@HonestHick Agreed. I don’t ever need to get 1000GS. But when you complete the game and they still only give you 10% - 20% at the end that don’t feel good or right.
@Elbow I get what you are saying about small games. But xbox already has no shortage of great small indie games, especially on Game Pass. Xbox’s excellent curation team travels the world visiting trade shows and try’s out hundreds, or thousands, of games and makes offers to the very best, many of which accept and end up on Game Pass. That’s a much more cost effective way of doing it than trying to build them yourself and failing most of the time. Instead you just select the best when almost done and you can judge what you are getting.
And it also keeps most parties happy, devs get paid and get much more publicity for their game so it usually sells better; Microsoft gets great games on Xbox and on game pass for comparatively very little; and gamers get some of the best rated and award winning games on Game Pass every year. Win Win Win.
I’d also say that almost no decent game costs $50k - $100k anymore unless it’s a solo dev living at his parents working with minimal overheads for a few years. Even small indies often have budgets of $1million plus.
As soon as you have more than one dev, offices and a company costs start to ramp up fast. Even a AA team like Compulsion with around 100 devs will likely be spending over $1 million USD a month just to keep the lights on. Burn rate is a killer as you staff up.
You do know people can like something and still be critical when it is deserved. That is a thing.
Why can the fanboys never understand this? All they do is get defensive and make excuses. When Sony or Nintendo do something that’s bad for gamers or gaming it’s right to be critical and hold them to the fire, exactly the same with Xbox.
At the end of the day I just want Xbox to do better, to be better, but they just keep ***** it up and making poor decisions. This will likely take the number of staff they’ve fired in the last few years to over 5,000. Sad to see.
@eduscxbox Who said Ghost of Yotei didn't sell well? It's a lower budget AAA game and reportedly has sold over 4.5 million copies in 8 months. That's great.
It's a shame about Saros, a good game, Sony never should have put it at £70, similar position to The Outer Worlds 2 hopefully they both sell better when the price drops.
@TheGameThrifter Also has she not lied? I seem to recall them saying there was never a PS5 version of Gears E-Day in production despite a PEGI rating for the PS5 version (something Xbox have to select), despite several independent leaks confirming that it was basically ready, and most plainly of all... that the PS5 logo was in their own bloody trailer!
Can I prove it? No. But there's so much smoke things are burning.
There was also the BS about her boosted Gamertag. I really don't care what she plays, she doesn't need to game, but just don't lie about it. You can only get 1000GS in 30 minutes on Townscaper by boosting it. She said she didn't and it would be silly. I know BS when I smell it.
I'm probably forgetting others. If you're expecting her never to lie to you or deceive I think you will be bitterly disappointed.
@TheGameThrifter To be clear I like Asha, I think she is doing a good job so far and has a tougher job ahead, but she isn't some messiah.
Yet it will take years to truly judge how she has really done, most things happening now are due to both the previous administration, and seemingly their lack of control since ABK.
I'll judge by Xbox's actions, not their words, and evaluate things like:
What games will be greenlit under her stewardship?
How will Xbox's market share change over the next few years?
Will we still see value for money from Xbox and Game Pass?
Can she make Xbox a force to be reckoned with again?
Does Helix deliver the Xbox-PC hybrid successfully?
Do physical games and choice still exist on Xbox.
Is Xbox clear in communication and sticks to their plan
How many rakes does Xbox step on. etc. etc.
Once we have seen how she has done over several years only then can we judge her as Xbox boss. I seem to recall Phil was once the messiah in some eyes. I liked him too.
"The plan is the plan until it's not the plan"... and all that!
But seriously, why should we take Microsoft's word for anything when they have changed tack so often and not seen their plans through? Xbox strategy has had more changes than a teenager's mood swings.
Since Asha was put in charge I judge them on ACTIONS not words
@Fiendish-Beaver Appreciate your thoughts here mate. Fully agree they should be a lot more open about data and stop treating us like idiots. Personally while I don't like the closures I am more understanding that it needs to happen based on the little information Asha did share on the state of Xbox.
Here's hoping Gears E-Day is a roaring success. It looks really good.
Looks pretty standard for Halo but also pretty tedious, lots of complete this mission with these specific skull and these conditions. If this was a new game fine, but it’s a remake of a remaster of a 25 year old game, doesn’t need many more playthroughs imo.
@Titntin Agreed, it makes little sense to keep it exclusive. But I think Asha wanted to get the Xbox fans onside knowing what is coming at the end of June (and leaked in the last few days). And with a certain crowd she has been successful (Asha-Jesus photos and all) it will be interesting to see how they feel after another clear out. High drama!
@BAMozzy I agree with almost everything you said here, good post.
Where i’d push back is - and as you made clear - as ABK was on the decline and Xbox was already struggling then buying ABK for $69billion wasn’t a very wise move. It was always a huge gamble that hasn’t paid off.
Xbox and Xbox gamers would be far better off without it. For $69 billion what have we seen? A few CODs on Gamepass, Diablo 4, Crash 4 - that probably would have come to the service later anyway - and a few remasters. That’s about it. ABK was a huge error and with all those ABK staff made the numbers dire with little return leading to this being as bad as it is.
@Fiendish-Beaver As the resident Gears fan I was wondering what you felt about reports that E-Day has a budget upwards of $400 million? (As reported by Tom Henderson of Insider Gaming)
Especially with regards to this now being console exclusive they have to sell a LOT of copies... and/or make a LOT of money from MTX just to break even, let alone a profit. Even more so with marketing is on top of that.
Thoughts?
Personally it makes me worried for The Coalition, it feels like they are setting them up for a fall. Even if the game is fantastic and does comparatively well, will that be good enough. Feels a bit like Halo Infinite all over again imo.
@Titntin I've just seen your comment. I was pretty impressed. Both with the gameplay and the visuals.
In terms of gameplay Gears has felt quite stale to me, whereas this felt quite fresh without reinventing the wheel - it's still Gears. Being able to climb up, jump off and vault over things all looked a lot more fluid.
Visually the level of detail was extremely high, I went back and re-watched the video closely and didn't notice any visible pop-in or level of detail (LOD) changes in the distance. It's likely using UE5's Nanite properly. Other things like great lighting, and volumetric dust/fog when a hole opens up also impressed me.
(My one caveat here is we don't know what it's running on, probably a monster PC, look forward to seeing how it runs on Xbox.)
Obviously it's a highly curated vertical slice of the game and perhaps the rest of the game is more rote - we won't know until release - but having been a bit sour on gears after Judgement, 4 & 5, I was impressed and i'm now looking forward to it.
@BAMozzy I agree, there are dozens of factors that have changed and made things harder for everyone.
But that also doesn’t change the simple fact that Xbox gambled when buying these companies and it hasn’t paid off. This has direct repercussions for jobs and studios.
Yes it’s true everyone is affected to differing degrees, layoffs are happening everywhere, but this is what? Xbox’s third, fourth (or is it fifth?) major round of layoffs and closures in the last few years. Thousands and thousands of staff gone and much of this was predictable.
When Microsoft were looking to buy ABK some of us were shouting loudly “mass consolidation is a bad idea” and so it has proven. They could have just consolidated what they had first and made it sustainable, instead of having to keep growing in an unsustainable way. They over reached and large scale job losses were then inevitable in a downturn, and so it proved, but because they grew at such an unsustainable rate when things were rosy they had no reserves for when markets turned bad. That’s gross mismanagement.
We just mentioned recently how the Xbox Player Voice website was getting swamped with requests for new Skylanders releases, and clearly the same thing is happening on the Xbox Game Preservation website.
This is always the problem with player voted things, they can always be brigaded. I remember when Pewdiepie got his army to vote for a game and win at the Golden Joysticks just to prove this, or gacha games winning best player voted game at The Game Awards. (I play them, I like them, but best game, nah!)
Damn! While I didn't like South of Midnight's gameplay AT ALL, the music and artistry are incredible. I was genuinely excited about what they might do in future if they could just get a decent gameplay designer on board. Sad to see. Wishing all affected well.
@Bob_Tempura Agreed. Double Fine have put out 3 games already this gen. Their big one Psychonauts 2 seemed to do pretty well with both critics and fans. Then 2 smaller games. Keeper was excellent.
@FraserG FAAARK! While I didn't like South of Midnights gameplay AT ALL, the rest of it was incredible and I was genuinely excited about what they might do in future if they could just get a decent gameplay designer on board.
@Fiendish-Beaver But we know the average user buys less than 2 games a year. See here. This has also been reported elsewhere. We enthusiasts often buy more per month than the average gamer buys per year. Xbox is trying to increase the average annual spend of all those users by splitting it into an affordable monthly fee.
While I don't want any studios to close my HOPE is if they do then it will some at ABK, and I think there is some merit to this. The last two rounds of Xbox closures have primarily been Xbox Game Studios and Zenimax teams, it was always expected ABK may be next on the cutting board. So perhaps something like Demonware, High Moon Studios or Beenox - effectively COD support teams. Or perhaps one of the teams at Blizzard.
@Dart-TheRedDragoon Sadly Xbox gambled on buying Zenimax and then ABK but that gamble hasn't paid off. They were hoping for a lot more Game Pass subscribers with games like COD and Starfield added to the service but that just hasn't happened.
They then tried to go multiplatform to cover some of that expense but the numbers just don't add up right now and they need to shed some staff to balance the books and return to profit.
Sad to see, but that's the hard business reality. Fingers crossed for all affected.
Will February stay that way? There are already 3 other large AAA games releasing in February and we are 8 months away. I suspect February will end up similarly busy.
@Fiendish-Beaver I agree Halo makes more sense as an exclusive than Gears in some ways, but they had already announced Halo was multiplatform and a new Gears game is more likely to keep fans clamouring for exclusives quieter than a remake of remake.
Totally agree Xbox need to be more transparent about numbers. My post #81 was about that, people would better understand changes if Microsoft were more transparent with their financials and sales metrics. But Xbox always feel like they are playing catch up, always reacting rather than picking a strategy and seeing it through. You don’t see much of the same from the competition.
Honestly I think Microsoft would rather most people subscribed to Game Pass rather than bought the game. It isn’t just the cost of one month, they want you to stay subscribed permanently, that’s how their whole business model works. Like gym fees, or Netflix where you might not use it every month but most don’t cancel. That’s where their price hike failed, it moved too many people from “let’s just stay subscribed, I might use it next month” to “I will cancel and resubscribe when there’s a game I want to play”.
Regular dependable revenue from subscriptions is exactly what they want. Managing subscriber churn is one of the the most important metrics for any subscription and they failed, hence the massive price cut. Let’s not forget a years Game Pass is much more than most would have spent on Xbox in a year. (I know you many here are different)
@Fiendish-Beaver We are more in line then I thought then.
It needs to take action that will see instantaneous results, and with that in mind, I can only see one course of action.
I don't think you can instantaneously see results by changing strategy like removing Day 1 games on Game Pass, it takes time for new plans to take root, there are no short cuts. If Game Pass wasn't their future then we wouldn't have seen Asha slash prices to bring back subscribers, they want it to work, they need it to work.
It is possible to see quick results in financials but that requires more negative things like cutting wage bills, which is what we will see in the short term. Job losses and studio closures.
I also don't think exclusives are the answer in the short term. They can do with every penny they can make right now. Xbox have made a token amount of games exclusive to try and appease fans in the short term as it was their #1 request and Asha is good at PR and "hears ya!"... but the numbers just don't work out for them to have many exclusives right now. I would expect these at a trickle for now.
But as Asha said IF the state of the business improves then we might see more, I believe they would like to, and I expect that is the longer term plan. See if they can recover into better profitably and then slowly add more and more exclusives as their finances allow. I have no doubt if the tables were turned, if they were on track to have sold 100 million consoles and their finances were in better order then we would have far more exclusives on Xbox today, but this is a long way away right now. That's the hard reality.
I think Xbox has only recently FINALLY, after over a decade of patiently waiting, got games coming at a decent rate, and given time I think that will start to have an impact both on sales revenue but also on Game Pass subs, but it won't happen overnight, and do they have time...
Helix is going to be a HUGE hurdle. Feels pretty make or break.
@Fiendish-Beaver I agree with large parts of your post, but I think you are dead wrong about Game Pass. What is Xbox without Game Pass? At the start of the gen what was Xbox's one unique selling point? What made people on the fence choose Xbox over PlayStation or Nintendo? It was Game Pass and Day 1 games.
If they have sold around 35 million consoles now, how many do you think they would they have sold without Game Pass? I'd posit maybe half that, at which point how many third party publishers would still even port games for a console with less than 20 million units? That is getting into Wii U & PS Vita territory and it all starts to spiral outside your control. It makes gamers choose other consoles.
I honestly think without Game Pass the Series S|X generation would already be over, possibly taking Xbox with it. Counter to your point I believe Game Pass saved Xbox. And Game Pass is still their USP.
But I agree the current plan isn't working. We agree on that.
Yet where we differ is this. The problem isn't Day 1 games on Game Pass, the problem is they grew too fast for the number of subscribers they had. They gambled and hoped buying Zenimax, buying ABK, putting COD, Starfield etc. on Game Pass would give them a huge increase to subscribers - remember the 100 million subscribers leaked emails - but this never happened. Instead they added around 15,000+ staff to the Xbox wage bill but only saw a comparatively small increase to subscriber revenue. The numbers no longer work.
Instead of getting rid of Day 1 games they need to restructure their studios to work with Game Pass at their subscriber retention level and only increase this if their subscribers or income goes up to match. The numbers can still work but not with so many staff and studios.
Xbox has already sacked over 10,000 staff over the last few years but these were mostly from XGS and Zenimax, I would expect the next round to come mostly from ABK, as well as failing studios. Right-sizing is a term people don't like, but it's also accurate, Xbox needs to be the right size for their business model to work.
EDIT: To be clear I don't want job losses or studio closures, but Xbox gambled and lost, they now need to shrink to make the numbers work, it is the only sensible way forward.
@eduscxbox As long as Microsoft keeps deliberately obfuscating all their financials and other metrics then rumours of how the business is doing and whether Xbox or Game Pass is profitable, or even sustainable will always remain. They need to be more open and honest about their financials imo.
E.g. If you look at the investor portals of Nintendo, or Sony's you can view in depth financial data including revenue, profit and many metrics showing how each of these businesses are doing.
This includes includes simple things like consoles sold each quarter, or software units sold, but also break downs on precisely how much income different segments of each division are doing. E.g. We know PS+ (Network Services) made 763 billion Yen, around $4.7bn USD, last financial year which was up 14% YoY. While they don't break down precise Profit & Loss statements for each segment we do know major things like exactly what Nintendo and PlayStation's profit margins are.
And crucially because they publish exactly the same metrics every single quarter we can see how the business is doing quarter to quarter, year on year and generation to generation.
Meanwhile Microsoft is VERY secretive and changes what data they hand out every quarter - they only show what they want you to know. It's almost never the same metrics so you can't really see how each segment is doing year on year except when they want to show you that.
And even when they are a little more open, like Asha was this week, they often don't use a standardised term like "net profit margin", they use their own custom key performance indicator (KPI) like "accountability margin" that could frankly mean anything as we don't know what is, and what isn't, included in that.
Hopefully a part of their XBOX RESET will be more openness and clarity so we can actually see where they are and the scope of what needs to change.
Solution is make simpler and less costly (AA) games. That would be faster.
If only it were that simple.
How did Hellblade 2, South of Midnight, Keeper, Kiln, Minecraft Legends, Battletoads, Bleeding Edge, Towerborne etc do for Microsoft? They all reportedly struggled and failed to match expectations. In fact AA is the part of the industry struggling the most to break through at the moment.
When you add in larger games like Outer Worlds 2, Forza Motorsport, Avowed, Ninja Gaiden 4 etc. that also failed to hit their targets it gets more grim. The big worry for me is that Xbox will see most of those that failed as single player games and push more towards live services.
Especially with live service successes like Sea of Thieves, Grounded & Forza Horizon, as well as other ever present live services like CoD, Minecraft, WoW, Diablo, Halo & Gears all succeeding. I genuinely hope that isn't the case, but it's the single player games that are failing disproportionately for Xbox. Fingers crossed Fable, Clockwork Revolution and others all buck this trend.
There's at least 9 or 10 I want to play there, assuming even half pay off that would pay for Game Pass on it's own even before the hundreds of other games.
Also didn't know, or didn't remember, the Expanse game was coming to Game Pass. That's brilliant.
@TrollOfWar Indeed! I was thinking about that as I read this.
Yet I still don't think it's a good idea for Xbox, their developers or fans. In fact I think it's even worse now we know their financials are in such a bad place. But I could understand more why Microsoft might want to do it.
I hope it's just speculation and something being considered but not acted upon.
Xbox is planning to move faster when developing games for their beloved franchises
This sounds good on paper… but if it were really that simple why isn't everyone doing it? Some of the things Asha has suggested about streamlining workflows and combining code bases remind me of what Ubisoft did over a decade ago which ended up limiting creativity and homogenising development… look where it got them. Learn from History.
Obviously we want good games faster and not to have to wait a decade or two for a new Elder Scrolls or Fallout… but i don't think you can bring a software like efficiency workflow into the creative space so easily without some repercussions. Be careful what you wish for.
I hope it doesn’t happen as we Xbox fans would suffer as would many devs as they gut studios in even more ways to try and turn a larger profit.
If Xbox were spun out investors aren’t going to be happy with the 3% margin Asha reported a day or two ago when not propped up by Microsoft’s other divisions doing 30% - 40%. Make no mistake it would be DIRE for Xbox in the short term, and make it much harder to turn things around.
Additionally as someone pointed out the 3% margin Asha reported wasn’t actually a 3% PROFIT margin, it was a 3% ACCOUNTABILITY margin which is their own internal KPI that likely doesn’t include some losses. i.e. it’s probably lower than a 3% profit margin in reality. It’s even possible that Xbox isn’t even turning a profit currently when all factors are involved.
Sad to see, but also not surprising when you see reports like Windows Central on how many of Xbox’s recent games have failed to meet expectations, both in sales and on Game Pass engagement and retention. Sadly a lot of bad news for Xbox.
If it's not coming in the next 12 months then I don't think it's worth showing in the showcase... assuming you have plenty else to show, and they did. Xbox cooked.
Phil inherited a better Xbox from Mattrick than Asher did Phil
I don't think that's true. Xbox had virtually no first-party studios when Mattrick left. Xbox was a husk.
Whereas Asha has the opposite problem, Xbox is making a lot of revenue today, but it is also too bloated, she needs to make cuts and streamline it to make it more profitable. But they have many studios now making a steady run of good games. That hard work is done.
They are different problems to solve but I think it's much easier, and should be quicker, to make cuts to Xbox to make it profitable than it was to build up all those studios again as Phil did. E.g. It took 5+ years for some of those studios to start putting out games and around a decade to get to the point today where Xbox had a steady flow of games from their studios, that was much harder work imo.
@ElectricWizard Not noticed that. But I do the short boot (as I need the power on functions for remote access) and by the time my TV boots up via HDMI-CEC I don't usually see the Xbox boot logo it's already on the Xbox dashboard or atuo-signing in.
@IllusiveMan Good post. I agree with most of it. Also tagged @BleedingDreamer @Stocksy as you both seemed interested.
However the biggest problem is that Xbox simply got too big too fast through acquisitions. Too many staff and too large a wage bill. I think Game Pass could have still worked out as it was... but not with all ABK, Zenimax and Xbox Game Studios games on it Day 1 (plus a lot of third parties). They grew too fast too soon and the number of subscribers didn't increase to meet that new wage bill.
Also regarding whether multiplatform or exclusives are "the right path". I think there's short term and long term. If exclusives were clearly the right path Xbox wouldn't have just announced all their new games, except Gears and Clock Rev, were going multiplatform. In terms of revenue, profit and loss it's clear they need multiplatform for now. As Asha said as the business gets more healthy they will look to try and do more exclusives. But effectively for now that isn't possible. Long term maybe... if the business improves.
But it feels a bit chicken and egg to me, for the business to improve they likely need more exclusives, but can't afford to do more while the business is still weak and only at a 3% accountability margin.
More widely I totally agree these CEO's are not the Messiah!
@demian She said half decade, which is how long a next gen console tales to plan, they start as soon as the current console releases. And she alluded to next gen the paragraph before when she said "and as we plan for the 2027 holiday season", that seems pretty clear she is referencing Helix there. Though some of it is deliberately vague and open to interpretation.
@TrollOfWar Could be, it's unclear, but Asha was specifically talking about hardware prices being 5x in 2027 which is when Helix is expected to launch. Hence I lean towards it being that.
Regardless of whether that was what she meant it's still all an issue.
I can possibly believe they can't hit demand because it was clear they reduced Xbox production massively over the last few years, it's not as simple as just wanting more, it takes time to ramp up again.
Comments 8,671
Re: Full List Of Xbox Achievements Revealed For Halo: Campaign Evolved
@HonestHick Agreed. I don’t ever need to get 1000GS. But when you complete the game and they still only give you 10% - 20% at the end that don’t feel good or right.
Re: Ori Creator Shares His Take On The Future Of Xbox's First-Party Strategy
@Elbow I get what you are saying about small games. But xbox already has no shortage of great small indie games, especially on Game Pass. Xbox’s excellent curation team travels the world visiting trade shows and try’s out hundreds, or thousands, of games and makes offers to the very best, many of which accept and end up on Game Pass. That’s a much more cost effective way of doing it than trying to build them yourself and failing most of the time. Instead you just select the best when almost done and you can judge what you are getting.
And it also keeps most parties happy, devs get paid and get much more publicity for their game so it usually sells better; Microsoft gets great games on Xbox and on game pass for comparatively very little; and gamers get some of the best rated and award winning games on Game Pass every year. Win Win Win.
I’d also say that almost no decent game costs $50k - $100k anymore unless it’s a solo dev living at his parents working with minimal overheads for a few years. Even small indies often have budgets of $1million plus.
As soon as you have more than one dev, offices and a company costs start to ramp up fast. Even a AA team like Compulsion with around 100 devs will likely be spending over $1 million USD a month just to keep the lights on. Burn rate is a killer as you staff up.
Re: Xbox CSO Shuts Down Rumour About Exclusives, Insists They'll Happen Every Year
@Weebleman Well said 👏👏👏
PsBoxSwitchOwner wrote:
Why can the fanboys never understand this? All they do is get defensive and make excuses. When Sony or Nintendo do something that’s bad for gamers or gaming it’s right to be critical and hold them to the fire, exactly the same with Xbox.
At the end of the day I just want Xbox to do better, to be better, but they just keep ***** it up and making poor decisions. This will likely take the number of staff they’ve fired in the last few years to over 5,000. Sad to see.
Re: Ori Creator Shares His Take On The Future Of Xbox's First-Party Strategy
He's absolutely right. Sadly I don't think Microsoft see Xbox this way right now, it's more numbers on a spreadsheet they want to fix.
Hopefully that changes.
Re: Xbox CSO Shuts Down Rumour About Exclusives, Insists They'll Happen Every Year
@eduscxbox Who said Ghost of Yotei didn't sell well? It's a lower budget AAA game and reportedly has sold over 4.5 million copies in 8 months. That's great.
It's a shame about Saros, a good game, Sony never should have put it at £70, similar position to The Outer Worlds 2 hopefully they both sell better when the price drops.
Re: Xbox CSO Shuts Down Rumour About Exclusives, Insists They'll Happen Every Year
@TheGameThrifter Also has she not lied? I seem to recall them saying there was never a PS5 version of Gears E-Day in production despite a PEGI rating for the PS5 version (something Xbox have to select), despite several independent leaks confirming that it was basically ready, and most plainly of all... that the PS5 logo was in their own bloody trailer!
Can I prove it? No. But there's so much smoke things are burning.
There was also the BS about her boosted Gamertag. I really don't care what she plays, she doesn't need to game, but just don't lie about it. You can only get 1000GS in 30 minutes on Townscaper by boosting it. She said she didn't and it would be silly. I know BS when I smell it.
I'm probably forgetting others. If you're expecting her never to lie to you or deceive I think you will be bitterly disappointed.
Re: Xbox CSO Shuts Down Rumour About Exclusives, Insists They'll Happen Every Year
@TheGameThrifter To be clear I like Asha, I think she is doing a good job so far and has a tougher job ahead, but she isn't some messiah.
Yet it will take years to truly judge how she has really done, most things happening now are due to both the previous administration, and seemingly their lack of control since ABK.
I'll judge by Xbox's actions, not their words, and evaluate things like:
Once we have seen how she has done over several years only then can we judge her as Xbox boss. I seem to recall Phil was once the messiah in some eyes. I liked him too.
Re: Xbox CSO Shuts Down Rumour About Exclusives, Insists They'll Happen Every Year
One in 2026, one in 2027, one in 2028... I jest!
"The plan is the plan until it's not the plan"... and all that!
But seriously, why should we take Microsoft's word for anything when they have changed tack so often and not seen their plans through? Xbox strategy has had more changes than a teenager's mood swings.
Since Asha was put in charge I judge them on ACTIONS not words
Re: Gears Of War: E-Day Releases October 2026, And It's An Xbox Console Exclusive
@Fiendish-Beaver Appreciate your thoughts here mate. Fully agree they should be a lot more open about data and stop treating us like idiots. Personally while I don't like the closures I am more understanding that it needs to happen based on the little information Asha did share on the state of Xbox.
Here's hoping Gears E-Day is a roaring success. It looks really good.
Re: Eight Games Are Leaving Xbox Game Pass In Late June 2026
Played everything I want to play on that list. Love to see it! No one likes Game Pass FOMO
Re: Full List Of Xbox Achievements Revealed For Halo: Campaign Evolved
Looks pretty standard for Halo but also pretty tedious, lots of complete this mission with these specific skull and these conditions. If this was a new game fine, but it’s a remake of a remaster of a 25 year old game, doesn’t need many more playthroughs imo.
Re: Double Fine Reacts To Xbox Closure Rumours With Single Emoji
The emoji officially means "nervous laughter".
Fingers crossed for them.
Double Fine is a huge presence in the industry, not just cult games but also major events like Day of the Devs highlighting other indie games.
Re: Gears Of War: E-Day Releases October 2026, And It's An Xbox Console Exclusive
@Titntin Agreed, it makes little sense to keep it exclusive. But I think Asha wanted to get the Xbox fans onside knowing what is coming at the end of June (and leaked in the last few days). And with a certain crowd she has been successful (Asha-Jesus photos and all) it will be interesting to see how they feel after another clear out. High drama!
Re: Two Key Members Of Xbox Game Studios Are Stepping Down
@BAMozzy I agree with almost everything you said here, good post.
Where i’d push back is - and as you made clear - as ABK was on the decline and Xbox was already struggling then buying ABK for $69billion wasn’t a very wise move. It was always a huge gamble that hasn’t paid off.
Xbox and Xbox gamers would be far better off without it. For $69 billion what have we seen? A few CODs on Gamepass, Diablo 4, Crash 4 - that probably would have come to the service later anyway - and a few remasters. That’s about it. ABK was a huge error and with all those ABK staff made the numbers dire with little return leading to this being as bad as it is.
Re: Gears Of War: E-Day Releases October 2026, And It's An Xbox Console Exclusive
@Fiendish-Beaver As the resident Gears fan I was wondering what you felt about reports that E-Day has a budget upwards of $400 million? (As reported by Tom Henderson of Insider Gaming)
Especially with regards to this now being console exclusive they have to sell a LOT of copies... and/or make a LOT of money from MTX just to break even, let alone a profit. Even more so with marketing is on top of that.
Thoughts?
Personally it makes me worried for The Coalition, it feels like they are setting them up for a fall. Even if the game is fantastic and does comparatively well, will that be good enough. Feels a bit like Halo Infinite all over again imo.
Re: Gears Of War: E-Day Releases October 2026, And It's An Xbox Console Exclusive
@Titntin I've just seen your comment. I was pretty impressed. Both with the gameplay and the visuals.
In terms of gameplay Gears has felt quite stale to me, whereas this felt quite fresh without reinventing the wheel - it's still Gears. Being able to climb up, jump off and vault over things all looked a lot more fluid.
Visually the level of detail was extremely high, I went back and re-watched the video closely and didn't notice any visible pop-in or level of detail (LOD) changes in the distance. It's likely using UE5's Nanite properly. Other things like great lighting, and volumetric dust/fog when a hole opens up also impressed me.
(My one caveat here is we don't know what it's running on, probably a monster PC, look forward to seeing how it runs on Xbox.)
Obviously it's a highly curated vertical slice of the game and perhaps the rest of the game is more rote - we won't know until release - but having been a bit sour on gears after Judgement, 4 & 5, I was impressed and i'm now looking forward to it.
Re: Report: Multiple Xbox Studios In 'Active Negotiations' With Microsoft To Avoid Closure
Damn. I went away for a few hours to play games and this escalated quickly. Absolutely awful if true.
Re: Two Key Members Of Xbox Game Studios Are Stepping Down
@BAMozzy I agree, there are dozens of factors that have changed and made things harder for everyone.
But that also doesn’t change the simple fact that Xbox gambled when buying these companies and it hasn’t paid off. This has direct repercussions for jobs and studios.
Yes it’s true everyone is affected to differing degrees, layoffs are happening everywhere, but this is what? Xbox’s third, fourth (or is it fifth?) major round of layoffs and closures in the last few years. Thousands and thousands of staff gone and much of this was predictable.
When Microsoft were looking to buy ABK some of us were shouting loudly “mass consolidation is a bad idea” and so it has proven. They could have just consolidated what they had first and made it sustainable, instead of having to keep growing in an unsustainable way. They over reached and large scale job losses were then inevitable in a downturn, and so it proved, but because they grew at such an unsustainable rate when things were rosy they had no reserves for when markets turned bad. That’s gross mismanagement.
Re: These Are The Top 10 Xbox Backwards Compatibility Requests After 750,000 Votes
This is always the problem with player voted things, they can always be brigaded. I remember when Pewdiepie got his army to vote for a game and win at the Golden Joysticks just to prove this, or gacha games winning best player voted game at The Game Awards. (I play them, I like them, but best game, nah!)
Re: Compulsion Games Is Being Shut Down By Xbox, Says Report
Damn! While I didn't like South of Midnight's gameplay AT ALL, the music and artistry are incredible. I was genuinely excited about what they might do in future if they could just get a decent gameplay designer on board. Sad to see. Wishing all affected well.
Please don't say the other is Arkane...
Re: Rumour: Journalist Suggests Two Xbox Studios Are 'At Risk Of Being Closed' In 2026
@Bob_Tempura Agreed. Double Fine have put out 3 games already this gen. Their big one Psychonauts 2 seemed to do pretty well with both critics and fans. Then 2 smaller games. Keeper was excellent.
@FraserG FAAARK! While I didn't like South of Midnights gameplay AT ALL, the rest of it was incredible and I was genuinely excited about what they might do in future if they could just get a decent gameplay designer on board.
Please not Arkane!!!
Re: 'We Have To Turn This Into A Sustainable Business' - Microsoft CEO Discusses Future Of Xbox
@Fiendish-Beaver But we know the average user buys less than 2 games a year. See here. This has also been reported elsewhere. We enthusiasts often buy more per month than the average gamer buys per year. Xbox is trying to increase the average annual spend of all those users by splitting it into an affordable monthly fee.
Re: Rumour: Journalist Suggests Two Xbox Studios Are 'At Risk Of Being Closed' In 2026
@LaurenceJ1987 Agreed Keeper is fantastic. Unique and memorable.
Re: Rumour: Journalist Suggests Two Xbox Studios Are 'At Risk Of Being Closed' In 2026
While I don't want any studios to close my HOPE is if they do then it will some at ABK, and I think there is some merit to this. The last two rounds of Xbox closures have primarily been Xbox Game Studios and Zenimax teams, it was always expected ABK may be next on the cutting board. So perhaps something like Demonware, High Moon Studios or Beenox - effectively COD support teams. Or perhaps one of the teams at Blizzard.
My biggest fear is Arkane.
Re: Two Key Members Of Xbox Game Studios Are Stepping Down
@Dart-TheRedDragoon Sadly Xbox gambled on buying Zenimax and then ABK but that gamble hasn't paid off. They were hoping for a lot more Game Pass subscribers with games like COD and Starfield added to the service but that just hasn't happened.
They then tried to go multiplatform to cover some of that expense but the numbers just don't add up right now and they need to shed some staff to balance the books and return to profit.
Sad to see, but that's the hard business reality. Fingers crossed for all affected.
Re: Fable Developer Highlights The Pros & Cons Of Delaying To February 2027
Will February stay that way? There are already 3 other large AAA games releasing in February and we are 8 months away. I suspect February will end up similarly busy.
Re: 'We Have To Turn This Into A Sustainable Business' - Microsoft CEO Discusses Future Of Xbox
@Fiendish-Beaver I agree Halo makes more sense as an exclusive than Gears in some ways, but they had already announced Halo was multiplatform and a new Gears game is more likely to keep fans clamouring for exclusives quieter than a remake of remake.
Totally agree Xbox need to be more transparent about numbers. My post #81 was about that, people would better understand changes if Microsoft were more transparent with their financials and sales metrics. But Xbox always feel like they are playing catch up, always reacting rather than picking a strategy and seeing it through. You don’t see much of the same from the competition.
Honestly I think Microsoft would rather most people subscribed to Game Pass rather than bought the game. It isn’t just the cost of one month, they want you to stay subscribed permanently, that’s how their whole business model works. Like gym fees, or Netflix where you might not use it every month but most don’t cancel. That’s where their price hike failed, it moved too many people from “let’s just stay subscribed, I might use it next month” to “I will cancel and resubscribe when there’s a game I want to play”.
Regular dependable revenue from subscriptions is exactly what they want. Managing subscriber churn is one of the the most important metrics for any subscription and they failed, hence the massive price cut. Let’s not forget a years Game Pass is much more than most would have spent on Xbox in a year. (I know you many here are different)
Re: These Are The Top 10 Xbox Backwards Compatibility Requests After 750,000 Votes
Non franchise and delisted games lists are where it's at.
Re: 'We Have To Turn This Into A Sustainable Business' - Microsoft CEO Discusses Future Of Xbox
@Fiendish-Beaver We are more in line then I thought then.
I don't think you can instantaneously see results by changing strategy like removing Day 1 games on Game Pass, it takes time for new plans to take root, there are no short cuts. If Game Pass wasn't their future then we wouldn't have seen Asha slash prices to bring back subscribers, they want it to work, they need it to work.
It is possible to see quick results in financials but that requires more negative things like cutting wage bills, which is what we will see in the short term. Job losses and studio closures.
I also don't think exclusives are the answer in the short term. They can do with every penny they can make right now. Xbox have made a token amount of games exclusive to try and appease fans in the short term as it was their #1 request and Asha is good at PR and "hears ya!"... but the numbers just don't work out for them to have many exclusives right now. I would expect these at a trickle for now.
But as Asha said IF the state of the business improves then we might see more, I believe they would like to, and I expect that is the longer term plan. See if they can recover into better profitably and then slowly add more and more exclusives as their finances allow. I have no doubt if the tables were turned, if they were on track to have sold 100 million consoles and their finances were in better order then we would have far more exclusives on Xbox today, but this is a long way away right now. That's the hard reality.
I think Xbox has only recently FINALLY, after over a decade of patiently waiting, got games coming at a decent rate, and given time I think that will start to have an impact both on sales revenue but also on Game Pass subs, but it won't happen overnight, and do they have time...
Helix is going to be a HUGE hurdle. Feels pretty make or break.
Re: 'We Have To Turn This Into A Sustainable Business' - Microsoft CEO Discusses Future Of Xbox
@Fiendish-Beaver I agree with large parts of your post, but I think you are dead wrong about Game Pass. What is Xbox without Game Pass? At the start of the gen what was Xbox's one unique selling point? What made people on the fence choose Xbox over PlayStation or Nintendo? It was Game Pass and Day 1 games.
If they have sold around 35 million consoles now, how many do you think they would they have sold without Game Pass? I'd posit maybe half that, at which point how many third party publishers would still even port games for a console with less than 20 million units? That is getting into Wii U & PS Vita territory and it all starts to spiral outside your control. It makes gamers choose other consoles.
I honestly think without Game Pass the Series S|X generation would already be over, possibly taking Xbox with it. Counter to your point I believe Game Pass saved Xbox. And Game Pass is still their USP.
But I agree the current plan isn't working. We agree on that.
Yet where we differ is this. The problem isn't Day 1 games on Game Pass, the problem is they grew too fast for the number of subscribers they had. They gambled and hoped buying Zenimax, buying ABK, putting COD, Starfield etc. on Game Pass would give them a huge increase to subscribers - remember the 100 million subscribers leaked emails - but this never happened. Instead they added around 15,000+ staff to the Xbox wage bill but only saw a comparatively small increase to subscriber revenue. The numbers no longer work.
Instead of getting rid of Day 1 games they need to restructure their studios to work with Game Pass at their subscriber retention level and only increase this if their subscribers or income goes up to match. The numbers can still work but not with so many staff and studios.
Xbox has already sacked over 10,000 staff over the last few years but these were mostly from XGS and Zenimax, I would expect the next round to come mostly from ABK, as well as failing studios. Right-sizing is a term people don't like, but it's also accurate, Xbox needs to be the right size for their business model to work.
EDIT: To be clear I don't want job losses or studio closures, but Xbox gambled and lost, they now need to shrink to make the numbers work, it is the only sensible way forward.
Re: 'We Have To Turn This Into A Sustainable Business' - Microsoft CEO Discusses Future Of Xbox
@eduscxbox As long as Microsoft keeps deliberately obfuscating all their financials and other metrics then rumours of how the business is doing and whether Xbox or Game Pass is profitable, or even sustainable will always remain. They need to be more open and honest about their financials imo.
E.g. If you look at the investor portals of Nintendo, or Sony's you can view in depth financial data including revenue, profit and many metrics showing how each of these businesses are doing.
This includes includes simple things like consoles sold each quarter, or software units sold, but also break downs on precisely how much income different segments of each division are doing. E.g. We know PS+ (Network Services) made 763 billion Yen, around $4.7bn USD, last financial year which was up 14% YoY. While they don't break down precise Profit & Loss statements for each segment we do know major things like exactly what Nintendo and PlayStation's profit margins are.
And crucially because they publish exactly the same metrics every single quarter we can see how the business is doing quarter to quarter, year on year and generation to generation.
Meanwhile Microsoft is VERY secretive and changes what data they hand out every quarter - they only show what they want you to know. It's almost never the same metrics so you can't really see how each segment is doing year on year except when they want to show you that.
And even when they are a little more open, like Asha was this week, they often don't use a standardised term like "net profit margin", they use their own custom key performance indicator (KPI) like "accountability margin" that could frankly mean anything as we don't know what is, and what isn't, included in that.
Hopefully a part of their XBOX RESET will be more openness and clarity so we can actually see where they are and the scope of what needs to change.
Re: 'We Have To Turn This Into A Sustainable Business' - Microsoft CEO Discusses Future Of Xbox
eduscxbox wrote:
If only it were that simple.
How did Hellblade 2, South of Midnight, Keeper, Kiln, Minecraft Legends, Battletoads, Bleeding Edge, Towerborne etc do for Microsoft? They all reportedly struggled and failed to match expectations. In fact AA is the part of the industry struggling the most to break through at the moment.
When you add in larger games like Outer Worlds 2, Forza Motorsport, Avowed, Ninja Gaiden 4 etc. that also failed to hit their targets it gets more grim. The big worry for me is that Xbox will see most of those that failed as single player games and push more towards live services.
Especially with live service successes like Sea of Thieves, Grounded & Forza Horizon, as well as other ever present live services like CoD, Minecraft, WoW, Diablo, Halo & Gears all succeeding. I genuinely hope that isn't the case, but it's the single player games that are failing disproportionately for Xbox. Fingers crossed Fable, Clockwork Revolution and others all buck this trend.
Re: 10+ Games That Have Been Revealed For Xbox Game Pass In 2027 Already
There's at least 9 or 10 I want to play there, assuming even half pay off that would pay for Game Pass on it's own even before the hundreds of other games.
Also didn't know, or didn't remember, the Expanse game was coming to Game Pass. That's brilliant.
Re: Roundup: The Results From Our Xbox Games Showcase 2026 Predictions
I'd argue that bringing back first party exclusives, even if it's just two, is about as major a new Xbox initiative as we were likely to get.
As others have said Crazy Taxi fits the bill. Also while Spyro isn't an OG Xbox IP, it is an OG Xbox-ERA IP. Long time fans are eating it up!
@FraserG Give yourself 2 more points imo!
Re: Six Games Are Confirmed For Xbox Game Pass In July 2026 So Far
Cool to see Wuthering Waves finally coming to Xbox… though it’s Free 2 Play not sure how it’s “coming to Game Pass”.
Hopefully like Genshin they will have some Xbox exclusive rewards I can login via Cloud to collect.
Re: Microsoft Has Considered 'Spinning Out Or Restructuring' Xbox, Claims Report
@TrollOfWar Indeed! I was thinking about that as I read this.
Yet I still don't think it's a good idea for Xbox, their developers or fans. In fact I think it's even worse now we know their financials are in such a bad place. But I could understand more why Microsoft might want to do it.
I hope it's just speculation and something being considered but not acted upon.
Re: Microsoft Has Considered 'Spinning Out Or Restructuring' Xbox, Claims Report
This sounds good on paper… but if it were really that simple why isn't everyone doing it? Some of the things Asha has suggested about streamlining workflows and combining code bases remind me of what Ubisoft did over a decade ago which ended up limiting creativity and homogenising development… look where it got them. Learn from History.
Obviously we want good games faster and not to have to wait a decade or two for a new Elder Scrolls or Fallout… but i don't think you can bring a software like efficiency workflow into the creative space so easily without some repercussions. Be careful what you wish for.
Re: Microsoft Has Considered 'Spinning Out Or Restructuring' Xbox, Claims Report
I hope it doesn’t happen as we Xbox fans would suffer as would many devs as they gut studios in even more ways to try and turn a larger profit.
If Xbox were spun out investors aren’t going to be happy with the 3% margin Asha reported a day or two ago when not propped up by Microsoft’s other divisions doing 30% - 40%. Make no mistake it would be DIRE for Xbox in the short term, and make it much harder to turn things around.
Additionally as someone pointed out the 3% margin Asha reported wasn’t actually a 3% PROFIT margin, it was a 3% ACCOUNTABILITY margin which is their own internal KPI that likely doesn’t include some losses. i.e. it’s probably lower than a 3% profit margin in reality. It’s even possible that Xbox isn’t even turning a profit currently when all factors are involved.
Sad to see, but also not surprising when you see reports like Windows Central on how many of Xbox’s recent games have failed to meet expectations, both in sales and on Game Pass engagement and retention. Sadly a lot of bad news for Xbox.
Re: Xbox & Activision Reveal Campaign Early Access Details For Call Of Duty: MW4
I’ll probably play the campaign in a year when it hits game pass. I’m already several years behind!
Re: Xbox CCO Explains Why Marvel's Blade & Elder Scrolls 6 Didn't Appear At The Showcase
If it's not coming in the next 12 months then I don't think it's worth showing in the showcase... assuming you have plenty else to show, and they did. Xbox cooked.
Re: Xbox Announces New System Update To Address Forza Horizon 6 Save Issues
I forgot about this (goes to turn off Quick Resume for Forza) thanks for the reminder.
Re: Xbox Leaders Outline Five 'Realities' That Will Be Addressed Over The Next 100 Days
McKeownPlayz wrote:
I don't think that's true. Xbox had virtually no first-party studios when Mattrick left. Xbox was a husk.
Whereas Asha has the opposite problem, Xbox is making a lot of revenue today, but it is also too bloated, she needs to make cuts and streamline it to make it more profitable. But they have many studios now making a steady run of good games. That hard work is done.
They are different problems to solve but I think it's much easier, and should be quicker, to make cuts to Xbox to make it profitable than it was to build up all those studios again as Phil did. E.g. It took 5+ years for some of those studios to start putting out games and around a decade to get to the point today where Xbox had a steady flow of games from their studios, that was much harder work imo.
Re: Xbox Network Servers Are Down Worldwide, Fix In The Works (June 12)
@ElectricWizard Not noticed that. But I do the short boot (as I need the power on functions for remote access) and by the time my TV boots up via HDMI-CEC I don't usually see the Xbox boot logo it's already on the Xbox dashboard or atuo-signing in.
Re: Xbox Leaders Outline Five 'Realities' That Will Be Addressed Over The Next 100 Days
@IllusiveMan Good post. I agree with most of it. Also tagged @BleedingDreamer @Stocksy as you both seemed interested.
However the biggest problem is that Xbox simply got too big too fast through acquisitions. Too many staff and too large a wage bill. I think Game Pass could have still worked out as it was... but not with all ABK, Zenimax and Xbox Game Studios games on it Day 1 (plus a lot of third parties). They grew too fast too soon and the number of subscribers didn't increase to meet that new wage bill.
Also regarding whether multiplatform or exclusives are "the right path". I think there's short term and long term. If exclusives were clearly the right path Xbox wouldn't have just announced all their new games, except Gears and Clock Rev, were going multiplatform. In terms of revenue, profit and loss it's clear they need multiplatform for now. As Asha said as the business gets more healthy they will look to try and do more exclusives. But effectively for now that isn't possible. Long term maybe... if the business improves.
But it feels a bit chicken and egg to me, for the business to improve they likely need more exclusives, but can't afford to do more while the business is still weak and only at a 3% accountability margin.
More widely I totally agree these CEO's are not the Messiah!
Re: Xbox Network Servers Are Down Worldwide, Fix In The Works (June 12)
Just tried logging in plus booting up a game and have no issues, but that doesn't mean it's completely fixed.
Re: Xbox's 30-Minute Fable Gameplay Is Getting Great Feedback, Aside From Minor Concerns
Removed
Re: Xbox's 30-Minute Fable Gameplay Is Getting Great Feedback, Aside From Minor Concerns
It looks fantastic, each showing builds upon the last. Fingers crossed they pull it off.
Re: Here's Your First Look At Gameplay For Clutch, Releasing On Xbox In Spring 2027
Looks really promising and that is an excellent video highlighting it. Good job all around.
Re: Xbox Leaders Outline Five 'Realities' That Will Be Addressed Over The Next 100 Days
@demian She said half decade, which is how long a next gen console tales to plan, they start as soon as the current console releases. And she alluded to next gen the paragraph before when she said "and as we plan for the 2027 holiday season", that seems pretty clear she is referencing Helix there. Though some of it is deliberately vague and open to interpretation.
Re: Xbox Leaders Outline Five 'Realities' That Will Be Addressed Over The Next 100 Days
@TrollOfWar Could be, it's unclear, but Asha was specifically talking about hardware prices being 5x in 2027 which is when Helix is expected to launch. Hence I lean towards it being that.
Regardless of whether that was what she meant it's still all an issue.
I can possibly believe they can't hit demand because it was clear they reduced Xbox production massively over the last few years, it's not as simple as just wanting more, it takes time to ramp up again.