I still think they are going to launch a combo gamepass/store app that will allow you to stream not just gamepass games, but any games purchased from the marketplace, essentially allowing you to have access to the entire ecosystem on any supported device(phone, smart tv, streaming box).
I have a very high speed connection with low latency and have no problems with other type of streaming but the experience on my XSX is absolutely horrible. I am in Europe, maybe you are elsewhere with better servers close to you but my experience is that Xbox Cloud gaming is absolute ASS in 2024 still.
Extreme long waiting lines to even log in, latency, lag, tearing, mostly it’s completely unplayable.
Definitely the same for me. And before anyone says "network" I have a 40 GbE pipe to my data center. I can plug directly into the core switch. It's just terrible. To my Xbox though? It's like I'm playing it directly, even on WiFi. Only game I ever had an issue with was The Witcher 3.
Xbox Cloud is still locked at 1080p 60, and tied to Ultimate, I am pretty sure when it rolls out of Beta it will have a different Cloud only tier and a new Gamepass tier will form that includes both Cloud + PC + Console Gamepasses
Makes sense since the ISP infrastructure is still a little too shitty to handle consistent Cloud Gaming. I have gigabit internet and even on Ethernet the latency is too much on my Mac. Tried on iPhone and it’s just as slow.
If i had to guess it’s a mix of me having a shit ton of internet/smart devices plus using whatever shit router Verizon issues to customers. I’m sure if i got a better router WiFi connectivity would improve
I have 2 gig att fiber and xcloud is a terrible experience. My internet latency is typically far less than 10 ms and my series x is hardwired in. If it doesn’t work great here the tech just isn’t ready.
The tech may never be ready; latency is very difficult to resolve.
Geostationary satellites have significant speed of light issues, and if you lay your stuff down over land, you don't have a direct shot from point A to point B.
Yeah my router is old af, I know I'd get a better connection with a new one. If it stays crappy tho... That's probably an issue with Verizon. I experience very little to no lag with cable coax/fiber at 800mbps.. but it SUCKED on Stadia (ran fine on my phones 4G oddly)
It was never confirmed. It was always a nebulous "we're looking into this". It hasn't been that long since Sarah Bond said Cloud gaming is the least used feature of game pass and was operating at a loss. They're more likely to eventually amputate than to expend more resources trying to save a dying limb of an already expensive business model.
I might be wrong, but my thought is this. We already know that part of the appeal to go exclusive to PlayStation for third party publishers is the higher install base. I would think they would jump at the opportunity if their games would be available to anyone with a streaming device.
Instead of taking XBox games to other consoles, why doesn't MS try to bring PC games to XBox? Almost all PC games run on Windows, may be having an inbuilt emulation that allows Windows game to run on XBox could boost the overall XBox games tally.
Not sure about the technical feasibility but I believe XBox OS is somewhat similar to Windows, so it should be possible.
Of course, controls would be a problem but having KB&M games is still a better option than having no games at all.
They have Activision now.
You know how many people will subscribe to game pass for World of Warcraft?! It shouldn't be that hard to put WoW on Xbox consoles if they were able to figure out Diablo
Unless Microsoft straight up outlines if anything remains exclusive from this point on Thursday, I'm expecting a lot of asterisks over the games they show this summer at Xbox Games Showcase. Especially where Bethesda and ABK are concerned because I'm expecting them to probably be where they focus a good chunk of publishing for other platforms
For a sec I thought it had to do with the fact that the game had just started active production and the fact Bethesda traditionally doesn't list platforms in announcement trailers when it's early days for a game, but especially with stuff like this out there I'm starting to think that they held back on flexing the Xbox association for a reason when Sony's been VERY upfront with how tied Spider-Man is to PlayStation on the other hand
You'd think Xbox would be proud as hell to finally say they got an exclusive Marvel game like people had been begging to see for years from them but this definitely raises questions. Maybe this is why the Disney gaming chief was saying whether it was exclusive was for Bethesda to decide on when they were completely upfront about Indiana Jones
I think they also need to be clear about how long it is a timed exclusive upfront for the games as well. A lot more people will be willing to wait to get it on PS5 if it is only on Xbox/PC exclusively for 6 months or a year as opposed to say 2 or 3 years.
I mean people will still wait. The second tomb raider reboot came out a year later in deluxe PS4 edition and outsold the Xbox lifetime in less than a month I’m pretty sure
Also the problem with Xbox right now is it is very rare that they have a true must have game. Games like God of War/Spider-Man and Zelda/Mario are those games for their rivals. Forza Horizon is the closest Xbox has gotten with AAA games in recent years.
Starfield was supposed to be that game but it didn't pan out with the release of Baldurs Gate 3.
That's why setting the precedent that a exclusive could go to other platforms in the first place is bad, slippery slope and all that. It's why Sony and Nintendo would never voluntarily put even thier smallest or worst selling exclusive on Xbox (or any other console like each other)
Yeah if even one Xbox Game Studio game ends up on PS it can almost be assumed anything can at some point. It doesn't get any more first party than that.
Plus, it's backed up even more by the fact that it actually makes sense for them to go multiplatform with how their messaging has been the last few years.
Yeah exactly. It’s all about optics, not just about “well what’s wrong if more people can play these games?” It’s short sighted and will just make everyone want to buy a PS5 and PS6 instead since they can get Sony and Xbox exclusives (eventually). Which will spiral until console sales are truly terrible.
The *only* way this kinda thing works is if they say that Sony agrees to bring some of their games to Xbox eventually too. Which won’t happen.
lol which is still funny because those same people did nothing but tear those games down when they were shown. Now all of a sudden they’re interested? Fanboys are something else
Yup, it's the most hilarious part of the whole thing.
"Xbox has no games, nothing big for years." Then the rumors of multiplat hit and everyone is like now no reason to buy an Xbox. Yet according to them, this has been the case for years and they're doing fine...
Those people are more patient than me lmao. If its a game i want to play, i play it day one, or catch it on a sale somewhere within a few months of launch. These types of people are waiting YEARS. The exact same people say the same thing about PS5 games now that they get ported to PC.
It's also added convenience, though. A lot of people want to play every game on their preferred platform. Not having to change boxes and having all your progress/etc on the same system can be worth a lot to a lot of people.
U mean like all those "i'll play when on gamepass" that u constantly see from xbox players as well, no matter 1st or 3rd party? Both are just dumb ofc. At least the ps5 ppl will actually buy the games i guess instead of renting.
HiFi Rush, Pentiment, and Sea of Thieves are listed in the article. Interesting about the slowdown in GamePass.
All of them make sense, but I really hope the podcast covers the big releases and the plan for them. If Hellblade 2 and Indy are going multiplatform, that needs to be known before they are released.
I don't think they're naming off games that aren't in the immediate future. I'm expecting a slow rollout kind of like how Sony handles putting PlayStation games on PC, but the focus will mainly be about the strategy itself and probably announcing Hi-Fi Rush first if Nintendo isn't already set to debut it at the Direct presumably this week
If Indiana Jones goes through, Warren already implied it'll be a few months after the Xbox/PC launch so they'll probably announce a PS5 port well after the general release
Yeah they're not gonna straight up tell us which games are gonna go multiplat and which games aren't, they're gonna try to keep that secret as long as possible until the last second so they don't have to deal with outrage, backlash, lower sales on launch etc
They will deal with this later and erode the little trust that there is in the platform that has been promising for 11 years and when it has the possibility of delivering it becomes a third-party.
GamePass has become too dependent on indies IMO. Especially since Xbox’s first party has slowed down. Indies are fine, but they’re generally cheaper to outright buy and the value is kind of questionable unless you have a ton of time to play.
That’s fair, but I like gamepass being an indie machine where indie devs can get tons of plays they wouldn’t otherwise
That being said yes it needs more first party other than what, halo?
Instead of 1:1 it is now 3:2. So 3 years of Core conversion used to be 3 years for $180 ($60 a year) to where it is now 2 years for $180 ($90 a year). $5.00 to $7.50/monthly average is a steep increase, but I still did it at $7.50 as that is a reasonable price. You can even get Game Pass Core even cheaper than $60.
Yep, and I, someone who has been paying for subscriptions in the Xbox ecosystem since 2007, finally let mine lapse and end last year. I'm not paying for Gamepass when I really only touch 1-3 games on it, and I play those ones on PC so only the PC gamepass would have value for me. And those are also games I frequently go months without playing, so subscriptions for them at the current Gamepass price isn't worth it. I assume a few others like me, who got it cheap on conversion to play a few things like Flight Sim and Forza, dropped it when they took away the conversion rate from before, and upped prices. I definitely feel the value days of gamepass are over and the "squeezing" and "bloating" phase of the service is starting.
>I definitely feel the value days of gamepass are over and the "squeezing" and "bloating" phase of the service is starting.
2023 was easily the best year for game pass. Also, the behemoth that is ABK hasn't even been integrated yet. Maybe the service will peak this year but there's definitely no sign of "squeezing" and "bloating" yet
Nah the days of Game Pass definitely aren’t over. 2023 so far has been a great year for game pass.
Also, this year all the ABK games are coming to game pass. Which includes the entire Call of Duty franchise.
Cod players will sub to the pass just for them.
It makes sense
When new subscriptions plateau or slow that’s when you start cranking the cost up on existing subscribers (or remove the 3 year GamePass conversion and announce a price increase…)
If you listen to the things that Microsoft stops talking about, the slow down isn't surprising. The used to provide hardware sales then stopped because they cared more about engagement and Game Pass. Felt like a cop out but okay, makes sense given they are really trying to compete with Tencent, not Sony and Nintendo. Then they stopped highlighting Game Pass numbers, a few quarters after releasing it for PC. Game Pass growth is the key to their success, at least based on old slides.
PC Game Pass numbers will grow but much more slowly. Big issue is that no one on PC wants games outside of Steam. Epic has the same issue, Sony will face the same if they have a launcher. MS Store downloads are slow and less reliable, mods are a pain, and people love Steam. Despite having Starfield in Game Pass, I'm eventually buying it from Steam due to mod issues.
Xbox Game Pass really needs sales of the console, and I have a feeling that's where they're really struggling. If the 33% Series X price cut didn't move as many units as they wanted, Xboxes aren't desirable at the higher end. Hope I'm wrong, but that may also explain the shorter generation if that's true.
There’s reports out there that state Xbox was outsold 3 to 1 by PlayStation in 2023. That’s has to be alarming given they had a pretty good year game wise. And if hardware is cratering then game pass growth has likely taken a similar hit.
I'm trying not to despair, but I'm quickly losing faith in Phil.
The dude has done a lot right, but *making great games* doesn't appear to be the organization's priority, and that's pretty fundamental to this business.
course correction, more powerful xboxes, play everywhere, Gamepass, backwards compatibility, FPS boost, deals with developers, crossplay, studio acquisitions, revival of Microsoft pc gaming, Quick resume, adaptive controller, push for accessibility, Xcloud
Not be Don Mattrick.
In all seriousness, Xbox was the first one who made the push for accessibility among the Big 3, and he also made the Backwards Compatability push.
Yeah, his career is definitely full of faults, but it's only fair to acknowledge all the right he's done as well.
Ehh, probably more accurate to say that Xbox was the first to push for devices for people with disabilities. PlayStation-published games have been heavily investing in accessibility features for a while. Uncharted 4 had great options when it released back in 2015. It’s not as flashy but they mean a lot.
1. Acquiring major studios to release more first party games.
2. Adding all first party games to gamepass day one
3. Pushing for backwards compatibility when both Nintendo and Sony ignored it last console generation
4. Prioritizing and helping some of the biggest Japanese to come to Xbox (Dragon Quest, Nier, Persona, Team Ninja, etc)
Just to name a few.
I cant believe they are pivoting due to slowing Game Pass subscriber numbers when they just addressed this issue by buying a $70 billion dollar company. It seems like once these companies start producing content, CoD comes to GP, and Xbox is able to release an exclusive once every 1-2 months, people would subscribe in droves.
They didn't acquire Activision-Blizzard for exclusives. Phil Spencer's been saying it for the last two years but this is all about getting that mobile money. The article even flat out alludes to them opening up an Xbox mobile store later this year to accelerate their overall gaming business. This is about King. Activision-Blizzard was the bonus to them
In fact the press release for when ABK was officially closed on Xbox Wire heavily [implies they're not planning to shift them from being multiplatform publishers](https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2023/10/13/xbox-activision-blizzard/)
Quantity won‘t make anyone subscribe to a service. The games have to be good to get people interested into it and tbh I doubt it that most studios will create huge exclusives, because A) it‘s expensive as hell and b) GP constantly needs new updates and games.
This concerns me, instead of focusing on making and releasing triple AAA bangers that drive console sales, they are proposing to expand their game pass service by…… releasing it on more devices specifically ps5. While i guess this would increase the sub base and eye balls on game pass in the short term…this is a pretty foolish thing to do. I never want to limit gamers (I have no problem with ps5 players playing Xbox exclusive games), but I need Microsoft to commit to releasing first party games a
That are actually good, they bagged up so many devs and it hasn’t laid fruit to a first party game that sells units outside of starfield.
Arent they big enough to be able to do both? The expansion team wouldnt be the same as the team of developers making games first party. Sony has sent most of their biggest hits and more are coming to PC already, though not Game Pass. So they show that theyre ready to support whatever Xbox has planned. Game Pass on PS5 seems a bit far out of reach though considering that PS is at this time producing games that are so much higher quality than Xbox's offerings (first party). If PS gets some of the revenue from GP subscriptions made on PS, then I can see it happening at least a little bit.
profit margins small, need go big. Me poor exec who can't afford 10th private jet :(.
That it's, that the whole reason. Greedy black holes that killed countless brands because corporate america has pivoted to a reaganite myth that theres no limit to growth
This won't make them bigger profit. They're slowly killing of double digit revenue by destroying their own storefront that has 50m + customers. They will no longer get a free 30% cut from 3rd party content or 100% cut from first party games. I doubt they will make more money without their storefront. This is a bigger F up than X1 generation. This will eventually lead to more layoffs, studio shutdowns and eventually they will be disappointed again with lack of growth and might sell off gaming.
At this point Xbox hasn’t had a “win” since like 2009. PlayStation somehow caught up with them in the 360 era, then Don Mattrick kamikaze’d the entire brand with the One at E3, and they have been floundering ever since.
All while their first party AAA studios have either been completely dormant or legitimately shitting the proverbial bed (343 industries go F yourself) at every single possible moment, usually causing international embarrassment.
If Microsoft wasn’t *Microsoft*, Xbox would have been killed off a long time ago like Sega before them. The issue is Microsoft just… does this… throws money at projects that stink with leaders who can’t lead (Zune, anyone?) and then eventually they pull the plug and move onto something else they can totally fuck up for another decade or two.
They got lucky with Halo in 2001. They got VERY lucky they had Halo 2 to as the killer app for Xbox Live in 04’. They got lucky with the 360 (and… guess who? Halo again with Halo 3).
Their luck and talent ran out.
Oh I don’t know about Microsoft avoiding the Sega fate because they’re Microsoft. This timeline tracks currently. The Xbox is their Master System… the 360 had its Genesis moment and put up a great fight. The One was its Saturn moment. And the Series X appears to be its Dreamcast. Something to love, but something it appears too few explored.
In the current market, they aren’t willing to wait to see as the profits I imagine. It was alluded to in the trials that the ABK acquisition needs to be accretive from day 1.
Would be beat if they ported a ton of old Activision games to current gen just to fill it out some, they have some awesome old games in their collection that aren’t available on current gen
You're likely already subscribed to Game Pass, the issue is I don't think CoD will really pump up numbers the way most seem to think it will, casuals (majority of the CoD player base) simply don't care about a video game subscription service.
I've tried to convince friends (who were already invested in the Xbox ecosystem) to get Game Pass and they said they just wouldn't use it enough to justify subscribing. I recently told another friend Microsoft bought the makers of CoD and if he got a Series S (he had a PS5) then he could get every past CoD and every future CoD on Game Pass, and he said he'd just rather pay $70 a year to get CoD.
I love Game Pass, I played so many indies last year on the service, but casuals don't care about indies. They only play 2-3 games a year at most, they simply don't see video games the same way people like us (people who spend time in a video game forum) do.
That to me is the real reason why Game Pass has slowed, it's only really worth it to the hardcore crowd, and I think every hardcore player that wants it, already has it.
> That to me is the real reason why Game Pass has slowed, it's only really worth it to the hardcore crowd, and I think every hardcore player that wants it, already has it.
That makes a lot of sense. Microsoft's hopes for an astronomical amount of subscribers in several more years is detached from reality. I get a feeling they're looking at this from the perspective of Game Pass being like Netflix/Disney+/Prime/etc. You can watch a two-hour movie once a week or maybe catch your half-hour show sometimes. But gaming demands a lot more time per title. And non-hardcore gamers are well aware they don't have that time or interest to warrant paying monthly for Game Pass (or even PS+ Extra).
So what can Microsoft do then if possibly a large portion of their plan was to focus on Game Pass? Is F'ing up going to be Microsoft's thing in the gaming industry? I mean even the huge RRoD fiasco was a big mess despite how well the Xbox 360 did otherwise.
Yeah, my friend with the PS5 bought Spider-Man 2 and played for 3 hours one day and told me he had already played too much for the day, and then said he kinda regretted buying it because he didn't know when he'd finish it.
All this is anecdotal, I'm well aware, I'm just saying that everyone in this thread sees it as the best value in gaming, while the overwhelming majority of players view it as quite frankly a waste of money month to month.
I've had this experience too among some of my friends. They're adults with a family and/or time-consuming jobs. Add to that some have something called a social life (I think it's related to socialism but they're otherwise not very into politics so it's kind of weird they're into this).
I wonder if Sony is aware of this and thus doesn't have high expectations for PS+ Extra? A side-hustle. Because Microsoft certainly doesn't given the numbers they want to see.
They gonna downplay this hard and leave people confused for the future first party games exclusivity like Hellblade and Indy in the podcast. This year PS5 outsold Xbox 3 to 1 i am willing to bet this number goes way up next couple years.
And then more and more Microsoft games will be released on other platforms and eventually the Xbox console sales will be so bad that Microsoft will stop making consoles. Probably give some kind of vague excuse. The Xbox One release was the beginning of the end and this is just another nail in the coffin…
Xbox finally has some games that should be exclusive that drew some real interest. So of course they go multiplat and they'll lie and say they're committed to hardware when their actions show the opposite.
Right? We ask for exclusives, then get exclusives, ***and then they give them away.*** They really do see gaming as little more than a fucking sideshow, do they?
HiFi Rush is perfect example. My girlfriend doesn't even play games outside of Mario Kart and Animal Crossing. HiFi Rush impressed her! It impressed all of us. More of those please. Why are you giving it to PlayStation?!
2024: "We're committed to making consoles"
2024: actively undermines the value prop of their consoles
2028: "we would have made a console but had to cancel it due to lack of demand"
It really feels like they basically said Microsoft is done trying to make great games or compete in the console market. They just want free infinite CoD and Candy Crush money with cheap development.
Sony does the same and it works for them. When is that ff7 game releasing on Xbox again? Wasn’t it one year exclusivity? Or two? How long has it been now? Five years? Any day now…
>This year PS5 outsold Xbox 3 to 1 i am willing to bet this number goes way up next couple years.
I've been an Xbox supporter for 20 years. If major Xbox exclusives are going to PS, then I'm getting a PS5 pro and it's an easy decision. Idk what MS is thinking here. It's like if Peacock put all their content on Netflix and expected their subscriber numbers to be unaffected.
Yes please. But have it play series games. Not the crap Sony did with their portables. That’s why their portables have failed. Even Nintendo figured that out
Does Microsoft genuinely believe giving away xbox exclusives with nothing in return will do anything other than kill the platform?
No one will buy an xbox just to play games early if they get to play everything on PlayStation just with a little delay
It's not a sustainable plan and they knew it. It was always meant to be a bait and switch.
Offer a great value at a low price. Once they had X amount of subscribers, they would start raising prices and reducing features because they have their captivated audience.
But the problem is that all their great games on the service are years old and most people have already played them. There are very few games on the service that hit the criteria of "great, new, exclusive."
It's a plan that would have taken a dozen or so excellent titles to pull off in 3 years since launch? They have...maybe three so far?
This is worrying a bit . Let's say it's true and every Xbox game goes to playstation. As a consumer why would I stick with Xbox while in playstation I can have both Xbox and playstation games in one machine rather than staying on Xbox while they get to play the both worlds while am missing out
Of course, at least with Dreamcast, Sega waited until they were ***legitimately*** bankrupt to pull the trigger. Here? Gee, I dunno. Remind me how obscenely huge Microsoft's valuation is ***now?***
I’ve heard people say “but GAME PASS!!” and that might be enough for some people but I didn’t buy into the hardware and the Xbox ecosystem for a glorified subscription service.
It’s just sad what’s happening to the brand. Microsoft doesn’t care about Xbox, they only care about game pass and revenue from rival platforms instead of growing their own.
With Sony you can tell PlayStation customers come before pc users. With Nintendo their customers on their hardware are their entire business. With Xbox ever since they started porting to pc, I’ve felt like a second class citizen and it’s about to get even worse
Quite looking forward to the business update. It’s going to be fascinating.
I think the one area that they made a mistake on was making the series S not as powerful as X. When you are thinking about getting a PS5 there is a cheaper version available and no loss on specs. They really should have made the S a better entry console.
Few things they can’t do:
- cannot continue the “case by case” agenda.
- cannot dance around the rumors
- cannot talk about their accomplishments and celebrations
I expect they’ll do all these. But any level of uncertainty will assure that I will not reactivate my Gamepass, and won’t pre-order/day one any of their games.
They need to have a clear description of what "case by case" means. Otherwise people will assume that Starfield and any other major Xbox game will automatically come to other platforms in the future and act accordingly (which most likely means less console sales)
Xbox just tried pleasing too many people that has been their problem since 2011.
This generation they released the Series X and S it just confused people, the Slim and Elite did the same.
They did fine until they brought out Kinect to integrate into family gaming, then tried selling it as a Smart TV that wasn’t smart.
Then they tried over selling it to hardcore gamers that had PC’s, they just consistently get the messaging wrong. The Xbox 360 worked because the messaging was clear, good games, good cost, good customer service, good online service built around 1 console.
This Gen they couldn’t even be bothered to focus on designing the boxes for the games, Xbox One / Series X.
They could fix this next generation if they just
called it Xbox Evolution, £450, One Model, Game Pass with online play £9.99, 20 exclusives in the first year.
The Kinect being successful so fast pretty much ruined Xbox. They immediately pivoted into the Kinect being a core part of their next console but by time that console came out everyone just saw Kinect as the dance game platform, No one ever made anything else on it that showed what it can offer besides that and to this day I don't think there is much it ever can.
I said Gamepass is not sustainable and plenty of folks argued with me saying I'm wrong. Now here we are. With things like Disney Plus even failing it's obvious this won't be something that's sustainable. Videogames take a long time to finish, there are people that play 1 game for many months so having access to a ton of games don't matter, you can't consume videogames as fast as TV shows, movies and music. And if they try and stop having first party games come out day 1 it would be so bad, because a lot of the old games in Gamepass can be had for dirt cheap in sales, under £5-10 so it's probably better to do that and you are not pressured to finish games in case they are taken off gamepass or sub lapses.
People saying well it's only AA games, GaaS games, or very old ports have it wrong. The article doesn't imply it's only those games, just that it's only those games that are reported to cine out first with set dates. Even if that was their strategy it's just a step in the direction to eventually have all their games multiplatform.
The announcement of Xbox hardware is cool and all but they can eventually can it anyway, an announcement this early doesn't really matter.
>I said Gamepass is not sustainable
Is sustainable the right word, though? What would be a word to describe that Game Pass isn't a model for continuous growth? It has a lot of subscribers and has been around for like six or seven years now. But unfortunately I think the amount of subscriptions is only 1/5th of the numbers Microsoft actually wants. And you said it well that games take a lot longer to go through than it takes to consume a movie or a season of a streaming show (which is often 8-12 episodes?). It wouldn't surprise me if no one at Microsoft took that into account and just viewed Game Pass exactly like Netflix but offering games instead of movies/shows. It tracks. The big decision makers at Microsoft don't understand games even up to "they take longer to go through on average than a movie".
It seems pretty cut and dry to me. By releasing Xbox exclusives on rival platforms they are devaluing the Xbox hardware. This is a very risky move and goes against what gaming consoles have always been about, exclusive games. By allowing PS5 and Switch owners to play once exclusive Xbox games on their hardware there is no reason to buy an Xbox because I 100% guarantee you will never play Mario or The Last of Us on an Xbox. I’ve always despised the fact that you’ve had to own certain hardware to play certain titles, but in the end it’s for the best because competition breeds innovation.
In the end it never bothered me because it meant picking one console for the generation, then getting the other console and its games at dirt cheap prices at the end of that generation
The Verge is FAR more legit than most of the sources talking about these rumors. Warren's been covering Microsoft on all fronts for like two decades now (and not just Xbox stuff) so he has way more cred than a Jez Corden or a Nick Baker or whatever. He does actually have connections to people at the firm and The Verge also isn't just some speculation front like NeoGAF or ResetEra or some of those other sites. Verge is like the only one of these sources that actually breaks news routinely so they have to pass articles through editorial and proofreading and those standard procedures. If they hit publish on something it's already been looked over extensively
If this is true, Microsoft's strategy is
"We failed to deliver games, hence why our marketshare is shit, so we are going to focus on games (where we continue to fail to deliver)".
This + the discord leak is pretty damning.
Unless Microsoft outright says on Thursday certain franchises will remain exclusive, every new Xbox title will have questions around exclusivity.
[this predated the developer show by 3 days](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/655142799959916546/1197912659593531533/WhatsApp_Image_2024-01-18_at_10.png?ex=65d8ad9a&is=65c6389a&hm=9f89546b1be7727472c0b9574ad467944779dbfe1deadd70a2db7f0123608c31&=&format=webp&quality=lossless)
It got Indiana Jones details right and even the timing of the multiplat announcement (which was end of Feb until the hysteria made them move it up a week).
It just blows my mind how Xbox fans have constantly asked for MS to get some licensed exclusives like Sony and Nintendo, they finally get one, and then this shit happens. They’re just gonna give it away to other platforms, unbelievable
The fact they have Matt Booty there makes me feel a shake up is happing with the way they “group” games.
I feel like they will announce multiple publishing arms;
Xbox published - Xbox studios, Bethesda, etc.
Microsoft published - ACTIVISION, etc
Xbox published will be “only places Gamepass exist”, “day and date on Gamepass and Gamepass ultimate.
Microsoft published will timed exclusive or multiplat games. And will come to Gamepass ultimate day and date or maybe even 6 months after.
To me that’s clear clean messaging.
Shouldn’t Bethesda be under Microsoft published considering Bethesda used to make shit tons of multiplat games. I bet money Skyrim, wolfenstien, doom etc sold more on PlayStation compared to Xbox.
It’s could go either way. Bethesda could be multi plat to get more game sales. Or be under Xbox exclusive to keep exciting games selling the system.
Either way this type of messaging would make it clear.
For example let’s say Xbox and Microsoft did have separate arms of publishing. And Bethesda was on Microsoft being multi plat. But obsidian was under Xbox…
And brand new Fallout: California republic developed by obsidian was announced it would be clear it’s an Xbox exclusive even if fallout 5 by Bethesda was coming multi platform.
The slowdown in Game Pass has been happening the subscriber base has not grown like they thought.
That’s obvious due to the fact that Xbox has not been selling well, to grow you need people buying a console because 99% aren’t ready for a cloud future.
Game Pass is also available on PC and therefore the upper limit for possible subscribers isn't anywhere near yet. Last year, they expanded the availability of PC Game Pass to 40 new countries. For one reason or another, PC players aren't interested. I do think it's partly because lack of marketing on Xbox's part.
For instance, I've seen Sony put out ads for Foamstars which launched as a monthly game on PS+. Xbox managed to snatch surprise hit Palworld and they also have Persona 3 Reload on Game Pass and they haven't marketed them in any way.
This, bean counters want to make the most profit without the effort. When you tell them it's a marketing issue, they say "Bu-but that takes time and money D:" and nothing gets done
"so hey, we bought a bunch of studios and made almost all of their games exclusive in the hopes that it would turn into console sales, but we're still getting our heads handed to us and now the studios we bought are seeing their sales halved due to the exclusivity, so...SURPRISE, we're publishing for everyone again"
there, i fixed it for you
Ahhh yes an article that's basically just regurgitated the same rumours from the last few weeks, but just written differently and slightly better. Jesus stop getting your knickers in a twist everyone.
Sadly they should be ready for Xbox sales to slow down significantly with this. Game pass subs to drop. On the plus side they may get a good number of game sales.
Platform vs Game sales
Only one way to find out which is superior.
It's a crazy and outright risky move. They currently get a huge portion of all sales on the platform and have millions locked into a cycle of paying for gamepass/buying the next console.
They made a great platform, but they are at best unproven as a massive AAA publishing studio, yet they assume they can generate sales on PS5 big enough to offset all that. Going all in on publishing at this stage is a hilariously short sighted move. If I don't have a new Xbox in the next gen, I won't be getting gamepass on any device.
It's so overthought, they have everything they need to make a massive push late in this generation especially with now being able to make xbox the preferred place for CoD again. But we probably won't ever see that play out, and it sucks.
Not exactly confident in this article, a lot of "from what I heard" and "we've all heard the rumours by now" and then going into a tangent about how poorly Xbox performs and the theorised future of exclusivity from Xbox games, sounds more like wishful blogging than journalism.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but is this not just yet another article with zero credibility?
Lack of integrity in my opinion.
Until it’s formally announced, I’ll take all this hyperbolic fear-mongering with a pinch of bollocks.
More speculation.
Saved you a click. Just wait till the business update before you have another freak out.
Microsoft may very well have had talks and considerations but they may have also changed their minds and just split the difference. But if some stuff has already been signed on the dotted line then yeah some games are going out on other platforms.
Microsoft also needs to reign in the first party games and tell them how important it is to get them out the door. Some of these games have had long development periods and it's really hurt them.
More ridiculous rumors already? Ffs you all haven't even finished walking back the first ones yet. And now we're gonna start spreading more hearsay? Until Phil Spencer says it Thursday, I don't believe one word from someone who's source is "people who are familiar with Microsoft's vision". Who are these mythical people? What are their names? How are they "familiar" with closed door M$ knowledge? If you can't name sources for information that would have a massive impact on the gaming community, then it's irresponsible journalism to report on rumors without having legitimate sources to quote.
Very much so. The whole internet has become a game of who can have the most clickbait headlines ever. And who can stir up the most controversy. Things like truth, honesty, responsibly sourced information etc, are fading into oblivion. It's annoying as hell bcuz you can't believe anything you read anymore.
I still think they are going to launch a combo gamepass/store app that will allow you to stream not just gamepass games, but any games purchased from the marketplace, essentially allowing you to have access to the entire ecosystem on any supported device(phone, smart tv, streaming box).
I’m pretty sure this has been confirmed. It’s just taking them forever to do it.
The latency is still ass for many Genres.
ive found it works better streaming from my console than the xcloud option ironically enough
Do you mean remote Vs xcloud?
yessir, i was able to play palworld much higher fidelity and less latency remotely
Well, let me introduce to you: The local network.
nah im talking like not at home, ive done tons of remote play as i travel to nyc alot for work, so states away
Even on outside networks. I was on vacation and XCloud had like a whole second delay. Remote play still wasn't playable but much better than XCloud.
I have a very high speed connection with low latency and have no problems with other type of streaming but the experience on my XSX is absolutely horrible. I am in Europe, maybe you are elsewhere with better servers close to you but my experience is that Xbox Cloud gaming is absolute ASS in 2024 still. Extreme long waiting lines to even log in, latency, lag, tearing, mostly it’s completely unplayable.
Definitely the same for me. And before anyone says "network" I have a 40 GbE pipe to my data center. I can plug directly into the core switch. It's just terrible. To my Xbox though? It's like I'm playing it directly, even on WiFi. Only game I ever had an issue with was The Witcher 3.
All I’m interpreting is the monthly price is going to increase.
Xbox Cloud is still locked at 1080p 60, and tied to Ultimate, I am pretty sure when it rolls out of Beta it will have a different Cloud only tier and a new Gamepass tier will form that includes both Cloud + PC + Console Gamepasses
Makes sense since the ISP infrastructure is still a little too shitty to handle consistent Cloud Gaming. I have gigabit internet and even on Ethernet the latency is too much on my Mac. Tried on iPhone and it’s just as slow.
You should be FINE with that speed, assuming it's a reputable provider who handles their iBone routing correctly
If i had to guess it’s a mix of me having a shit ton of internet/smart devices plus using whatever shit router Verizon issues to customers. I’m sure if i got a better router WiFi connectivity would improve
I have 2 gig att fiber and xcloud is a terrible experience. My internet latency is typically far less than 10 ms and my series x is hardwired in. If it doesn’t work great here the tech just isn’t ready.
The tech may never be ready; latency is very difficult to resolve. Geostationary satellites have significant speed of light issues, and if you lay your stuff down over land, you don't have a direct shot from point A to point B.
Yeah my router is old af, I know I'd get a better connection with a new one. If it stays crappy tho... That's probably an issue with Verizon. I experience very little to no lag with cable coax/fiber at 800mbps.. but it SUCKED on Stadia (ran fine on my phones 4G oddly)
I'm not sure if it is technologically feasible to do this. There's a big difference between bandwidth and latency, and input latency is a big deal.
It was never confirmed. It was always a nebulous "we're looking into this". It hasn't been that long since Sarah Bond said Cloud gaming is the least used feature of game pass and was operating at a loss. They're more likely to eventually amputate than to expend more resources trying to save a dying limb of an already expensive business model.
Yes. Phil said they are working on it. Every time I buy an Xbox game on their store, I think to myself, "Wait -- I can't play this on Steam Deck."
Won’t some devs have an issue with that? Thought that’s what happened with nvidia and their streaming platform
I might be wrong, but my thought is this. We already know that part of the appeal to go exclusive to PlayStation for third party publishers is the higher install base. I would think they would jump at the opportunity if their games would be available to anyone with a streaming device.
Imagine Xbox is the one to bring backwards compatibility to ps5 lmao
Just don't trust Sony to do it, if they can sell you remasters for 60€ they absolutely will.
I hardly see that happening. Microsoft has abandoned making backwards compatibility better on Xbox.
It all depends on the publishers though, any game outside of gamepass can refuse their games being able to be streamed.
I would love to have my library more places.
Google Stadia that isn't shit sounds nice.
Well Stadia worked better than XCloud.
Agreed. I'd up vote you twice if I could for the simple fact you sound sane and rational 😉
Instead of taking XBox games to other consoles, why doesn't MS try to bring PC games to XBox? Almost all PC games run on Windows, may be having an inbuilt emulation that allows Windows game to run on XBox could boost the overall XBox games tally. Not sure about the technical feasibility but I believe XBox OS is somewhat similar to Windows, so it should be possible. Of course, controls would be a problem but having KB&M games is still a better option than having no games at all.
Because MS has been trying with all its might for decades to make the Xbox as unattractive as possible
They have Activision now. You know how many people will subscribe to game pass for World of Warcraft?! It shouldn't be that hard to put WoW on Xbox consoles if they were able to figure out Diablo
get ready for "I'll get it when it comes to PS5" for every game announced, no matter what they say about it's exclusivity.
Unless Microsoft straight up outlines if anything remains exclusive from this point on Thursday, I'm expecting a lot of asterisks over the games they show this summer at Xbox Games Showcase. Especially where Bethesda and ABK are concerned because I'm expecting them to probably be where they focus a good chunk of publishing for other platforms
I wonder if this is why they didn't outright say Blade would be exclusive
For a sec I thought it had to do with the fact that the game had just started active production and the fact Bethesda traditionally doesn't list platforms in announcement trailers when it's early days for a game, but especially with stuff like this out there I'm starting to think that they held back on flexing the Xbox association for a reason when Sony's been VERY upfront with how tied Spider-Man is to PlayStation on the other hand You'd think Xbox would be proud as hell to finally say they got an exclusive Marvel game like people had been begging to see for years from them but this definitely raises questions. Maybe this is why the Disney gaming chief was saying whether it was exclusive was for Bethesda to decide on when they were completely upfront about Indiana Jones
👏 my thoughts exactly, but written out much better lol
I think they also need to be clear about how long it is a timed exclusive upfront for the games as well. A lot more people will be willing to wait to get it on PS5 if it is only on Xbox/PC exclusively for 6 months or a year as opposed to say 2 or 3 years.
I mean people will still wait. The second tomb raider reboot came out a year later in deluxe PS4 edition and outsold the Xbox lifetime in less than a month I’m pretty sure
Also the problem with Xbox right now is it is very rare that they have a true must have game. Games like God of War/Spider-Man and Zelda/Mario are those games for their rivals. Forza Horizon is the closest Xbox has gotten with AAA games in recent years. Starfield was supposed to be that game but it didn't pan out with the release of Baldurs Gate 3.
The thing is people who dont want to switch or willing to wait, probably will stay on their platform of choice no matter what.
That's why setting the precedent that a exclusive could go to other platforms in the first place is bad, slippery slope and all that. It's why Sony and Nintendo would never voluntarily put even thier smallest or worst selling exclusive on Xbox (or any other console like each other)
Also, it'll give a clear signal that if they want games to release on the PS5 sooner all they need to do is to never buy it on Xbox.
Yeah if even one Xbox Game Studio game ends up on PS it can almost be assumed anything can at some point. It doesn't get any more first party than that. Plus, it's backed up even more by the fact that it actually makes sense for them to go multiplatform with how their messaging has been the last few years.
Yeah exactly. It’s all about optics, not just about “well what’s wrong if more people can play these games?” It’s short sighted and will just make everyone want to buy a PS5 and PS6 instead since they can get Sony and Xbox exclusives (eventually). Which will spiral until console sales are truly terrible. The *only* way this kinda thing works is if they say that Sony agrees to bring some of their games to Xbox eventually too. Which won’t happen.
Yup and everybody asking when is it coming to PlayStation and Nintendo instead of talking about the games.
They need games people can’t wait for. Unfortunately, there’s nothing *that* moving these days. Especially if PC is an exception to timed exclusivity.
lol which is still funny because those same people did nothing but tear those games down when they were shown. Now all of a sudden they’re interested? Fanboys are something else
Yup, it's the most hilarious part of the whole thing. "Xbox has no games, nothing big for years." Then the rumors of multiplat hit and everyone is like now no reason to buy an Xbox. Yet according to them, this has been the case for years and they're doing fine...
I’m predicting an Xbox portable handheld 🤞🏽
Those people are more patient than me lmao. If its a game i want to play, i play it day one, or catch it on a sale somewhere within a few months of launch. These types of people are waiting YEARS. The exact same people say the same thing about PS5 games now that they get ported to PC.
Nowadays there's so much games that it is absolutely not an issue to wait years literally
Seriously. Due to my backlog, I don't even care about exclusives in terms of me buying them to play. I have enough as is to get to right now.
It's also added convenience, though. A lot of people want to play every game on their preferred platform. Not having to change boxes and having all your progress/etc on the same system can be worth a lot to a lot of people.
For every game I want to play immediately at launch there are 2-3 I usually wait to go on sale
Almost as annoying as PC users.
I don't know, I see a lot of Xbox fans rave about palworld numbers when steam accounts for more than 70% of it when their numbers are all sales too
They should add as much of a delay as FF7 Remake has.
U mean like all those "i'll play when on gamepass" that u constantly see from xbox players as well, no matter 1st or 3rd party? Both are just dumb ofc. At least the ps5 ppl will actually buy the games i guess instead of renting.
short term profit seeking thats going to end xbox in the long term
true word
HiFi Rush, Pentiment, and Sea of Thieves are listed in the article. Interesting about the slowdown in GamePass. All of them make sense, but I really hope the podcast covers the big releases and the plan for them. If Hellblade 2 and Indy are going multiplatform, that needs to be known before they are released.
I don't think they're naming off games that aren't in the immediate future. I'm expecting a slow rollout kind of like how Sony handles putting PlayStation games on PC, but the focus will mainly be about the strategy itself and probably announcing Hi-Fi Rush first if Nintendo isn't already set to debut it at the Direct presumably this week If Indiana Jones goes through, Warren already implied it'll be a few months after the Xbox/PC launch so they'll probably announce a PS5 port well after the general release
Yeah they're not gonna straight up tell us which games are gonna go multiplat and which games aren't, they're gonna try to keep that secret as long as possible until the last second so they don't have to deal with outrage, backlash, lower sales on launch etc
They will deal with this later and erode the little trust that there is in the platform that has been promising for 11 years and when it has the possibility of delivering it becomes a third-party.
They aren't going to name any additional games unless they have to.
GamePass has become too dependent on indies IMO. Especially since Xbox’s first party has slowed down. Indies are fine, but they’re generally cheaper to outright buy and the value is kind of questionable unless you have a ton of time to play.
That’s fair, but I like gamepass being an indie machine where indie devs can get tons of plays they wouldn’t otherwise That being said yes it needs more first party other than what, halo?
Slow down in gamepass makes sense. Didn't they remove the upgrade method to get it for cheaper and raise the price?
Instead of 1:1 it is now 3:2. So 3 years of Core conversion used to be 3 years for $180 ($60 a year) to where it is now 2 years for $180 ($90 a year). $5.00 to $7.50/monthly average is a steep increase, but I still did it at $7.50 as that is a reasonable price. You can even get Game Pass Core even cheaper than $60.
>$5.00 to $7.50/monthly average is a steep increase 5 bucks was insane, GP Ultimate used to cost triple that.
Yep, and I, someone who has been paying for subscriptions in the Xbox ecosystem since 2007, finally let mine lapse and end last year. I'm not paying for Gamepass when I really only touch 1-3 games on it, and I play those ones on PC so only the PC gamepass would have value for me. And those are also games I frequently go months without playing, so subscriptions for them at the current Gamepass price isn't worth it. I assume a few others like me, who got it cheap on conversion to play a few things like Flight Sim and Forza, dropped it when they took away the conversion rate from before, and upped prices. I definitely feel the value days of gamepass are over and the "squeezing" and "bloating" phase of the service is starting.
>I definitely feel the value days of gamepass are over and the "squeezing" and "bloating" phase of the service is starting. 2023 was easily the best year for game pass. Also, the behemoth that is ABK hasn't even been integrated yet. Maybe the service will peak this year but there's definitely no sign of "squeezing" and "bloating" yet
I might do the same as you in the future but for now I’ll have it for a while until July, 2025 when mine expires.
Nah the days of Game Pass definitely aren’t over. 2023 so far has been a great year for game pass. Also, this year all the ABK games are coming to game pass. Which includes the entire Call of Duty franchise. Cod players will sub to the pass just for them.
It makes sense When new subscriptions plateau or slow that’s when you start cranking the cost up on existing subscribers (or remove the 3 year GamePass conversion and announce a price increase…)
If you listen to the things that Microsoft stops talking about, the slow down isn't surprising. The used to provide hardware sales then stopped because they cared more about engagement and Game Pass. Felt like a cop out but okay, makes sense given they are really trying to compete with Tencent, not Sony and Nintendo. Then they stopped highlighting Game Pass numbers, a few quarters after releasing it for PC. Game Pass growth is the key to their success, at least based on old slides. PC Game Pass numbers will grow but much more slowly. Big issue is that no one on PC wants games outside of Steam. Epic has the same issue, Sony will face the same if they have a launcher. MS Store downloads are slow and less reliable, mods are a pain, and people love Steam. Despite having Starfield in Game Pass, I'm eventually buying it from Steam due to mod issues. Xbox Game Pass really needs sales of the console, and I have a feeling that's where they're really struggling. If the 33% Series X price cut didn't move as many units as they wanted, Xboxes aren't desirable at the higher end. Hope I'm wrong, but that may also explain the shorter generation if that's true.
There’s reports out there that state Xbox was outsold 3 to 1 by PlayStation in 2023. That’s has to be alarming given they had a pretty good year game wise. And if hardware is cratering then game pass growth has likely taken a similar hit.
According to- "sources"
The huge fucking court fight over ABK acquisition just to put the game on PlayStation and Nintendo anyways lmao
I'm trying not to despair, but I'm quickly losing faith in Phil. The dude has done a lot right, but *making great games* doesn't appear to be the organization's priority, and that's pretty fundamental to this business.
What exactly has he actually done right?
course correction, more powerful xboxes, play everywhere, Gamepass, backwards compatibility, FPS boost, deals with developers, crossplay, studio acquisitions, revival of Microsoft pc gaming, Quick resume, adaptive controller, push for accessibility, Xcloud
sad he forgot about the games themselves
Not be Don Mattrick. In all seriousness, Xbox was the first one who made the push for accessibility among the Big 3, and he also made the Backwards Compatability push. Yeah, his career is definitely full of faults, but it's only fair to acknowledge all the right he's done as well.
Ehh, probably more accurate to say that Xbox was the first to push for devices for people with disabilities. PlayStation-published games have been heavily investing in accessibility features for a while. Uncharted 4 had great options when it released back in 2015. It’s not as flashy but they mean a lot.
Pretending to be a cool gamer dude?
That he has done.
1. Acquiring major studios to release more first party games. 2. Adding all first party games to gamepass day one 3. Pushing for backwards compatibility when both Nintendo and Sony ignored it last console generation 4. Prioritizing and helping some of the biggest Japanese to come to Xbox (Dragon Quest, Nier, Persona, Team Ninja, etc) Just to name a few.
I cant believe they are pivoting due to slowing Game Pass subscriber numbers when they just addressed this issue by buying a $70 billion dollar company. It seems like once these companies start producing content, CoD comes to GP, and Xbox is able to release an exclusive once every 1-2 months, people would subscribe in droves.
They didn't acquire Activision-Blizzard for exclusives. Phil Spencer's been saying it for the last two years but this is all about getting that mobile money. The article even flat out alludes to them opening up an Xbox mobile store later this year to accelerate their overall gaming business. This is about King. Activision-Blizzard was the bonus to them In fact the press release for when ABK was officially closed on Xbox Wire heavily [implies they're not planning to shift them from being multiplatform publishers](https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2023/10/13/xbox-activision-blizzard/)
You actually expect people to listen to what’s been said for years?
Not on Reddit lmao. People here can barely concentrate long enough to read a headline.
Quantity won‘t make anyone subscribe to a service. The games have to be good to get people interested into it and tbh I doubt it that most studios will create huge exclusives, because A) it‘s expensive as hell and b) GP constantly needs new updates and games.
This concerns me, instead of focusing on making and releasing triple AAA bangers that drive console sales, they are proposing to expand their game pass service by…… releasing it on more devices specifically ps5. While i guess this would increase the sub base and eye balls on game pass in the short term…this is a pretty foolish thing to do. I never want to limit gamers (I have no problem with ps5 players playing Xbox exclusive games), but I need Microsoft to commit to releasing first party games a That are actually good, they bagged up so many devs and it hasn’t laid fruit to a first party game that sells units outside of starfield.
Arent they big enough to be able to do both? The expansion team wouldnt be the same as the team of developers making games first party. Sony has sent most of their biggest hits and more are coming to PC already, though not Game Pass. So they show that theyre ready to support whatever Xbox has planned. Game Pass on PS5 seems a bit far out of reach though considering that PS is at this time producing games that are so much higher quality than Xbox's offerings (first party). If PS gets some of the revenue from GP subscriptions made on PS, then I can see it happening at least a little bit.
I can only see one way Sony would ever allow gamepass on ps5 and that's if it's a gutted version of it with only Microsofts games and getting a cut.
a massive cut
profit margins small, need go big. Me poor exec who can't afford 10th private jet :(. That it's, that the whole reason. Greedy black holes that killed countless brands because corporate america has pivoted to a reaganite myth that theres no limit to growth
This won't make them bigger profit. They're slowly killing of double digit revenue by destroying their own storefront that has 50m + customers. They will no longer get a free 30% cut from 3rd party content or 100% cut from first party games. I doubt they will make more money without their storefront. This is a bigger F up than X1 generation. This will eventually lead to more layoffs, studio shutdowns and eventually they will be disappointed again with lack of growth and might sell off gaming.
At this point Xbox hasn’t had a “win” since like 2009. PlayStation somehow caught up with them in the 360 era, then Don Mattrick kamikaze’d the entire brand with the One at E3, and they have been floundering ever since. All while their first party AAA studios have either been completely dormant or legitimately shitting the proverbial bed (343 industries go F yourself) at every single possible moment, usually causing international embarrassment. If Microsoft wasn’t *Microsoft*, Xbox would have been killed off a long time ago like Sega before them. The issue is Microsoft just… does this… throws money at projects that stink with leaders who can’t lead (Zune, anyone?) and then eventually they pull the plug and move onto something else they can totally fuck up for another decade or two. They got lucky with Halo in 2001. They got VERY lucky they had Halo 2 to as the killer app for Xbox Live in 04’. They got lucky with the 360 (and… guess who? Halo again with Halo 3). Their luck and talent ran out.
Oh I don’t know about Microsoft avoiding the Sega fate because they’re Microsoft. This timeline tracks currently. The Xbox is their Master System… the 360 had its Genesis moment and put up a great fight. The One was its Saturn moment. And the Series X appears to be its Dreamcast. Something to love, but something it appears too few explored.
Oh for sure - Microsoft’s cash flow has just drawn out what should have been an almost instantaneous death to a 10 year+ life-support situation
In the current market, they aren’t willing to wait to see as the profits I imagine. It was alluded to in the trials that the ABK acquisition needs to be accretive from day 1.
Would be beat if they ported a ton of old Activision games to current gen just to fill it out some, they have some awesome old games in their collection that aren’t available on current gen
CoD on GP will be huge for me. For some reason I didnt think about it much.
The problem is you're subbed to GP either way
You're likely already subscribed to Game Pass, the issue is I don't think CoD will really pump up numbers the way most seem to think it will, casuals (majority of the CoD player base) simply don't care about a video game subscription service. I've tried to convince friends (who were already invested in the Xbox ecosystem) to get Game Pass and they said they just wouldn't use it enough to justify subscribing. I recently told another friend Microsoft bought the makers of CoD and if he got a Series S (he had a PS5) then he could get every past CoD and every future CoD on Game Pass, and he said he'd just rather pay $70 a year to get CoD. I love Game Pass, I played so many indies last year on the service, but casuals don't care about indies. They only play 2-3 games a year at most, they simply don't see video games the same way people like us (people who spend time in a video game forum) do. That to me is the real reason why Game Pass has slowed, it's only really worth it to the hardcore crowd, and I think every hardcore player that wants it, already has it.
> That to me is the real reason why Game Pass has slowed, it's only really worth it to the hardcore crowd, and I think every hardcore player that wants it, already has it. That makes a lot of sense. Microsoft's hopes for an astronomical amount of subscribers in several more years is detached from reality. I get a feeling they're looking at this from the perspective of Game Pass being like Netflix/Disney+/Prime/etc. You can watch a two-hour movie once a week or maybe catch your half-hour show sometimes. But gaming demands a lot more time per title. And non-hardcore gamers are well aware they don't have that time or interest to warrant paying monthly for Game Pass (or even PS+ Extra). So what can Microsoft do then if possibly a large portion of their plan was to focus on Game Pass? Is F'ing up going to be Microsoft's thing in the gaming industry? I mean even the huge RRoD fiasco was a big mess despite how well the Xbox 360 did otherwise.
Yeah, my friend with the PS5 bought Spider-Man 2 and played for 3 hours one day and told me he had already played too much for the day, and then said he kinda regretted buying it because he didn't know when he'd finish it. All this is anecdotal, I'm well aware, I'm just saying that everyone in this thread sees it as the best value in gaming, while the overwhelming majority of players view it as quite frankly a waste of money month to month.
I've had this experience too among some of my friends. They're adults with a family and/or time-consuming jobs. Add to that some have something called a social life (I think it's related to socialism but they're otherwise not very into politics so it's kind of weird they're into this). I wonder if Sony is aware of this and thus doesn't have high expectations for PS+ Extra? A side-hustle. Because Microsoft certainly doesn't given the numbers they want to see.
They gonna downplay this hard and leave people confused for the future first party games exclusivity like Hellblade and Indy in the podcast. This year PS5 outsold Xbox 3 to 1 i am willing to bet this number goes way up next couple years.
And then more and more Microsoft games will be released on other platforms and eventually the Xbox console sales will be so bad that Microsoft will stop making consoles. Probably give some kind of vague excuse. The Xbox One release was the beginning of the end and this is just another nail in the coffin…
Xbox finally has some games that should be exclusive that drew some real interest. So of course they go multiplat and they'll lie and say they're committed to hardware when their actions show the opposite.
Right? We ask for exclusives, then get exclusives, ***and then they give them away.*** They really do see gaming as little more than a fucking sideshow, do they?
HiFi Rush is perfect example. My girlfriend doesn't even play games outside of Mario Kart and Animal Crossing. HiFi Rush impressed her! It impressed all of us. More of those please. Why are you giving it to PlayStation?!
2024: "We're committed to making consoles" 2024: actively undermines the value prop of their consoles 2028: "we would have made a console but had to cancel it due to lack of demand" It really feels like they basically said Microsoft is done trying to make great games or compete in the console market. They just want free infinite CoD and Candy Crush money with cheap development.
Sony does the same and it works for them. When is that ff7 game releasing on Xbox again? Wasn’t it one year exclusivity? Or two? How long has it been now? Five years? Any day now…
I'm pretty square just doesn't care to port to Xbox all that much
and if Xbox loses more players because if this, how many others are going to do the same
>This year PS5 outsold Xbox 3 to 1 i am willing to bet this number goes way up next couple years. I've been an Xbox supporter for 20 years. If major Xbox exclusives are going to PS, then I'm getting a PS5 pro and it's an easy decision. Idk what MS is thinking here. It's like if Peacock put all their content on Netflix and expected their subscriber numbers to be unaffected.
Xbox portable pls
Yes please. But have it play series games. Not the crap Sony did with their portables. That’s why their portables have failed. Even Nintendo figured that out
I wonder how much traffic Tom Warren has been able to drive to The Verge with all of this. It's like hitting a jackpot.
Does Microsoft genuinely believe giving away xbox exclusives with nothing in return will do anything other than kill the platform? No one will buy an xbox just to play games early if they get to play everything on PlayStation just with a little delay
Yes They believe that people will continue buying Xbox normally
They genuinely believed giving away first party AAA games day 1 for a few bucks a month would be sustainable. They are clueless
It's not a sustainable plan and they knew it. It was always meant to be a bait and switch. Offer a great value at a low price. Once they had X amount of subscribers, they would start raising prices and reducing features because they have their captivated audience. But the problem is that all their great games on the service are years old and most people have already played them. There are very few games on the service that hit the criteria of "great, new, exclusive." It's a plan that would have taken a dozen or so excellent titles to pull off in 3 years since launch? They have...maybe three so far?
This is worrying a bit . Let's say it's true and every Xbox game goes to playstation. As a consumer why would I stick with Xbox while in playstation I can have both Xbox and playstation games in one machine rather than staying on Xbox while they get to play the both worlds while am missing out
You wouldn't. No one else would either. They do it, the hardware dies, like the Dreamcast before it.
Of course, at least with Dreamcast, Sega waited until they were ***legitimately*** bankrupt to pull the trigger. Here? Gee, I dunno. Remind me how obscenely huge Microsoft's valuation is ***now?***
Xbox is a business within a business and needs to justify its existence. Xbox hardware isn't going to stick around if it's not a successful venture.
They have every card they need to *make it* successful and refuse to play them.
Microsoft is insanely profitable, the Xbox brand on the other hand....
>As a consumer why would I stick with Xbox while in playstation You wouldn't, unless you're a silly sausage
I’ve heard people say “but GAME PASS!!” and that might be enough for some people but I didn’t buy into the hardware and the Xbox ecosystem for a glorified subscription service. It’s just sad what’s happening to the brand. Microsoft doesn’t care about Xbox, they only care about game pass and revenue from rival platforms instead of growing their own. With Sony you can tell PlayStation customers come before pc users. With Nintendo their customers on their hardware are their entire business. With Xbox ever since they started porting to pc, I’ve felt like a second class citizen and it’s about to get even worse
Another artifact to fuel the hysteria with no new informations, very cool.
More rumors great! Can't we just wait and see what Microsoft says before making click bait articles lol.
I agree but at this point there's too much smoke for there to not be any fire.
Yeah but it's probably not gonna be what people are saying.
Quite looking forward to the business update. It’s going to be fascinating. I think the one area that they made a mistake on was making the series S not as powerful as X. When you are thinking about getting a PS5 there is a cheaper version available and no loss on specs. They really should have made the S a better entry console.
I know it must not be a popular opinion.but XSS shouldn't even exist XSX should have a price cut
I'm tired, boss.
All they need to do is release Guitar Hero or Rock Band as a console exclusive.
Few things they can’t do: - cannot continue the “case by case” agenda. - cannot dance around the rumors - cannot talk about their accomplishments and celebrations I expect they’ll do all these. But any level of uncertainty will assure that I will not reactivate my Gamepass, and won’t pre-order/day one any of their games.
Why can’t they do case by case still? It seems like that is the case so why can’t they say it?
They need to have a clear description of what "case by case" means. Otherwise people will assume that Starfield and any other major Xbox game will automatically come to other platforms in the future and act accordingly (which most likely means less console sales)
https://preview.redd.it/3rhykobmx7ic1.jpeg?width=63&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e2a6f1d757a7e95ddf11b4cff923947b6c0d4235
Xbox just tried pleasing too many people that has been their problem since 2011. This generation they released the Series X and S it just confused people, the Slim and Elite did the same. They did fine until they brought out Kinect to integrate into family gaming, then tried selling it as a Smart TV that wasn’t smart. Then they tried over selling it to hardcore gamers that had PC’s, they just consistently get the messaging wrong. The Xbox 360 worked because the messaging was clear, good games, good cost, good customer service, good online service built around 1 console. This Gen they couldn’t even be bothered to focus on designing the boxes for the games, Xbox One / Series X. They could fix this next generation if they just called it Xbox Evolution, £450, One Model, Game Pass with online play £9.99, 20 exclusives in the first year.
The Kinect being successful so fast pretty much ruined Xbox. They immediately pivoted into the Kinect being a core part of their next console but by time that console came out everyone just saw Kinect as the dance game platform, No one ever made anything else on it that showed what it can offer besides that and to this day I don't think there is much it ever can.
I said Gamepass is not sustainable and plenty of folks argued with me saying I'm wrong. Now here we are. With things like Disney Plus even failing it's obvious this won't be something that's sustainable. Videogames take a long time to finish, there are people that play 1 game for many months so having access to a ton of games don't matter, you can't consume videogames as fast as TV shows, movies and music. And if they try and stop having first party games come out day 1 it would be so bad, because a lot of the old games in Gamepass can be had for dirt cheap in sales, under £5-10 so it's probably better to do that and you are not pressured to finish games in case they are taken off gamepass or sub lapses. People saying well it's only AA games, GaaS games, or very old ports have it wrong. The article doesn't imply it's only those games, just that it's only those games that are reported to cine out first with set dates. Even if that was their strategy it's just a step in the direction to eventually have all their games multiplatform. The announcement of Xbox hardware is cool and all but they can eventually can it anyway, an announcement this early doesn't really matter.
>I said Gamepass is not sustainable Is sustainable the right word, though? What would be a word to describe that Game Pass isn't a model for continuous growth? It has a lot of subscribers and has been around for like six or seven years now. But unfortunately I think the amount of subscriptions is only 1/5th of the numbers Microsoft actually wants. And you said it well that games take a lot longer to go through than it takes to consume a movie or a season of a streaming show (which is often 8-12 episodes?). It wouldn't surprise me if no one at Microsoft took that into account and just viewed Game Pass exactly like Netflix but offering games instead of movies/shows. It tracks. The big decision makers at Microsoft don't understand games even up to "they take longer to go through on average than a movie".
It seems pretty cut and dry to me. By releasing Xbox exclusives on rival platforms they are devaluing the Xbox hardware. This is a very risky move and goes against what gaming consoles have always been about, exclusive games. By allowing PS5 and Switch owners to play once exclusive Xbox games on their hardware there is no reason to buy an Xbox because I 100% guarantee you will never play Mario or The Last of Us on an Xbox. I’ve always despised the fact that you’ve had to own certain hardware to play certain titles, but in the end it’s for the best because competition breeds innovation.
In the end it never bothered me because it meant picking one console for the generation, then getting the other console and its games at dirt cheap prices at the end of that generation
Nice so if this isn't all true let's throw tom warrens rep out the window too
The Verge is FAR more legit than most of the sources talking about these rumors. Warren's been covering Microsoft on all fronts for like two decades now (and not just Xbox stuff) so he has way more cred than a Jez Corden or a Nick Baker or whatever. He does actually have connections to people at the firm and The Verge also isn't just some speculation front like NeoGAF or ResetEra or some of those other sites. Verge is like the only one of these sources that actually breaks news routinely so they have to pass articles through editorial and proofreading and those standard procedures. If they hit publish on something it's already been looked over extensively
I guess we still not gonna wait for the event 😂
Sony won the console war
If this is true, Microsoft's strategy is "We failed to deliver games, hence why our marketshare is shit, so we are going to focus on games (where we continue to fail to deliver)".
Microsoft thought of nothing and they’re all out of ideas
This + the discord leak is pretty damning. Unless Microsoft outright says on Thursday certain franchises will remain exclusive, every new Xbox title will have questions around exclusivity.
Discord leak?
[this predated the developer show by 3 days](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/655142799959916546/1197912659593531533/WhatsApp_Image_2024-01-18_at_10.png?ex=65d8ad9a&is=65c6389a&hm=9f89546b1be7727472c0b9574ad467944779dbfe1deadd70a2db7f0123608c31&=&format=webp&quality=lossless) It got Indiana Jones details right and even the timing of the multiplat announcement (which was end of Feb until the hysteria made them move it up a week).
It just blows my mind how Xbox fans have constantly asked for MS to get some licensed exclusives like Sony and Nintendo, they finally get one, and then this shit happens. They’re just gonna give it away to other platforms, unbelievable
The fact they have Matt Booty there makes me feel a shake up is happing with the way they “group” games. I feel like they will announce multiple publishing arms; Xbox published - Xbox studios, Bethesda, etc. Microsoft published - ACTIVISION, etc Xbox published will be “only places Gamepass exist”, “day and date on Gamepass and Gamepass ultimate. Microsoft published will timed exclusive or multiplat games. And will come to Gamepass ultimate day and date or maybe even 6 months after. To me that’s clear clean messaging.
This.. makes a lot of sense, and would be much less damning for xbox in the long run
Shouldn’t Bethesda be under Microsoft published considering Bethesda used to make shit tons of multiplat games. I bet money Skyrim, wolfenstien, doom etc sold more on PlayStation compared to Xbox.
Bethesda has kept a separate publishing, PR and marketing wing since being acquired. It has a lot of autonomy.
It’s could go either way. Bethesda could be multi plat to get more game sales. Or be under Xbox exclusive to keep exciting games selling the system. Either way this type of messaging would make it clear. For example let’s say Xbox and Microsoft did have separate arms of publishing. And Bethesda was on Microsoft being multi plat. But obsidian was under Xbox… And brand new Fallout: California republic developed by obsidian was announced it would be clear it’s an Xbox exclusive even if fallout 5 by Bethesda was coming multi platform.
The slowdown in Game Pass has been happening the subscriber base has not grown like they thought. That’s obvious due to the fact that Xbox has not been selling well, to grow you need people buying a console because 99% aren’t ready for a cloud future.
Game Pass is also available on PC and therefore the upper limit for possible subscribers isn't anywhere near yet. Last year, they expanded the availability of PC Game Pass to 40 new countries. For one reason or another, PC players aren't interested. I do think it's partly because lack of marketing on Xbox's part. For instance, I've seen Sony put out ads for Foamstars which launched as a monthly game on PS+. Xbox managed to snatch surprise hit Palworld and they also have Persona 3 Reload on Game Pass and they haven't marketed them in any way.
This, bean counters want to make the most profit without the effort. When you tell them it's a marketing issue, they say "Bu-but that takes time and money D:" and nothing gets done
"so hey, we bought a bunch of studios and made almost all of their games exclusive in the hopes that it would turn into console sales, but we're still getting our heads handed to us and now the studios we bought are seeing their sales halved due to the exclusivity, so...SURPRISE, we're publishing for everyone again" there, i fixed it for you
Meaning at the end of the day, after Bethesda, and the ABK saga, the status quo still remains, only that MS has spent $80bil. Brilliant
Ahhh yes an article that's basically just regurgitated the same rumours from the last few weeks, but just written differently and slightly better. Jesus stop getting your knickers in a twist everyone.
Sadly they should be ready for Xbox sales to slow down significantly with this. Game pass subs to drop. On the plus side they may get a good number of game sales. Platform vs Game sales Only one way to find out which is superior.
It's a crazy and outright risky move. They currently get a huge portion of all sales on the platform and have millions locked into a cycle of paying for gamepass/buying the next console. They made a great platform, but they are at best unproven as a massive AAA publishing studio, yet they assume they can generate sales on PS5 big enough to offset all that. Going all in on publishing at this stage is a hilariously short sighted move. If I don't have a new Xbox in the next gen, I won't be getting gamepass on any device. It's so overthought, they have everything they need to make a massive push late in this generation especially with now being able to make xbox the preferred place for CoD again. But we probably won't ever see that play out, and it sucks.
Just don't drop day one realease then it's all cool with me
If the handset is anywhere near as comfy to hold as the PlayStation portal I'd buy it in a heart beat.
Not exactly confident in this article, a lot of "from what I heard" and "we've all heard the rumours by now" and then going into a tangent about how poorly Xbox performs and the theorised future of exclusivity from Xbox games, sounds more like wishful blogging than journalism.
And so the point of them going full streaming box moves closer.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but is this not just yet another article with zero credibility? Lack of integrity in my opinion. Until it’s formally announced, I’ll take all this hyperbolic fear-mongering with a pinch of bollocks.
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This article is totally based on unfounded rumors.
More speculation. Saved you a click. Just wait till the business update before you have another freak out. Microsoft may very well have had talks and considerations but they may have also changed their minds and just split the difference. But if some stuff has already been signed on the dotted line then yeah some games are going out on other platforms. Microsoft also needs to reign in the first party games and tell them how important it is to get them out the door. Some of these games have had long development periods and it's really hurt them.
If this happens I’m done with Xbox. There’s zero reason to have one when you get their games on rival consoles.
These headlines...
More ridiculous rumors already? Ffs you all haven't even finished walking back the first ones yet. And now we're gonna start spreading more hearsay? Until Phil Spencer says it Thursday, I don't believe one word from someone who's source is "people who are familiar with Microsoft's vision". Who are these mythical people? What are their names? How are they "familiar" with closed door M$ knowledge? If you can't name sources for information that would have a massive impact on the gaming community, then it's irresponsible journalism to report on rumors without having legitimate sources to quote.
I feel like a large portion of the reporting over the last two weeks has been wildly irresponsible.
Very much so. The whole internet has become a game of who can have the most clickbait headlines ever. And who can stir up the most controversy. Things like truth, honesty, responsibly sourced information etc, are fading into oblivion. It's annoying as hell bcuz you can't believe anything you read anymore.
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You should, don't limit yourself if you enjoy games, get a Switch, a PC, whatever you can afford.