The Future Of The Xbox Brand

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

The doubling price for Gold was more meant to get people to subscribe to Game Pass more than anything. The main two reasons why Gold shouldn't exist are -

1. Play Anywhere. Microsoft allows you to buy one version and get the PC/console version for free. Playing on PC includes free online co-op and multi-player. This is obviously paywalled on Xbox consoles. Having this while also having their Play Anywhere initiative is simply counter-productive and restrictive. Being able to play on PC AND Xbox without an online co-op/multi-player paywall is something that should have happened already.

2. It's fucking obsolete. It's 2022. Not 2005. No reason for an online paywall when you consider #1 and when you look at Games with Gold, it fucking sucks. Simply, Gold needs to be gone sooner rather than later. I do believe that it will be gone before the generation ends or at the very worst, as an incentive for when next generation starts in 2028.

Agreed with both points. My issue with what MS tried to do with the Gold price increase was how greedy it made them look. When other services increase their price, it's by a little here and a little here, over a gradual amount of time. Not 100% spikes out of the blue. Not only did it make Microsoft look greedy, it also made them look very desperate. Neither are shows of confidence to customers (and, I'd argue, shareholders as well).

Some of the value discrepancy you allude to with online between PC and Xbox (former doesn't have to pay, latter does), I think we're starting to see that pop up between GamePass on both platforms, and that's going to be another problem Microsoft has to address. PC GamePass is getting games like Flight Simulator and AoE4 over a year ahead of them coming to Xbox or Xbox GamePass. PC GamePass is getting deals like the Riot Games perks that don't have equivalents on Xbox GamePass.

Conversely, Xbox GamePass has stuff like Ubisoft+ and the EA vault that AFAIK aren't perks to PC GamePass. However, the differences in the values they offer, while they may make some sense, is always going to create a bit of a perception value and a risk where at any given point PC GamePass can just come off as the objectively better value of the two.

This is where I disagree with you 100%. This IS their business model since 2018 and boom or bust, it's not changing. Doesn't matter what the game is. You're looking at this from a point of view where game sales matter. It should be obvious to everyone that this aspect doesn't matter to Microsoft. Will they still sell their games via digital and physical? Absolutely. Will they still offer early access? Absolutely. But these two factors are for those who either want to play the game long term while not playing many other games so it makes more sense to purchase the game outright and for those on PC, they would easily prefer to buy the games even at the increased price for the early access edition on Steam over playing them on Game Pass via the Windows Store.

Well, here's the thing. Haven't MS already broken the "Day 1 in GamePass" mantra already with FH5's early access release? The way I always interpreted it, "Day 1" meant being in the service at the exact same time the game is available for physical or digital purchase on storefronts or at retailers. Any situation where the game is available for purchase ahead of being in the service technically violates that 'Day 1' concept.

Of course, Microsoft can adjust that definition; maybe now 'Day 1' just means WRT comparison to other services? All that said, I think game sales still obviously matter to Microsoft because console sales evidently still matter to them, too. They just know that their software doesn't move the sort of units the big Sony or Nintendo games do, but the truth is software sales can act as a direct barometer to gauging the absolute potential of a game's revenue even when it comes to aftermarket DLC & MTX sales.

The more copies a game sell, the more customers they have to sell additional content to. I think the reason MS have tried going with a F2P model for certain games like Halo is both an admission the IP doesn't have the selling power it used to, and to lower the entry barrier for would-be customers who can then buy MTX & DLC content. Though in Halo Infinite's case, this hasn't worked out because despite the MP being F2P and the campaign available in GamePass, the campaign hasn't been drawing in a lot of players or selling well in the NPD charts, and the MP has extremely low concurrent numbers on Steam for a game of its type, which doesn't bode well for concurrent player numbers on Xbox consoles, either.

As for other platforms, if Game Pass were to be on PlayStation, Switch or Steam (it's already on PC in general via the Windows Store), it wouldn't include any third party published games which means that their exclusives would obviously be day one on the subscription because would what be the point in subscribing on another platform if you still have to wait to play the game? For Nintendo, it would most likely be a streaming version, similar to what you can do now on Xbox consoles.

I agree with this but think the caveat's going to be that the other platform holders will determine which 1P games they want in their curated version of the service. So say on Xbox devices, Viva Pinata 2 is Day 1 in GamePass, but on Nintendo it isn't, because for Nintendo they may have the audience who'd be more willing to actually buy it, and they don't want to suppress direct sales of the game on their own device.

That's the only way I can see curated versions of GamePass functioning on other systems, unless Microsoft established revenue sharing models for each of the other platform holders, but that could still create situations where other platform holders are missing the chance to maximize revenue on direct game sales, and there's too much an advantage for Microsoft which would just lead to GamePass being rejected on that platforms anyway. Ultimately, it's Microsoft who would want to be on those other platforms, so they have to make GamePass work to the rules of those platform holders.

I know you believe that COD won't be on Game Pass and I don't see this happening unless Microsoft includes this guarantee as part of a concession. Anything short of a legally binding contract, not going to happen because once Microsoft goes back on what they said in 2018 blows up in their face because at that point, every Xbox fan and consumer including myself would then always be thinking, will this game be day one on Game Pass or not? It's way too much of a risk, would alienate their fan base which jumped into Xbox for Game Pass day one console exclusives and this would slow down the growth of Game Pass in general.

But it's not really so much about if fans feel like MS's breaking their promise (and again, they already kind of did this with FH5), it's about how much revenue MS's willing to lose out on by doing Day 1 for new CODs. Because that's not just going to suppress sales on Xbox, it's going to suppress sales on PlayStation and Steam as well.

And, assuming when MS does ever put COD Day 1 in GP, and the current pricing structure and loopholes for GP exist as it does, and the ARPU stays about the same or even drops, then it's fiscally an unfeasible move for them to do. The overall health of the player base could be negatively impacted, as well as that of the IP, and keep in mind the billions COD generates annually also means tax dollars the governments can collect off of that. So at that point, you're also messing up some of their money and they aren't going to like that.

Microsoft will still sell millions of copies of COD and a shit ton of micro-transactions as well. Losing some sales in favor of a subscription would actually be more beneficial because if a consumer buys COD with the intent of only playing that for a year until the next COD and make no mistake, there's literally millions of COD players who ONLY play COD year round and they subscribe to Game Pass (most likely Ultimate at $15 a month due to the need of Gold), they would make more money every year on this single consumer via GPU compared to just buying the game outright. And this is before any micro-transactions.

But you do realize you're basically saying that for Microsoft to make more money here, the actual customer has to spend against their best interests? If someone only plays COD every year, why spend $180 on GPU when they can spend $70 on the game and probably $40 on an annual XBL Gold sub, saving $70?

OTOH, if they net GPU very cheap (maybe they do the $1 conversion thing, or grind for MS Reward points, etc.), then I can see where the value proposition makes more sense for them to access COD through GPU instead but some people would still be simple enough to where they're just like "Eh, I only really want COD, not all this other stuff", so even if they can get access to 100s of other games for the price comparable to buying COD and a cheap XBL Gold annual sub, they may still go with the latter.

Also, with King being in the mix and them being fucking massive in mobile along with Diablo Immortal and the upcoming COD mobile game, Microsoft could go into hibernation for a decade and still be a $2T dollar company because of this when they wake up. lol. This in of itself is why Microsoft won't deviate from their Game Pass subscription model.

Well I don't think King's quite THAT valuable , but I get what you mean. Xbox division at least could do that and still truck along fine off the revenue from King.

I agree with you except for three things. First, I would NOT have sacrificed Series S as that would have been a horrible decision. Series S is a great current generation console for those who are casuals or have kids/families and don't need the more powerful and more expensive Series X. And if you don't have a great 4K HDR TV, then even more reason to buy the Series S over the Series X.

Except the existence of All-Access completely nullifies the price issue for Series X to more price-conscious customers. Not just that, but various retailers offer installment programs for devices like Series X consoles, where you can pay monthly instead of all at once.

So for that reason, IMO Series S is redundant in ways where Project Keystone would not have been, not to mention avoid setting a technical floor for Xbox software development to Series S spec (since games on Series S have to be native builds)

Second, I think their streaming stick or whatever the hell it actually ends up being is further out than people believe. I believe that Microsoft will make sure the infrastructure is sound before they release Keystone. I also believe that there's still a chance that Keystone gets scrapped in favor of an APP on your Smart TV. If you have a pre-installed Game Pass APP on your Smart TV, there's really no reason for Microsoft to release Keystone. If we get close to 2028 and Keystone still doesn't exist in the market, even the low end Smart TV models by this time would have the APP. The lone exception would probably be Sony Smart TV's for obvious reasons but even then, you could probably just download the APP onto the TV as opposed to it being pre-installed.

The problem with relying on apps built into smart TVs is that whether the app continues to function is up to whether the company that makes that TV model bothers to keep its firmware updated. TVs have built-in planned obsolescence comparable to phones, so the firmware for a smart TV could be moved into legacy mode in just 2-3 years after initial release. A reason that's important is because say Microsoft creates new features for GamePass on smart TV devices where it won't run well on devices that lack certain functionality due to lack of firmware updates on those devices.

Well, that means the app becomes more or less useless on that device, and Microsoft can't control how long television manufacturers prioritize older TV devices or when or how they implement firmware updates. That's completely out of Microsoft's hands. OTOH, if Microsoft provided their own solution through Project Keystone, they would have complete control over firmware updates and ensuring the device is up-to-date. The TV at that point only needs to have a working HDMI port, and you can't artificially gimp that through planned obsolescence .

This doesn't even get into the fact that there may be a lot of people who don't have current smart TVs so if GamePass is only available to them via an app and they want to access that content, they have to spend several hundreds to thousands of dollars on a TV to then also get GamePass xCloud content, versus pay at most $150 (potentially less) for a Project Keystone that can provide that same access on ANY device with HDMI support, including even portable monitors. Which also brings up the portability of a Project Keystone so you can bring that GamePass xCloud access to any TV device you have around the home (including non smart TVs).

Third, while a lot of people want to believe that Series S is holding back games, it's such bullshit because in that scenario, how would it be Series S and not the 2013 base PS4/XBO consoles for all the cross-gen games? Not only that but a game like Gotham Knights wasn't held back by the Series S for two reasons - first, even if true, how the hell would that affect the PS5 version and second, the PC version wasn't much if any better. The culprit for this game was the untethered co-op and the game being structured and designed around it. Add in the fact that if the publisher doesn't give the development team time to fully and properly optimize and test out all the versions of the game, then of course there will be issues but none of them are on the Series S which is more than capable of holding it's own in regards to what it's meant to do which is 1080p/60fps. Once development studios get more time to optimize and start using the tech that's actually in the box, they'll be just fine.

Gotham Knights is just a case of being a badly-developed game. COVID lockdowns may've hit that team harder than expected, but it doesn't change the fact that it looks several steps behind Arkham Knights from 2015 on objectively weaker hardware.

To the thing of Series S in general holding games back, I agree with you in part if we're talking about ALL games. However, I think for the more ambitious AA and AAA games, the ones that will be current gen exclusive, Series S will act as a bottleneck in some capacity since it is effectively a required floor for current gen gaming devices (as games released for it MUST have native builds).

I also have the concern that it will limit the scope of game design for big AAA MS 1P games as the generation goes on, because certain things simply do not scale down very well, so to take those into consideration, you have to scale up. Stuff like textures, resolution and framerate can scale down easily, but how do you creatively scale up a boss encounter that works well with just one boss in a static location on Series S but could become a multi-segmented boss fight spanning multiple locations on Series X? The answer is you can't scale that up through checking off some settings; you have to completely redesign the scope, balance, and challenge of the fight for the two different platforms.

Those are the kind of scenarios I worry about due to Series S acting as the floor, because with time and budget constraints, most devs are going to just choose the boss design scenario that's the simpler of the two and "scale up" by having that be a prettier-looking simple boss fight running at higher framerate. Which is such a waste to what the higher-end new systems can do. Sony may have to contend with that in a way going forward as well depending on how tightly coupled PC ports for 1P console games ends up becoming, but at least with PC the floor gradually scales up, and you have the freedom to specify a cutoff in terms of minimum spec. That cutoff can also vary from game to game, depending on just how hard that game is actually pushing the PS5 hardware.

You lose all of that flexibility with Xbox because Microsoft have committed to a Series S that must be supported for several years with native builds of all 1P and 3P games coming to it. Not a problem for indie titles or less ambitious 1P & 3P titles, but could become a big problem for what would be very ambitious current gen-only higher budget AA & AAA games from 1P & 3P.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

I don't actually believe that Microsoft will eliminate all of their shortcuts for Game Pass. Will they reduce them or how many times you can take advantage of them, probably but eliminate all of them? Nah. In fact, I don't believe that they eliminate any of them and instead, just reduce the frequency of when you can take advantage of them. Even if this does happen, my money would be on November 2028.

Yeah, definitely agreed on this. I wasn't thinking so much about MS Rewards at the time of writing this, but an easy solution there would simply be to lower their redeem worth. So if you need say 500 points for $5 redeem equivalent, they could increase that to 1000 points for the same $5 redeem equivalent.

Sure that's a 100% increase but it's an ecosystem-exclusive digital pseudo-currency. No one's going to really balk at an increase (or in this case, decrease) there.

Obviously, I disagree with this 100%. I understand what you're saying by pivoting away from a console to a device but the problem with that is the simple fact that their cloud streaming for consoles is using Series X consoles as the server blades. Their next generation console will do the same in order to upgrade their server blades. They do this with the start of every generation. It keeps consoles alive for those who have them, powers their server blades while still allowing multiple options.

But you believing that that they will release native ports to Sony and Nintendo platforms AND by 2025? Just wow. They can't even release a first party AAA title in 2022 but yet, believe that they can somehow pull this off even if they wanted to? LMAO.

Above all else, Microsoft doing this would completely defeat the entire purpose of keeping Xbox alive in 2017/2018 as opposed to just killing it off back then.

I would think that after acquiring Bethesda and especially ABK that talk of Microsoft being a third party publisher would be dead and buried but damn, you guys just don't want to give up that hope. All I will say is good luck with that.

My thing about this though is, Microsoft are already somewhat a 3P publisher! They publish Minecraft on PlayStation and Nintendo Switch. They published Deathloop and Ghostwire Tokyo on PlayStation. Psychonauts 2 on PlayStation. Skyrim re-releases on PlayStation and Switch. Elder Scrolls Online is available on PlayStation. And if/when they acquire ABK, they'll keep publishing COD, Overwatch, Diablo etc. on PlayStation and Nintendo platforms.

In a way, to say they're a 3P publisher who happens to also have their own console hardware, isn't too much of a stretch, but I guess it depends on what they prioritize and what it feels to other people what MS are prioritizing. Where is their main growth, is it on their own console devices or those of other platforms? Sega actually had phases where they published some 1P games on NEC/Hudson and even Nintendo platforms during the Master System and very early Genesis/MegaDrive years.

However, I don't think retroactively calling them a 3P publisher who happened to have their own console devices fits, because they were doing everything that the open market of the time (due to Nintendo's draconian licensing agreements and yes, those were actually draconian, not the make-believe draconian that some people want to say Sony's 3P deals today are like), and clearly prioritized their growth via their own consoles rather than ramping up revenue from sales on rival platforms. This was solidified once the Genesis/MegaDrive gained major marketshare in the West, because all of those ports to rival platforms stopped.

To me it feels like Microsoft's big growth in console revenue has been coming and will continue to come from publisher acquisitions, rolling their revenue into Xbox's, and in understanding these are massive 3P games publishers, continuing to ensure those revenue stream stay the same (or even grow) by continuing that multiplatform support. So calling them a 3P publisher who happens to also have a console device is reasonable to say.

Curious, why did you believe that the Microsoft/Sega partnership was going to lead to exclusive game deals or something? Even I never believed or thought that. At best, Microsoft would just get Sega's games day one on Xbox instead of years later.

Well, partly because of how it was phrased at first (or maybe just how I read into what was initially stated), and also because I have nostalgia for the partnership the two companies had with the OG Xbox which in fact did net MS multiple Sega exclusives, likely partly in favor by Sega for MS working with them on Windows CE compatibility for Dreamcast years earlier.

Plus it was me looking at that as a gamer and hearing of a strategic partnership between a games platform holder and games developer, would naturally have led me to thinking it means games that otherwise may not have been made, and possibly being exclusive to Xbox and GamePass platforms. It's like if Sony & FromSoft announce a partnership, why would I not assume that means a new game and likely a PlayStation console exclusive? Or Nintendo & Ubisoft with the Raving Rabbits games; two game companies, co-developed new game as an exclusive to their device & ecosystem.

So yeah, none of that coming to fruition between Sega & Microsoft with that announcement was both a surprise and disappointment to the gamer in me.

As for Azure, I don't see them going nuts in regards to getting third party publishers on board to use the service. If anyone uses Azure, it's because that respective company believes that it's better than the alternatives. Also, I see Azure being more for companies that have nothing really to do with publishing games.

Either 3P publishers or developers (knowing a lot of 3P devs are owned by or have partnerships with 3P pubs), in any case I see MS wanting those sort of clients for Azure to help drive Azure growth as a whole in a market segment that's relatively blue-ocean for them.

But of course, companies are only going to turn to it if they see the value versus alternatives. Very special pricing deals factor into that though, obviously .

 

[peter42O]

I totally agree, excellent post but stop trying to share the praise,

This post has nothing to do with that @PropellerEar dude, stop trying to give him credit.

At first, I was like, what??? Then I realized what you meant. lol

 

[Alabtrosmyster]

I think MS can't stand that Valve got the most PC gaming western market and that they are also leading PC portables, so I think MS will fight them hard in both fronts. MS will want to dominate the OS and gaming store markets in both home and handheld PCs.

I think that at some point Gaben will get old and sell to MS. I don't know how true this is, but I red somewhere back in the days that he wanted MS to run the online store for Half-Life 2 and more software but MS refused (that would have been circa 2003/4, so I will not find the source).

Valve has an affinity with MS.

 

[peter42O]

Agreed with both points. My issue with what MS tried to do with the Gold price increase was how greedy it made them look. When other services increase their price, it's by a little here and a little here, over a gradual amount of time. Not 100% spikes out of the blue. Not only did it make Microsoft look greedy, it also made them look very desperate. Neither are shows of confidence to customers (and, I'd argue, shareholders as well).

Some of the value discrepancy you allude to with online between PC and Xbox (former doesn't have to pay, latter does), I think we're starting to see that pop up between GamePass on both platforms, and that's going to be another problem Microsoft has to address. PC GamePass is getting games like Flight Simulator and AoE4 over a year ahead of them coming to Xbox or Xbox GamePass. PC GamePass is getting deals like the Riot Games perks that don't have equivalents on Xbox GamePass.

Conversely, Xbox GamePass has stuff like Ubisoft+ and the EA vault that AFAIK aren't perks to PC GamePass. However, the differences in the values they offer, while they may make some sense, is always going to create a bit of a perception value and a risk where at any given point PC GamePass can just come off as the objectively better value of the two.

I never saw the Gold price increase as greedy or desperate whatsoever. I saw it as just sheer stupidity because they had and still have a lot of momentum on their side this generation and there was no reason to try that. I do believe that they were testing out their fan base and see what they could get away. A lot of times, it's not that companies want to get away with certain things, it's more of a test to see where the line is. And since they reversed it within 12 hours, they saw that line real fast. And of course, the main reason was for it to be designed to get people into Game Pass which in all honesty, they don't need to be desperate about. They just need to start releasing first party games on a consistent basis and for them to be good. Once they do this, they'll be just fine.

Flight Simulator was released on PC four months before Series X/S launched and it was never going to have a native version on Xbox One. It's also a PC focused game. So is Age of Empires. Plus, if anything it's better for them to release these games on PC first, get it all stable and whatnot, then work on the console version for release a year later. Also, these are niche titles on console so no rush having them day one on console. Besides, if they released on console day one, who knows if they would have had any issues that would have required multiple patches over weeks/months to fix. I would prefer day one but at the same time, not if it's at the risk of a bad port that needs 6+ months to fully be working on the console.

Ubisoft+ is NOT on Xbox or PlayStation yet. It was announced but isn't there. Ubisoft did add several individual games and in the case of Valhalla for PS Plus, im pretty sure it's leaving this December. I get the Riot games point of view but the games PC gets that Xbox consoles don't get day one make sense because they're simply seen as more PC focused and based than consoles. Does PC Game Pass have every third party game that Xbox Game Pass does? If not, then it evens out.

Well, here's the thing. Haven't MS already broken the "Day 1 in GamePass" mantra already with FH5's early access release? The way I always interpreted it, "Day 1" meant being in the service at the exact same time the game is available for physical or digital purchase on storefronts or at retailers. Any situation where the game is available for purchase ahead of being in the service technically violates that 'Day 1' concept.

Of course, Microsoft can adjust that definition; maybe now 'Day 1' just means WRT comparison to other services? All that said, I think game sales still obviously matter to Microsoft because console sales evidently still matter to them, too. They just know that their software doesn't move the sort of units the big Sony or Nintendo games do, but the truth is software sales can act as a direct barometer to gauging the absolute potential of a game's revenue even when it comes to aftermarket DLC & MTX sales.

The more copies a game sell, the more customers they have to sell additional content to. I think the reason MS have tried going with a F2P model for certain games like Halo is both an admission the IP doesn't have the selling power it used to, and to lower the entry barrier for would-be customers who can then buy MTX & DLC content. Though in Halo Infinite's case, this hasn't worked out because despite the MP being F2P and the campaign available in GamePass, the campaign hasn't been drawing in a lot of players or selling well in the NPD charts, and the MP has extremely low concurrent numbers on Steam for a game of its type, which doesn't bode well for concurrent player numbers on Xbox consoles, either.

No. Because the versions aren't the same. With the early access version for FH 5, it's $100 but also includes all those car packs and expansions which aren't in Game Pass to begin with. You have to buy them individually or as part of a Car Pass/expansion pass. Game Pass is literally just for the base game which wasn't available for Early Access. Early Access is always the more expensive version of the game and includes all the post launch content and whatnot. Also, this isn't for people like me who would just wait the few days. This is for those who don't want to wait and/or prefer to buy the game.

For the last paragraph, Halo Infinite MP being free to play was the right decision. There's simply way too many more popular free to play games that you have to content with so trying to charge $60 for Halo Infinite MP would have been a disaster. The MP was fire the first two months or so. It only fell off because of the lack of content which obviously, is what an MP game needs the most besides obviously working well which it did and still does. The foundation and core gameplay loop in Halo Infinite MP (and the campaign) is excellent. But the non-existent content post launch hurt it.

The campaign drew in people at the time but wasn't going to draw in over time once they announced delays to campaign co-op to only eventually cancel it. The core game campaign and MP were great but the planning for future content was a fucking disaster. I loved the campaign and it won me over to where im a fan of Halo but only the campaigns. I don't care about the MP aspects as that' not for me. I do believe that if Spencer knew last summer that he was going to eventually delay Starfield and Redfall, I believe that he would have given Halo Infinite a second one year delay which to be perfectly honest with you is what they should have done regardless because while I loved the campaign and was happy that it wasn't delayed, looking at it from the MP aspect and seeing that their post launch content just wasn't ready, then yeah, delay the game another year.

As for sales, after Halo MCC and Halo 5, was anyone really expecting Halo Infinite to sell gangbusters? Then add in Game Pass day one for the campaign and then add in the reveal that led to the delay and there was no way it was going to sell well. Of course, this is why Microsoft puts their games day one in Game Pass. Because they know all of this already.

I agree with this but think the caveat's going to be that the other platform holders will determine which 1P games they want in their curated version of the service. So say on Xbox devices, Viva Pinata 2 is Day 1 in GamePass, but on Nintendo it isn't, because for Nintendo they may have the audience who'd be more willing to actually buy it, and they don't want to suppress direct sales of the game on their own device.

That's the only way I can see curated versions of GamePass functioning on other systems, unless Microsoft established revenue sharing models for each of the other platform holders, but that could still create situations where other platform holders are missing the chance to maximize revenue on direct game sales, and there's too much an advantage for Microsoft which would just lead to GamePass being rejected on that platforms anyway. Ultimately, it's Microsoft who would want to be on those other platforms, so they have to make GamePass work to the rules of those platform holders.

I don't believe that Game Pass on Switch or PlayStation for that matter would be curated. It would include all of Microsoft's past, present and future first party games and that's it. Like, there's no picking this or that....or passing on this or that. It's either all or nothing. No third party games because that would become too much of a clusterfuck for various reasons. This wouldn't affect game sales or anything because these games wouldn't be for sale anyway on Switch or PlayStation so that aspect simply wouldn't be applicable.

But it's not really so much about if fans feel like MS's breaking their promise (and again, they already kind of did this with FH5), it's about how much revenue MS's willing to lose out on by doing Day 1 for new CODs. Because that's not just going to suppress sales on Xbox, it's going to suppress sales on PlayStation and Steam as well.

And, assuming when MS does ever put COD Day 1 in GP, and the current pricing structure and loopholes for GP exist as it does, and the ARPU stays about the same or even drops, then it's fiscally an unfeasible move for them to do. The overall health of the player base could be negatively impacted, as well as that of the IP, and keep in mind the billions COD generates annually also means tax dollars the governments can collect off of that. So at that point, you're also messing up some of their money and they aren't going to like that.

Microsoft is a $2T dollar company. They'll take the losses because it doesn't matter. Microsoft isn't looking for massive profits for this or that this generation. They're simply looking for growth and to just get people into their eco-system and build upon it going into next generation.

Day one on Game Pass means little to nothing in regards to PC where 90% of players will choose to buy the game on Steam over using the Windows Store to access Game Pass. PlayStation sales will still be high simply because for those who aren't into Xbox and their first party games, they're not buying an Xbox Series X/S just to play COD in Game Pass when they could just buy the game on PlayStation. Also, the COD players who only play COD year round or is one of a few games that they consistently play year round, they'll buy it regardless of it being in Game Pass day one because for this set of players, all those other games mean nothing to them. In this scenario, there's no value in regards to Game Pass for these players.

Regarding FH 5, again, it's not a fair comparison between the $100+ early access edition of FH 5 and the $60 base edition. Microsoft never said that you get the ultimate editions and whatnot in Game Pass day one. They said you get the individual game day one which we do. It's simply not the same scenario due to there being two different versions of FH 5.

In general, come 2024, I think COD goes the Halo Infinite route. COD becomes free to play OR by this time, Microsoft eliminates Gold which in turn makes the MP aspect free to play by default. If anything, eliminating Gold in 2024 with COD releasing at the same time or shortly thereafter is where the real incentive to jump into Xbox will be.

But you do realize you're basically saying that for Microsoft to make more money here, the actual customer has to spend against their best interests? If someone only plays COD every year, why spend $180 on GPU when they can spend $70 on the game and probably $40 on an annual XBL Gold sub, saving $70?

OTOH, if they net GPU very cheap (maybe they do the $1 conversion thing, or grind for MS Reward points, etc.), then I can see where the value proposition makes more sense for them to access COD through GPU instead but some people would still be simple enough to where they're just like "Eh, I only really want COD, not all this other stuff", so even if they can get access to 100s of other games for the price comparable to buying COD and a cheap XBL Gold annual sub, they may still go with the latter.

I was saying that for those people, they would just buy the game. For those who perhaps only want to play the campaign or don't play COD year round, these people will go with Game Pass because it's cheaper and if people like the service, they would stay subscribed. This doesn't happen if they just buy COD and ignore Game Pass.

For the people who only play the campaign (like me) or those who'll play the campaign and MP but aren't hardcore about it, these are the people that will end up giving Microsoft more revenue in the long term because they'll be in the eco-system and are much more likely to spend more money because they're saving money from not having to buy COD while still having access to the game as if they did own it.

As for the GP deals and whatnot, I do see this being limited eventually to where you get the first month for $1 and then have to pay full price. Of course, with the family plan, a lot of people would probably just sign up for that instead.

 

[peter42O]

Well I don't think King's quite THAT valuable , but I get what you mean. Xbox division at least could do that and still truck along fine off the revenue from King.

In all honesty, I do. Without King, I actually believe that Microsoft would have passed on ABK because overall, as valuable as COD is, it's not more valuable than King is because while COD would bring in a lot of money, King offers something far more valuable - an entry point for Microsoft into mobile gaming and a potential dominant one at that. This is why I say King is far more valuable. Besides, while COD is a massive money maker and whatnot, does Xbox truly need another first party first person shooter??? lol

Except the existence of All-Access completely nullifies the price issue for Series X to more price-conscious customers. Not just that, but various retailers offer installment programs for devices like Series X consoles, where you can pay monthly instead of all at once.

So for that reason, IMO Series S is redundant in ways where Project Keystone would not have been, not to mention avoid setting a technical floor for Xbox software development to Series S spec (since games on Series S have to be native builds)

Buying a Series X via All Access costs more though than buying it outright if I remember correctly. If those who are buying a Series S are doing so mainly for Game Pass which is digital/streaming anyway, no real reason to have a Series X if you don't want the high end model.

Difference is that Project Keystone wasn't ready for November 2020 launch and apparently, still isn't so releasing only a $500 console while Sony releases $400 and $500 consoles models would have been a bad idea. Plus, Series X has only been on sale once which was a few days ago on The Microsoft Store for $400 where as Series S is almost always on sale. Plus, Keystone would have been streaming only and that's simply not proven or completely ready yet. Series S in my opinion was a brilliant business decision because it targets the casual consumer base and considering in November 2020, we're in the beginning/middle of Covid, having a cheaper alternative console turned out to be one hell of a decision.

I know a lot of people don't like Series S and in all honesty, im not it's biggest fan either but at the same time, I realized that it's simply not for me. I'm not it's target audience and as long as Series X existed, I simply don't care about the Series S existing because again, it's not for me.

The problem with relying on apps built into smart TVs is that whether the app continues to function is up to whether the company that makes that TV model bothers to keep its firmware updated. TVs have built-in planned obsolescence comparable to phones, so the firmware for a smart TV could be moved into legacy mode in just 2-3 years after initial release. A reason that's important is because say Microsoft creates new features for GamePass on smart TV devices where it won't run well on devices that lack certain functionality due to lack of firmware updates on those devices.

Well, that means the app becomes more or less useless on that device, and Microsoft can't control how long television manufacturers prioritize older TV devices or when or how they implement firmware updates. That's completely out of Microsoft's hands. OTOH, if Microsoft provided their own solution through Project Keystone, they would have complete control over firmware updates and ensuring the device is up-to-date. The TV at that point only needs to have a working HDMI port, and you can't artificially gimp that through planned obsolescence .

This doesn't even get into the fact that there may be a lot of people who don't have current smart TVs so if GamePass is only available to them via an app and they want to access that content, they have to spend several hundreds to thousands of dollars on a TV to then also get GamePass xCloud content, versus pay at most $150 (potentially less) for a Project Keystone that can provide that same access on ANY device with HDMI support, including even portable monitors. Which also brings up the portability of a Project Keystone so you can bring that GamePass xCloud access to any TV device you have around the home (including non smart TVs).

I agree with you. In all honesty, I don't care about game streaming whatsoever but I do like that it's an "option". More options to get into an eco-system, the better. We'll see what they do. I wouldn't be surprised if there's no streaming device or whatever until the start of next generation.

Gotham Knights is just a case of being a badly-developed game. COVID lockdowns may've hit that team harder than expected, but it doesn't change the fact that it looks several steps behind Arkham Knights from 2015 on objectively weaker hardware.

To the thing of Series S in general holding games back, I agree with you in part if we're talking about ALL games. However, I think for the more ambitious AA and AAA games, the ones that will be current gen exclusive, Series S will act as a bottleneck in some capacity since it is effectively a required floor for current gen gaming devices (as games released for it MUST have native builds).

I also have the concern that it will limit the scope of game design for big AAA MS 1P games as the generation goes on, because certain things simply do not scale down very well, so to take those into consideration, you have to scale up. Stuff like textures, resolution and framerate can scale down easily, but how do you creatively scale up a boss encounter that works well with just one boss in a static location on Series S but could become a multi-segmented boss fight spanning multiple locations on Series X? The answer is you can't scale that up through checking off some settings; you have to completely redesign the scope, balance, and challenge of the fight for the two different platforms.

Those are the kind of scenarios I worry about due to Series S acting as the floor, because with time and budget constraints, most devs are going to just choose the boss design scenario that's the simpler of the two and "scale up" by having that be a prettier-looking simple boss fight running at higher framerate. Which is such a waste to what the higher-end new systems can do. Sony may have to contend with that in a way going forward as well depending on how tightly coupled PC ports for 1P console games ends up becoming, but at least with PC the floor gradually scales up, and you have the freedom to specify a cutoff in terms of minimum spec. That cutoff can also vary from game to game, depending on just how hard that game is actually pushing the PS5 hardware.

You lose all of that flexibility with Xbox because Microsoft have committed to a Series S that must be supported for several years with native builds of all 1P and 3P games coming to it. Not a problem for indie titles or less ambitious 1P & 3P titles, but could become a big problem for what would be very ambitious current gen-only higher budget AA & AAA games from 1P & 3P.

In fairness to GK, it wasn't Rocksteady who's definitely superior to WB Montreal. I understand your point of view and concerns with Series S but if the game is running on weaker PC hardware specifications than Series S, then it's obviously not the Series S that's the issue. Games on PC still run on 1060gpus. And the CPU in Series S is like 98% equal to Series X so this won't matter. I can see RAM being an issue but if they eliminate the 4K textures and whatnot, I think the developers would have plenty of RAM to work with. The bigger issue is that too many publishers and developers always prioritize visuals over everything else. And granted, that's how they sell their games to the masses but if they were to stop focusing on visuals to the extreme and actually focus on game design and what the consoles and PC are capable of, I think they would be just fine. All they would have to do is take the extra time needed to fully optimize the game on each platform which let's be honest, 95% of third party publishers/developers don't do.

We'll have to wait and see but as of now, I simply believe that it's more an issue of money for publishers due to not wanting to give the development teams the proper time to fully optimize their respective games properly than it having to do with the Series S itself.

Yeah, definitely agreed on this. I wasn't thinking so much about MS Rewards at the time of writing this, but an easy solution there would simply be to lower their redeem worth. So if you need say 500 points for $5 redeem equivalent, they could increase that to 1000 points for the same $5 redeem equivalent.

Sure that's a 100% increase but it's an ecosystem-exclusive digital pseudo-currency. No one's going to really balk at an increase (or in this case, decrease) there.

A lot of people don't even know of or are aware of Rewards. I know it exists but I don't even bother because I only subscribe to Game Pass when there's a day one game for me to play. In general, whatever Microsoft does is fine with me as long as im not required to stay subscribed for any duration of time. For people who stay subscribed, I think the vast majority probably don't even care about any of these loopholes because they're already in and have been won over.

 

[peter42O]

My thing about this though is, Microsoft are already somewhat a 3P publisher! They publish Minecraft on PlayStation and Nintendo Switch. They published Deathloop and Ghostwire Tokyo on PlayStation. Psychonauts 2 on PlayStation. Skyrim re-releases on PlayStation and Switch. Elder Scrolls Online is available on PlayStation. And if/when they acquire ABK, they'll keep publishing COD, Overwatch, Diablo etc. on PlayStation and Nintendo platforms.

In a way, to say they're a 3P publisher who happens to also have their own console hardware, isn't too much of a stretch, but I guess it depends on what they prioritize and what it feels to other people what MS are prioritizing. Where is their main growth, is it on their own console devices or those of other platforms? Sega actually had phases where they published some 1P games on NEC/Hudson and even Nintendo platforms during the Master System and very early Genesis/MegaDrive years.

However, I don't think retroactively calling them a 3P publisher who happened to have their own console devices fits, because they were doing everything that the open market of the time (due to Nintendo's draconian licensing agreements and yes, those were actually draconian, not the make-believe draconian that some people want to say Sony's 3P deals today are like), and clearly prioritized their growth via their own consoles rather than ramping up revenue from sales on rival platforms. This was solidified once the Genesis/MegaDrive gained major marketshare in the West, because all of those ports to rival platforms stopped.

To me it feels like Microsoft's big growth in console revenue has been coming and will continue to come from publisher acquisitions, rolling their revenue into Xbox's, and in understanding these are massive 3P games publishers, continuing to ensure those revenue stream stay the same (or even grow) by continuing that multiplatform support. So calling them a 3P publisher who happens to also have a console device is reasonable to say.

You're stretching the third party aspect. Minecraft was already on PlayStation and elsewhere before Microsoft acquired Mojang in 2014 and as a platform game, pulling it off of PlayStation would be a horrible business decision. Deathloop and Ghostwire Tokyo were timed contracted games that Sony paid for before Microsoft acquired Bethesda. And neither game was worth going to court over in order to terminate the deals. Also, these games aren't/weren't big at launch and let's be honest, what's Microsoft really losing here? Only thing they lost was having to wait for both games a year later but even then, it's not a big deal due to both games being well, minor in the grand scheme of things. Psychonauts 2 was literally a crowd funded game. Microsoft honored those Sony contracts so no way in hell would they have gone out of their way to cancel the PlayStation 4 version of Psychonauts 2. That would have been very bad optics and for what? Also, there is a native Series X version while there isn't a native PlayStation 5 version. For PS5, you're basically running the PS4 version in BC while on Series X, you're running the Series X version. So Microsoft did a little something here but in general, again, not worth going nuts over.

Skyrim is an 11 year old game. And at that, it's always a bad remaster with the same bugs and shit as 2011. If anything, this being on PS4/PS5 is to remind people what they'll be missing in the future and if you want to play BGS next game which in this case is Starfield, you better buy an Xbox or a PC. lol. The Elder Scrolls Online and Fallout 76 (which you missed) were released years before the acquisition and are platform games. Pulling them would make no sense in any way, shape or form.

I'm all for exclusives and I believe that when you acquire a company, that's it, it's yours but with that said, I wouldn't go out of my way or go nuts trying to pull contracts or a decade old game like Minecraft or this or that simply because for most of them, the user install base has already been set and with majority of them on PlayStation, why would I pull them? Plus, it would just be bad PR and bad optics and for what? Pulling Minecraft, The Elder Scrolls Online or Fallout 76 would do me (if im representing Microsoft and Xbox here) more harm than good and kill off the user install base that has been built up over the years or in the case of Minecraft, over a decade.

Besides, Microsoft always said that they would never pull the games off their competitor's platforms and if you dissect their wording correctly like I have, this means already released games or previously contracted games. People never read between the lines. They read this when Bethesda was acquired and thought, yay!!! We're still getting Starfield and whatnot on PlayStation and I from day freaking one, said no chance in hell. Not to pat myself on the back even though I am (hehehe), I was right two years ago, im right now and I will be right in a decade from now because it's not about what all these companies say, it's about what they're NOT saying and reading between the lines to dissect what they ARE actually saying.

Overwatch 2 is a live service platform game that already released. Do you truly believe that Microsoft should pull it? I don't. It's already released and as of now, Microsoft doesn't own ABK and can't do shit with them which is why the deal needs to close sooner rather than later if you're Microsoft. Diablo IV was already announced for PS4/XBO prior to the acquisition announcement of ABK and they added PS5/Series versions. This is going to be a massive long term live service game. Again, no reason to pull it especially since it's already been announced as a PlayStation game. Do I see Overwatch 3 and Diablo V being Xbox/PC exclusive? Absolutely. But these games? Nah, let them stay as is. No reason for Microsoft to piss off people when they still have a lot more acquiring to do. Hehehehe. Just had to throw this in there. lmao.

I agree with the last paragraph, however I don't see future publisher games not being exclusive to Xbox/PC unless it's an already released game or a contracted game that Sony paid for. As for COD, Microsoft would obviously prefer this to be exclusive to Xbox/PC as it should be and while I don't give two shits about ABK as of now, for Microsoft, keeping COD multi-platform to get the deal approved is worth the trade off by far. Also, Blizzard's RPG that was announced months ago doesn't have any platforms announced so I expect this to be fully exclusive to Xbox/PC and the heavily rumored Infinity Ward RPG which is unannounced, I also expect to be fully exclusive to Xbox/PC.

Well, partly because of how it was phrased at first (or maybe just how I read into what was initially stated), and also because I have nostalgia for the partnership the two companies had with the OG Xbox which in fact did net MS multiple Sega exclusives, likely partly in favor by Sega for MS working with them on Windows CE compatibility for Dreamcast years earlier.

Plus it was me looking at that as a gamer and hearing of a strategic partnership between a games platform holder and games developer, would naturally have led me to thinking it means games that otherwise may not have been made, and possibly being exclusive to Xbox and GamePass platforms. It's like if Sony & FromSoft announce a partnership, why would I not assume that means a new game and likely a PlayStation console exclusive? Or Nintendo & Ubisoft with the Raving Rabbits games; two game companies, co-developed new game as an exclusive to their device & ecosystem.

So yeah, none of that coming to fruition between Sega & Microsoft with that announcement was both a surprise and disappointment to the gamer in me.

Fair enough. I can see a Microsoft funded Sega IP exclusive for Xbox but not because of this deal. More because Sega probably doesn't want to fund a lot of stuff and if Microsoft is willing, like Nintendo with Bayonetta, Sega will most likely be cool with it. As long as I get Sega's future games on Xbox day one instead of years later, I will be more than happy. Anything besides that would just be a bonus.

On a related side note - I know there's Xbox fans or people in general who would like to see Microsoft acquire Sega but im not one of those people. Not because im against Microsoft acquiring them because obviously, im not but more so because like with ABK, Sega simply doesn't do anything for me. Japanese third party publisher wise, I only want Capcom. The rest can rot, die, stay is as, succeed, etc. Don't care which. lol. With that said, I would love to see a Microsoft funded Binary Domain 2 as an Xbox/PC exclusive. But anything else, MEH.

Either 3P publishers or developers (knowing a lot of 3P devs are owned by or have partnerships with 3P pubs), in any case I see MS wanting those sort of clients for Azure to help drive Azure growth as a whole in a market segment that's relatively blue-ocean for them.

But of course, companies are only going to turn to it if they see the value versus alternatives. Very special pricing deals factor into that though, obviously .

Agreed. I just think that this is more of a "cool, we got them" scenario as opposed to, "we want them all" scenario. Will Microsoft try to get these publishers to use Azure and whatnot? Most likely but that doesn't mean that it will actually happen. I also can see this being a more relevant conversation next generation as opposed to now as Microsoft's Azure cloud infrastructure still has a ways to go before Microsoft has it where it wants it.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

You're way too into console sales as being the only metric that matters when it's not, especially for Microsoft. Both the Xbox Series consoles and PlayStation 5 for that matter are already form factor PC's so I don't really understand why you believe that Microsoft will go in this direction especially halfway through the current generation.

Nah, Xbox Series & PS5 may have CPU & GPU designs based on PC CPU & GPU architectures, but they are not "consolized PCs". They still operate on the traditional console business model, meaning they pour tons of cash into R&D for customized architecture features and hardware, heavily subsidize the console costs to customers to make up the upfront losses on software sales, MTX and services revenue, heavily advertise their systems as game console devices, and use the consoles as means to justify huge budgets for very expensive 1P games exclusive to their devices and within their ecosystem.

Additionally, their consoles do not provide the level of open-ended freedom as actual PC boxes, i.e you can't upgrade the CPU or RAM, can't run productivity software on them, can't access competitor storefronts on them, etc. So for Microsoft in particular there are a lot of benefit IMO to transitioning away from the traditional console business model. Sony less so, but I can see them making some rather big changes as well.

As we've discussed before, you (and others) keep bringing up the previous generations so im going to make it as simple as possible. Pre-2018, look at Xbox as if it never existed because that's basically what it was compared to now. All their changes, acquisitions, etc. started in 2018 was in order to get where they're at now and be more set and prepared for the future.

No, we can't do that !!! We can't just magically pretend Xbox didn't exist before 2018. 2013 - 2018 matters, because that's how Microsoft found themselves in the situation they were in 2018 to begin with. They are still trying to recover from the mistakes of that time period (though I'd say they started slipping before even 2013; I'd say it started in 2011, when they really started focusing on Kinect and neglected hardcore/core gamers in terms of content).

But, let's for this argument in fact pretend Xbox didn't exist until 2018. That still doesn't excuse what they've failed to accomplish since then, IMO. That doesn't excuse the fact they launched Series without any new big 1P titles. It doesn't excuse that they basically sent Bleeding Edge out to die. It doesn't excuse the state that Halo Infinite quickly deteriorated into. It doesn't excuse that they've done almost nothing to rope in big Day 1 3P releases for GamePass this year.

Just because they've made acquisitions a few years ago, or are trying to make more now, doesn't mean that's the only thing they can do at any given time. Microsoft could have and should have been doing more to ensure that big content was still coming to their platform even amid the new teams working on projects, or getting acquisitions going.

While this obviously this lines up for you with #7, yeah, I don't see any of this happening whatsoever.

Never say never, friend

Microsoft has trouble selling a $500 Series X but yet, you think they would actually sell these now computer devices for $800 or so? I'm sorry man. We've had some great debates but man, reading a lot of this stuff sounds more like you're looking at what Microsoft is doing through the eyes of Sony to be honest. Like, console sales are everything and they've never been #1 so they must go third party or put Game Pass everywhere or this or that.

The worse part is you believing some of this stuff is happening by 2026 or some shit. They can't even release a game in 2022 yet you believe that all of this or most of it will come to fruition within 3 or 4 years? You gotta be putting me on. lol

The difference is that with Series X has trouble being sold not due to weak demand, but weak supply. XBO had trouble selling at $500 because of weak demand. One thing I want to say real quick is that MS transitioning Xbox consoles into Xbox gaming-focused computer devices (like NUCs actually capable enough at current-gen gaming) would be the catalyst for increasing the prices and affording to scale back some on production numbers. I didn't mean to present them as two separate things that could either both or only one happens; one would need to happen for the other to make sense.

This doesn't even really have anything to do with Sony TBH. In fact, I've been thinking that if Microsoft were to do this, it would help in making their acquisition attempts easier, at least to some big degree. At least, it would make it so that Sony and Nintendo would not be so against Microsoft acquiring big publishers, easing concerns for regulators to consider (and trust me, if Microsoft tries going after a major Japanese publisher, you WILL see Nintendo jumping in to contest it. They've go no qualms balking against a platform holder when the government's involved, look at how they used congressional hearings to attack Sega by proxy back in the day).

That doesn't completely remove the challenges Microsoft would face with further acquisition attempts (cloud concerns would remain, services concerns would still remain, meaning MS would still have to contend with Google, Apple, and Amazon in some form), but at least it would remove contesting from Sony and Nintendo because Microsoft would not be operating on any traditional console business model posing a threat to the console platform models of Sony and Nintendo (or what I should say, a perceived unfair threat that neither company would be able to compete with in an open market as far as costs are concerned).

It's a part of the way I've been coming to see things, anyway. But I understand the hesitation from others to see it from that POV. Maybe in due time yourself and others who feel otherwise will see that I'm not being completely crazy in this speculation xD.

 

[PlacidusaX]

The doubling price for Gold was more meant to get people to subscribe to Game Pass more than anything. The main two reasons why Gold shouldn't exist are -

1. Play Anywhere. Microsoft allows you to buy one version and get the PC/console version for free. Playing on PC includes free online co-op and multi-player. This is obviously paywalled on Xbox consoles. Having this while also having their Play Anywhere initiative is simply counter-productive and restrictive. Being able to play on PC AND Xbox without an online co-op/multi-player paywall is something that should have happened already.

2. It's fucking obsolete. It's 2022. Not 2005. No reason for an online paywall when you consider #1 and when you look at Games with Gold, it fucking sucks. Simply, Gold needs to be gone sooner rather than later. I do believe that it will be gone before the generation ends or at the very worst, as an incentive for when next generation starts in 2028.



This is where I disagree with you 100%. This IS their business model since 2018 and boom or bust, it's not changing. Doesn't matter what the game is. You're looking at this from a point of view where game sales matter. It should be obvious to everyone that this aspect doesn't matter to Microsoft. Will they still sell their games via digital and physical? Absolutely. Will they still offer early access? Absolutely. But these two factors are for those who either want to play the game long term while not playing many other games so it makes more sense to purchase the game outright and for those on PC, they would easily prefer to buy the games even at the increased price for the early access edition on Steam over playing them on Game Pass via the Windows Store.

As for other platforms, if Game Pass were to be on PlayStation, Switch or Steam (it's already on PC in general via the Windows Store), it wouldn't include any third party published games which means that their exclusives would obviously be day one on the subscription because would what be the point in subscribing on another platform if you still have to wait to play the game? For Nintendo, it would most likely be a streaming version, similar to what you can do now on Xbox consoles.

I know you believe that COD won't be on Game Pass and I don't see this happening unless Microsoft includes this guarantee as part of a concession. Anything short of a legally binding contract, not going to happen because once Microsoft goes back on what they said in 2018 blows up in their face because at that point, every Xbox fan and consumer including myself would then always be thinking, will this game be day one on Game Pass or not? It's way too much of a risk, would alienate their fan base which jumped into Xbox for Game Pass day one console exclusives and this would slow down the growth of Game Pass in general.

Microsoft will still sell millions of copies of COD and a shit ton of micro-transactions as well. Losing some sales in favor of a subscription would actually be more beneficial because if a consumer buys COD with the intent of only playing that for a year until the next COD and make no mistake, there's literally millions of COD players who ONLY play COD year round and they subscribe to Game Pass (most likely Ultimate at $15 a month due to the need of Gold), they would make more money every year on this single consumer via GPU compared to just buying the game outright. And this is before any micro-transactions.

Also, with King being in the mix and them being fucking massive in mobile along with Diablo Immortal and the upcoming COD mobile game, Microsoft could go into hibernation for a decade and still be a $2T dollar company because of this when they wake up. lol. This in of itself is why Microsoft won't deviate from their Game Pass subscription model.



I agree with you except for three things. First, I would NOT have sacrificed Series S as that would have been a horrible decision. Series S is a great current generation console for those who are casuals or have kids/families and don't need the more powerful and more expensive Series X. And if you don't have a great 4K HDR TV, then even more reason to buy the Series S over the Series X. Second, I think their streaming stick or whatever the hell it actually ends up being is further out than people believe. I believe that Microsoft will make sure the infrastructure is sound before they release Keystone. I also believe that there's still a chance that Keystone gets scrapped in favor of an APP on your Smart TV. If you have a pre-installed Game Pass APP on your Smart TV, there's really no reason for Microsoft to release Keystone. If we get close to 2028 and Keystone still doesn't exist in the market, even the low end Smart TV models by this time would have the APP. The lone exception would probably be Sony Smart TV's for obvious reasons but even then, you could probably just download the APP onto the TV as opposed to it being pre-installed. Third, while a lot of people want to believe that Series S is holding back games, it's such bullshit because in that scenario, how would it be Series S and not the 2013 base PS4/XBO consoles for all the cross-gen games? Not only that but a game like Gotham Knights wasn't held back by the Series S for two reasons - first, even if true, how the hell would that affect the PS5 version and second, the PC version wasn't much if any better. The culprit for this game was the untethered co-op and the game being structured and designed around it. Add in the fact that if the publisher doesn't give the development team time to fully and properly optimize and test out all the versions of the game, then of course there will be issues but none of them are on the Series S which is more than capable of holding it's own in regards to what it's meant to do which is 1080p/60fps. Once development studios get more time to optimize and start using the tech that's actually in the box, they'll be just fine.

Many people were about to leave Xbox when they tried doubling Gold which would be $120 a year USA.
Forcing GP would cost even more.
Many don't want to spend that much money and many don't care for GP.(the majority of its available market)
They will lose many if they try something like this.

 

[KiryuRealty]

Many people were about to leave Xbox when they tried doubling Gold which would be $120 a year USA.
Forcing GP would cost even more.
Many don't want to spend that much money and many don't care for GP.(the majority of its available market)
They will lose many if they try something like this.

Consecutive years of missing their growth targets for GamePass makes the combining of Gold and GamePass an inevitability, and don't expect it to be priced any less than both services combined already cost.

 

[peter42O]

Nah, Xbox Series & PS5 may have CPU & GPU designs based on PC CPU & GPU architectures, but they are not "consolized PCs". They still operate on the traditional console business model, meaning they pour tons of cash into R&D for customized architecture features and hardware, heavily subsidize the console costs to customers to make up the upfront losses on software sales, MTX and services revenue, heavily advertise their systems as game console devices, and use the consoles as means to justify huge budgets for very expensive 1P games exclusive to their devices and within their ecosystem.

Additionally, their consoles do not provide the level of open-ended freedom as actual PC boxes, i.e you can't upgrade the CPU or RAM, can't run productivity software on them, can't access competitor storefronts on them, etc. So for Microsoft in particular there are a lot of benefit IMO to transitioning away from the traditional console business model. Sony less so, but I can see them making some rather big changes as well.

It's all x86 architecture which makes ports extremely easy to do. The consoles still have their store fronts but the tech inside them is basically form factor PC's. As for upgrading components, don't be surprised if you see Microsoft AND Sony have a modular console when next generation starts where you can swap out the CPU, GPU, RAM and SSD.

No, we can't do that !!! We can't just magically pretend Xbox didn't exist before 2018. 2013 - 2018 matters, because that's how Microsoft found themselves in the situation they were in 2018 to begin with. They are still trying to recover from the mistakes of that time period (though I'd say they started slipping before even 2013; I'd say it started in 2011, when they really started focusing on Kinect and neglected hardcore/core gamers in terms of content).

But, let's for this argument in fact pretend Xbox didn't exist until 2018. That still doesn't excuse what they've failed to accomplish since then, IMO. That doesn't excuse the fact they launched Series without any new big 1P titles. It doesn't excuse that they basically sent Bleeding Edge out to die. It doesn't excuse the state that Halo Infinite quickly deteriorated into. It doesn't excuse that they've done almost nothing to rope in big Day 1 3P releases for GamePass this year.

Just because they've made acquisitions a few years ago, or are trying to make more now, doesn't mean that's the only thing they can do at any given time. Microsoft could have and should have been doing more to ensure that big content was still coming to their platform even amid the new teams working on projects, or getting acquisitions going.

I'm not saying to forget the previous 17 years of Xbox. All im saying is that from 2018 onward has been a whole new direction for the Xbox brand. For Microsoft, the past is mostly irrelevant to what they're doing today.

I agree with them slipping in 2011 and focusing on Kinect, thanks to Mattrick who literally almost single handled killed the Xbox brand yet people believe he was better than what Spencer has been in 5 years just because he got some exclusive games that outside of the big three, no one bought. Mattrick almost killed Xbox and Spencer convinced Nadella to resurrect it.

Bleeding Edge was sent out to die and perhaps should have been held for Series console launch but at the same time, im personally happy that it died because I wouldn't want Ninja Theory to waste time on it when they should all be working on Hellblade 2. Plus, the game itself wasn't that good to begin with so why hang on to something that just isn't worth wasting time on?

Series consoles launched with Gears Tactics so they did have one first party game at launch and yes, it was bad at the time but two years later, do you truly believe that anyone cares? Also, while I love exclusives, people do tend to overrate how important they are. Exclusives are few and far between when compared to the third party multi-platform games that get released on a weekly basis. For example, while I played and completed Gears Tactics on Series X (thanks to Game Pass) and Marvel's Spider Man: Miles Morales on PlayStation 5, the games I played the most were third party multi-platform titles which is what most people play regardless. I had Watch Dogs Legion, Assassin's Creed Valhalla and the best of the three at least for me, Immortals Fenyx Rising (can't wait for the next game!!!) to play. I also had while not a launch game, it released a few weeks later, that being Gears 5: Hivebusters which was freaking great. I enjoyed it more than the base game in 2019.

Launch exclusives are highly overrated. Look at PS4/XBO. Xbox One was clearly superior head to head at launch in this regard. How did that work out for Microsoft and the Xbox One brand? LOL. Should Microsoft had had something else available at launch for the consoles? Sure but was it necessary? No because those like me who are buying day one or very close to it (got my Series X on January 4th, 2021 and my PlayStation 5 on February 14th, 2021) are doing so mainly just to have the consoles so we don't have to go nuts trying to get one, especially this generation with the chip shortages due to Covid.

What could Microsoft have done in 2020 for launch exclusive wise? There was nothing they could do. They put all of their eggs in the Halo Infinite basket and it backfired. But if they would have released Halo Infinite at launch, it would have been far worse than what it currently is. At best, they could have tried to get Gears 5: Hivebusters ready for launch and make it standalone but otherwise, there was nothing that could have been done. Also, those who buy a console at launch aren't doing it for the launch titles. They're doing it to first, have the console already and second, for the potential of what games you'll get down the line and of course the games you already know about.

If anything, two years later, this launch argument while valid back in 2020 is simply meaningless and pointless now because can Microsoft go back in time to change any of it? No. Can we? No. So what's the point other than just to bash them? To point out a negative that we all know about already and one that can't be changed? And yet, the Series X/S all sold out without any top tier exclusives which is every console launch ever. The hardcore are buying day one no matter what. There literally could be NOTHING at all and these people including myself will still buy the damn thing because we want to have it. So yeah, I get it. Their launch sucked. But who cares? Sony's PS2, PS3 and PS4 launches all sucked. Nintendo Wii and Wii U sucked. Seriously, the percentage that cares about exclusive launch titles is so minimal that they don't even matter and if it's so bad or this or that, then the solution is simple - don't buy the console until there's games that are available for you to play. It's an easy and simple solution.

So while I agree with you in regards to 2020 launch, two years later, in all honesty, who the fuck cares? I don't. I'm a month away from 2023. Why would I care about their 2020 launch? Here's a fun fact, in 26 months since launch through 2022, 22 out of 26 months, I haven't had a Sony first party exclusive (cross gen or not) to play while on Xbox, it's 24 out of 26 months. Wow. Two extra months I don't have an exclusive. Oh no!!! Seriously, unless you're someone who literally only plays exclusives, I don't see why gamers/consumers would even care to be honest. I don't even care. I have had plenty of games to play this generation. And still a few more to go before 2022 ends which will spill over into 2023.

As for 2022, every top tier major third party multi-platform game is contracted under a Sony marketing deal which yes, includes a clause that prevents these games from going on Game Pass day one. This is a fact as has already been documented twice in the Epic vs Apple case and via the CMA in regards to COD. Here's a fun fact, as someone who favors Xbox this generation, im not even mad or pissed at Sony for doing this because if it was me, I would do the exact same thing. Sony doesn't want Game Pass to grow at all so what's the best way to help stagnate growth? By preventing third party multi-platform games from being able to go on Game Pass day one. And even if this wasn't a fact even though it is and everyone knows it, that still doesn't guarantee that publishers would say yes to a day one Game Pass deal to begin with.

As for me personally, if I get a few AA games on Game Pass day one like Atomic Heart and Flintlock next year, im already happy because the big AAA games that im interested in, im buying anyway if they don't go on Game Pass day one. My friend loves Game Pass mainly because of all the Indies that go on the service day one. He loves Indie games. Not all of them but a lot of them. I love Game Pass because of Microsoft's first party day one games and AA day one games that I want to play but have no intention on buying. If I get an AAA title, even if it's just once a year that I want to actually play and was going to buy, that's a bonus for me. lol

In general, I agree with you 100% but launch, honestly, two years later, I don't care and don't know why anyone else would. As for 2022, it's been a massive disappointment but like 2020 launch, once im playing Redfall for example, do you really think im going to look back and be like, oh man, I wish I had Xbox exclusives in 2022 to play? Nope. Because im in 2023 so why would I care about the past in which there's not a God damn thing I can do anything about? Besides, I will be too occupied playing Redfall to give two shits about what I wasn't playing in 2022.

Never say never, friend

Hahaha. True. I don't see any of that happening but I didn't say "never". Hehehe.

The difference is that with Series X has trouble being sold not due to weak demand, but weak supply. XBO had trouble selling at $500 because of weak demand. One thing I want to say real quick is that MS transitioning Xbox consoles into Xbox gaming-focused computer devices (like NUCs actually capable enough at current-gen gaming) would be the catalyst for increasing the prices and affording to scale back some on production numbers. I didn't mean to present them as two separate things that could either both or only one happens; one would need to happen for the other to make sense.

This doesn't even really have anything to do with Sony TBH. In fact, I've been thinking that if Microsoft were to do this, it would help in making their acquisition attempts easier, at least to some big degree. At least, it would make it so that Sony and Nintendo would not be so against Microsoft acquiring big publishers, easing concerns for regulators to consider (and trust me, if Microsoft tries going after a major Japanese publisher, you WILL see Nintendo jumping in to contest it. They've go no qualms balking against a platform holder when the government's involved, look at how they used congressional hearings to attack Sega by proxy back in the day).

That doesn't completely remove the challenges Microsoft would face with further acquisition attempts (cloud concerns would remain, services concerns would still remain, meaning MS would still have to contend with Google, Apple, and Amazon in some form), but at least it would remove contesting from Sony and Nintendo because Microsoft would not be operating on any traditional console business model posing a threat to the console platform models of Sony and Nintendo (or what I should say, a perceived unfair threat that neither company would be able to compete with in an open market as far as costs are concerned).

It's a part of the way I've been coming to see things, anyway. But I understand the hesitation from others to see it from that POV. Maybe in due time yourself and others who feel otherwise will see that I'm not being completely crazy in this speculation xD.

Series X/S consoles are in high demand compared to last generation. It's not even close. Making them PC's so to speak and charging $800 would eliminate that high demand for the vast majority of consumers pretty quickly.

I disagree with the Nintendo going after Microsoft part if they were to acquire a Japanese publisher because first, I do believe that Game Pass via streaming will be on Switch/Switch 2 before Microsoft were to acquire a Japanese publisher which at that point, would give Nintendo those games anyway so why would they complain? Sure you could argue that Nintendo would lose money but at the same time, they wouldn't get native ports anyway because their tech just isn't up to par with Xbox. So unless it's a Monster Hunter Rise type game made specifically for the Switch first, I don't see Nintendo going through the hassle and wasting money for what would be no valid reasons whatsoever due to the fact that they're always like two generations behind in tech and could be argued that again, unless specifically made for Nintendo, they wouldn't get those Japanese games anyway.

I do understand your point in decreasing competitors from contesting shit but let's be honest, none of them are doing anything even remotely close to what Microsoft is doing. Google Stadia is fucking dead. They have great streaming tech but did nothing with their platform, didn't want to spend any money and had a horrible pricing model/structure. They were dead on arrival in 2019 once they said you have to buy the games that are years old at full price and can only stream them. Like, get the fuck out of here Google. I gave them two years. They lasted under three. lol

Amazon could be an issue with Cloud but at the same time, they're like Google. Neither do anything. They just sit there. Apple would probably be the main concern but even then, I think Microsoft could work out a deal with them because at the end of the day, money always wins.

As for Microsoft itself, their cloud tech is said to be great but still has a ways to go and cloud game streaming is probably 20 or so years away. There shouldn't be any concerns about this at all because it's so far away from being anything gaming wise, there's no actual guarantee that it ever takes off and to be perfectly honest, it's not Microsoft's fault or problem if all these other companies decide not to get into game streaming or this or that because that just shows me they just don't want to take the risk and spend the money which is why im on Microsoft's side. They're the company that's taking the risks and spending the money so yeah, if it takes off, they should 100% reap the rewards. These other companies are trillion dollar companies. They need to either shit or get off the pot.

I'm all for tech and whatnot. I say let them all run rampant because that's how e get better stuff. Could a Microsoft for example have a monopoly on cloud game streaming or something? Sure but that's NOT on Microsoft, that's on the other companies being quite honestly, fucking pussies and not wanting to spend any money on anything yet somehow someway expect shit to go their way? Yeah, sure, okay. Good luck with that. Take Google with Stadia for example, if it was ME, im 100% that my pricing model/structure would have been better than what it was and hell yeah, I would have gone after Bethesda hard and even ABK because there's Google Play which correct me if im wrong but isn't that their mobile gaming store front? If so, I definitely would have went after ABK or at least the King part of it.

Too many people cry about what Microsoft is doing when in reality, people should be crying about what these other companies AREN'T doing because in my eyes, that's the issue. None of them are doing really anything and then want to bitch, moan, groan and cry. And im like, they can fuck off with that baby ass temper tantrum.

Back to Microsoft for a second, all they really have to do is price their services fairly and not bundle them in when a company doesn't need say, three of them but just need one of them and that's it. In all honesty, it's not a difficult fix. Will Microsoft do this? Probably not but it could be something that they're holding onto for if/when the time comes, that they need to do this.

 

[KnittedKnight]

If they continue to underperform 5-6 years from now I could see them exit the hardware console side but conventional wisdom would have had them do so already which hasn't happened, instead doubling down, at significant cost. The strategic imperative remains the same, maintain Windows relevant as the go-to productive OS for game development, and a home to premium gaming, preventing any other OS platform from changing that status quo, including android os, and ios.

Hard to really say other than bemuse about Gamepass ultimate end game. Good thread by the OP.

 

[PlacidusaX]

Consecutive years of missing their growth targets for GamePass makes the combining of Gold and GamePass an inevitability, and don't expect it to be priced any less than both services combined already cost.

I pay $50 a year for Gold, I only pay for multiplayer... if they try forcing what GP or GPU costs on me, I'm out. Will sell all my Xbox stuff including my account.

 

[KiryuRealty]

I pay $50 a year for Gold, I only pay for multiplayer... if they try forcing what GP or GPU costs on me, I'm out. Will sell all my Xbox stuff including my account.

You know it's coming...

 

[PlacidusaX]

You know it's coming...

And I'll be going...

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

No regulator asked for concessions, is MS who said 'they are open to make concessions' (I think MS is again bullshitting and is only a way to justify to their fans the release on rival consoles games from the publishers they bought and something they already planned to do as they said because it's the only way that their acquisitions of publishers would make sense economically, and also would match with their strategy of slowly abandoning Xbox and moving to other platforms and become a full multiplatform 3rd party).

So basically, you're of the thought that the talk of concessions is a smokescreen by Microsoft to act as cover for a plan to bring their games to other platforms with native builds anyway, it's just that by hiding that intent behind the concessions argument, they can make it look as if they were forced to make those games multiplatform?

I...I can definitely see them bringing up that point for exactly that reason. A "have their cake and eat it too" sort of thing.

MS as a whole is huge, bug MS in gaming is not that big. And in the gaming markets where he's more relevant or has potential to be relevant (consoles, game subs, cloud gaming) after the acquisition would continue behind others and wouldn't be in a position to perform monopolistic actions because wouldn't have enough market power. And in the case of game subs and cloud gaming they are small markets that will grow but won't be that huge, for several reasons they won't dominate the market and always will be secondary.

I get what you mean, but does MS being behind Sony in gaming revenue, and potentially both Nintendo & Sony in gaming profit, after getting ABK really matter so much when they have the rest of the company willing to bankroll any gaming initiative they want? That's why it's hard for me to just focus on this acquisition as the Xbox division in relation to PlayStation. PlayStation is a subsidiary of Sony; Xbox is a division within Microsoft. There are things Xbox as a division can benefit from WRT the larger company that PlayStation as a subsidiary cannot benefit from WRT Sony (although I wouldn't say I know a lot about the particular differences between subsidiaries & divisions legally).

I mean picture it this way; once they get ABK, they will clearly outpace Nintendo in gaming revenue and could potentially outpace Sony in gaming revenue as well. That increase in revenue, which they purchased, is IMO directly corellatable to market power. That can be used to entice more lucrative deals with 3P publishers for exclusive games and content. Maybe not as in the same fashion as PlayStation because of install base size differences, but would that necessarily really matter?

Larger revenue for Xbox through merging acquisitions into the division's revenue, cash profits generated from Azure/Windows/Office that Xbox division can tap into to secure and pay off 3P devs/pubs even to the point of covering for lost revenue of direct sales (they already do this in ways with GamePass), leveraging Azure to pull in more 3P dev/pub clients for cloud contracts (tying them even more into the Microsoft productivity software & services ecosystem), which can end up netting benefits for customer-facing services ala MS Azure's 'strategic partnership' deal with Sega...I just don't think it's that easy to ignore what these types of acquisition moves can do to act as a multiplicative benefit for other aspects of their console business that can really impact Sony and even Nintendo since MS have the means to consolidate power through resources affecting the frontend (products and services directly to customers) and backend (products & services to developers and publishers) all under one roof: theirs.

Forza 8 is also confirmed to be a GaaS. The last Fallout and Elder Scrolls also were GaaS. So the only two big selling MS IPs who have to move to GaaS are Gears and Doom.

Kinda yuck. Forza Motorsport at least better be a much better implementation of GaaS than Forza Horizon 5. That game has so many bugs and content update issues, it doesn't actually seem that far removed from Halo Infinite in terms of dropping the ball.

I'd say it's just quite lucky that there aren't really many other open-world arcade'ish racers out on the market for people to choose from, otherwise I think the drop off would be much steeper and more readily visible.

I think that after ABK instead of chasing EA or Take 2 will go for acquisitions like the ones you mention.

That would be the smart decision. They already have enough developers for consistent GamePass content, and to boost gaming revenue. IMO any further major publisher acquisitions within the next five years from them would just show nothing but greed, they need to show what they can do with what they already have.

Regarding GP ARPU, I think they'll first remove or highly reduce the offers of free months and $1 deals limiting them to 1 time per account and hardware. Then they may merge the base GP and Gold. For the same price of GP they'd also include Gold, which now wouldn't be purchasable separatedly but you'd be required to have GP to play online on Xbox.

I can see them doing that.

Yes, I think they can do this but Sony and Nintendo won't allow to have GP or a MS store on their platforms. Sony and Nintendo only would allow GP on their platform once MS does a Sega and stops being a console manufacture and completes their transition to be a full multiplatform 3rd party publisher, start to release all -or at least the console ones that the console can run- MS games day one on the Nintendo and Sony console and stores (so MS would pay the 30%), if GP only includes MS games and any payment from GP or related DLC/MTX/season passes on their platform also gives the 30% to Sony/Nintendo.

That's exactly what I'm suggesting Microsoft will likely end up doing! However, that doesn't mean they have to stop manufacturing Xbox hardware. IMO it just means they cannot continue the Xbox on the traditional console business model. That means treating it more like, say, their Surface line of devices, or a PC NUC. It means allowing it to run Windows (they can still have curated frontends, just the ability to switch to full Windows would also be required. You can already do this with Windows devices that change their interface when switching from laptop to tablet modes, for example). It means not locking 1P content to only Xbox devices Day 1 (in that sense, bringing all their games natively to PlayStation & Nintendo alongside Xbox & PC could be seen as going full multiplat 3P pub as you were saying).

I also agree that GP on Nintendo & Sony platforms, which would only happen if MS move Xbox from that traditional console business model, would have to be a curated one. What cut MS gives them would be between them and the other platform holders, but I'm thinking that different versions would limit what specific MS games would be on their version of GP. Like I gave the example somewhere of a Viva Pinata 2; on Nintendo's system that would not be a Day 1 GamePass game, because a game like Viva Pinata 2 may have strong direct sales potential on a Switch 2, and Nintendo would want to prioritize that as it means more of a revenue cut for them versus 30% cut through their curated GamePass subs. OTOH, if they WANT to eventually add it to their own platform's GP, they can. Meanwhile, Microsoft may have it in GP Day 1 for Xbox and PC devices accessing their specific GamePass, but by this point, Xbox consoles would be Xbox "devices" just running Windows for gaming needs.

I think MS can't stand that Valve got the most PC gaming western market and that they are also leading PC portables, so I think MS will fight them hard in both fronts. MS will want to dominate the OS and gaming store markets in both home and handheld PCs.

Definitely; MS missed the boat on locking down PC when the chance was best, and Linux for gaming is just getting better and better by the day, risking lower reasons to need Windows.

Windows is magnitudes more important to Microsoft than Xbox as a division, so if they feel Windows needs a more direct line in a market segment to anchor its presence with a valuable customer base such as gamers, they would do it through Xbox.

I think that unless some regulators or justice force Apple, Google, Sony and Nintendo to allow other stores and/or payment methods on their systems without paying the platform holder the 30%, they won't allow it by themselves. I think Epic, MS and now Elon Musk/Twitter & Paypal (plus maybe soon also Meta/FB/Instagram/Whatsapp) will fight for this very hard.

Good point. Epic's issue with Google and Microsoft's with Apple is that they have to pay a 30% cut, but it's ironic considering Microsoft requires 3P publishers to pay them a 30% cut for selling software on Xbox.

However, I understand why they do that, because it's part of the traditional console business model. Apple and Google devices aren't games consoles but still implement that part of a business model generally applied to consoles for their products, meanwhile AFAIK Microsoft does not have such a model for Windows. So in that sense I can see where companies like Apple & Google wield an unfair advantage over companies like Microsoft.

I wonder if Microsoft have ever tried asking Apple, Google, Amazon etc. how their devices operate on a model where them taking 30% cuts off software and services on their platform (or allowing products on their platforms that don't go through their own storefronts) is actually required to sustain their business models. Companies like Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft can prove why they require 30% cuts from 3P sales, MTX etc. since they heavily subsidize their console hardware at massive volumes. Apple, Google, and Amazon sell their devices with big profit margins right upfront, and already require licenses to develop applications for their products & storefronts, but still collect a percentage off app sales on top of that.

Could easily be argued as a business model built more out of a want versus a need, if Microsoft wanted a good argument as means to try getting GamePass (in its entirety) on Apple/Google/Amazon products without needing to go through their respective storefronts or paying them a 30% cut, then throw in the fact they don't do that with developers on Windows to strengthen the case.

I think Sony and Nintendo will continue doing pretty much what they do. Sony will continue growing in all areas investing more in everything: a more powerful PS6, more generations of PSVR improving the tech, more iterations of PS+ and their cloud gaming, more mobile games, more PS exclusives than ever before, more investment supporting indies, more PC port and some rare case where they release day one on PC (but not with Uncharted or God of War, I mean like with games like that rumored game with NC Soft, which would basically would be an PC Asian F2P MMORPG with a skin of a Sony IP).

Yeah, I agree with this. However, I think Sony could do something relatively novel on PC, if they really want growth there but don't want to cede profits to other storefronts like Steam. Remember a while ago whenever I mentioned about a PlayStation PC storefront/launcher? One that could operate on a subscription model (with shared privileges between the PC storefront and console PS+) and an ad-based model? Where they could use that to justify Day 1 PC releases for 1P content and leverage their connections with 3P partners to basically have a free shared license to sell their games on the console PS Store & PC PS storefront?

I kind of still think that may be something they consider doing. It would be them leveraging PC, but in a different way, and wouldn't have to mean them completely cutting off other storefronts like Steam. It'd just mean Steam would get 1P ports noticeably later down the road. Whether Sony would do that with a completely built-from-the-ground-up storefront or by partnering with say CDPR's GOG or EGS, I don't know. But that way they could treat it as a virtualized PS console in a launcher/storefront package for PC devices.

So whether you want to access Sony content on PlayStation consoles or on PC, either way you can get it Day 1, you can have (optional) cross-play, you can link your PS+ accounts, trophies, saves (with some exceptions) etc. between the two, and the key would be for Sony to get as many 3P partners on console to bring those games to their own PC storefront/launcher, incentivizing customers with semi-crossbuy and Rewards options within the ecosystem.

Could definitely see Sony doing that by some time 10th-gen consoles are ready to go, but otherwise that would be in addition to the things you already mention.

Nintendo I think that in the next generation Nintendo will 'invent' (according to fanboys who always think that Nintendo invented everything) 4K and trophies. And that will invest more in theme parks, toys and movies but regarding games and platforms will continue as always. I think they'll release a 'next gen' Switch 2 with the hardware that was rumored for Switch Pro (slightly more powerful Switch capable to scale to 4K) and that some years later will release a proper successor with a more different concept.

Yeah, I think this makes sense for Nintendo. They're probably the easiest to predict in terms of business strategy over the next 10 years, traditionally the slowest to change things around or adopt certain standards. Who knows, maybe the full-on Switch successor will be a Virtual Boy 2; I mean the Oculus Quest 2 is basically a good version of what the Virtual Boy wanted to be, and it doesn't matter if Nintendo wasn't the first to it because they weren't the first to the concept of a Switch-like device, either.

But hardcore Nintendo zealots will act as though the Meta Oculus Quest devices never existed anyway

I think that at some point Gaben will get old and sell to MS. I don't know how true this is, but I red somewhere back in the days that he wanted MS to run the online store for Half-Life 2 and more software but MS refused (that would have been circa 2003/4, so I will not find the source).

Valve has an affinity with MS.

Honestly, I don't think MS can buy Steam at this point. Steam is well over 50% of the PC gaming market in terms of non-browser games, but they (Valve) earned that through offering a superior product that end customers chose en masse, and just grew from there.

MS getting Steam would have been no work on MS's part to help it grow into a dominant force, just them buying it up after Valve put in all the hard work themselves. Regulators don't really care about single companies having significant shares of an industry market so long as they didn't buy their way into that market share.

I think MS buying Steam would immediately drum up alarm bells and get such an acquisition attempt shut down immediately, and rightfully so IMO. If MS want to gain big market share in the PC gaming scene, they need to offer their own competitive storefront and go from there.

If they continue to underperform 5-6 years from now I could see them exit the hardware console side but conventional wisdom would have had them do so already which hasn't happened, instead doubling down, at significant cost.

True, and I also just want to clarify for anyone who may've interpreted otherwise: I'm not saying Xbox hardware will go away. Whatever money MS loses on subsidizing hardware, ultimately means nothing to them given their size and how much money the other divisions bring in.

However, that doesn't mean they're always going to favor a model where they keep taking big hardware subsidization losses, even if as a company they can tank it. They could have kept Mixer going forever, for example, but shut that down pretty quickly. Xbox is different enough to the extent that it always serves a purpose hardware-wise, but it's still gotta come up to a point where MS decides whether to stick with the model as it currently exists, or change it so the hardware itself isn't a financial burden (even if it being so does not hurt them at all).

The strategic imperative remains the same, maintain Windows relevant as the go-to productive OS for game development, and a home to premium gaming, preventing any other OS platform from changing that status quo, including android os, and ios.

Yeah, and on the PC side that Windows relevance WRT gaming may not be in ten years what it is today. Valve seems very invested in pushing Steam OS via Steam Deck and offshoots of that, and making Linux a genuine gaming-friendly OS platform. I bet there's a ton of hardcore & core Windows gamers & users who would prefer to switch to Linux if the performance overhead penalties for emulating Windows software through stuff like WINE wasn't large (or they perceive as being large), or if more program were simply Linux-compatible.

Microsoft already lost the opportunity of a century locking down PC gaming when they basically ignored it in the 2000s, if they aren't careful they could lose relevance in that space altogether except for the most stubborn unwilling to switch.

Hard to really say other than bemuse about Gamepass ultimate end game. Good thread by the OP.

Thanks; tried my best

 

[ksdixon]

I'm surprised MS didn't go with the cheaper plastic surface duo prototype but branded as Surface Duo X. If not playing touchscreen controller spanned onto bottom screen, attach a controller cover.

 

[Alabtrosmyster]

It's all x86 architecture which makes ports extremely easy to do. The consoles still have their store fronts but the tech inside them is basically form factor PC's. As for upgrading components, don't be surprised if you see Microsoft AND Sony have a modular console when next generation starts where you can swap out the CPU, GPU, RAM and SSD.

What is even more important is how Sony's APIs are closely aligned with their Windows\Android equivalents, programmers rarely code directly to the architecture (however a different architecture has to have its quirks).

The fact that the Switch is on ARM is not what prevents ports to it.

 

[Alabtrosmyster]

Honestly, I don't think MS can buy Steam at this point. Steam is well over 50% of the PC gaming market in terms of non-browser games, but they (Valve) earned that through offering a superior product that end customers chose en masse, and just grew from there.

MS getting Steam would have been no work on MS's part to help it grow into a dominant force, just them buying it up after Valve put in all the hard work themselves. Regulators don't really care about single companies having significant shares of an industry market so long as they didn't buy their way into that market share.

MS has their OS store, it's horrible and the one time I tried installing a game with it (Forza Horizon 4) it took forever and the installer god mixed up with the DLC and updates.

Not touching it again, except for basic programs.

I think MS buying Steam would immediately drum up alarm bells and get such an acquisition attempt shut down immediately, and rightfully so IMO. If MS want to gain big market share in the PC gaming scene, they need to offer their own competitive storefront and go from there.

Probably the regulators, but something has to happen with the ownership once Gabe and the other owner can't run the ship anymore (assuming they have not stealthily sold shares here and there since 1996).

 

[Bodycount611]

the platform is pretty niche as it is, never seen it in stores, especially not the game discs. Even vids i'm seeing in the U.S have their xbox sections shrinking and shrinking at gamestop's, etc.

as far as i can tell they're special order only (amazon, etc) where I live

it's already winding down imo, they have the $199 fire sale unit they're unloading on people, but how long can that last? Series S is a pretty uncompelling piece of kit, especially for enthusiasts.

Xbox... what a tragedy of a brand. Was really popular during the 360 era, but that's all over now.