Xbox Xbox Going Multiplatform?

[Zazen]

I expected a statement earlier to be honest. A week is going to be painfully slow for those invested in the ecosystem. If this was Sony I’d be really upset, I have hundreds of games and thousands of trophies.

 

[method115]

I expected a statement earlier to be honest. A week is going to be painfully slow for those invested in the ecosystem. If this was Sony I’d be really upset, I have hundreds of games and thousands of trophies.

Insane to me that they didn't have something ready. My only guess is that they want to let the rumors run wild for a bit and let the real fanboys accept it. Then let it be known to the rest of the world. Instead of having a meltdown all at once.

 

[KidBaize]

Insane to me that they didn't have something ready. My only guess is that they want to let the rumors run wild for a bit and let the real fanboys accept it. Then let it be known to the rest of the world. Instead of having a meltdown all at once.

MS always seem to be behind the curve when it comes to gaming. They try to buy their way into a competitive market share position rather than just making good games from the ground up.

Now maybe that isn't as easy as PS makes it look but I never get the impression MS is really that committed to their gaming divisions. It always seems like more of a speculative venture and so they're scrambling from one poor decision to the next.

 

[KidBaize]

If it’s true then the reason as to why is pretty simple.

Phil isn’t hitting his targets and companies the size of MS tend to not like that sort of thing.

He was never going to be allowed to spend what he has on publishers without GP subscriptions skyrocketing, something had to give.

Folks have been saying as much for ages now.

How long until Phil is fired then? He must be sweating these days.

 

[method115]

MS always seem to be behind the curve when it comes to gaming. They try to buy their way into a competitive market share position rather than just making good games from the ground up.

Now maybe that isn't as easy as PS makes it look but I never get the impression MS is really that committed to their gaming divisions. It always seems like more of a speculative venture and so they're scrambling from one poor decision to the next.

When I heard of what their process was for developing Halo I realized they would never reach the quality Sony has. They are forced to hire contractors for 18 months and then let them go and they can't come back for 6 months. Imagine developing games and having people come in and out. That's a nightmare.

The worst part is they removed a bunch of COD employees and rumor is they are going to do the same thing with those studios.

 

[mixmastermo]

Huge if true


Seriously though I personally felt it was coming. I distinctly remember a comment from an Xbox guy (might have been Phil Spencer) along the lines of "gamepass is our future.. we don't even care if you don't own an xbox". It became clear Microsoft was thinking beyond the confines of their consoles.

I also was never sold on the idea that gamepass would ever be profitable. Development costs are super high and the time it takes to put games out is significantly longer than what it used to be. Sony has stron first party offerings but look at how long it takes to make those games. Naughty Dog hasn't even put out a new PS5 game...

Imagine depending on a subscription service to make up for all that time, energy and money spent.

 

[mixmastermo]

When I heard of what their process was for developing Halo I realized they would never reach the quality Sony has. They are forced to hire contractors for 18 months and then let them go and they can't come back for 6 months. Imagine developing games and having people come in and out. That's a nightmare.

The worst part is they removed a bunch of COD employees and rumor is they are going to do the same thing with those studios.

The bean counters are treating game developers like an unskilled labor force. Game development should not be treated like a manufacturing operation, the ebbs and flows are different.

 

[method115]

Huge if true


Seriously though I personally felt it was coming. I distinctly remember a comment from an Xbox guy (might have been Phil Spencer) along the lines of "gamepass is our future.. we don't even care if you don't own an xbox". It became clear Microsoft was thinking beyond the confines of their consoles.

I also was never sold on the idea that gamepass would ever be profitable. Development costs are super high and the time it takes to put games out is significantly longer than what it used to be. Sony has stron first party offerings but look at how long it takes to make those games. Naughty Dog hasn't even put out a new PS5 game...

Imagine depending on a subscription service to make up for all that time, energy and money spent.

Same. When I found out Phil said they had virtually no growth in all of 2022 I knew gamepass wouldn’t work. A report was released months after that saying sub services have stalled industry wide.

They are spending money like crazy and their console hardware is tanking. The last earnings call it was said that it was lower than expected. It’s expected to drop even more.

 

[mixmastermo]

I expected a statement earlier to be honest. A week is going to be painfully slow for those invested in the ecosystem. If this was Sony I’d be really upset, I have hundreds of games and thousands of trophies.

It was probably an intentional leak to gauge reaction from the hardcore base

Honestly at this point I think the only play MS has left is to buy Valve, have them shut Steam down and have them fully focus on development of Half Life 3

 

[Zazen]

Same. When I found out Phil said they had virtually no growth in all of 2022 I knew gamepass wouldn’t work. A report was released months after that saying sub services have stalled industry wide.

They are spending money like crazy and their console hardware is tanking. The last earnings call it was said that it was lower than expected. It’s expected to drop even more.

The decision to put day one first party AAA games is bonkers to me. These games cost like hundreds of millions now and they were giving subs away for basically free. This conditions millions of people to not spend a penny on a video game outside of GamePass. All you need to do is read comment sections on Xbox boards. They basically say "no gamepass, no buy". I just don't think there's enough revenue to cover all those expenses. I think you can't put the genie back in the bottle. If they tried to reverse course and remove day one games from GamePass I think people would just sell their consoles. Sony didn't kill Xbox, like they did it to themselves. I hope Sony is paying attention and just sticks to what they are good at. There needs to be someone in the console space.

 

[Senzo Tanaka]

They are clearly in 3rd place in the console market and Xbox has never been profitable outside of one moment in time. What is profitable though is Game Pass. It only makes sense for them to go multiple platform and put Game Pass on every single device they can.

I think they'll continue to make consoles but they will probably be glorified digita-only Game Pass boxes going forward.

 

[A_bomb47]

[Same. When I found out Phil said they had virtually no growth in all of 2022 I knew gamepass wouldn’t work. A report was released months after that saying sub services have stalled industry wide.

They are spending money like crazy and their console hardware is tanking. The last earnings call it was said that it was lower than expected. It’s expected to drop even more.

Add to that the fact that series x is much more expensive to produce to than ps5 according to digital foundry:

 

[Madmick]

Surprised? Yes, because Phil has been on record many times not being a fan of multiplatform games. He did in an interview saying it was a mistake for xbox to release Ori on Nintendo Switch.

With that said consoles sales are cratering and game pass subs have stalled. During the FTC trial Phil stated they've had virtually no growth for all of 2022. That's a bad sign for any sub service. They projected to be at close to 50 million subs by now and the last announced number was 25.

I think a lot of these decisions are coming from above Phil though at this point.


From what I heard they are 100% staying in hardware but there's no real guarantee it will be a traditional console. There are plans for a handheld, cloud type stick, etc. I've even heard rumors of them doing some sort of OEM xbox device similar to what Steam did with Steam boxes.

Cratering? They're in a distant third place, but sales are following the same trends proportionally to the other two major consoles.

Monthly Hardware Comparisons - Global - VGChartz

Discover the best-selling games by Monthly Hardware Comparisons - Global

www.vgchartz.com

Game Pass unofficially hit 30m subscribers by September 2023 according to a leak (Microsoft downplayed this figure without denying it). Since the 25 million figure was announced in January 2022, agreed, growth during that period wasn't great, but COVID made everything weird. Comparatively, despite excellent console sales, Playstation Plus subscribers went down during that same period. The stranger thing is that Phil Spencer implied that Xbox would get out of the gaming business if that figure didn't hit 110m by 2030, when there is no chance in hell of that happening, but that comment was made during the FTC case hearing four months ago, so it's insincere throwaway posturing. I don't think anyone knows what their real target or timetable is.

Obviously Microsoft isn't leaving the gaming business.

Circana: The US gaming market - December and 2023 Results

The US market in 2023 showed a slight increase; big games are getting user attention; subscriptions are about 10% of the content spent.

gamedevreports.substack.com

Despite the PS5 having nearly double the consumer base, only one full exclusive in 2023 (Marvel's Spider-Man 2, #4) outsold Microsoft's top exclusive in the same year (Starfield, #11). And that's what they sell consoles-- at a tiny profit margin or even at a loss-- to do: to sell games. Meanwhile, with the acquisition of Activision-Blizzard, that means Microsoft effectively published the #2, #6, #7, #11, and #20 bestsellers on the Top 20. Nintendo published #5, #12, and #19. Sony only published the #4 & #15. But Sony probably enjoyed the largest profit margin because they would have sold the most overall games thanks to so many multiplatform bestsellers dominating the chart, and Sony enjoying the largest customer base for those titles. I haven't reviewed end of year financial reports.

If they take the full measure of getting out of the hardware business, becoming merely a software & subscription vendor, then what incentive does Sony have to pay some stiff revenue-sharing fee to give their users access to Game Pass? They have already transformed Playstation Plus into a competitor. It's inferior, but highly similar. Most of what it lacks is Microsoft published titles, the EA partnership, and the Day 1 release benefit. If Microsoft is willing to sell their top games on the Playstation, then I'd assume Sony would negotiate each of those contracts a la carte, or at least per developer under the Microsoft umbrella. No need to allow Game Pass to elbow into PS+'s subscription revenues.

Because otherwise, what does Microsoft do? Do they threaten to withhold their bestselling franchises in order to force Sony to put Game Pass on the Playstation? Without a console base, what if Sony says no? Sounds like a great way to kill your IP. Sony would hold all the cards. Because I suspect most gamers who play multiplatform megafranchises like Call of Duty are still couch-and-controller console gamers. Does Microsoft really think this would drive those gamers to buy PCs to play one game? I think it would create a better opportunity for Sony to develop a competitor IP to supplant CoD because in that vacuum there would immediately be a very large appetite for it with no competing alternative. And Microsoft already signed the Call of Duty contract to seal the AB acquisition, anyway, so I'm not sure how the terms of that contract would affect such a strategy.

 

[Law Talkin’ Guy]

Add to that the fact that series x is much more expensive to produce to than ps5 according to digital foundry:

Yeah, after 3+ years of this generation it’s interesting that the PS5 and Series X have remained at parity for performance, if not the PS5 having an edge sometimes, given that the X was supposed to be the more powerful machine. I remember people (Mick?) posting figures like how the Series X was supposed to be capable of something like 20% more “TFLOPS” or whatever than the PS5 yet we’ve never really had any multiplatform titles this generation where performance on the X was significantly better than on the PS5 like was expected before the consoles launched in late 2020.

 

[Madmick]

Yeah, after 3+ years of this generation it’s interesting that the PS5 and Series X have remained at parity for performance, if not the PS5 having an edge sometimes, given that the X was supposed to be the more powerful machine. I remember people (Mick?) posting figures like how the Series X was supposed to be capable of something like 20% more “TFLOPS” or whatever than the PS5 yet we’ve never really had any multiplatform titles this generation where performance on the X was significantly better than on the PS5 like was expected before the consoles launched in late 2020.

Except that isn't the case, and a comprehensive review of DF's own comparisons over the years shows it. Last time I counted it up, around half of titles performed pretty much equally, but of the remaining titles, the Series X is superior at a ratio of about 4:1.

PS's manufacturing model is certainly more efficient given the difference doesn't seem to be one that most gamers care about.

 

[Law Talkin’ Guy]

Except that isn't the case, and a comprehensive review of DF's own comparisons over the years shows it. Last time I counted it up, around half of titles performed pretty much equally, but of the remaining titles, the Series X is superior at a ratio of about 4:1.

PS's manufacturing model is certainly more efficient given the difference doesn't seem to be one that most gamers care about.

I’m not explaining what I mean right. When I say they’re at parity I mean there’s not really any demonstrable difference between the two that’s going to justify buying an X over the 5. Like I cannot think of a single title that’s released over the last three years where there was a consensus of “get this on Series X, it fucking sucks on PS5”. There’s no equivalent to any releases that we had 20 years ago where for example Max Payne 2 both looked and played significantly better on an Xbox than the PS2. The distinction in performance between titles between the 5 and the X is mostly slight nuances in resolution, like one title running at 1440p on the PS5 and it running at say 1800p on the Series X.

I got a PS5 on launch in November 2020, then I picked up a Series X in February 2021. I remember catching some shit from my wife over it and I recall trying to argue that the Series X was supposed to be the more powerful machine. However, in all that time I’ve never felt compelled to pick up a game that was available on both consoles for the X over the 5, and only play the Series X for Xbox exclusives, or backwards compatible 360 or og Xbox games. Meanwhile, in the past year I’ve picked up Dead Space, Hogwarts Legacy, Diablo IV, Modern Warfare 2 and 3, and Robocop all for my PS5 and nothing for my X.

 

[Madmick]

I’m not explaining what I mean right. When I say they’re at parity I mean there’s not really any demonstrable difference between the two that’s going to justify buying an X over the 5. Like I cannot think of a single title that’s released over the last three years where there was a consensus of “get this on Series X, it fucking sucks on PS5”. There’s no equivalent to any releases that we had 20 years ago where for example Max Payne 2 both looked and played significantly better on an Xbox than the PS2. The distinction in performance between titles between the 5 and the X is mostly slight nuances in resolution, like one title running at 1440p on the PS5 and it running at say 1800p on the Series X.

I got a PS5 on launch in November 2020, then I picked up a Series X in February 2021. I remember catching some shit from my wife over it and I recall trying to argue that the Series X was supposed to be the more powerful machine. However, in all that time I’ve never felt compelled to pick up a game that was available on both consoles for the X over the 5, and only play the Series X for Xbox exclusives, or backwards compatible 360 or og Xbox games. Meanwhile, in the past year I’ve picked up Dead Space, Hogwarts Legacy, Diablo IV, Modern Warfare 2 and 3, and Robocop all for my PS5 and nothing for my X.

I understand. Agreed, the PS5 doesn't lag behind the XSX the way the Switch lags behind both, or the way we observed consoles in the past to lag behind competitors.

 

[mixmastermo]

The decision to put day one first party AAA games is bonkers to me. These games cost like hundreds of millions now and they were giving subs away for basically free. This conditions millions of people to not spend a penny on a video game outside of GamePass. All you need to do is read comment sections on Xbox boards. They basically say "no gamepass, no buy". I just don't think there's enough revenue to cover all those expenses. I think you can't put the genie back in the bottle. If they tried to reverse course and remove day one games from GamePass I think people would just sell their consoles. Sony didn't kill Xbox, like they did it to themselves. I hope Sony is paying attention and just sticks to what they are good at. There needs to be someone in the console space.

Remember when we were being told that putting AAA games on Gamepass actually leads to a significant increase in sales?

L O L

 

[KidBaize]

When I heard of what their process was for developing Halo I realized they would never reach the quality Sony has. They are forced to hire contractors for 18 months and then let them go and they can't come back for 6 months. Imagine developing games and having people come in and out. That's a nightmare.

The worst part is they removed a bunch of COD employees and rumor is they are going to do the same thing with those studios.

Wow didn't know that. Nobody working on the game will give a shit about the final product if they know they won't be around to see it released.

 

[Hyperglide]

No point to own anything hardware related from Microsoft if they have all their games go multiplatform. I can just wait a few months and get it on the PS5/6 months later, or even longer when it's cheaper, since I won't be able to rely on GamePass any longer. I really hate the PS5 UI and PSN. It's one of the main reasons I play all my multi-plat games on Xbox. Microsoft should come out and put an end to the speculation soon. The rumors are pretty damaging if they're not going this route.

Uncle Phil is going to make a statement next week to clarify this with some corporate side speak and non-commital roundabout answers to cull the herd.

Source: https://www.trueachievements.com/news/microsoft-xbox-playstation-games-phil-spencer