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Sarah Bond “Every screen is an Xbox" - and greater ambitions of becoming the number one cross-platform gaming company

Zadom

Member
todays sony news got you coping hard lmao, you reap what you sow. only nintendo is not multiplatform.

64144-5f5d9b481fe5863c196d3441322ab983.jpeg
Wait, are you expecting Last of Us or Uncharted on an XBox? I think i am misunderstanding you.
 

Punished Miku

Gold Member
Well if you consider that every modern TV since a decade as a browser built in, every computer, every phone too obviously... Technically everybody can access xCloud as long as the connexion is good enough.

And it's a "proof of concept" more than an absolute reality for now, but technically yes it works.

It's being delusional to not admit that cloud gaming is one of the future of gaming. Will a majority of gamers embrace it ? I dunno but if in a couple of years, or a decade, it works as well and looks as good as a Netflix 4K show or an Apple TV 4K movie next to its BR counterpart... Well yes I can see it succeeding.

And they'll still develop Xbox hardwares as they say, for the people who still want that experience, like there are still people buying BRs or CDs, so I don't see any problem here.
Yeah I mean they pretty much already are on phone, pc, 1 console, some TVs and internet browser. I was playing Persona 3 in the bedroom on my X. Then went to the living room to stretch out later and played it on cloud since I didnt download it on the S. Loaded right up and looked 95% the same. Can do that on phone already too. Saves all instantly sync up.

Some of these jokes are funny though.
 
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Kacho

Member
I don't agree with that but I'm hoping tomorrow is not PR fluff like this line and they actually give us the facts on what they're doing going forward.
That fluff is meant to detach the Xbox ecosystem from dedicated Xbox hardware, whether that be services or games. We’ve heard it a million times before with the PR line “billions of gamers across multiple devices.” We’ll have a better idea tomorrow.
 

reinking

Gold Member
This was meant for internal consumption so I see no need to get worked up over it. I hope they have a clear message in their podcast and they stay away from these types of catchphrases.
 

Tsaki

Member
If they are going 3rd party (with timed exclusives for their console), this is pretty non-sensical to say to your employees. It's like having an EA exec coming out and saying "Every screen is EA Games" or any other publisher.
 
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Mr.Phoenix

Member
If they are going 3rd party (with timed exclusives for their console), this is pretty non-sensical to say to your employees. It's like having an EA exec coming out and saying "Every screen is EA Games" or any other publisher.
I don't see how... or what the issue is with what was said.

To me, it just sounds like they are saying "We are going to make games for every platform".
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
Well if you consider that every modern TV since a decade as a browser built in, every computer, every phone too obviously... Technically everybody can access xCloud as long as the connexion is good enough.

And it's a "proof of concept" more than an absolute reality for now, but technically yes it works.

It's being delusional to not admit that cloud gaming is one of the future of gaming. Will a majority of gamers embrace it ? I dunno but if in a couple of years, or a decade, it works as well and looks as good as a Netflix 4K show or an Apple TV 4K movie next to its BR counterpart... Well yes I can see it succeeding.

And they'll still develop Xbox hardwares as they say, for the people who still want that experience, like there are still people buying BRs or CDs, so I don't see any problem here.
screamqueensedit GIF
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
Neogaf, just give me a one-time pass for a boomer comment 🙏.

I certainly do not know the past of this folks at Microsoft, but one thing for sure that strikes me just on the way they dress and talk to the people or media is: this guys are not "gamers", they were no Satoru Iwata re-coding the Earthbound game on a week type of people. It feels most of them were hired from Marketing to own the gaming company. So for them, games are more like services than whatever the hell was happening on the 90s, they measure game success on this engagement metrics which almost trivialize what games are (basically they don't see any difference between Candy Crush and Metal Gear Solid 2, and even I would say they see Candy Crush on a better light).

Anyways, I think we all got the point. Hopefully the market can self correct the course of this and Microsoft can go back to making great games!
Kevin Hart GIF by PeacockTV


She came from Verizon.
 

Papa_Wisdom

Member
Personally I think it’s shit the way Xbox is these days. Don’t get me wrong I love the jokes, piss taking also.

it could of been a great platform you know, a great console that gave PlayStation a real run for its money and with that we all benefit. Games that really impressed, show case the capabilities of the consoles, got people interested in Xbox,

hand on heart fellow green dudes, do you honestly believe they have done this in recent years?

And I don’t buy into Xbox One was the worst generation to lose because there are always new consumers and you should strive to attract them and those who were disappointed. No way have they done enough in doing so.

Getting my last moan out of the way before tomorrow’s busyness.

They say “when everybody plays we all win”

My attitude was “when they all strive to be the best we all win”

I was badly wrong about that I still can’t believe loads of people still defend this leadership. Frustrating to say the least.

As a convert from sega onto og Xbox and I’ve been there from the beginning.

The og Xbox truly did feel like sega 2.0. It was gaming focused, innovative, graphically awesome. Had some absolute banger games on it with a lot of the 3rd party games been by sometimes quite a margin better. Absolute beast of a console.

360 continued this, although perfect dark and kameo weren’t the greatest you could see that they were finding there feet in relation to incorporating rare into their organisation. Pgr3 in HD is a thing I can still remember to this day (going over Brooklyn bridge in a Porsche ruf turbo).
Jaw dropping whilst you plow your way through hordes of zombies was amazing.

The blades dash, the way love was integrated. Clearly built by gamers that focused pretty much on that games.
Along with achievements and friends lists (innovations compared to og Xbox)

Best controller for any console ever up to that point (imo) (Apart from 2D fighters etc which was the Saturn pad)

Xbox live arcade etc

everything about it was innovative.

Then Kinect happened.

After that they started to see the money the Wii was making and wanted on that. They refocused in Kinect and pivoted away form gamers to try capture the appeal the Wii had due to its unique controller and who it appealed to (everyone)

That’s the time I bought the ps3 and started to enjoy all the Sony exclusives I’d missed out on.

As I Mained the Xbox I was eagerly anticipated the one launch. I still remember sitting there jaw in the floor wondering how they read the market so wrong. From a U.K. perspective it was all American tv focused add reel. Then Kinect, which I didn’t want as it had put me off the back end of the 360.

Trying to stop pre owned games.

Microsoft has gone from gaming focused to trend focused. The arrogance alone of the presentation put me off instantly.

I was out.

I eventually got one about 2 years later. Went in for a PS4 but they didn’t have any and walked out with a pre owned one. I wasnt too disappointed cos I did want Skyrim and fallout 4 with the mod capacity that Xbox had. I actually enjoyed a lot of Xbox games, sunset overdrive, KI,Ryse, dead rising, recore (that was a bit meh but ok), plus loads of others. Back cat, they just about got me back in there eco system before Sony.

Bought a 1x and enjoyed it and at the time Microsoft were saying all the right things going into this gen.

But I also bought a pc and honestly enjoyed it more.

Series x I was all In again, My pc couldn’t play flight simulator etc as well as the series x so it would be a great buy. Spencer and co were still saying all the right things (even if you knew the deal was that with day 1 pc any game is not considered exclusive). I could kind of see what direction they were going for.

I have to say half way through the generation, that apart from a few genuinely great games both consoles this generation have been boring.

I’ve still bought games for Xbox (I don’t have gamepass as I can’t see the benefit for my lifestyle) and generally buy my games physical when there sub 20 physical or digital.

I could see their business sense In the Bethesda deal and double, fine ninja theory etc.

It was the Activision deal that made me realise they had lost focused again to chasing a trend. It changed the game from been wanting to compete to wanting to dominate, something about it didn’t sit right with me.

Now we’re seeing the outcome of it,

The only way I’m buying new Xbox hardware is if it duel boots to windows.

If not I’ll keep my series as as my Xbox library legacy console and just switch over to pc where I get games from both ms and Sony with all the benefits of pc gaming. It’s a no brainier.

Sorry for the rant but your comment was really good! And I probably didn’t answer your question, it resonated with me and my experience as an og day 1 Xbox gamer.

Edit:TLDR I’m stoned and started with a point in mind but forgot and went off on a bit of a tangent .
 
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Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
The bottom line is the bottom line.

They aren't doing this because they want to, they have to do it because they can't make enough money under current conditions.
Which is all you really need to know; how far they feel they need to go... we'll find out.

For me, the exclusivity aspect is overblown. The real issue is that MS seem to think that exposing their content to a wider audience is going to fix their problems!
 

PaintTinJr

Member
Ahead of Xbox briefing, Microsoft lead reportedly told staff "every screen is an Xbox" and stressed ambitions to be the number one cross-platform gaming company



“Every screen is an Xbox,” Bond said in the internal meeting, according to multiple sources who requested anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to media. Sarah spoke extensively about Xbox’s strategy of existing on multiple kinds of devices and greater ambitions of becoming the number one cross-platform gaming company.

Phil confirmed to employees there would be “future hardware” from Xbox and added that it would be safe to assume another Call of Duty was coming this fall. He addressed the company’s recent job cuts and said that it had been a hard decision to stop things that weren’t working.

This isn’t the first time Xbox has shared its multi-device strategy. In 2020, Jason Ronald told me that Xbox is “not trying to force the player to upgrade to an individual device or to make things exclusive to this device or that device.”

It is amazing to think that the head of Xbox doesn't even technically know that an X-box must be a device that uses DirectX, which its very name is derived from (Direct X box). Ironically, DirectX will die with this strategy making nothing an Xbox long term IMO.

Sony have provided a DirectX translation solution like WINE/Proton for easy porting as far back as PS4 AFAIK, and presumably Nintendo have done something similar, but without Xbox, why bother? Why not force everyone, including Epic UE to use Vulkan/Opengl ES everywhere? Why would game developers persist with DirectX over more successfully alternatives that can target every screen?
 
For me, the exclusivity aspect is overblown. The real issue is that MS seem to think that exposing their content to a wider audience is going to fix their problems!
It's more that they realized oh wait maybe we shouldn't have blown $7 billion on Bethesda/Zenimax and $70 billion on ABK and then cut their revenue and profit legs off by taking their content exclusive to the least popular platform where we also subsidize them all playing for free with a subscription

No one gives a shit about multiplatform Halo and Gears, just look at how good those are doing on PC. This is about backtracking from spending that much money on acquisitions and then killing the companies they acquired for no reason whatsoever. (Unless they just pull a Nokia on Bethesda/Zenimax and ABK)
 
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darrylgorn

Member
And then Ms. Bond took Mr. Moneypenny in a loving embrace and she kissed him softly and caressed his back as they dreamed about their Xbox family. 🥹
 

Jimmy_liv

Member
That fluff is meant to detach the Xbox ecosystem from dedicated Xbox hardware, whether that be services or games. We’ve heard it a million times before with the PR line “billions of gamers across multiple devices.” We’ll have a better idea tomorrow.
And nobody wanting to go within 100 miles of it.
 
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Iced Arcade

Member
They definitely think they are smart and giving each other high 5s lol

No one is buying a future Xbox console when you can save $800+ on the console plus save a few hundred annually not buying GamePass... Just buy a PS6 that has PS games and Xbox games and save yourself a few hundred.

Will be interesting to see what they have planned lol.
 

Nydius

Member
No one gives a shit about multiplatform Halo and Gears, just look at how good those are doing on PC. This is about backtracking from spending that much money on acquisitions and then killing the companies they acquired for no reason whatsoever. (Unless they just pull a Nokia on Bethesda/Zenimax and ABK)

100% this, though I don’t fully agree with your first sentence there. Plenty of people would love Halo and Gears on other platforms, not least of whom are Microsoft executives and shareholders who would salivate at having a larger audience to sell those games to.

But I digress. You’re absolutely spot on about this being about maximizing the return on these acquisitions. I said it a week ago and I still believe that some executive outside of MGS/Xbox looked at the amount of revenue multiplatform games from ABK make and went to the board, or Nadella, or someone and said “Why are we leaving so much money on the table when we could be selling many more games on other systems?”
 

Fox Mulder

Member
Personally I think it’s shit the way Xbox is these days. Don’t get me wrong I love the jokes, piss taking also.

it could of been a great platform you know, a great console that gave PlayStation a real run for its money and with that we all benefit. Games that really impressed, show case the capabilities of the consoles, got people interested in Xbox,

hand on heart fellow green dudes, do you honestly believe they have done this in recent years?

And I don’t buy into Xbox One was the worst generation to lose because there are always new consumers and you should strive to attract them and those who were disappointed. No way have they done enough in doing so.

Getting my last moan out of the way before tomorrow’s busyness.

They say “when everybody plays we all win”

My attitude was “when they all strive to be the best we all win”

I was badly wrong about that I still can’t believe loads of people still defend this leadership. Frustrating to say the least.


The Xbox One launch destroyed the brand. Gamers ran to PS4 after the 360 was the place for indies and better third party ports. It had gears of war and halo at the peak of their popularity setting trends. Xbox Live was way better than PSN. The 360 forced Sony to do better with the PS3 over its life.

Xbox One just had a disaster launch and first party drought that became Phil promising games are coming every single year and people cheering for buying studios. The Master Chief Collection was busted for years. Crackdown 3 hype was a thing. Gears of War and Halo faded fast. MS even did shit like faking a phantom dust remake reveal for the e3 pop. Sony was putting out GOTY stuff on ps4.

I pretty much just have a Xbox now to play Forza and some other games on gamepass. Even Forza Motorsport is shit now.
 
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