@NishimaruX @Skinny-Pete It used to be you could release a game and if it didn't do so well, no problem, go again and hope you do better next time. And many games only took a few years to make. But games cost so much to make now, and take so long, that if a game fails it often fails HARD, there often isn't a second chance anymore. Add to that more studios than ever before, releasing more games, and we see a lot more studios failing, that is all news. Sad to see so much of it, but also just the reality, too many games, the industry can't support them all.
@Boogaloo_Jenkins It really depends on the size of your team. If you have a publisher etc.
But if you are self publishing and sold your game for £17.99 and sold 200k copies that would make almost £4 million in revenue. Take off Steam fees and business taxes and you are still left with around £2 million. Obviously there are other costs, there may be engine and other licensing fees as well as office rental, insurance etc. Yet if your team is only a few people that can still be a healthy profit, possibly enough to fund the next project.
If you are primarily a solo dev and hire a few people freelance to do a few things you can't then you can make a profit on far fewer sales.
@Skinny-Pete I do get you. I've felt the same in the past. I suppose all I can suggest is pick and choose which articles you click on if you don't want the negative business ones. Or start a "games only" chat thread on the forum and tag a few people, if there isn't already one.
Most of us would much prefer to be talking about loads of great games releasing this week, and Xbox doing great... but that just isn't the reality, THIS is the big news this week and PX just reports on what is happening in the world of Xbox.
@Skinny-Pete I can understand being bored of all the business chatter, but there’s other articles about games as they have news, and a whole forum to discuss games, or anything, the rest of the time.
This is an article about Xbox’s business strategy in closing a studio so it’s appropriate that’s what we’re discussing that here.
But we also don’t know who that Xbox is yet either
You are right. As I said yesterday we will have to judge them by their actions not their words, but actions will take a long time to see. In the meantime they have said they are focusing on their core franchises... personally that isn't what I want.
This is why I want to see Xbox do well and why the business side of things is so important. If Xbox is doing well they will take more risks; greenlight a wider variety of games; and keep funding a wider range of studios. When they are not we get... this.
(The same goes for Sony and others in the industry right now)
As for the creatives v shareholders discussion we've already been here for decades. You can't make games that cost $25 million, $100 million, let alone more without serious financial support. There has already been an uneasy alliance when artists and finances mix, but I don't think it has to be oil and water, the two can mix successfully.
This is what Thomas Mahler (Ori Director) was alluding to yesterday about Xbox backing their creatives. It is what Swen Vincke was talking about in his TGA GOTY speech, that you have to trust your creatives to make the game they want to make and play themselves, and when you do the rewards will come.
But it's also not that easy, good games sometimes fail and creatives can get carried away and need reigning in to hit budgets and targets. It's hard to get this balance right.
@IronMan30 Hellblade 2 was very divisive, it really depends what you like. Worth a try imo, especially if you have Game Pass.
Personally I liked aspects of it, but if you stripped away the stunning visuals it has exceptionally shallow gameplay that got boring even in a very short game. Some don't like that at all. It also ended abruptly just as it was getting interesting imo.
I didn't think it was bad, just disappointing, mostly as it was a step down from the first game in most aspects. But it's short and I still found it worth playing. I'd recommend finding out yourself, some love it, maybe you will too.
@Gabrie Similar to what @somnambulance said I think you can be interested both in games and the business side as they are directly linked. Whether these companies succeed or fail is important because it affects us consumers and what games we get to play.
Case in point. If Xbox were in a better financial position they would be keeping hold of all the studios making the - in my opinion - more interesting games like Double Fine, Arkane or Tango Gameworks etc? Instead these have been gutted, closed or are possibly up for sale.
And because they aren't doing so well they will focus on their staples like Halo, Gears, Forza & COD. To me that is less interesting, I've played these series to death and while I am interested in the next games in the franchise they aren't as exciting to me as say Clockwork Revolution from Inexile, or Blade from Arkane. Hence I have an interest in their success.
My most anticipated game from Xbox (until Elder Scrolls) is Fable. But would Xbox have even greenlighted a new Fable after so long if they were in this dire financial position 5+ years ago? Probably not. You see the business side of things directly impacts the games we get to play, that's just one reason why it matters.
Play games by night, but discuss them here by day when I can't play.
@fatpunkslim You do realise Jason Schreier at Bloomberg reported on the closures? This hasn't come from ragebaiters and grifters online. He is a proper journalist who always gets information from multiple verified sources before publishing anything on Bloomberg, if he says something like this is happening, it is happening. He posted:
Several studios in Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox gaming division, including Montreal-based Compulsion Games and San Francisco-based Double Fine, are in active negotiations to spin off as they try to thwart closure, according to people familiar with the company’s plans.
Cambridge, England-based Ninja Theory, the maker of Hellblade, is also in conversations with Xbox, as are several other studios across the portfolio that are at risk of being shuttered.
What is there to doubt?
Microsoft can't speak yet because they don't know exactly what's going to happen, they are negotiating with studios now and trying to see what they can arrange. We will know around the end of their financial year, June 30th, if not before.
@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 well 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.
Comments 8,931
Re: Report: Xbox Already Planned To 'Sunset Or Split With' Ninja Theory Before Senua Reveal
@NishimaruX @Skinny-Pete It used to be you could release a game and if it didn't do so well, no problem, go again and hope you do better next time. And many games only took a few years to make. But games cost so much to make now, and take so long, that if a game fails it often fails HARD, there often isn't a second chance anymore. Add to that more studios than ever before, releasing more games, and we see a lot more studios failing, that is all news. Sad to see so much of it, but also just the reality, too many games, the industry can't support them all.
Re: Impressive New Xbox Game Loses Its Entire Dev Team After A Month
@Boogaloo_Jenkins It really depends on the size of your team. If you have a publisher etc.
But if you are self publishing and sold your game for £17.99 and sold 200k copies that would make almost £4 million in revenue. Take off Steam fees and business taxes and you are still left with around £2 million. Obviously there are other costs, there may be engine and other licensing fees as well as office rental, insurance etc. Yet if your team is only a few people that can still be a healthy profit, possibly enough to fund the next project.
If you are primarily a solo dev and hire a few people freelance to do a few things you can't then you can make a profit on far fewer sales.
Re: Report: Xbox Already Planned To 'Sunset Or Split With' Ninja Theory Before Senua Reveal
@Skinny-Pete I do get you. I've felt the same in the past. I suppose all I can suggest is pick and choose which articles you click on if you don't want the negative business ones. Or start a "games only" chat thread on the forum and tag a few people, if there isn't already one.
Most of us would much prefer to be talking about loads of great games releasing this week, and Xbox doing great... but that just isn't the reality, THIS is the big news this week and PX just reports on what is happening in the world of Xbox.
Re: Impressive New Xbox Game Loses Its Entire Dev Team After A Month
It’s so fast it feels like the decision was likely made before launch. It’s reviewed well, though good reviews don’t always equate to good sales
Re: Report: Xbox Already Planned To 'Sunset Or Split With' Ninja Theory Before Senua Reveal
@Skinny-Pete I can understand being bored of all the business chatter, but there’s other articles about games as they have news, and a whole forum to discuss games, or anything, the rest of the time.
This is an article about Xbox’s business strategy in closing a studio so it’s appropriate that’s what we’re discussing that here.
Re: Report: Xbox Already Planned To 'Sunset Or Split With' Ninja Theory Before Senua Reveal
somnambulance wrote:
You are right. As I said yesterday we will have to judge them by their actions not their words, but actions will take a long time to see. In the meantime they have said they are focusing on their core franchises... personally that isn't what I want.
This is why I want to see Xbox do well and why the business side of things is so important. If Xbox is doing well they will take more risks; greenlight a wider variety of games; and keep funding a wider range of studios. When they are not we get... this.
(The same goes for Sony and others in the industry right now)
As for the creatives v shareholders discussion we've already been here for decades. You can't make games that cost $25 million, $100 million, let alone more without serious financial support. There has already been an uneasy alliance when artists and finances mix, but I don't think it has to be oil and water, the two can mix successfully.
This is what Thomas Mahler (Ori Director) was alluding to yesterday about Xbox backing their creatives. It is what Swen Vincke was talking about in his TGA GOTY speech, that you have to trust your creatives to make the game they want to make and play themselves, and when you do the rewards will come.
But it's also not that easy, good games sometimes fail and creatives can get carried away and need reigning in to hit budgets and targets. It's hard to get this balance right.
Re: Report: Xbox Already Planned To 'Sunset Or Split With' Ninja Theory Before Senua Reveal
@IronMan30 Hellblade 2 was very divisive, it really depends what you like. Worth a try imo, especially if you have Game Pass.
Personally I liked aspects of it, but if you stripped away the stunning visuals it has exceptionally shallow gameplay that got boring even in a very short game. Some don't like that at all. It also ended abruptly just as it was getting interesting imo.
I didn't think it was bad, just disappointing, mostly as it was a step down from the first game in most aspects. But it's short and I still found it worth playing. I'd recommend finding out yourself, some love it, maybe you will too.
Re: Report: Xbox Already Planned To 'Sunset Or Split With' Ninja Theory Before Senua Reveal
@Gabrie Similar to what @somnambulance said I think you can be interested both in games and the business side as they are directly linked. Whether these companies succeed or fail is important because it affects us consumers and what games we get to play.
Case in point. If Xbox were in a better financial position they would be keeping hold of all the studios making the - in my opinion - more interesting games like Double Fine, Arkane or Tango Gameworks etc? Instead these have been gutted, closed or are possibly up for sale.
And because they aren't doing so well they will focus on their staples like Halo, Gears, Forza & COD. To me that is less interesting, I've played these series to death and while I am interested in the next games in the franchise they aren't as exciting to me as say Clockwork Revolution from Inexile, or Blade from Arkane. Hence I have an interest in their success.
My most anticipated game from Xbox (until Elder Scrolls) is Fable. But would Xbox have even greenlighted a new Fable after so long if they were in this dire financial position 5+ years ago? Probably not. You see the business side of things directly impacts the games we get to play, that's just one reason why it matters.
Play games by night, but discuss them here by day when I can't play.
Re: Report: Xbox Already Planned To 'Sunset Or Split With' Ninja Theory Before Senua Reveal
@fatpunkslim You do realise Jason Schreier at Bloomberg reported on the closures? This hasn't come from ragebaiters and grifters online. He is a proper journalist who always gets information from multiple verified sources before publishing anything on Bloomberg, if he says something like this is happening, it is happening. He posted:
What is there to doubt?
Microsoft can't speak yet because they don't know exactly what's going to happen, they are negotiating with studios now and trying to see what they can arrange. We will know around the end of their financial year, June 30th, if not before.
Re: Report: Xbox Already Planned To 'Sunset Or Split With' Ninja Theory Before Senua Reveal
At the end of the day if it helps Ninja Theory live on after Xbox then it was a good move.
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 well 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.