Microsoft Earnings Q4 2022

[Hezekiah]

Not even increased, “there was growth” which could mean literally anything. More people playing xcloud, more people downloading games, longer playtime. Etc.

You know if they were substantially growing in actual subscriptions they would just say that because why wouldn’t they? They are very on the nose when they hit their goals.


No where did I imply i was “worried” about Microsoft losing money. Since this is a thread specifically about Microsofts financials i was factoring in how they would release their games in relation to their subscription strategy.

Yeah if it was anywhere near 30m they would have given the number.

Then again their first-party slate is bare so there's probably a lot of people who have dropped it and wont touch it again until the winter at the earliest.

 

[IntentionalPun]

Not even increased, “there was growth” which could mean literally anything. More people playing xcloud, more people downloading games, longer playtime. Etc.

It's revenue.. it can't literally mean anything else when the sentence was about revenue lol

Unless you think they are so full of shit they actually mean "Revenue is down, but (our hurt feelings) are offset by gamepass growth."

 

[DarkMage619]

Funny how Sony has no issue giving game sales, Nintendo too.

Same goes for hardware sales.

Last week we didn't even get GamePass numbers from MS, just that it increased lol.

But some little weasels feel the need to damage control whenever the matter of sales pops up. Like it's a source of personal embarrassment or something

Oh there is something embarrassing alright. Regardless Xbox seems to be doing mighty fine and the extra competition will do the industry good.

No where did I imply i was “worried” about Microsoft losing money. Since this is a thread specifically about Microsofts financials i was factoring in how they would release their games in relation to their subscription ststrategy.

How were you factoring in how they would release their games? Their first party titles hit Game pass day and date. What is there to be confused about?

 

[Gods&Monsters]

Regardless Xbox seems to be doing mighty fine and the extra competition will do the industry good.

Buying publishers and franchises that were already coming to Xbox and blocking them on other platforms is not "competition" so you can drop that line. It's good for MS and that's all you care about.

 

[Remember_Spinal]

Oh there is something embarrassing alright. Regardless Xbox seems to be doing mighty fine and the extra competition will do the industry good.


How were you factoring in how they would release their games? Their first party titles hit Game pass day and date. What is there to be confused about?

Because they released both halo and forza for early access and the latter cost 100 dollars to play it early

I think that will be part of Microsofts strategy to still get big pre order sales with early access before officially launching it on gamepass. I also feel like that time frame will expand.

FOMO will work its magic and they will get their big sales and get to still say its launching day 1 on gamepass

 

[DarkMage619]

Buying publishers and franchises that were already coming to Xbox and blocking them on other platforms is not "competition" so you can drop that line. It's good for MS and that's all you care about.

Name a game that was planned for PlayStation that MS canceled. MS has been far more accommodating to PlayStation by putting their IP on PlayStation where Sony never puts their IP on Xbox and in fact blocks 3rd party IP FROM Xbox as well.

Because they released both halo and forza for early access and the latter cost 100 dollars to play it early

I think that will be part of Microsofts strategy to still get big pre order sales with early access before officially launching it on gamepass. I also feel like that time frame will expand.

FOMO will work its magic and they will get their big sales and get to still say its launching day 1 on gamepass

It did NOT cost $100 to play either Forza or Halo early. There was a $40 option that gave you access to the DLC and early access. The VAST majority of Xbox games hit the service day one and that's it.

 

[Remember_Spinal]

Name a game that was planned for PlayStation that MS canceled. MS has been far more accommodating to PlayStation by putting their IP on PlayStation where Sony never puts their IP on Xbox and in fact blocks 3rd party IP FROM Xbox as well.


It did NOT cost $100 to play either Forza or Halo early. There was a $40 option that gave you access to the DLC and early access. The VAST majority of Xbox games hit the service day one and that's it.

Thats a lie

Only the premium edition had early access and it was 100 dollars.

Forza Horizon 5 Early Access​

For those with the Premium Edition of Forza Horizon 5, the game launches on November 5. This version is $100, but if you have an Xbox Game Pass membership or purchased another edition and want to upgrade, you can do so for $45 (with Game Pass) or $50. In addition to getting access to the game early, you'll also get access to two future expansions, more cards, and a VIP membership.

 

[Gods&Monsters]

Name a game that was planned for PlayStation that MS canceled. MS has been far more accommodating to PlayStation by putting their IP on PlayStation where Sony never puts their IP on Xbox and in fact blocks 3rd party IP FROM Xbox as well.

Starfield, Elder Scrolls 6, Redfall, Next Wolfenstein, Doom, Fallout and more. There is no reason to believe any Bethesda game wouldn't come on PS. All these games were 100% multiplatforms before MS purchase.

What IP is MS putting on PlayStation? Minecraft? It was already there and Sony was the publisher.

I'm not sure what IP you want PlayStation to release on Xbox? They never bought any before Destiny 2. How is MS "far more accommodating" when the stuff was already there

MS also blocks 3rd party IP from Sony, they're not innocent.

 

[Remember_Spinal]

Starfield, Elder Scrolls 6, Redfall, Next Wolfenstein, Doom, Fallout and more. There is no reason to believe any Bethesda game wouldn't come on PS. All these games were 100% multiplatforms before MS purchase.

What IP is MS putting on PlayStation? Minecraft? It was already there and Sony was the publisher.

I'm not sure what IP you want PlayStation to release on Xbox? They never bought any before Destiny 2. How is MS "far more accommodating" when the stuff was already there

MS also blocks 3rd party IP from Sony, they're not innocent.

They are delusional,

“Yeah, but sony should put uncharted and god of war on xbox its only fair since Minecraft is on playstation!”

Tell xbox to make their own games

 

[Dr Bass]

They are delusional,

“Yeah, but sony should put uncharted and god of war on xbox its only fair since Minecraft is on playstation!”

Tell xbox to make their own games

Heck, they stole Halo from Apple.

 

[Hezekiah]

Oh there is something embarrassing alright. Regardless Xbox seems to be doing mighty fine and the extra competition will do the industry good.


How were you factoring in how they would release their games? Their first party titles hit Game pass day and date. What is there to be confused about?

Xbox is doing mighty fine - it's just that actual profit margins, and software and hardware sales numbers will remain hidden

Embarrassing is the word. Not to mention those people running damage control on multiple forums....

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

People have been claiming that the Xbox will need to bring in profits to justify its existence for 2 decades. It's still here and now it's getting more investment than ever. Xbox just had its biggest quarter ever why would they change what they are doing? Also there is no need to 'recoup' the costs of ABK and Bethesda because it's much better to have additional IP and talent to create content than cash which in the current climate is losing value.

But it's a bit different now, because MS have never invested into Xbox (via GamePass) to THIS degree. They've never spent ~ $80 billion in the span of two years on Xbox before, in fact I don't think these investments are purely about just Xbox if we're being 100%.

I think part of these investments is also about Azure, and getting clients in gaming for Azure tech. The usual markets MS have been leveraging for Azure expansion are slowing due to market saturation, but gaming? That's a big blue ocean for more Azure clients, and investments into GamePass (which is powered by Azure) just also happen to benefit Xbox in some ways, too.

You can see this with the Sega partnership; yeah Xbox is getting quite a few Sega/Atlus games to GamePass now and quite a few Day 1 games, but the real reason that partnership was announced? Because it's a big get for Azure in the Japanese gaming market as far as a new client using their cloud services and technologies. And, along the way, they're getting some deals in for Xbox too I suppose.

So I think you're actually right in the sense that Xbox as the gaming division, doesn't need to really make back in profit the costs of these acquisitions, but I do think it has to start bearing fruit. Just that, ironically, I think that's going to (potentially) be in the form of new gaming-centric Azure cloud service/tech clients. Because those companies are going to leverage Azure over the long term, which is recurring revenue and also clients in new markets MS can boast when they talk up Azure in fiscal results to investors, and THEN they pivot and say that Xbox's presence in the gaming market is what helped "open the door" for having these new clients, justifying the division's existence to investors.

I almost 100% guarantee this is exactly the pitch Phil Spencer made to Satya Nadella to salvage the Xbox brand back in 2017 and to encourage these massive investments. However, the success really comes down to how many clients they can get, and how much recurring money those new clients can give them and over what period of time. If that's looking good, then Xbox will have done its job.

And really, it makes perfect sense then why MS called out companies like Google as being such big threats. Even now, while Stadia is dead to most gamers, the Stadia cloud technology is very much alive and well, and Google's still looking to get clients (game devs and pubs in gaming) to use it. Each one who does, is one less potential Azure client. MS would say the same about Oracle or IBM if they were looking for game studios for their own cloud tech, but they aren't (yet). It's why they mentioned Amazon as a threat, too.

But none of that does (or, it shouldn't do) anything to minimize the presence of Sony (and Nintendo) for Microsoft along the way of all of that. And, I think both of those companies are pretty aware of that, in fact I think those recent quotes from Haven Studios shows that they & Sony are aware to some extent, how much Azure really is factoring into MS's investments and that it could present its own threat to them, hence their talk about a cloud-based development pipeline, hence even acquisitions of companies like Bungie. Combined with Sony's ICE teams and their tech, they'll probably want to start providing those as development solutions for 3P partners so that they have to turn to solutions like Azure as little as possible.

So uh...yeah

They are gonna lose a lot of money putting those huge games on gamepass. I guarantee they do a early access preorder deal for them to recoup those day one purchases.

Yep, pretty much what they did with Forza Horizon 5 but I can see the early access for COD being a full month before going into GP. It worked for FH5, should work even better for COD.

Does MS report how many copies of Windows OS they sell? If they report one and not the other perhaps a conspiracy is afoot! I'd also be curious to see if Apple reports the number of iPhones they sell. If they aren't reporting them clearly they have something to hide!

Well, Sony doesn't report smartphone numbers either, and we know part of that is because the smartphone sales aren't great. Funny mentioning Windows; Windows 11 adoption has actually been VERY slow compared to what MS estimated and some other analysts expected. They (MS) had to adjust some of their approach to W11 in order to encourage further adoption.

I've got a laptop perfectly fit for W11 but still haven't felt a need to update, and I'm pretty sure there are many people on W10 who feel the same way. Doesn't help early talks showed worst performance vs. W10 and removing the Start button, and not that far back I heard about them testing a rollout for ads in File Explorer which...well no no one wants that

Halo Infinite seems to show multi-player will be available for free and the campaign will be on Game pass. I don't seem them doing much else.

Halo Infinite is a bit of an exception because TBH I don't think MS felt the game was going to sell very well at retail when the MP was being formatted for F2P anyway. They probably also felt the game wouldn't of sold particularly well in general given the negative reception following the 2020 E3 showing, and maybe internally feeling that not enough necessarily changed between then and the actual release to take a different option.

So, for some wider adoption of the campaign, they likely decided to include it in GamePass. The difference with COD is, they KNOW that's going to sell, sell massively, and do so at full price. The support will absolutely be there at retail and Microsoft knows this. Hence I strongly doubt the campaign will be in GamePass (at least on Day 1) and I think @Themaskedcrag 's idea on what they'll do is a good one.

 

[Papacheeks]

Xbox is doing mighty fine - it's just that actual profit margins, and software and hardware sales numbers will remain hidden

Embarrassing is the word. Not to mention those people running damage control on multiple forums....

Can we stop the petty shit flinging.

@DarkMage619

Both of you there are ways to discuss things without sounding like you are 5.

 

[Gods&Monsters]

Name a game that was planned for PlayStation that MS canceled. MS has been far more accommodating to PlayStation by putting their IP on PlayStation where Sony never puts their IP on Xbox and in fact blocks 3rd party IP FROM Xbox as well.

Starfield, Elder Scrolls 6, Redfall, Next Wolfenstein, Doom, Fallout and more. There is no reason to believe any Bethesda game wouldn't come on PS. All these games were 100% multiplatforms before MS purchase.

What IP is MS putting on PlayStation? Minecraft? It was already there and Sony was the publisher.

I'm not sure what IP you want PlayStation to release on Xbox? They never bought any before Destiny 2. How is MS "far more accommodating" when the stuff was already there

MS also blocks 3rd party IP from Sony, they're not innocent.

The poop story reminded me that you can add Hellblade 2 to the list. Hellblade 1 was timed-exclusive to PS4, the sequel was 100% coming to Playstation. Same for Outer Worlds 2.

 

[Cragarmi]

Name a game that was planned for PlayStation that MS canceled. MS has been far more accommodating to PlayStation by putting their IP on PlayStation where Sony never puts their IP on Xbox and in fact blocks 3rd party IP FROM Xbox as well.


It did NOT cost $100 to play either Forza or Halo early. There was a $40 option that gave you access to the DLC and early access. The VAST majority of Xbox games hit the service day one and that's it.

There was a PS4 early Starfield build doing the rounds in 2015, it was always planned to be cross platform until MS came along and opened their wallets.

 

[peter42O]

Sony has the biggest IP and game that was always on other platforms before making a deal to make the game exclusive - Spider Man which is bigger than any supposedly multi-platform game that Microsoft has taken away.

Microsoft buying Bethesda, Activision, Obsidian, etc. and making their games exclusive, oh well. Too fucking bad. I love people that complain about "losing" games they never had in the first place since they haven't released yet while at the same time, don't want to play them on Xbox, PC or Cloud so it's like, in my mind, these people don't even care about the games. They only care about the games not being on PlayStation which makes no sense to me. Why bitch about certain games if you're not interested in playing them or willing to do what it takes in order to do so?

In my mind, PlayStation fans who bitch about Bethesda and soon Activision among others are no different than Xbox fans who bitch about Final Fantasy or Japanese games not releasing on Xbox regardless of the reason. It's like, if you want to play the fucking game, buy the other fucking console. It's not that serious nor is it that difficult. In fact, it's pretty damn easy.

 

[Remember_Spinal]

Sony has the biggest IP and game that was always on other platforms before making a deal to make the game exclusive - Spider Man which is bigger than any supposedly multi-platform game that Microsoft has taken away.

The multiplatform publisher and licenese holder came to a disagreement, therefore no one was making spider-man games. Microsoft passed on the opportunity and sony took it in house. Thats not taking away spider-man from xbox, thats sony making a game for their platform with a licensed character.

No one took spider-man away from anything, he still appears in games outside of sony. This excuse trying to use Street Fighter or Spider-man in comparison to two of the biggest third party multiplatform publishers is weak as hell.

And only two mainline final fantasy games launched on xbox, lets not act like its been some generation defining game for them

 

[peter42O]

This excuse trying to use Street Fighter or Spider-man in comparison to two of the biggest third party multiplatform publishers is weak as hell.

Perhaps but people bitching about it all instead of just doing what is needed to play these games is even weaker in my opinion. It's like, if you truly want to play a game, the only thing that prevents anyone from doing so is themselves.

 

[Remember_Spinal]

Perhaps but people bitching about it all instead of just doing what is needed to play these games is even weaker in my opinion. It's like, if you truly want to play a game, the only thing that prevents anyone from doing so is themselves.

For me it’s annoying cause the argument always boils down to, ‘sony should put their in-house games that they built from the ground up on the competitors platform’, and that the competitor has every right to buy 3rd party studios because they won’t.

Spider-Man 2018 is as much of a Sony game as Uncharted is. That game wouldn’t be as good and wouldn’t exist the way it does if it was developed by anyone else. Playstation owners bought their console for those type of games that sony makes, they also buy them for the 3rd party games that have been coming out on their platform for generations.

Its like saying Sony should buy Bungie and make their games exclusive because Microsoft won’t allow Halo on Playstation.

I shouldn’t buy a console and then be told a large portion of games that it always got I now have to get another console for just because. With xbox players its, they bought a system tehy knew didn’t get certain games, and now are complaining about not getting them.

There was never an expectation of xbox getting more insomniac games this generation, bluepoint games, Housemarque games…etc

The only situation where i feel like they have a case with is Final Fantasy, and again they have literally taken 90% of WRPG’s off playstation. Its really an unequal balance. Almost every studio they have bought in the past 6 years were multiplatform

 

[Gods&Monsters]

For me it’s annoying cause the argument always boils down to, ‘sony should put their in-house games that they built from the ground up on the competitors platform’, and that the competitor has every right to buy 3rd party studios because they won’t.

Spider-Man 2018 is as much of a Sony game as Uncharted is. That game wouldn’t be as good and wouldn’t exist the way it does if it was developed by anyone else. Playstation owners bought their console for those type of games that sony makes, they also buy them for the 3rd party games that have been coming out on their platform for generations.

Its like saying Sony should buy Bungie and make their games exclusive because Microsoft won’t allow Halo on Playstation.

I shouldn’t buy a console and then be told a large portion of games that it always got I now have to get another console for just because. With xbox players its, they bought a system tehy knew didn’t get certain games, and now are complaining about not getting them.

There was never an expectation of xbox getting more insomniac games this generation, bluepoint games, Housemarque games…etc

The only situation where i feel like they have a case with is Final Fantasy, and again they have literally taken 90% of WRPG’s off playstation. Its really an unequal balance. Almost every studio they have bought in the past 6 years were multiplatform

Insomniac Spider-Man was never planned as a multiplatform game and there was zero relation with any of the Activision games. I'm not sure why it was even mentioned. Sony 100% funded and published it.

@DarkMage619 was shook to the core and never came back to argue his points. It's easier to leave empathy and lol emojis on GAF than argue with logic.