
@Kaloudz Here's a link that sums up the six things that VOID Interactive censored in Ready or Not:
https://www.thegamer.com/aready-or-not-details-censored-scenes-minors/
Basically, they got rid of some nudity, a few small details involving minors, and post-mortem dismemberment. You can still dismember people while they're still alive, but you can't dismember dead bodies anymore.
All this stuff honestly isn't that big of a deal IMO. There is a comment in the article I posted that says "It's not about specifics, it's a matter of principle, any amount of censorship is too much," but honestly, I disagree. So long as it doesn't significantly impact the quality of the game, I do not care about censorship that much. I am not the type of person who will boycott a game just because the devs decided to cover up some cleavage on a fictional female character or something lol. I have much more important things to worry about in real life than minor censorship issues.
The only thing I'm firmly against is major censorship, censorship that actually changes the tone of a game and makes its gameplay/plot objectively worse. That, I would have a problem with. Ready or Not is not one of those cases.
Re: Roundup: Here's What The 'Ready Or Not' Reviews Are Saying Ahead Of Its Xbox Release
Censoring the game on PC for the console release is unfortunate, but it really isn't as bad as people are making it out to be. The game is still pretty much the same, it's not like VOID Interactive got rid of entire chunks of the game to meet censorship standards or something.
Re: Xbox Fan Shares Fresh Dashboard Concept That Cleans Up The Home Screen
I know this is a controversial take, but the ads on the Xbox home screen don't bother me. Sure, I would like the option to get rid of them, but they don't really negatively impact my experience that much, unlike YouTube ads and Spotify ads.
My problem with the Xbox UI is not the ads, my problem is with the lack of innovation and interesting UI designs. It is so disappointing that Microsoft didn't make a new UI for the Series X/S and just used the Xbox One one all over again. The Xbox UI is utilitarian; it's functional and gets the job done, but it isn't that pleasant or amazing to look at. I would like something with a little more pizazz, like this fan-made UI.
Re: Xbox Hardware Isn't Dead But 'Big Changes' Are Coming, Says Digital Foundry
@Medic_alert But the next Xbox also won't just be a Windows PC, like the ROG Xbox Ally is, because Microsoft has already confirmed it will be fully backwards compatible with the Series X/S. So it should be able to run games that aren't available on PC.
Re: Xbox Hardware Isn't Dead But 'Big Changes' Are Coming, Says Digital Foundry
@Kraven I don't know why you would ever want Microsoft to abandon consoles because that would be devastating for the video game industry, for Xbox players, and consumers in general.
Microsoft is not the only one going third-party, fortunately. Sony is, as well, and we will see many more PlayStation-published games on Nintendo and Xbox consoles in the future. Not as much as Microsoft, but still a sizable amount.
Re: Talking Point: Are You Excited For Double Fine's Follow-Up To Psychonauts 2?
@Medic_alert It's not coming to PS day-one, it'll be an Xbox exclusive at launch. Presumably because Keeper started life as a permanent Xbox exclusive and Double Fine doesn't have the resources to develop a PS5 port simultaneously for a game that won't sell particularly well anyways. They'll probably port it to PS5 and Switch 2 in 2026.
Re: Two Games Are Confirmed For Xbox Game Pass In August 2025 So Far
@Fiendish-Beaver Yeah, these are literally just two PS5 ports and that's pretty much it.
Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (July 12-13)
@somnambulance I personally liked Mirror's Edge Catalyst a lot, just as much as the first one.
Re: Final Fantasy Dev Suggests PS5 Exclusives Are A Thing Of The Past For The Series
@DaveTheRave You say that as if a million copies sold of Helldivers 2 is a bad thing. That's millions of dollars of revenue that Sony would miss out on other wise, not including microtransaction revenue.
If Sony ports another game to Xbox after Helldivers 2, then it will be clear that HD2 on Xbox was a success, and that Xbox players very much do buy games.
Re: Final Fantasy Dev Suggests PS5 Exclusives Are A Thing Of The Past For The Series
@Artois2 And yet that's why Xbox is the only console with every singleplayer mainline FF game on it. Because Square Enix keeps porting games to a platform where FF games "hardly sell anything." They must be doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, not because they actually make any profits on Xbox ports.
Re: Ready Or Not Release Date, Release Times & Everything You Need To Know On Xbox
@TheSimulator Agreed, the censorship isn't even that bad, it's not like they're completely removing sections of the game or something. If that was the case, then I'd be upset.
Re: Final Fantasy Dev Suggests PS5 Exclusives Are A Thing Of The Past For The Series
@wildcat_kickz Yep, I can understand why the PlayStation China Hero Project games are timed exclusives, since Sony helps get those indie/AA games funded.
But for AAA blockbuster games like FF16, FF7 Rebirth, and Silent Hill 2 Remake? It makes little sense for publishers to agree to those deals.
Re: Talking Point: To Celebrate Bungie Day, What's Your Favourite Halo Memory Of All Time?
@Kilamanjaro After I check out the sequels, I'll definitely share my thoughts on this site whenever I get the chance!
Re: Talking Point: It's Been Two Years Since A Defining Moment In The History Of Xbox
@FraserG That's exactly what an AI would say...! Lol
Re: Talking Point: It's Been Two Years Since A Defining Moment In The History Of Xbox
@Fiendish-Beaver I agree with pretty much everything you said. I won't lie, I was kind of in favor of the ABK deal, but only because I thought Microsoft would have stuck to its guns about being a competitor to PlayStation. If Microsoft didn't completely pivot away from its original business plan and wasn't so obsessed with AI, I think the deal could have been good for consumers to an extent. I will say, though, I never really cared about ABK games and would have much preferred at the time if Microsoft bought a smaller Japanese publisher instead, to boost Xbox's visibility in that region.
At the end of the day, the ABK deal pretty much killed Xbox as we know it. It turned Xbox into Activision, and not the other way around. We're getting Halo, Gears, and Forza on PlayStation, before a single 360-era CoD game on Game Pass. That's wild.
On a positive note, though, maybe Helldivers 2 wouldn't be coming to Xbox if the ABK deal never happened. If Microsoft was still firm on its exclusivity, then maybe Sony would have never brought the game to Xbox.
Re: Talking Point: It's Been Two Years Since A Defining Moment In The History Of Xbox
@IOI You're right about most stuff here, but I don't see many publishers taking a step back from Game Pass. If anything, it's maybe been the opposite.
Re: Talking Point: It's Been Two Years Since A Defining Moment In The History Of Xbox
@Balaam_ Jim Ryan certainly wasn't advocating against the deal for the industry's benefit, though. He was doing it to protect Sony's interests. If he knew what would actually happen as a result of the deal (Microsoft going third-party), I think he would have been perfectly fine with Microsoft acquiring ABK
Re: Sci-Fi Horror Game 'Routine' Returns After Three Years, Coming To Xbox Game Pass
@Balaam_ Maybe you're thinking of Replaced. It has a similar name to Routine, and it looked awesome. It, too, was delayed indefinitely, though, but I don't think it's been cancelled.
Re: Xbox Reporter Addresses Game Pass Confusion, Says It's Still A Profitable Service In 2025
@Cherrywood Name me at least three developers/franchises that stopped supporting or being released on Xbox after the introduction of Game Pass.
Most of the games that skip Xbox these days, like the ones from Falcom, NIS America, Gust, etc. were never released on Xbox at all. I can't think of many developers that stopped supporting Xbox once Game Pass was released. Instead, the opposite has happened. Atlus, RGG Studio, Level-5, Gust, MiHoYo, Bandai Namco (with franchises like Digimon Story), Hamster Corporation, Natsume, etc. are now supporting Xbox more than they ever did in the past.
Xbox is still the platform that gets the least amount of games, but it's far better now than it was compared to the Xbox One gen.
Re: Xbox Reporter Addresses Game Pass Confusion, Says It's Still A Profitable Service In 2025
@SeaDaVie Now, as for the part you mentioned about Game Pass leading to lost sales of games that aren't on the service, I don't think there is any credible evidence out there to support that claim. And if it does impact non-Game Pass game sales, the effect must not be significant enough to deter third-party developers from porting their games to Xbox.
I've said this a lot in previous comments, but if Game Pass really did condition Xbox users to not buy games whatsoever and wait for everything to come to Game Pass, then there likely wouldn't be a lot of non-Game Pass games on Xbox. Third-party support would have deteriorated since the introduction of Game Pass in 2017, but instead, the opposite has happened.
Now, I see how your point can be applicable to some situations, like Atlus games on Xbox. Since Atlus started supporting Xbox in 2022, almost every game from the company (except Unicorn Overlord and SMT V: Vengance) has appeared on Game Pass at some point. Sometimes day-one, sometimes months later. Some Xbox gamers may be deterred from buying Atlus games because they expect most of them to come to Game Pass. In that sense, I can see where your argument holds merit.
The thing is, though, most third-party developers/publishers don't support Game Pass as frequently and as consistently as Atlus/SEGA does. Why would an Xbox gamer, for example, be conditioned to not buy Sonic games, when there have almost never been Sonic games on Game Pass?
Re: Xbox Reporter Addresses Game Pass Confusion, Says It's Still A Profitable Service In 2025
@SeaDaVie I could be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure Microsoft has access to all the data of each individual user who buys video games and subscribes to Game Pass.
They, for instance, would probably know if someone bought Doom Eternal and Doom (2016), but didn't buy Doom: The Dark Ages and subbed to Game Pass instead. Data like that they can probably record and definitively mark as a lost sale.
They can also probably tell if someone who plays a lot of first-person shooters decides to play all the Doom games on Game Pass instead of outright buying them.
Re: Xbox Reporter Addresses Game Pass Confusion, Says It's Still A Profitable Service In 2025
@SeaDaVie There is some truth in that, but it isn't completely accurate. With games like CoD, it should be pretty easy for Microsoft to determine the amount of sales they lose on Xbox and PC because of Game Pass. If BO6 sold a million copies less than MW3 on Xbox and most of those million ppl played it on Game Pass instead, that's how you know you lost sales.
Now, this is harder to do with new IPs, especially those from studios that have never released a game before. At that point it does just boil down to estimates based off of similar games. But, fortunately for this case, most of Microsoft's games are based on established franchises.
Also, Microsoft doesn't share financial data for literally any of its divisions or products. They obfuscate everything, it's not just Game Pass.
Re: Xbox Reporter Addresses Game Pass Confusion, Says It's Still A Profitable Service In 2025
People's response when Microsoft tells Dring that they determine Game Pass's profitability without factoring first-party game costs:
"I knew it! Game Pass is a failure! It's blindingly obvious that there's no way it's sustainable, and thousands of ppl's jobs were lost all because of Game Pass."
Also those same people when Dring hears from his sources that Game Pass is actually profitable, even when you factor in lost first-party game sales:
"Microsoft must be lying, what Chris Dring says isn't true."
Worth noting that Chris's latest statements don't even come from Microsoft themselves. He asked his sources at the company, so this wasn't some official PR statement or anything.
Re: Xbox Reporter Addresses Game Pass Confusion, Says It's Still A Profitable Service In 2025
@BacklogBrad Exactly. Game Pass is sustainable, and it is profitable for Microsoft. Otherwise they would have stopped adding day-one games to the service ages ago.
The reason why you are seeing price increases and changes to the service, however, is because Game Pass isn't growing at a fast-enough rate. Microsoft was expecting to hit 100m subs by 2030, but since that obviously isn't gonna happen, they're raising the price instead.
Re: Is Xbox Game Pass Unsustainable? Arkane Founder Sparks Huge Debate On Social Media
@AverageGamer "Microsoft went into that gen already $5 billion in the hole add on another $1 billion from the 360 plus R&D. I’m not gonna mention the Kinect."
I think the Kinect was a big success for Microsoft, it was one of the best-selling console peripherals of all time back then. It sold around 35 million units as of 2017, according to Microsoft.The problem with the Kinect was the path that it ultimately led to, which we saw with the Xbox One.
"But it took was until 2008-09 for the Xbox division to finally stop being in the red.."
There was an article I found from 2008 that says the Xbox 360 finally started to make a profit that year, so yes, you are right about that.
https://www.audioholics.com/news/microsoft-xbox-360-profits
"That number is count profit across not just PS3… But also PSP and PS2. Sony gaming profit is heavily inflated due to multiple platforms."
Since there weren't that many people buying games on PS2 in late 2010, I don't think the console factored a big role in Sony's profits at the time. In fact, the PSP and PS2 sales were already slumping in that quarter. However, let's just assume that less than half of Sony's profits came from the PS3. Let's say Sony made $400 million per quarter during the PS3's lifespan, and that that is equivalent to what Microsoft made per quarter with the 360, as well.
$400 million times 4 is, of course, $1.6 billion. Now if Microsoft made close to $1.6 billion from the 360 each year for 7 years, then they must have made around $11.2 billion in profit the entire generation. That's more than enough to cover the costs of the original Xbox and the Red Ring of Death, and that is probably close to the profits that Microsoft made with the 360. While console sales did start to slow down near the end of the generation, game sales on Xbox 360 likely didn't.
Re: Is Xbox Game Pass Unsustainable? Arkane Founder Sparks Huge Debate On Social Media
@AverageGamer As for the other stuff you mentioned, you have a point about the pressure from investors stuff. However, when it comes to cloud streaming, Microsoft is already offering a Stadia-like service with the new Stream Your Own Game feature. While you're right that none of Microsoft's first-party games are available through this manner (though they are available on GeForce Now, ironically), they could add them if they wanted to.
Also you don't have to individually buy every game that you can cloud stream via PS Plus, some of them are included in the PS Plus subscription service itself, like Game Pass.
At the end of the day, Microsoft could just get rid of day-one games, and keep the rest of Game Pass intact without switching to a Stadia model, xCloud stuff included.
Re: Is Xbox Game Pass Unsustainable? Arkane Founder Sparks Huge Debate On Social Media
@AverageGamer The Xbox 360 definitely did not just "break even," it was a success. Considering that Microsoft sold 85 million consoles that gen as well as hundreds of millions of games/DLCs, it's highly unlikely they generated only 1 billion dollars of revenue the entire gen. Microsoft didn't make any profit on the hardware, of course, but they made a lot of profit on the games.
I can't find a lot of specific revenue data from Xbox during the 360 era, but I did find an apt comparison with the PS3 that shows how unlikely it is that Microsoft only broken even with the Xbox 360. In Q4 2010, Sony sold 6.5 million PS3s, which was similar to what the Xbox 360 sold at the time. At the time, Sony reported that they had made $871.2 million in profit through games, and this was just in one quarter.
Since the Xbox 360 was doing just as well as the PS3 at the time, then it must have made billions of dollars in profit each year. In other words, it was almost certainly a big success for Microsoft.
Source: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/sony-sells-65m-ps3s-in-q4-posts-8712m-profit/1100-6249459/
Re: Talking Point: To Celebrate Bungie Day, What's Your Favourite Halo Memory Of All Time?
This may be sacrilegious to say, but despite being on Xbox for many years, I haven't played most of the Halo games yet, even though I'm a fan of first-person shooters. So I don't really have a lot of fond Halo memories.
The only Halo game I've played so far is Halo: Combat Evolved (and a bit of Halo Infinite). I finished Halo: CE a few years ago, and, to be honest, I didn't like it that much. I don't know, maybe you had to be around in the 2000s to really enjoy the first Halo, but I just thought it was okay. Halo: CE is a decent game, but it didn't blow me away or anything. I don't really remember a lot from it, aside from the awesome soundtrack.
Maybe I didn't enjoy Halo: CE as much as I should have because I played it 20 years after it originally came out, but at the same time, I played games like Half Life 2 decades after their original release, and they left a far greater impression on me.
Even still, I'll get to Halo 2 and 3 eventually, as well as the other Halo games.
Re: Is Xbox Game Pass Unsustainable? Arkane Founder Sparks Huge Debate On Social Media
@AverageGamer
"Tell that to Zune, MSN Music… and all the other stuff Microsoft killed off early in the 2000s."
That's true but none of those projects managed to take off in the same way that Xbox did. Zune was around for, like, 6 years and no one cared about it. Xbox managed to take off in its 5th year with the launch of the Xbox 360. If the Xbox 360 also managed to flop like the Zune did, then Microsoft would have cut support for it.
"Yet, Satya Nadella and Co gave Phill and Team how many years after he came in to fix the ship after the Xbox One launch? If they didn’t like long-term business strategies… Why not pivot then?"
Satya Nadella was apparently this close to shutting Xbox down after the launch of the Xbox One. It was Phil who managed to convince him to keep Xbox around by pivoting business strategies and focusing on stuff like Game Pass and day-one PC releases. Rest assured, if Satya had his way, the Xbox One would have been the last Xbox.
Lastly, Microsoft wouldn't have to axe Game Pass entirely if they want to keep xCloud around. They could just turn it into a PS Plus-like service and get rid of day-one releases.