moodmatcha

@Fiendish-Beaver My thought was that while exclusives were still selling consoles, they sold PlayStations and Switches and the market has now moved to a point where it’s difficult to overcome that momentum by just taking away games.

I understand where Microsoft was coming from with the ‘This is an Xbox’ campaign—if you aren’t going to convince customers to buy your expensive box, get them to engage with your platform on the devices they already have. I think that strategy will be key to bringing in new customers.
As for where that leaves the console, I think that for Xbox it’s more about retaining customers. Keep your current customers happy and when you get new ones, give them somewhere to go to deepen their experience. That’s where ‘This is an Xbox’ went wrong. It doesn’t matter how many customers you’re bringing in if you’re losing them just as fast because the existing ones feel abandoned.

@Fiendish-Beaver In a world where physical games are niche and you can’t sell your library to switch platforms, boxes are expensive and it’s difficult own more than one, platform exclusive features go unused, and there are thousands of games demanding all of your time, I don’t think exclusivity will sell systems anymore. If you can’t play a game with what you have, then you’ll just play a different game.

All these statements, it’s starting to feel like she’s just thinking out loud 😅 I’m here for it. These next few years will be interesting.

RE: Exclusives, I believe the hardware justifies the exclusives, not the other way around. Up through the PS360 era, the hardware was materially different and multi platform support had large implications for the development process. PS4, XBO, and onwards, they’re all just the same box with different logos. Exclusives feel kinda silly. Honestly, consoles almost feel silly entirely. IMO what we need is a reassessment of how they’re positioned in the market and the value they’re intended to bring.

-Pivot ‘This is an Xbox’ campaign to ‘No device left behind’ and bring XPA to One SX and Series SX.

-Make sure console gamers understand the expansion of Xbox benefits them, that there’s a benefit to owning a console, and that they’re not being abandoned to chase a new audience. Also that their hardware won’t arbitrarily miss out on game releases that they’d otherwise be capable of running because the developer only pushed a build for the latest device.

-Acknowledge the component crisis and emphasize that Xbox intends to meet customers where they are while still pushing technology forward with new devices.

-Drop UWP format so the Xbox app and XPA games will run on Linux and Mac via Wine.

-Feature collections of games that are lightweight or scale well to run on older and low power hardware. Advertise Xbox as the best place to play for gamers on a budget or those that can’t afford or don’t want to upgrade their hardware.

-Allow CSS customization of the dashboard (like Steam) and host custom themes. If someone wants to remove ads or use the Blades dashboard, they can just install that theme.

-When component prices are reasonably stable, launch a high powered, unsubsidized FSE Xbox with back compat support, a first party handheld with One S/360 back compat, and a subsidized low powered console that supports XPA and back compat but lacks the windows desktop

@InterceptorAlpha Hate the company meddling with our favorite hobby? Go wild. Hate the people executing those bad decisions? Sure, but don’t be gross about it. But Asha, she’s done nothing but show up and try to earn trust. At least give her the chance to earn the hatred, and even then don’t be gross about it.

Seems like a dedicated, well-intentioned person and I’ll be rooting for her. Love the idea of her having all night gaming sessions as ‘research’. My main worry is Microsoft itself. Will she be able to run the division from her on-the-ground perspective or will Microsoft undermine her from the outside? Do they have any intentions for unpopular decisions that she’ll have to take the fall for?

I’m actually liking the sound of this. 4’s seasons were enough to see me through to the end of the career, but I DNF’d 5 after a few hours. I literally had all the cars I wanted and got tired of wading through the million map markers for the events I wanted to do. Guess we’ll see how this goes.

Sure she just recommitted, but I’m still anxious that whatever confidence we had in Phil’s and Sarah’s promises, the new leadership won’t have the same commitment. I can’t imagine entering such a prominent position and being content just executing someone else’s plan. And if the plan was to stay the course, why change up leadership?

Also noting that the commitment was to console, but not specifically first party hardware and that segment abruptly pivots to talk of PC, Mobile, and Cloud. I’ll hold onto to what optimism I can but I guess we’ll just have to see how things play out.

Weird there were two ‘girl and her wolf fighting corruption’ games in the SoP, though they both look fantastic. Might just check this one out

It’s sad that the franchise was taken from him and given to someone else but it’s great to see he likes where it’s going.

If next gen is shaping up how it seems, the box itself would be much less important than the tools it’s built on. I’m sure they could get away with not mentioning it for some time, at least until all the pieces have come together.