You're put in charge of Xbox: how do you save it?
- Thread starter Yobo
- Start date
For me i would
1 - i would Rebrand to Microsoft Game Studios and completely go 3RD party and port all xbox exclusives games that have been released up until now but all future sequels will still be exclusive. but all new IP will be released everywhere.
2 - i would announce that we are exiting the hardware business (Temporarily) i.e. there will not be a next gen Xbox anytime soon we will come back on our own time sometime after the release of the PS6 but we will continue to sell series X/S
3- Sell Rare, Compulsion Games, inXile Entertainment, Ninja Theory, Obsidian Entertainment, Undead Labs, Double Fine.
Then i would move 343 Industries and The Coalition under the Activision banner.
4 - Buy EA just for the Sports Games and make them free to play and throw them in game pass Day 1 Bring back some of the old sports games like NBA Live
5 - Get rid of day 1 game pass releases for all games Except for free to play games and have all other games come to Game pass 3 to 6 months later
6- Re - enter the hardware business (2033) and possibly go back to exclusively after the COD deal is up.
1 - i would Rebrand to Microsoft Game Studios and completely go 3RD party and port all xbox exclusives games that have been released up until now but all future sequels will still be exclusive. but all new IP will be released everywhere.
2 - i would announce that we are exiting the hardware business (Temporarily) i.e. there will not be a next gen Xbox anytime soon we will come back on our own time sometime after the release of the PS6 but we will continue to sell series X/S
3- Sell Rare, Compulsion Games, inXile Entertainment, Ninja Theory, Obsidian Entertainment, Undead Labs, Double Fine.
Then i would move 343 Industries and The Coalition under the Activision banner.
4 - Buy EA just for the Sports Games and make them free to play and throw them in game pass Day 1 Bring back some of the old sports games like NBA Live
5 - Get rid of day 1 game pass releases for all games Except for free to play games and have all other games come to Game pass 3 to 6 months later
6- Re - enter the hardware business (2033) and possibly go back to exclusively after the COD deal is up.
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So, this will sound a little different from the thing I posted in the old version of this thread, but not too different from one of my proposals.
It goes like this, if you want to save Xbox the platform, well, you really can't, its too far gone. But it can be a bridge to Gamepass as a standalone service, which is what MS has been building towards anyways.
So, what should MS gaming's future be. The ideal is for Gamepass to be a standalone gaming subscription service that is available anywhere. On PC and "PC portables," on Smart TV, on Android phones and if possible on Apple devices and consoles made by Sony, Nintendo and Valve. Games can also be purchased stand-alone but no handouts, that is an aftertought to Gamepass.
And how should MS get there? They need to do a few things. They need to build the standalone Gamepass brand and make it easy to use and utilize. The goal should be to make it as easy to access as Netflix. To do so they will need to unify the different GP services, get gamepass playable, over cloud, through all smart tvs instead of just Samsung ones, build a user ecosystem to unite XBL, Battlenet and existing GP communities. They need to keep XB alive until smart tvs can take over. They need to build and launch a non-shit storefront for both PC and mobile. They need to fully integrate Activision-Blizzard into Gamepass, at least in the public consciousness. And at the very end they have to make it all have a road to profitability. Oh yeah, and they have to do all of that by 2028.
In regards to branding, Gamepass is the brand of the future, Xbox, "MGS", "Live" and various other things ("battle.net" lol wtf is that) are brands of the past. They need to stop saying Xbox and just say Gamepass from now on. Games, on console anyways, don't need to go anywhere else and outside of live service games, they probably shouldn't go on anything that doesn't support Gamepass. But thats just a scrap to keep Xbox around until an "on TV" experience that doesn't involve a 500 dollar up-front payment becomes available.
Gamepass is the future and its future for normie CoD-enjoyers is via streaming to tv. Its already impossible to buy a good tv that doesn't have smart features (trust me, I tried) and by 2028 enough of the market should have switched over that it will be time to go all in on it. Of course if the dedicated consoles will let Gamepass on then go for it, but they have very little reason to do so.
PCs and "PC portables" aka open platforms, should be a lay-up but should be an important part of GP. Its great for hardcore, its fertile ground for "ultra-casual" (think Pop Cap or Diner Dash) if you can get those people on and its great for subs if people play the games long-term (think Skyrim, Flight Sim, Ara, etc.)
On phones the acquisition of King is obviously the core that they start with, along with Warzone and Minecraft. Shockingly there's a great example already out there, Apple Arcade, so the goal here would be to be the Apple Arcade of Android. Withrecent legal rulings in the US it seems like this service is impossible on iDevices but an inevitability on Android/Chromium. They could, if they really want to splurge, pay to have it bundled on phones even and then have this help get peopke into the PC or tv aspects on the side.
In order to make the three above truly unified they need to be, well, truly unified. They need to be a single payout with no ala cart "just mobile" or "just console" option. The UI needs to be good on all three and I mean actually good, not that tiles bullshit. On PC it literally needs to look like Steam 2.0 with a green background and more prominent "ads" (for free stuff MS wants you to try.) On console and mobile I don't care as long as its not shit but they cannot halfass the PC interface. Honestly, Tiles is such a pile of shit that its threatening the longterm future of Windows.
In regards to payments they need to unify and simplify everything. The current system of different rates per platform is a mess, it hurts usage spread and is such a joke. There's only one Netflix and, since the goal is to be Netflix, there should only be one singular, monolithic, Gamepass.
This singular Gamepass will also need a singular community. Here they really can just take the current Xbox one and add the other stuff in. So that is user names, achievments, game libraries, etc. There should be a way to port in Battle.Net stuff but that is what you need to do.
As for what else needs to be done? Xbox gets to live, for now. The term I'd use is to "run out the clock on the generation". There is no Series successor, thats GP over TV, love it or leave it. I think these non-live service ports are a bad idea and need to go unless they come to Switch/PS with GP.
And now, a word about game dev. I think MS needs to do a few things about game dev but none are really buying studios. The first is that they need to fully integrate AB (and especially the King unit) into them. And they need to do so both behind the scenes and publicly. This means putting a MS or GP logo on all Activision games, it means paying Ubisoft to put their BC on Gamepass and, to the extent it is legally possible, to pay for day and date GP access to AB content even over cloud.
Beyond that I don't think they should really be paying through the nose for studios anymore. They needs some smaller teams (King people?) doing low risk, high reward casual PC stuff. I think I'd keep Activision-Blizzard as it is otherwise, even VV, which has likely lost most of its top talent after the transition to Blizzard support. Behind the scenes I'd fully take FO away from Bethesda because they can't handle TES, Starfield and it all at once. And I'd let outsiders partner up to work on older Activision/MS IP, but with them assuming most of the risk, an increasingly common agreement for fan remakes.
Really, this is such a big proposition that no one game is going to make or break the proposal, so I'll decline to beg for my favorites. If anything, I think there's a little less that I'd invest in. Any money put towards Japan, specifically, is just a loss. So the Sega/Atlus and Square stuff, I wouldn’t have done it. I don't think it gets anything. The mobile stuff, CoD and Minecraft should be enough to get them on phones and then they can either play the on tv offerings or not based on their own wherewithal.
And one last thing. All of this needs to be wrapped up by mid 2028. Thats the first or second year of PS6, smart tv penetration is where you want it, cloud should be... passable..., it should be enough time to have built a good storefront, to have worked out release schedules for their current teams and moved them on to a better crop of games.
And then, if you do all that and still fail then it really is time to pull the plug and retreat to Minecraft, King, rare PC stuff and maybe CoD.
It goes like this, if you want to save Xbox the platform, well, you really can't, its too far gone. But it can be a bridge to Gamepass as a standalone service, which is what MS has been building towards anyways.
So, what should MS gaming's future be. The ideal is for Gamepass to be a standalone gaming subscription service that is available anywhere. On PC and "PC portables," on Smart TV, on Android phones and if possible on Apple devices and consoles made by Sony, Nintendo and Valve. Games can also be purchased stand-alone but no handouts, that is an aftertought to Gamepass.
And how should MS get there? They need to do a few things. They need to build the standalone Gamepass brand and make it easy to use and utilize. The goal should be to make it as easy to access as Netflix. To do so they will need to unify the different GP services, get gamepass playable, over cloud, through all smart tvs instead of just Samsung ones, build a user ecosystem to unite XBL, Battlenet and existing GP communities. They need to keep XB alive until smart tvs can take over. They need to build and launch a non-shit storefront for both PC and mobile. They need to fully integrate Activision-Blizzard into Gamepass, at least in the public consciousness. And at the very end they have to make it all have a road to profitability. Oh yeah, and they have to do all of that by 2028.
In regards to branding, Gamepass is the brand of the future, Xbox, "MGS", "Live" and various other things ("battle.net" lol wtf is that) are brands of the past. They need to stop saying Xbox and just say Gamepass from now on. Games, on console anyways, don't need to go anywhere else and outside of live service games, they probably shouldn't go on anything that doesn't support Gamepass. But thats just a scrap to keep Xbox around until an "on TV" experience that doesn't involve a 500 dollar up-front payment becomes available.
Gamepass is the future and its future for normie CoD-enjoyers is via streaming to tv. Its already impossible to buy a good tv that doesn't have smart features (trust me, I tried) and by 2028 enough of the market should have switched over that it will be time to go all in on it. Of course if the dedicated consoles will let Gamepass on then go for it, but they have very little reason to do so.
PCs and "PC portables" aka open platforms, should be a lay-up but should be an important part of GP. Its great for hardcore, its fertile ground for "ultra-casual" (think Pop Cap or Diner Dash) if you can get those people on and its great for subs if people play the games long-term (think Skyrim, Flight Sim, Ara, etc.)
On phones the acquisition of King is obviously the core that they start with, along with Warzone and Minecraft. Shockingly there's a great example already out there, Apple Arcade, so the goal here would be to be the Apple Arcade of Android. Withrecent legal rulings in the US it seems like this service is impossible on iDevices but an inevitability on Android/Chromium. They could, if they really want to splurge, pay to have it bundled on phones even and then have this help get peopke into the PC or tv aspects on the side.
In order to make the three above truly unified they need to be, well, truly unified. They need to be a single payout with no ala cart "just mobile" or "just console" option. The UI needs to be good on all three and I mean actually good, not that tiles bullshit. On PC it literally needs to look like Steam 2.0 with a green background and more prominent "ads" (for free stuff MS wants you to try.) On console and mobile I don't care as long as its not shit but they cannot halfass the PC interface. Honestly, Tiles is such a pile of shit that its threatening the longterm future of Windows.
In regards to payments they need to unify and simplify everything. The current system of different rates per platform is a mess, it hurts usage spread and is such a joke. There's only one Netflix and, since the goal is to be Netflix, there should only be one singular, monolithic, Gamepass.
This singular Gamepass will also need a singular community. Here they really can just take the current Xbox one and add the other stuff in. So that is user names, achievments, game libraries, etc. There should be a way to port in Battle.Net stuff but that is what you need to do.
As for what else needs to be done? Xbox gets to live, for now. The term I'd use is to "run out the clock on the generation". There is no Series successor, thats GP over TV, love it or leave it. I think these non-live service ports are a bad idea and need to go unless they come to Switch/PS with GP.
And now, a word about game dev. I think MS needs to do a few things about game dev but none are really buying studios. The first is that they need to fully integrate AB (and especially the King unit) into them. And they need to do so both behind the scenes and publicly. This means putting a MS or GP logo on all Activision games, it means paying Ubisoft to put their BC on Gamepass and, to the extent it is legally possible, to pay for day and date GP access to AB content even over cloud.
Beyond that I don't think they should really be paying through the nose for studios anymore. They needs some smaller teams (King people?) doing low risk, high reward casual PC stuff. I think I'd keep Activision-Blizzard as it is otherwise, even VV, which has likely lost most of its top talent after the transition to Blizzard support. Behind the scenes I'd fully take FO away from Bethesda because they can't handle TES, Starfield and it all at once. And I'd let outsiders partner up to work on older Activision/MS IP, but with them assuming most of the risk, an increasingly common agreement for fan remakes.
Really, this is such a big proposition that no one game is going to make or break the proposal, so I'll decline to beg for my favorites. If anything, I think there's a little less that I'd invest in. Any money put towards Japan, specifically, is just a loss. So the Sega/Atlus and Square stuff, I wouldn’t have done it. I don't think it gets anything. The mobile stuff, CoD and Minecraft should be enough to get them on phones and then they can either play the on tv offerings or not based on their own wherewithal.
And one last thing. All of this needs to be wrapped up by mid 2028. Thats the first or second year of PS6, smart tv penetration is where you want it, cloud should be... passable..., it should be enough time to have built a good storefront, to have worked out release schedules for their current teams and moved them on to a better crop of games.
And then, if you do all that and still fail then it really is time to pull the plug and retreat to Minecraft, King, rare PC stuff and maybe CoD.
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