Former Xbox exec Mike Ybarra says it's not sustainable for Xbox if they don't embrace other platforms
- Thread starter Fenton
- Start date
Anyone with logic saying this for long time.
- consolidated so much in short period of time with massive overhead cost
- xbox’s original vision cutting out majority of the console business and sales potential/players
- xbox’s own ecosystem not buying their games which why would they pay $70 for the cheap sub fee. This has been a talking point of xbox podcast on Sony needing pc and bringing their games elsewhere as if this didnt also affect xbox.
- microsoft give. How much they have invested including their biggest acquisition wants and needs to see returns as ABK alone could take 35 years to recoup if all things maintained the same.
- consolidated so much in short period of time with massive overhead cost
- xbox’s original vision cutting out majority of the console business and sales potential/players
- xbox’s own ecosystem not buying their games which why would they pay $70 for the cheap sub fee. This has been a talking point of xbox podcast on Sony needing pc and bringing their games elsewhere as if this didnt also affect xbox.
- microsoft give. How much they have invested including their biggest acquisition wants and needs to see returns as ABK alone could take 35 years to recoup if all things maintained the same.
This time I fully agree with Mike Ybarra.
Having a gazillion teams working on a gazillion AAA titles, they better get the money from all the places they can to keep it sustainable.
Regarding the declining Xbox hardware, I'd stop losing money with it and I'd let it 3rd party hardware to make their own home and portable "Xbox" versions (PC shaped consoles running a Windows adapted for consoles).
I think it would be the strategy that would give them more revenue and profit, and the only one that would help them to fight for becoming the top grossing gaming company.
Having a gazillion teams working on a gazillion AAA titles, they better get the money from all the places they can to keep it sustainable.
Regarding the declining Xbox hardware, I'd stop losing money with it and I'd let it 3rd party hardware to make their own home and portable "Xbox" versions (PC shaped consoles running a Windows adapted for consoles).
I think it would be the strategy that would give them more revenue and profit, and the only one that would help them to fight for becoming the top grossing gaming company.
Last edited:
Xbox hasn't been sustainable since it's inception. Then you add 100B in "debt" that's what you got: A company scrambling to make actual money.
They have no other choice.
After spending 80 billion they need returns.
You are not getting that on a 30 million userbase.
A user base which expects everything on Gamepass which further kills revenue.
Thats the problem with Xbox fans. They want value for money yet expect Microsoft games to remain exclusive.
Microsoft isn’t running a charity.
Completely different situation for Sony which Xbox fans like to equate to Microsoft.
Sony want more profits. They don’t have to release Multi platform. Just greedy.
After spending 80 billion they need returns.
You are not getting that on a 30 million userbase.
A user base which expects everything on Gamepass which further kills revenue.
Thats the problem with Xbox fans. They want value for money yet expect Microsoft games to remain exclusive.
Microsoft isn’t running a charity.
Completely different situation for Sony which Xbox fans like to equate to Microsoft.
Sony want more profits. They don’t have to release Multi platform. Just greedy.
Only issue is at some point does it cross the line? Like at some point is GP longer a good value if all of Xbox games are on PS5. Might as well just get a PlayStation and save the extra $500 for and Xbox plus sub fees. And if enough people come to that same conclusion, does the hit to GP subs & Xbox Store tank their revenue more than going multiplat?
Well if xbox isnt courting new and more players to the console and adding to the subscription count along pc people, they will need to squeeze more for GP users. At what point and price do current subscribers leave and just stop interacting with xbox games and products anyway. Then there is that massive hole which was bound to happen at some point.
it is only on xbox or PC, because very few buys games on that platforms. AAA genre is dead on those platforms.
but please, stop with nonsense about Playstation or Nintendo. these platforms are healthy and they don't need to be multiplatform.
but please, stop with nonsense about Playstation or Nintendo. these platforms are healthy and they don't need to be multiplatform.
Ok, that's easy to say now, but when are people going to accept that Gamepass itself is also not sustainable in any way? The service isn't even growing anymore and it's not compelling at all to non Xbox players (a demographic that will quickly cease to exist).
He's right on the money.
The only reason people hang on to the "Exclusives will sell Xboxes" narrative is because they've ignored everything that's happened in the last decade, they don't look into market behavior, and they don't understand the world is bigger than fifty states. A quickish recap:
1) Xbox had multiple third-party console exclusives and still couldn't beat PlayStation and Nintendo. Titanfall 1, Quantum Break, The Medium, Dead Rising 3, Tomb Raider, Ryse, Sunset Overdrive, Scorn, the list goes on. If you keep spending money on a thing and you're not benefitting from it, at some point, you stop spending money on that thing. It's bizarre that diehard Xbox fans don't want to accept that Microsoft did invest in exclusives and it didn't pan out.
2) Based on all global software sales evidence -- weekly and monthly charts from Circana, GfK, and Famitsu -- Xbox first-party games are lucky to chart for more than a week, if at all. If your own software is tanking at retail, you need to figure out where you can put it where it won't tank. The answer to that question is where the Sega comparisons start to show up and stick.
3) Based on all global hardware sales evidence (from the same aforementioned tracking organizations), Xbox consoles are firmly in last place and are performing worse than the Xbox One. Exclusives can't sell Xboxes if the problem is much bigger than the availability of software. For example, for two straight generations, Xbox consoles have shipped with the same controller design from the Xbox 360 generation -- a platform that launched almost 20 years ago. If people can't see any innovation in the way to play games on your console, why would people buy your console? It's like Microsoft never noticed that both Sony and Nintendo always release their new consoles with new controllers. You're asking people to spend hundreds of dollars on your shiny new machine but you pair it with an archaic input device. It just won't work.
4) Game Pass is a service that lives and dies based on your internet connection. For some unexplainable reason, every diehard Game Pass fan believes that everyone has super fast uncapped internet that makes downloading massive games as easy as buttering bread. Nobody in Uganda has the bandwidth for Forza Horizon 5. When you think about growing your internet-required service, you look at any and all countries with an internet connection -- which at this point, it's pretty much all countries with a large population. However, when the economics of your business are also dependant on the speed and cost of the internet outside of America, you quickly realize that you've got a major problem. For some reason people ignore this reality and just can't figure out why the 'Game Pass value' doesn't translate globally, and as a result, the service has a significantly lower audience than any and all SD video streaming services. You can't be 'the Netflix of games' if people need to do math to figure out if they can use your service in their territory.
You take a good look at where Xbox is at and you quickly realize that they would be dead without Microsoft's money. You just can't sustain a multi-billion dollar business that is failing on every front on a global basis. So it makes complete sense that Xbox games will now be showing up on the healthiest console platform. What I hope diehard Xbox fans realize is that Xbox PR and their bought/unofficial mouthpieces (e.g., IGN) have deliberately been spreading misleading information in order to get blind and loud regurgitation of their nonsensical talking points. I hope these fans realize that they played a major part in making Xbox games move to PlayStation.
The only reason people hang on to the "Exclusives will sell Xboxes" narrative is because they've ignored everything that's happened in the last decade, they don't look into market behavior, and they don't understand the world is bigger than fifty states. A quickish recap:
1) Xbox had multiple third-party console exclusives and still couldn't beat PlayStation and Nintendo. Titanfall 1, Quantum Break, The Medium, Dead Rising 3, Tomb Raider, Ryse, Sunset Overdrive, Scorn, the list goes on. If you keep spending money on a thing and you're not benefitting from it, at some point, you stop spending money on that thing. It's bizarre that diehard Xbox fans don't want to accept that Microsoft did invest in exclusives and it didn't pan out.
2) Based on all global software sales evidence -- weekly and monthly charts from Circana, GfK, and Famitsu -- Xbox first-party games are lucky to chart for more than a week, if at all. If your own software is tanking at retail, you need to figure out where you can put it where it won't tank. The answer to that question is where the Sega comparisons start to show up and stick.
3) Based on all global hardware sales evidence (from the same aforementioned tracking organizations), Xbox consoles are firmly in last place and are performing worse than the Xbox One. Exclusives can't sell Xboxes if the problem is much bigger than the availability of software. For example, for two straight generations, Xbox consoles have shipped with the same controller design from the Xbox 360 generation -- a platform that launched almost 20 years ago. If people can't see any innovation in the way to play games on your console, why would people buy your console? It's like Microsoft never noticed that both Sony and Nintendo always release their new consoles with new controllers. You're asking people to spend hundreds of dollars on your shiny new machine but you pair it with an archaic input device. It just won't work.
4) Game Pass is a service that lives and dies based on your internet connection. For some unexplainable reason, every diehard Game Pass fan believes that everyone has super fast uncapped internet that makes downloading massive games as easy as buttering bread. Nobody in Uganda has the bandwidth for Forza Horizon 5. When you think about growing your internet-required service, you look at any and all countries with an internet connection -- which at this point, it's pretty much all countries with a large population. However, when the economics of your business are also dependant on the speed and cost of the internet outside of America, you quickly realize that you've got a major problem. For some reason people ignore this reality and just can't figure out why the 'Game Pass value' doesn't translate globally, and as a result, the service has a significantly lower audience than any and all SD video streaming services. You can't be 'the Netflix of games' if people need to do math to figure out if they can use your service in their territory.
You take a good look at where Xbox is at and you quickly realize that they would be dead without Microsoft's money. You just can't sustain a multi-billion dollar business that is failing on every front on a global basis. So it makes complete sense that Xbox games will now be showing up on the healthiest console platform. What I hope diehard Xbox fans realize is that Xbox PR and their bought/unofficial mouthpieces (e.g., IGN) have deliberately been spreading misleading information in order to get blind and loud regurgitation of their nonsensical talking points. I hope these fans realize that they played a major part in making Xbox games move to PlayStation.
This is all well and good but if the xbox platform dies due to going multiplatform they won't have their xbox store revenue to fall back on however small it maybe, What happens if say two of their AAA's bomb in a year which considering microsoft is most likely to happen.
What mostly will happen is we will get 50-100$ million games for gamepass from microsoft where they give an illusion of big budget games. I can bet my left nut that Perfect Dark trailer they showed is the vertical slice they developed to scam people
What mostly will happen is we will get 50-100$ million games for gamepass from microsoft where they give an illusion of big budget games. I can bet my left nut that Perfect Dark trailer they showed is the vertical slice they developed to scam people
Buddy doesnt know what he is talking about. I trust Boomstick and Colt over this guy any day.
OP
OP
It's one thing to sell game pass to people that are stuck with your console having to pay Gamepass core to access basic functionality like online, it's another thing to sell it for PC player that are used to online. On top of that, good luck trying to convince people that don't subscribe to Gamepass that they should pay full price for these games they see are included in the service.
They have positioned themselves in a way they can pretty much only lose no matter what thanks to Phil Spencer's 4D chess moves.
