You're put in charge of Xbox: how do you save it?

[Yobo]

Phil is sacked and Satya is at your door step begging you on hands and knees to save Xbox. What do you do?

For me:
1. All games (except COD and Minecraft) are immediate Xbox console exclusives. PC releases are delayed 24 months at minimum
2. Day one Gamepass is scrapped - this might have some push back but I expect you can maintain 15-20m subs without day one and current growth shows they aren't progressing beyond the 25m they've been stuck at for years
3. Clear directive to studios that GOTY quality is the goal. GAAS is trashed for any studios that aren't specialists in that space
4. Minecraft 2, WOW2 commence development as Xbox console exclusives
5. COD Devs work on new IP - with games on a 3 year rotation between devs you look to cycle them on to new IP. This might result in some years without COD but a new IP instead with the goal of finding the next big thing from Activision
6. Abandon the power race for next console. 4 out of 4 losses is a strategy that isn't working. Be the mid point in power between Sony and Nintendo. Make the lower end SKU a dockable handheld which will make it way more valuable

 

[Nhomnhom]

First I would apologize for the last 20 years and then announce they would be going full third party. I would admit that the business model of releasing day 1 games on Gamepass doesn't work and remove that requirement from internal studios.

All the focus as far as ecosystem goes would go into trying to make the MS store on windows less shit and creating a Windows UI to be controlled by a gamepad like the one Steam OS has.

I would then offer all Xbox Series user the option to install Windows on their devices to make them less useless.

 

[Yobo]

Sony needs the competition
If they are defaulting to winning what incentive is there. The idiots in Sony Japan will probably start gutting PlayStation of anything unnecessary
Or Amazon or Google enter the competition but there's every chance they are way more competent than Xbox has been

 

[Batzy]

Sell it to Tencent.

 

[Nhomnhom]

Sony needs the competition
If they are defaulting to winning what incentive is there. The idiots in Sony Japan will probably start gutting PlayStation of anything unnecessary
Or Amazon or Google enter the competition but there's every chance they are way more competent than Xbox has been

That is not a concern for MS. If you were employed by them you would not care for anything other than making as much profit as you could, Xbox obviously isn't the way to do that.

 

[rofif]

Bring back blades, the rock and fucking games. And make the console be a console. Not a ugly box or small ugly box without discs

 

[KnittedKnight]

What a stupid fallacy.

The competition in the form of MS Xbox has failed and was rejected by the market. Its mother company aka MS, is simply incapable of operating within the fundamental confines of its business rules - trying to change those very rules by any means necessary, of which many bad trends have come afoot because of it. Xbox hardware should have died last gen but MS being a behemoth kept it afloat - thus being in a way, anti-market - propping and subsidizing a failed venture despite market rejection.

There is no saving it. It's done, kaput. This slow death, pain and overall saga is actually damaging to the industry, instead of a quick death like Sega after the failed Saturn.

Valve and Nintendo are positioned to fill the vacuum. The high-end premium console market can support two players so Sony will be challenged sooner or later in a post Xbox scenario - and Sony has weaknesses, of their own making, to exploit. The market doesn't end with an eternal PlayStation monopoly post Xbox - to think in that manner, or be fearful is myopic with child-like impulsive emoting. What you will have is a transition period until a company decides to fill those shoes - which again is dependent on MS leaving, fully, the hardware side of the business.

The high-end premium console market has shown over the years that splitting the market in 3 is not profitable enough for a third participant. That means that it's unprofitable and growth retardant to be a third stringer eating scraps - hence why Nintendo bowed out more or less - companies will only participate if they believe they have a solid shot with growth prospects. That is to say, MS's presence in the market, however diminished, as the #2 opposite to Sony's PlayStation is currently a roadblock to a different challenger that may actually do a much better job - whether that is Valve releasing a console with cross-platform pollination or Nintendo releasing a premium home console again strictly positioned as PlayStation's competition. As long as Microsoft hardware (Xbox) is still part of the high-end console market, specially in the NA market, that presence is a retardant to good and healthy competition.

Folks should stop trying to salvage this abomination of a dead brand that is doing more damage than good. It should die, and stay dead.

 

[ksdixon]

"GamePass Core" is retrofitted to mean 1P XBOX games, in fact call it Xbox Pass or something and position it as the EA Play/Ubisoft+ "top-up subscriptions" used to act. Give it to whomever will take it.

 

[ethomaz]

I won't be a good guy to Xbox... I don't like the brand.

 

[arvfab]

Phil is sacked and Satya is at your door step begging you on hands and knees to save Xbox. What do you do?

Close the door

 

[JAHGamer]

There was a thread on this a while ago, my answer is the same.

1. Fire Phil Spencer, Aaron Greenberg, Matt Booty
2. Discontinue GamePass permanently
3. Discontinue the Series S permanently and offer people who bought it a $20 Xbox Store gift card
4. Discontinue "Play Anywhere", no more PC or cloud support, all games become 100% console exclusive
5. Secure as many 3rd party console exclusives as possible. Outbid Sony/Nintendo 5x if needed, these will be much more valuable than acquisitions.
6. Profit.

 

[John Elden Ring]

Not going multiplatform would be a start

 

[Thirty7ven]

I would pivot the business and go lower powered hybrid handheld and go after Nintendo and Steamdeck, offering both PC players and PlayStation players a compelling reason to own Xbox, despite your games going multiplatform.

I do think focus on gamepass and AA semi AAA games opens an opportunity in that handheld market. It would also combine with MS’s strategy of focusing more on mobile, and their switch to ARM.

It might sound a bit crazy but I don’t think it is.

 

[Entropi]

Go all in on multi-platform. Treat games like MS office and make them available on all viable platforms.

Get rid of the Xbox brand. It stinks. MS Game Studios is decent enough.

Get rid of day and date Gamepass releases for AAA games. Wait 6 months to a year for the games to release on GP.

Stop making hardware. DX1x will always be a huge crutch that leaves no room for innovation and people don’t buy it outside the US anyway. Why bother?

Buy EA, Ubisoft, The FTC and CMA, Square, Namco, Atari, Bungie, and Nintendo. Oh, and the Elden Ring guys.

But even more politicians and keep planting agents in regulatory institutions.

Profit $

 

[Bryank75]

Shit down Xbox and just call everything Microsoft Studios... Wait a few years and close down the lower end studios.

Then buy Valve and push game sales over subscriptions.

As @Entropi said, no day and date on gamepass except for smaller games and third party stuff that is AA level.

 

[flaccidsnake]

#1: Leverage WINDOWS, the monopoly OS installed on billions of computers. Port the Xbox console UI to it so that any PC/handheld can boot straight to Xbox. Add some GPU-accelerated features (ex: AI, ultra-smooth animation mode, video conferencing, Google Earth clone) to Windows so that Intel and AMD are encouraged to put minimum viable gaming-capable GPUs into their mainstream CPU packages. Work with OEMs to Increase the portion of new PCs which can do *some* gaming.

#2: Xbox becomes a broad digital entertainment brand, not just gaming. Later it is renamed to something more fitting/appealing (I kinda like 'surface', MS' other hardware brand). The Xbox portal on Windows has games, movies, shows, and apps on it, it's basically a SmartTV UI built into Windows. What is now called "Gamepass" extends to other media, competing with the digital services you get from Amazon Prime.

#3: Transition Xbox hardware to an incremental release model, which are just gaming branded Windows set top boxes similar to this:

https://www.pcmag.com/news/ces-2024-hands-on-asus-rog-nuc-resurrects-the-mighty-mini-pc-for-gaming

#4: Make the best Windows gaming handheld.

#5: The stakes are too high for game publishing at MS to be run by an internal flunky. Replace existing leadership with players from Bethesda and Activision. Phil gets some vanity title until he's phased out entirely.

#6: Radically improve cloud gaming, so it's at least as good as Geforce Now. Have frequent deals for seamless, free jump-in streaming events. Maybe if someone is watching a UFC event, there's an option to immediately play UFC 5 and it works without thinking about it.

 

[Satoru]

#1: Leverage WINDOWS, the monopoly OS installed on billions of computers. Port the Xbox console UI to it so that any PC/handheld can boot straight to Xbox. Add some GPU-accelerated features to Windows so that Intel and AMD are encouraged to put minimum viable gaming-capable GPUs into their mainstream CPU packages. Work with OEMs to Increase the portion of new PCs which can do *some* gaming.

Please no, I don't need xbox malware on my machine, thank you.

 

[flaccidsnake]

Please no, I don't need xbox malware on my machine, thank you.

If you're already running Windows, I got bad news for you...

 

[Thirty7ven]

Shit down Xbox and just call everything Microsoft Studios... Wait a few years and close down the lower end studios.

Then buy Valve and push game sales over subscriptions.

As @Entropi said, no day and date on gamepass except for smaller games and third party stuff that is AA level.

They can’t buy Valve for regulatory reasons. No way that passes.

 

[ToTTenTranz]

I send in tens of reporters to make an announcement about how much we're so sorry about the past 12 years but 2024 is going to be the year of Xbox.
All along the way I smile a lot and make sure to tell them how much of a gamer I am, because I have 3000 hours on vampire survivor (I don't need to tell them I'm paying a bunch of Pakistani kids to play using account). Rinse and repeat every year, and I keep failing upwards like Phil did before me.

/s




Now to be more serious:

1 - Go back on the Gamepass plans. 6 years later it has reached a rather low plateau of 33 million users and it's never going to make money this way. It can still exist but not for sacrificing all 1st party titles on day-one releases. Make games that are worth the $50-$70 price tag.

2 - Reduce to almost zero on subcontract work on all videogame development. If you own a gazillion studios it makes zero sense to subcontract large chunks of the work. Subcontracts leave at the end of the project and there's zero knowledge and talent retained.
I'd reduce subcontract work on Xbox studios as much as possible, and instead promote inter-studio cooperation.

3 - Subcontract work exists mainly when the project is dealing with unpredictability, and I've seen reports of Microsoft having unpredictable schedules due to waiting for public funding. Resorting to public funding not only delays everything but it's also a sign that they don't trust the projects enough to fund them completely. I'd stop relying on public funding.

4 - Forget the custom hardware (consoles) and invest seriously on an user-friendly gaming-centered windows front-end, as well as establish a bunch of solid protocols for low-level hardware monitoring and control, namely VRAM allocation, TDP configuration, overlay with socials and performance, etc.. Also implement Quick Resume and other Xbox-typical features.
Call it Xbox Mode on Windows.

5 - Every 2.5 years, establish performance tiers for hardware setups using off-the-shelf components, for desktop/laptop and handhelds. Terminating all development on consoles doesn't mean Microsoft would stop working with hardware alltogether. They can establish e.g. the S-Tier (RTX4090), A-tier (RTX4080/7900XT), B-tier (RTX4070/RX7800) for desktops. Have all their games to use pre-made settings according to the Tiers that get automatically detected, and inspire all other devs releasing games on windows to follow suit. Partner with OEMs to sell pre-built PCs according to the Tiers.
This would go a very long way to make windows an user-friendly gaming platform, enough so that people don't need consoles anymore.

6 - Tone down on the live service trends. Only a couple unicorns get to be succesful on that and the quality always suffers

7 - Be faster at cancelling projects. Sony cancels something like 6 projects a year in pre-production. If they see something isn't going well enough, just free the people to work on other stuff. Fail faster.