Phil Spencer on what the hell is happening in the games industry, exclusives becoming a risky business & lack of growth in industry leading to layoffs

Polyh3dron

Well-known member
31 Jan 2024
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Microsoft bought up a shit ton of studios so they could outdo Sony when it came to first party exclusives, a process that has taken about 6 years after Phil conceded defeat in the wake of the God of War 2018 release.

Now that they have all this debt from these purchases, it's insane to me that they have been squandering that massive investment, but that's the problem with being part of such a big publicly traded company, it's hard to play the long game when you are subject to the whims of new executives always changing course, especially at MS.

Now though, it seems that MS is not only shifting their game publishing strategy to be platform agnostic, but they also seem hellbent on blowing up the entire idea of the walled garden console ecosystem in the process with what looks like a scorched earth strategy that would take PlayStation down in the process. If they can't dominate the console world, they will destroy it completely so the PC is the only thing left, which benefits them. A very cynical, and destructive strategy by Microsoft IMO. Good Guy Phil has lived long enough to see himself become the villain.
 

64bitmodels

Member
29 Sep 2022
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32
All the decline in consoles is due to one brand: Xbox.

The other two brands are growing.

Saying consoles in general have not grown may technically be correct, it ignores the details and shrugs off Xbox / Microsofts blame / failures onto two competitors that have been very successful in this supposedly stagnant market.

Also if 150 million customers is not enough...no number will be. You are simply not managing costs properly.

Nintendo laughing to the bank.
Playstation also were raking billions in profit.

this guy has no clue what success is. his name is Phil 'Failure' Spencer snake oil salesman.

Always wild how a very Xbox problem gets extrapolated to the entire industry lol This man is nothing if not a very slick salesman, but people are starting to see through his PR speak
He's kind of right though. There hasn't been much change in the total number of consoles sold in gaming since 2005 when 6th Gen ended. We always keep ending up at around 250+ million people.
Switch , xsxand ps5 is 210/220 million currently and we have a couple more years until the Gen ends. I will not be surprised if it ends up yet again at 260-270 million.
 

Polyh3dron

Well-known member
31 Jan 2024
371
293
He's kind of right though. There hasn't been much change in the total number of consoles sold in gaming since 2005 when 6th Gen ended. We always keep ending up at around 250+ million people.
Switch , xsxand ps5 is 210/220 million currently and we have a couple more years until the Gen ends. I will not be surprised if it ends up yet again at 260-270 million.
That's only a problem if you require infinite growth
 

Polyh3dron

Well-known member
31 Jan 2024
371
293
That's fair. I'd like more of the casuals to get into console/PC gaming as that's where the highlights of the hobby is at, but whatever.

Fuck infinite growth and fuck investors
casuals who are into mobile gaming only don't want to lug a controller around to play cloud games on their phone, don't care about "core" games and just want a simple little diversion. it's a fool's errand trying to get more of them into console/PC gaming, some will get into it if they want to.
 

Dabaus

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28 Jun 2022
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Microsoft bought up a shit ton of studios so they could outdo Sony when it came to first party exclusives, a process that has taken about 6 years after Phil conceded defeat in the wake of the God of War 2018 release.

Now that they have all this debt from these purchases, it's insane to me that they have been squandering that massive investment, but that's the problem with being part of such a big publicly traded company, it's hard to play the long game when you are subject to the whims of new executives always changing course, especially at MS.

Now though, it seems that MS is not only shifting their game publishing strategy to be platform agnostic, but they also seem hellbent on blowing up the entire idea of the walled garden console ecosystem in the process with what looks like a scorched earth strategy that would take PlayStation down in the process. If they can't dominate the console world, they will destroy it completely so the PC is the only thing left, which benefits them. A very cynical, and destructive strategy by Microsoft IMO. Good Guy Phil has lived long enough to see himself become the villain.
This right here.
 

Cool hand luke

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14 Feb 2023
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He ends by making a Tiktok on android and iOS analogy and says he wants Xbox to be where all the games are. Bitch, it's the other way round. Xbox isn't a hardware platform any longer and no one wants to support it - you're becoming the third party app that you'll have to release on all the real hardware platforms.
 

Gods&Monsters

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21 Jun 2022
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He's kind of right though. There hasn't been much change in the total number of consoles sold in gaming since 2005 when 6th Gen ended. We always keep ending up at around 250+ million people.
Switch , xsxand ps5 is 210/220 million currently and we have a couple more years until the Gen ends. I will not be surprised if it ends up yet again at 260-270 million.
Those numbers are fine when you take out the handhelds that moved to mobile. 250 millions potential customers is a huge installbase. It's Xbox that is losing ground.

Now though, it seems that MS is not only shifting their game publishing strategy to be platform agnostic, but they also seem hellbent on blowing up the entire idea of the walled garden console ecosystem in the process with what looks like a scorched earth strategy that would take PlayStation down in the process. If they can't dominate the console world, they will destroy it completely so the PC is the only thing left, which benefits them. A very cynical, and destructive strategy by Microsoft IMO. Good Guy Phil has lived long enough to see himself become the villain.
That's exactly what they are doing and the regulators, starting with the EU, fell into Microsoft trap. They want to destroy every walled garden so they can put their software on other companies hardware. MS failed on every product they tried.

Microsoft is behind all the lawsuits against Apple and other Big Techs.

Sony and Nintendo will be next with Microsoft at the forefront of that fight.
 

VillaiN

Well-known member
10 Feb 2023
467
638
No they are not, that's the problem. They are making more money than ever, but barely any profit.

Nintendo on the other hand makes a ton of profit because the games they make doesn't cost in the hundreds of millions.
Ps division posted 2 billion net profit last year (sony around 9 billion).

Wth re u talking about?

Zelda costed N around 60 to 80 million to make. In fut8re cost ll be higher.
 

panda-zebra

Active member
2 Mar 2024
126
160
NW UK
Creativity is like the cornerstone of what we should be about in gaming.

...says the guy who bought us PILE IT HIGH AND SELL IT CHEAP for a monthly fee.

Get fucked, Phil.

The console market has not grown in the past year.

derp GIF
 

VillaiN

Well-known member
10 Feb 2023
467
638
Salty Nuttela and Phil changed their bonuses from gp growth to revenue growth.

Its all about profits of few individuals. It they manage to destroy walled gardens, ps, apple in process even better.
 
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rinzler

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12 Mar 2024
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Always wild how a very Xbox problem gets extrapolated to the entire industry lol This man is nothing if not a very slick salesman, but people are starting to see through his PR speak
Well it's appropriately extrapolated to 2/3 of the industry.
 

voke

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10 Jan 2023
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Translation: Xbox market share is too small to sustain AAA exclusive games being monetized by subscriptions.

The writing has been on the wall ever since they acquired Bethesda, multiplied when you include ABK. These acquisitions were a way out of being in direct competition with Sony, the fans are just now starting to realize that this had nothing to do with beating Sony in hardware.

Their plan is to fizzle out Xbox, keep the remaining 10-20 million guaranteed buyers on Xbox branded 3rd party consoles and handhelds, and release ALL of their content to as many platforms as possible. If they take good care of their first party stable… this will make them this biggest publisher in gaming, but knowing MS, we’ll instead witness a slow, painful death to 3 publishers and a console platform all at the same time.
 
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anonpuffs

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29 Nov 2022
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Phil Spencer is saying the next year is projected to be smaller ... and this is the same guy that said good games won't increase sales.

He is so freakin clueless. why is he not fired yet? The answer is the rest of MS is just as clueless, that's why but when does this end? :LOL:
The scariest thing is that the market is rewarding Microsoft for their incompetence.