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Microsoft gaming revenue increased three percent year-on-year to hit $1.6bn for FY17

xabbott

Member
Speaking of software investments. Has anyone in the industry talked much about how this whole Super Lucky's Tale deal went down?

It seems to come out of nowhere. It's a budget title but they gave it a decent E3 push. They are releasing it on One X launch.

I thought it was like an Oculus property but now MS is publishing it. During one of the E3 interviews, it almost sounded like they bought the IP but I might be remembering that wrong. Then when asked about VR they replied they weren't discussing that right now.

I just find it odd is all. I mean other than it being a VR title it didn't seem like an attractive property.
 

Cess007

Member
Most gens - with last gen being the huge outlier - are 4-5 years, which would put this at the tail end of the generation and post sales peak.

e: the Xbox 1 was a 4 year gen for example.

The Xbox 1 was a 4 years console, not gen. The gen started with the Dreamcast and lasted 7 years (or 6, if you only count the Dreamcast since it's US release)
 

Hawk269

Member
There is nothing wrong with questioning things, but there is a contingent that likes to follow me around and attack my credibility based on...nothing. I actually have a pretty fantastic record in this area.

Weird...so you have a like an anti-Matt contingency that stalks you? lol.

I think we had this discussion in another thread a while back and one thing as an observer on it was that "at times" you do come across as a bit anti when someone tries to say something positive about MS. This is not at exact example, but I hope you get where I am going with the following:

Gaf User: Wow..The Xbox One X looks fantastic!!! Hype!
Matt: It's good, but I would not say fantastic.

Gaf User: I think the price of the Xbox One X is great for what you get.
Matt: It is not that great. Not saying the system is bad, but I would not call that price "Great".

Gaf User: MS is killing it with hardware and improvements.
Matt: I wouldn't use "killing it", it has been better, but not "killing it".

Those are exaggerated examples, but the point is that I know that some users when they are excited about something MS related, you tend to knock it down a bit. You may be 100% accurate in your response and you may be correcting people, but it is like Sheldon on the Big Bang Theory, he says a lot of shit that pisses others off, but in his heart he does not mean any harm. He just does not realize that what he is saying is making people feel bad.

You are the Sheldon of Gaf. You correct people or bring them down to earth and I don't think for a second your intention is to make people feel bad or you are being a asshole. I just have observed when someone posts something they are excited about in regards to MS, you tend to knock them down a bit. Not by being mean or being an ass, but it just comes across that way at times. I guess for some perception is reality.

I have not personally felt you have done that to me, but I do see how some people view it. Perhaps you are just a direct person that has little tact when it comes to replying to someone with a bit of empathy. I am not suggesting that you need to agree with someone saying that the Xbox One X is the best thing to ever hit the face of the earth, but using a different tone when responding at times may be beneficial. Again, this is just observation of what I see and I know others have pointed out. I don't think for second you are a bad person or you enjoy correcting people or knocking down what they are excited about. It is a perception that some have.
 
Next quarter, July to September, is going to be atrocious for YoY on hardware with having to lap the Xbox One S launch.
Oh yeah, that isn't going to be pretty. Maybe Destiny 2 can help ward off a bit of the decline.

Software sales are up... but, what software?

I don't mean to be coy, but I literally can't think of big sellers other than Gears 4 (I think that's this FY?) and Forza Horizon 3?

I guess maybe it's Minecraft sales?
Don't forget Live subs. That is included as software.

Which traditionally this would be.
I would say we are a bit further than the half way mark.
 

Shin

Banned
Reading Matt's post I wonder if there is a game plan in place because that almost sounds like how things have been this entire generation with their investments in new games.
Yet years later when people are slapped with that reality they are still in denial, it happens to owners of every console.

While they might be 50% behind in amount of hardware sold their software revenue ain't shabby at all.
Though it's a combined store of sorts since it's the console plus PC,yeah?
I really wonder what can do now because they aren't jump starting a new generation, drag it out and launch after PS5?
Doesn't seem like it's going to be the change they need, the console needs exclusives - reason to choose it over the other guys.
 
Yeah, but all these years people weren't complaining. It started when they cancelled games and stopped announcing new ones.

I don't think you would find any article or opinion prior to perhaps last year that Ms is focusing solely on their big games, because prior to that it just wasn't true.

Well, I for one, have been complaining for years. And I actually track announcements.

It's also important to remember that announcements, perceptions, etc are very much contextual.

Anything relating to MS first-party right now has some amount of multiplier effect in terms of skepticism & concern, because many of MS's more daring investments ( Sunset Overdrive, Quantum Break, etc ) has fallen flat in terms of commercial reception and even their more stable outputs like Halo Wars 2, Gears 4, Halo 5 has not been received as ravenously as their predecessors.
 

black070

Member
Weird...so you have a like an anti-Matt contingency that stalks you? lol.

I think we had this discussion in another thread a while back and one thing as an observer on it was that "at times" you do come across as a bit anti when someone tries to say something positive about MS. This is not at exact example, but I hope you get where I am going with the following:

Gaf User: Wow..The Xbox One X looks fantastic!!! Hype!
Matt: It's good, but I would not say fantastic.

Gaf User: I think the price of the Xbox One X is great for what you get.
Matt: It is not that great. Not saying the system is bad, but I would not call that price "Great".

Gaf User: MS is killing it with hardware and improvements.
Matt: I wouldn't use "killing it", it has been better, but not "killing it".

Those are exaggerated examples, but the point is that I know that some users when they are excited about something MS related, you tend to knock it down a bit. You may be 100% accurate in your response and you may be correcting people, but it is like Sheldon on the Big Bang Theory, he says a lot of shit that pisses others off, but in his heart he does not mean any harm. He just does not realize that what he is saying is making people feel bad.

You are the Sheldon of Gaf. You correct people or bring them down to earth and I don't think for a second your intention is to make people feel bad or you are being a asshole. I just have observed when someone posts something they are excited about in regards to MS, you tend to knock them down a bit. Not by being mean or being an ass, but it just comes across that way at times. I guess for some perception is reality.

I have not personally felt you have done that to me, but I do see how some people view it. Perhaps you are just a direct person that has little tact when it comes to replying to someone with a bit of empathy. I am not suggesting that you need to agree with someone saying that the Xbox One X is the best thing to ever hit the face of the earth, but using a different tone when responding at times may be beneficial. Again, this is just observation of what I see and I know others have pointed out. I don't think for second you are a bad person or you enjoy correcting people or knocking down what they are excited about. It is a perception that some have.

His posts are fine, if people are getting offended - its because hes saying things they don't want to hear.
 

LordRaptor

Member

I believe that if the PS4Pro didn't exist, "Scorpio" would not be an Xbox 1 "deluxe" but a next Xbox, and would be next year not this - but its not like I have alternate dimensional goggles to outright state that as a definite.

The Xbox 1 was a 4 years console, not gen. The gen started with the Dreamcast and lasted 7 years (or 6, if you only count the Dreamcast since it's US release)

That is a meaningless way of measuring console lifespans due to - traditionally - heavy overlap between successor and predecessor console sales.
 

Matt

Member
Weird...so you have a like an anti-Matt contingency that stalks you? lol.

I think we had this discussion in another thread a while back and one thing as an observer on it was that "at times" you do come across as a bit anti when someone tries to say something positive about MS. This is not at exact example, but I hope you get where I am going with the following:

Gaf User: Wow..The Xbox One X looks fantastic!!! Hype!
Matt: It's good, but I would not say fantastic.

Gaf User: I think the price of the Xbox One X is great for what you get.
Matt: It is not that great. Not saying the system is bad, but I would not call that price "Great".

Gaf User: MS is killing it with hardware and improvements.
Matt: I wouldn't use "killing it", it has been better, but not "killing it".

Those are exaggerated examples, but the point is that I know that some users when they are excited about something MS related, you tend to knock it down a bit. You may be 100% accurate in your response and you may be correcting people, but it is like Sheldon on the Big Bang Theory, he says a lot of shit that pisses others off, but in his heart he does not mean any harm. He just does not realize that what he is saying is making people feel bad.

You are the Sheldon of Gaf. You correct people or bring them down to earth and I don't think for a second your intention is to make people feel bad or you are being a asshole. I just have observed when someone posts something they are excited about in regards to MS, you tend to knock them down a bit. Not by being mean or being an ass, but it just comes across that way at times. I guess for some perception is reality.

I have not personally felt you have done that to me, but I do see how some people view it. Perhaps you are just a direct person that has little tact when it comes to replying to someone with a bit of empathy. I am not suggesting that you need to agree with someone saying that the Xbox One X is the best thing to ever hit the face of the earth, but using a different tone when responding at times may be beneficial. Again, this is just observation of what I see and I know others have pointed out. I don't think for second you are a bad person or you enjoy correcting people or knocking down what they are excited about. It is a perception that some have.
I tend to write in a detached manner here because, if I wrote in my real tone, it would be easier to identify me.

As for your examples, to me that's actually what I don't do. I the only time I reply like that is generally in regards to technical issues, where people making hyperbolic comments really don't have any grounds to be making them, and a dispassionate and knowledgeable approach is called for. I don't downplay anyone's feelings on games or other subjective issues.

If, for example, me saying that opening up an additional gig of RAM on the X is good but not a huge deal because the RAM situation was already absolutely fine makes someone upset, well that's really not on me. That's a weird thing to be upset about.
 
Considering they don't have, Horizon, Zelda, Nier, Crash, some other I might be forgetting, which is basically all of the games that did well outside of the big multiplats that was kinda expected to have xbone sales declining whereas Ps4 rose to the best yet (I think?)

They are a bit better positioned in the second half. Dunno if it will make a difference hardware sales wise, but should be enough to keep the profitability up.

See? There you went and identified the problem that they need to solve. It probably won't be solved though. There is no chance that they will have a series of six months in the next five years like that. None.

We'll get Halo 6 in 2018 or 2019 and that will be their next major seller.
 

Matt

Member
I believe that if the PS4Pro didn't exist, "Scorpio" would not be an Xbox 1 "deluxe" but a next Xbox, and would be next year not this - but its not like I have alternate dimensional goggles to outright state that as a definite.
I understand why you might think that, but I absolutely disagree. Publishers are not ready for this gen to be over, and even when the next one starts in a few years it will be a slower change than in the past.
 

Finaj

Member
It's pretty clear that MS hasn't and doesn't seem to want to increase first party output right now.

What I want to know is why, but we'll never get an answer on that, which is disappointing.
 

Matt

Member
It's pretty clear that MS hasn't and doesn't seem to want to increase first party output right now.

What I want to know is why, but we'll never get an answer on that.
It's really not that complicated, even if we disagree. Their software efforts have underperformed this gen, and the Xbox division doesn't have a blank check to do whatever they want. They have a focus on cost controls and profitability. Spending a lot on game dev doesn't fit into that in their view.
 

LordRaptor

Member
I understand why you might think that, but I absolutely disagree. Publishers are not ready for this gen to be over, and even when the next one starts in a few years it will be a slower change than in the past.

I also don't think Publishers are ready for a next gen, and that this gen has been exceptionally slow to actually begin, but I would imagine a scenario much like the 360s early lifespan where the "Next box" is getting HD 4K ports of 'last gen' games while they ramp up - like I say, I have nothing but speculation about that, so I'm not going to belabour the point.
I think this gen really dropped the ball on transitioning audiences from last gen, which I would assume platform owners would be better at doing in this hypothetical scenario.
 
I also don't think Publishers are ready for a next gen, and that this gen has been exceptionally slow to actually begin, but I would imagine a scenario much like the 360s early lifespan where the "Next box" is getting HD 4K ports of 'last gen' games while they ramp up - like I say, I have nothing but speculation about that, so I'm not going to belabour the point

There's one good way to find out if your speculation has any basis or not.

Wait to see if next year's line-up of game announcements are anywhere close to befitting a new console release lineup.

The announcements for One X and PS4 Pro cemented what we already knew about the products from the day the leaks came. They were mid-gen consoles and nothing more. Anyone who tried to prescribe something more to those consoles than just a stronger extension of their base consoles were mistaken.
 

Matt

Member
I also don't think Publishers are ready for a next gen, and that this gen has been exceptionally slow to actually begin, but I would imagine a scenario much like the 360s early lifespan where the "Next box" is getting HD 4K ports of 'last gen' games while they ramp up - like I say, I have nothing but speculation about that, so I'm not going to belabour the point
No need to avoid the discussion, it's an interesting one. But there just is no reason for a new gen to start yet. The only one who might have been interested in that idea is MS. But for Sony and third parties, there is just nothing to make them change for another few years.
 

Hawk269

Member
I tend to write in a detached manner here because, if I wrote in my real tone, it would be easier to identify me.

As for your examples, to me that's actually what I don't do. I the only time I reply like that is generally in regards to technical issues, where people making hyperbolic comments really don't have any grounds to be making them, and a dispassionate and knowledgeable approach is called for. I don't downplay anyone's feelings on games or other subjective issues.

If, for example, me saying that opening up an additional gig of RAM on the X is good but not a huge deal because the RAM situation was already absolutely fine makes someone upset, well that's really not on me. That's a weird thing to be upset about.

It is just an observation and from what I have heard from others that react to some of your posts Matt. You can take it as you want, I was trying to be constructive in relaying some of the perception some have of your replies. I think another person made a post here that said "Matt says the truth and that at times hurt/upset people". That does happen and as you said, that is on them, not you. But I am not the only one that has made a comment about the perception of you taking something that someone is excited about and bringing them down...like the example of the person posting about the extra 1gig of RAM for game...they clearly feel that it is a big deal and they were excited about it and you come along with the needle to burst that excited balloon. lol.

Personally, I have not felt you have done that to me or feel that you are malicious person that likes correcting people..just an observation that I have noticed and seen other people comment on.

This is a forum with thousands of different personalities and people taking things way too seriously at times. Just food for thought on my observation Matt...no harm or foul on my part!
 

LordRaptor

Member
There's one good way to find out if your speculation has any basis or not.

Wait to see if next year's line-up of game announcements are anywhere close to befitting a new console release lineup.

That will literally say nothing about how this generation might be proceeding if "mid gen hardware refreshes" had not occurred.
The only thing that might have any indication as to whether what I hypothesise might have happened otherwise would be if publishers start talking about being "held back" by having to support 2 iterations per platform next year, but even that isn't particularly indicative.
 
I'm not speculating.

You work at Xbox then. Only top line or group managers would have an understanding of what the yearly and projected long term investments are. Phil said recently they signed a couple of deals for games, you must know what they are then and what kind of budget is being attributed to each game.
 
See? There you went and identified the problem that they need to solve. It probably won't be solved though. There is no chance that they will have a series of six months in the next five years like that. None.

We'll get Halo 6 in 2018 or 2019 and that will be their next major seller.
I know, but I also know the cause of the problem. It isn't because Sony has a so wide array of 1st party studios that they released a breadth of quality exclusives in such a short time.

If anything working with external partners is the only way you get a similar stream of games.
 
I tend to write in a detached manner here because, if I wrote in my real tone, it would be easier to identify me.

As for your examples, to me that's actually what I don't do. I the only time I reply like that is generally in regards to technical issues, where people making hyperbolic comments really don't have any grounds to be making them, and a dispassionate and knowledgeable approach is called for. I don't downplay anyone's feelings on games or other subjective issues.

If, for example, me saying that opening up an additional gig of RAM on the X is good but not a huge deal because the RAM situation was already absolutely fine makes someone upset, well that's really not on me. That's a weird thing to be upset about.

The problem with this attitude is that it's not as objective as you make it sounds like. Your comment is always "not wrong" because they are just opinion based gradings. Opinion based grading is abstract and will never be just right or wrong. It will just be a number in a spectrum from "excellent" to "worst ever." And your comment tends to fall in the middle. However, giving out a "meh" or "mediocre" doesn't make a critic objective. And just because someone says something is "good" or "so so" doesn't make the "excellent" comments invalid or hyperbolic.

Take the whether Microsoft is "killing it" comment as example. You saying they are being good doesn't mean the "killing it" comment is hyperbolic. It's just mean you two has different opinions.

My Enligh is a bit poor. But what I was trying to say is that you have every right to comment on something. But that doesn't mean you have the right to be like some superior being to judge whether other's opinion is hyperbolic or not.

Again, my English is not very good. So forgive me if this comment sounds a bit rude.
 
You work at Xbox then. Only top line or group managers would have an understanding of what the yearly and projected long term investments are. Phil said recently they signed a couple of deals for games, you must know what they are then and what kind of budget is being attributed to each game.

I don't work in the games industry, (electronics/O&G/FMCG), but you're severely underestimating the capacity for external parties to have a gauge of what big industry players are doing.

Through existing relationships built through the partner agencies, marketing firms, logistics providers, etc, even after having left electronics and FMCG, just by talking to people who are currently deep in preliminary research of product investments, ideas, I have a gauge at what some FMCG companies are doing in terms of investment and what products they're probably trying to bring to market 2-3 years from now.
 

Matt

Member
It is just an observation and from what I have heard from others that react to some of your posts Matt. You can take it as you want, I was trying to be constructive in relaying some of the perception some have of your replies. I think another person made a post here that said "Matt says the truth and that at times hurt/upset people". That does happen and as you said, that is on them, not you. But I am not the only one that has made a comment about the perception of you taking something that someone is excited about and bringing them down...like the example of the person posting about the extra 1gig of RAM for game...they clearly feel that it is a big deal and they were excited about it and you come along with the needle to burst that excited balloon. lol.

Personally, I have not felt you have done that to me or feel that you are malicious person that likes correcting people..just an observation that I have noticed and seen other people comment on.

This is a forum with thousands of different personalities and people taking things way too seriously at times. Just food for thought on my observation Matt...no harm or foul on my part!
And I take it that way, I absolutely understand you are trying to be helpful. And thank you. I just have a basic disagreement with the thinking behind it.
You work at Xbox then. Only top line or group managers would have an understanding of what the yearly and projected long term investments are. Phil said recently they signed a couple of deals for games, you must know what they are then and what kind of budget is being attributed to each game.
Again, there is a lack of creativity here.
The problem with this attitude is that it's not as objective as you make it sounds like. Your comment is always "not wrong" because they are just opinion based gradings. Opinion based grading is abstract and will never be just right or wrong. It will just be a number in a spectrum from "excellent" to "worst ever." And your comment tends to fall in the middle. However, giving out a "meh" or "mediocre" doesn't make a critic objective. And just because someone says something is "good" or "so so" doesn't make the "excellent" comments invalid or hyperbolic.

Take the whether Microsoft is "killing it" comment as example. You saying they are being good doesn't mean the "killing it" comment is hyperbolic. It's just mean you two has different opinions.

My Enligh is a bit poor. But what I was trying to say is that you have every right to comment on something. But that doesn't mean you have the right to be like some superior being to judge whether other's opinion is hyperbolic or not.

Again, my English is not very good. So forgive me if this comment sounds a bit rude.
His examples, again, aren't actually indicative of my posting. I have never, to my recollection, made a comment like the "killing it" one. I do comment on some things that I have a greater insight into than most others here, and in those situations I can speak from a position of greater knowledge.
 

Shiggy

Member
You work at Xbox then. Only top line or group managers would have an understanding of what the yearly and projected long term investments are. Phil said recently they signed a couple of deals for games, you must know what they are then and what kind of budget is being attributed to each game.

He could also be fu*king Phil Spencer's wife in exchange for information on the Xbox business. Or he could work in a consultancy advising the Xbox division. Or he might know somebody who works at the Xbox division and who's telling him this information because they are friends.

You don't need to work at Microsoft to know such information.
 

pitchfork

Member
I tend to write in a detached manner here because, if I wrote in my real tone, it would be easier to identify me.
.

tumblr_mbl5yiLo6b1r8ea81o1_500.gif


All important question - Is your real name Matt? ; )
 

mejin

Member
Wonder what kind of impact Minecraft does for their gaming revenue. The best thing MS did this gen.
 
There is nothing wrong with questioning things, but there is a contingent that likes to follow me around and attack my credibility based on...nothing. I actually have a pretty fantastic record in this area.
I don't think it's completely unwarranted because of posts like this:

MS never said 20% of the players play on PC.

20% of the player time is a misleading statistic as well. Players who are committed enough or care enough to actually use the Windows Store are more likely to spend more time with the game, skewing the numbers.

This is not just keeping people expectations in mind. You called a metric Ms gave a spin, and offered a completely unreasonable reason to justify your stance. Like, the number of people purchasing and playing play anywhere games are so small that Ms has to lie to make it more popular, but at the same time this insignificant base play the game for so long because they are so invested in the platform that hey can actually skew the usage numbers.

Perhaps you also know the sales data for all those games, and could phrased it better, and perhaps it's something you don't even notice it, but posts like this do let seem that you are not as neutral as you say you are. Could be just how you write it though.

I'm including first party publishing in my comments. And you really have no way of knowing what I know or how I would know, save for my record.
I know you have no way of knowing everything that is done because you are not the person making every decision and deals. Heck, not even Phil new about PD remaster at first. And he is the one that ultimately greenlits or kills the project.

For example, be honest: How much in advance you knew about Crackdown 3 in development, or Scalebound, or the partnership with studio gobo?
 
His examples, again, aren't actually indicative of my posting. I have never, to my recollection, made a comment like the "killing it" one. I do comment on some things that I have a greater insight into than most others here, and in those situations I can speak from a position of greater knowledge.

Okay, I'll just believe you do have the knowledge. But sharing your knowledge doen't always means you have to rain on other's parade and call them hyperbolic. Knowledge are inherently objective, yes. But your opinion base on the knowledge is very hard not to be subjective. I think you have to realize this first so you can prevent your comments from being deemed as arrogant. You may not be a arrogant man but online forum are a place without speak tone and body language. Unless your posts are truly facts-only, they are to be interpreted in all different kinds of ways. And I think it's easy to think some might find your posts rude.
 
Xbox is making the right moves given their current position. All of their new IP efforts have underperformed since day one and every third party deal they make seems to get negative backlash. I can see why they'd leverage their position as a leader in services and double down on building that sort of ecosystem for Xbox (which is unarguably positive but won't increase hardware sales). They make money from their core base on the backs of their tentpole franchises and third party (which are the majority console movers anyway). They, like any company, are simply leveraging their strengths and Microsoft's strength is in services.

There is no point in throwing bad money and new IP, as this generation has proved for Microsoft is throwing bad money. If they need to be emulating anyone's playbook, it should be Valve in terms how they build and maintain a small stable of IP over the long term. Some people grill Microsoft over games like Ori and Cuphead saying they don't count but it's easy to say take risks on 80+ million dollar projects when it isn't your job on the line so to that end I see where the company is coming from in terms of how they divert their resources.
 
It really isn't.

It's been the same at Microsoft for a few years now, a few big exclusives like halo et Al but otherwise some small console exclusive or timed exclusive smaller games.

That's a big reason why Xbox isn't doing as well as it theoretically should be.
They have fostered the idea that, like Nintendo, you only need the console for exclusives otherwise the ps4 can cater to your every need and that's before even Adding Playstation having a tonne more exclusives anyway.

We have heard for years now that Microsoft is doing more for 1st party games, and while they do come out with a few that aren't the usual games it simply isn't enough to justify this prophecy that Xbox fans seem to believe "Microsoft will fund a whole load of exclusives and compete with Sony. You wait and see!" never arrives.

I don't think exclusive software lineup is why it is struggling in sales...look at PS4; they were breaking sales records left and right for the first couple of years without having a big compelling exclusive games lineup. It is only now that their first party is delivering a lot of exclusives and yes it will benefit them, but not as much as being the market leader/mindshare has.

Also, if you look at war Microsoft has released this generation in terms of exclusives, they are about on par if not ahead of what they had on 360 numbers wise. I don't think their problem has been in investment but rather in poor management of their investments. Look at games like sunset overdrive and Recore for example - these games could have and should have been a success in my opinion.
SSO should have been released in spring where it could have the opportunity to shine and Insomniac should have been given a bit more time to flesh out more content for it.

Also Recore really needed an extra year...

Anyways, my point is that as an xbone owner since launch I feel like there has been a lot to play - just that nothing they have released has really caught on in a big way like Gears/Bioshock/Mass Effect of last generation (the latter two were timed, but looking at TR this generation - which was a great game that deserved better - I think my point still stands)
 
I don't work in the games industry, (electronics/O&G/FMCG), but you're severely underestimating the capacity for external parties to have a gauge of what big industry players are doing.

Through existing relationships built through the partner agencies, marketing firms, logistics providers, etc, even after having left electronics and FMCG, just by talking to people who are currently deep in preliminary research of product investments, ideas, I have a gauge at what some FMCG companies are doing in terms of investment and what products they're probably trying to bring to market 2-3 years from now.

I work for a pretty big publisher in the UK and I can tell you over here that companies are very protective about letting competitors know what budgets they have fir different departments. I've worked for different companies within the industry over the last 15 years or so and know people who work for clients, direct and indirect competitors and people out with my industry, now unless im a board member, director or very senior manager none of us have a clue what others are spending on what.

Unless Matt has the ear of Spencer, Myerson or someone else it just seems mad that these execs would have such loose lips when it comes to disclosing sensitive business information. I get that if you know people who know people who know people then you can probably surmise specific details but to say im not speculating and what I am saying is factual then you need to be dealing with the top brass on a regular basis.

Of course this post will get shot down and ill be told im being salty but after many years on the web on many different types of forums for all sorts of things I'm reluctant to wholeheartedly believe everything I read by users who I have no idea who they are, maybe that's just me though.
 
Guys, who cares. Let Matt be. I appreciate his takes even though XBOX is my preferred platform.

We can all acknowledge MS has been on the right path for a bit but has lots of rebuilding work to do. Spencer himself said 1st party needs some attention.
 
It's really not that complicated, even if we disagree. Their software efforts have underperformed this gen, and the Xbox division doesn't have a blank check to do whatever they want. They have a focus on cost controls and profitability. Spending a lot on game dev doesn't fit into that in their view.

Sure I see that with this gen where things are pretty much decided and they'd rather double down on their core but in the beginning of next gen if they are interested in growing from where they are right now they'd have to make some big game investments.
 

Matt

Member
I don't think it's completely unwarranted because of posts like this:



This is not just keeping people expectations in mind. You called a metric Ms gave a spin, and offered a completely unreasonable reason to justify your stance. Like, the number of people purchasing and playing play anywhere games are so small that Ms has to lie to make it more popular, but at the same time this insignificant base play the game for so long because they are so invested in the platform that hey can actually skew the usage numbers.

Perhaps you also know the sales data for all those games, and could phrased it better, and perhaps it's something you don't even notice it, but posts like this do let seem that you are not as neutral as you say you are. Could be just how you write it though.
That metric was specifically chosen to paint the situation in the best possible light, like all metrics are in corporate presentations. "Spin" isn't inherently a negative thing, it's what all companies do. The situation for sales in the W10 Store is pretty bad, and saying 20% of play time was on PC presented a better picture than other metrics would have.

I know you have no way of knowing everything that is done because you are not the person making every decision and deals. Heck, not even Phil new about PD remaster at first. And he is the one that ultimately greenlits or kills the project.

For example, be honest: How much in advance you knew about Crackdown 3 in development, or Scalebound, or the partnership with studio gobo?
Never said I know everything, but I know absolutely enough to speak from a position of insight that most here lack.

I'm not going into specifics with your question, but none of those things were surprising.
 
I work for a pretty big publisher in the UK and I can tell you over here that companies are very protective about letting competitors know what budgets they have fir different departments. I've worked for different companies within the industry over the last 15 years or so and know people who work for clients, direct and indirect competitors and people out with my industry, now unless im a board member, director or very senior manager none of us have a clue what others are spending on what.h.

Fair enough. I'll defer my statement then in lieu of my lack of knowledge in this matter.
 
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