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Chris Dring at GDC: Xbox sales flatlining in Europe, majority of Xbox games coming to PS5 at some point, MS putting less focus on GamePass

Jimmy_liv

Member
I don't use Netflix.

So data leaks of personal info are fine and you don't care about it. You can blindly buy products and support companies that don't give a shit about you, for sure. But don't expect everyone to be like you.

IS security is a serious matter and companies have to invest properly in it.
None of it is fine but it happens. You're more likely to get your phone hacked for personal data than a major company.
support companies that don't give a shit about you
I don't support companies, I just support me, and I said it earlier but I'll tell you something that everyone but you seems to understand...

No companies give a shit about you!! None! They care about their bottom line, the end!

What might be an idea for you, you know, if you're so scared about data leaks, is go and live in a mud hut with no internet!

Every company has had a data breach at some point!
You're like Rainman who will only fly Quantas.
 

Woopah

Member
I don't understand the XBOX debacle right after they spent 70 billion on a top-5 IP, which should have brought them back to competition.

Instead, they are on a suicide run, lemming style.
So far nothing has really happened from that acquisition that would help console sales
Considering playstation sales have staggered to the point where they are manufacturing less this year, same with ms, xmas holidays were shit for all 3
Consoles usually start declining in their fourth year or earlier, it's completely normal.
Flatlining, what a generous wording by this clown when sales are tanking.
Flatlining means dead or about to die. Its not generous (but it is accurate).

It's a reference to a heart monitor, not a line on a sales graph.
 
Been a terrible generation,
Sony have just dropped the ball on their releases.
Nintendo have just not bothered with anything more powerful than a switch oled
MS have bought publishers up and released some good games and more games overall but clearly are incompetent, Gamepass has been the saving grace as it’s saved me a lot of money to pursue other hobbies.
 

Woopah

Member
I think you're ignoring what separates Nintendo, which is the hybrid platform as well as their first party games.
Yes that's why I was advocating for Nintendo to stick with hybrid, rather than going home console only.

Always will be an issue if the games can't be immediately ported over.
I expect porting to be easier than it was to the original Switch, but I guess we'll see
 
Been a terrible generation,
Sony have just dropped the ball on their releases.
Nintendo have just not bothered with anything more powerful than a switch oled
MS have bought publishers up and released some good games and more games overall but clearly are incompetent, Gamepass has been the saving grace as it’s saved me a lot of money to pursue other hobbies.

Hilarious how you claim Sony has dropped the ball on their releases but then praise MS who didn't even release their console with any games. Then went another year with no exclusives. Then released multiple exclusives that were half baked. Of course you got to save money with Xbox they've been going out of their way to release half made games and then pass it off to you as if it's a full game.

I don't see how Sony has dropped the ball at all. I've been playing hit after hit on my system. I still haven't even touch Spiderman 2.
 
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unchecked Sony gave us the PS3 and Microsoft humbled them. Remember the "PS3 has no game" meme? They turned the tables at the end of the gen, but most of it wasn't pretty to watch.
Microsoft didn't humble jack OR shit.
The ps3 released a year later, was $200 more expensive depending on sku's, had a processor that about 10 people on the planet knew how to code for at the time, came with all Japanese documentation regardless of the region and 3rd party multiplatform games almost always looked and ran worse on the ps3.
And in spite of all that, the ps3 outsold the 360 worldwide in the end.
The only humbling sony experienced was at their own hands that gen.
 
What is your problem? What are you trying to prove? That an experience on a 2500.00$ machine is better than a 500.00$ console? We already know this. No need to self insert your pc master race ideoligies into every conversation when it console to gaming. This is an "A & B" conversation between Xbox and curious Playstation console gamers. So you can "C" yourself out and go jerk off to your donut glazed KB&M.


jack off please GIF



Tv Show Smile GIF by Ash vs Evil Dead
Excited Season 6 GIF by The Office
 

Alan Wake

Member
If this isn't the biggest sign of a brand slowly dying i don't know what is.

PS6 will be the only running the show alone. Even if MS releases a console, i don't see how they can turn this around. They know this. Otherwise their games wouldn't be on Playstation now.
They know and it's been apparent for some time now they don't care about selling consoles. They just don't try anymore.

But if they're supposed to have a platform going forward, be it an Xbox app or a console or whatever, they need third party support. So I don't understand how they think they could make do without it unless they're just dropping out altogether and becoming a third party publisher.
 

Hestar69

Member
  1. You do realize that Xbox lost 3 million Game Pass subscribers, right?
  2. Also, Game Pass revenue is 10-15% of Xbox's total revenue.
So you mean to say the thing "that's all they care about" is the one that brings only 10-15% revenue, and they don't care about the stuff that makes 85-90% of revenue?

Some geniuses they are. No wonder they are in this mess.
"Xbox content and services revenue, which includes Xbox Game Pass, is up by 13 percent, though. Overall gaming revenue is also up 9 percent. It looks like Xbox Game Pass has grown year over year,"

From October of last year.. Like I said, people just love to hate xbox they're doing fine and FINALLY releasing games

competition is good and people should WANT xbox to do well to push sony.no nintendo isn't sony's comp at all, there consoles are always a gen behind.
 
You don't need to have a YLOD or a RROD to have a failure that needs replacement.


It was a big shop and shops had to manage the logistics of taking back PS3s to send them to Sony, it was super annoying for them and this is how it was, like it or not.


I had my base PS3 die after 1 year and a few days, bought a slim at launch, and it started overheating during th 13th month of its life. Shit. Consoles.
Over 50% of xbox 360s on the assembly line pre_release failed quality control and Microsoft made the decision to launch anyway with full awareness of the issue.
Shit hardware, shit anti-consumer company.
 
Would it be accurate to say that 3rd parties are, at an accelerating rate, looking at Xbox as a rival and not a partner anymore? If that corner gets turned, would that not create a near irreversible trajectory for the Xbox brand, even if they decided later to course correct? Or is this just the picture, of decisions already made, becoming clear more and more? As you said, boiling the frog.
This was already happening to a significant extent back when Microsoft was openly buying up so much of the industry. The difference now is that the 3rd party GP funding pool isn't what it used to be, and those funds went a long, long way in securing ports and marketing deals with publishers who were well and truly at their wits end with supporting Xbox.

I know for a fact that the catalyst that started the more significant conversations started that week in Feb when all hell broke loose and the news about 3rd party publishing by Xbox caught most of the exec-class of the industry off guard. Microsoft has always been aware that publishers are somewhat, and increasingly so, justified in skipping the Xbox as a platform to support. I can factually tell you that in the lead up to the new generation kicking off in 2020, the entire industry was taking meetings with Phil and his executive team and buying into the growth and vision that Xbox was laying out. The management team at Xbox/Microsoft are nothing if not incredible sales people, first and foremost. Making insane claims like how much they estimate GP will grow console users with your bespoke console strategy aimed towards targeting users at multiple income levels is an easy sell, but the math on that particular pitch always relied on the Xbox Series S massively taking off with a consumer base that so many C-Suite level folks in gaming feel exist: a silent userbase for which gaming is far too expensive to get into, but would do so at lower price points or with subscriptions, which is the same exact use case pitch that caused so many to dump billions into propping up cloud-rendered gaming (this use case will be profitable any day now).

So many lofty promises on what the user numbers and engagement metrics would look like, and everyone looks like fools now for believing it, all while one of the 4 major ecosystems is now impossibly hard to sell actual SW in.

When I used the term 'boiling the frog', I was referring to the more dedicated Xbox userbase and getting them accustomed to the idea of a broader publishing strategy for Microsoft. I doubt a 'course correction' is going to happen btw - not only is it far too late for that, but their ability to sell HW all over the world is just not at the level needed to justify their previous strategy.
 

Unknown?

Member
I don't use Netflix.

So data leaks of personal info are fine and you don't care about it. You can blindly buy products and support companies that don't give a shit about you, for sure. But don't expect everyone to be like you.

IS security is a serious matter and companies have to invest properly in it.
Even the FBI gets hacked. Nothing is unbackable. Not saying it is okay but you should treat ALL companies like you would with Sony.
 
I don't use Netflix.

So data leaks of personal info are fine and you don't care about it. You can blindly buy products and support companies that don't give a shit about you, for sure. But don't expect everyone to be like you.

IS security is a serious matter and companies have to invest properly in it.
Have fun living in your shack, Unabomber. Literally everything has been hacked, you are unable to interact with modern society if you try to limit yourself to companies which have not been hacked.

Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile -> all hacked at least once
Comcast -> hacked
multiple banks and brokerage firms -> hacked
Sony, Microsoft -> hacked
Equifax (major credit bureau) -> hacked
many hospitals and health care systems -> hacked
multiple state governments -> hacked
multiple Federal government systems -> hacked
all hotel chains -> hacked
multiple airlines -> hacked


The list goes on forever. So I guess if you huddle in your Unabomber shack and NEVER travel anywhere because airlines and hotels have all been hacked, don't subscribe to cell phone service, don't get Internet service, don't use computers, don't have a bank account, don't have a credit card, don't have a brokerage account, and also only buy food with cash at your local grocery store, you can continue to avoid getting hacked. And this won't help you actually because the US Government has been hacked so you're totally fucked already.
 
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sachos

Member
I thought it would be fine but then I didn't really factor in that some developers and publishers might just go, yeah I don't, you know, is there any point? And that is when you can lose it.
This is what we have been saying from the start... Devaluing your console is not just about console wars, if your hardware sales go down on top of you deincentivizing game sales why would 3rd party support you?
 
LOL, Microsoft is in no trouble at all, they have more money than they can spend. They started as a software company and I am pretty sure that is what they will become again.

Even if the console business is not profitable, they will do it as long as they are having fun. When it stops to be fun, they will just quit the console market.

They will now for fun do something in the handheld market and less focus on the consoles.
 

Topher

Gold Member
LOL, Microsoft is in no trouble at all, they have more money than they can spend. They started as a software company and I am pretty sure that is what they will become again.

Even if the console business is not profitable, they will do it as long as they are having fun. When it stops to be fun, they will just quit the console market.

They will now for fun do something in the handheld market and less focus on the consoles.

Consoles are a business my man. Not a hobby.
 
Consoles are a business my man. Not a hobby.
For Microsoft it has become a hobby, which they can afford. It would have been more profitable for a long time to stop making consoles and just make the software. They have their games on PC and game pass and don’t have a real reason to continue supporting XBOX.
 

Topher

Gold Member
For Microsoft it has become a hobby, which they can afford. It would have been more profitable for a long time to stop making consoles and just make the software. They have their games on PC and game pass and don’t have a real reason to continue supporting XBOX.

They are losing money on every unit sold. That's quite an expensive "hobby".
 

damiank

Member
The second half of the 360 gen was their downfall. Vastly overinflated sales numbers since nearly everyone had to purchase at least 2 consoles when their first one failed. Some purchasing far more than that. Then Kinect and completely forgetting about making core games that people wanted.

That continued straight into the Xbox One.
Heh, on polish forums a lot of people had two 360, one for pirated games and other to play Fifa/gears/halo/whatever lol
 

Alan Wake

Member
For Microsoft it has become a hobby, which they can afford. It would have been more profitable for a long time to stop making consoles and just make the software. They have their games on PC and game pass and don’t have a real reason to continue supporting XBOX.
This was a valid point when Microsoft as a company got goodwill and lots of positive word of mouth from their business (as in the 360 era). Then they could lose money on hardware and repairs and whatnot and still think it was a good business for the company overall. For what Microsoft product had people been waiting for hours and hours in a huge queue ever before? Xbox 360 was cool. Xbox Series X/S is just cold.
 

KXVXII9X

Member
This is depressing stuff. Worst part is that Spencer could’ve turned things around with honest job like producing games the traditional way and make them globally acclaimed must have. But he chose to be Netflix, because subscriptions.
The media and the general gaming community didn't help much as they religiously spouted "The best deal in gaming" and waved away any kind of skepticism and downsides.
 

damiank

Member
For us in the UK back then, when your Sony console failed, the shop you bought it from had nothing to do with it. Sony would collect it very quickly and replace it for you. Sucks for people in France, strange how you had to deal with the shop.

I don't know what the policy is now in UK and the rest of Europe.
Apparently only french sex and cuisine is fine, rest is shit tho, which includes DPD and Sony's customer support.
 
They are losing money on every unit sold. That's quite an expensive "hobby".
This has been the case every generation. Microsoft has said numerous times that hardware is not where they make a profit. I don't know why everyone acts like this is new news or that it's the final indication that xbox is going under. The xbox brand has value unrelated to sales in mindshare and software is where Microsoft tries to make gains. We're not even halfway through this generation and the xbox still has a boatload of games that have yet to release. Let's revisit this topic if Fable, Everwild, Indiana Jones, Avowed, Hellblade 2, Clockwork Revolution, Elderscrolls 6, Perfect Dark, Outerworlds 2, State of Decay 3, South of Midnight, and whatever else is being developed behind the scenes, bombs. Chris Dring is making a story out of the fact that there is lull in games right now, which is resulting in less xbox sales in Europe/everywhere. I guess the sky is falling. Anyone with common sense knows that sales will pick back up with the release of more games (please re-read list of games yet to release). We have idiot journalists who should go back to school and get a degree in something other than journalism.

I'm laughing at the quote, "I think Xbox is in real trouble as a hardware manufacturer." Chris Dring is a moron.
 

eerik9000

Member
Anecdotal evidence from an irrelevant small and poor country, but I know for a fact that Microsoft Estonia only cares about business software and services (and Skype, of course), and don't give a flying fuck about Xbox. Retailers who want to sell the console are left on their own finding the stock from existing supply chains with no support from Microsoft. In turn the console is more expensive than PlayStation and gets no promotion whatsoever. You buy Xbox only if you specifically know that you want an Xbox, not when you just want to buy a gaming console.
 

Topher

Gold Member
This has been the case every generation. Microsoft has said numerous times that hardware is not where they make a profit. I don't know why everyone acts like this is new news or that it's the final indication that xbox is going under.

Read the post I was replying to. I pointed out the fact that the console was sold at a loss in response to the assertion that Xbox hardware was a "hobby" for Microsoft. I never even implied that was any "indication" that Xbox was going under.
 

Woopah

Member
For Microsoft it has become a hobby, which they can afford. It would have been more profitable for a long time to stop making consoles and just make the software. They have their games on PC and game pass and don’t have a real reason to continue supporting XBOX.
The reason to continue supporting Xbox is that they thought they could turn things around.

Now that we have gone a few years into the generation they have realised that they can't turn things around, hence the pivot.
This has been the case every generation. Microsoft has said numerous times that hardware is not where they make a profit. I don't know why everyone acts like this is new news or that it's the final indication that xbox is going under. The xbox brand has value unrelated to sales in mindshare and software is where Microsoft tries to make gains. We're not even halfway through this generation and the xbox still has a boatload of games that have yet to release. Let's revisit this topic if Fable, Everwild, Indiana Jones, Avowed, Hellblade 2, Clockwork Revolution, Elderscrolls 6, Perfect Dark, Outerworlds 2, State of Decay 3, South of Midnight, and whatever else is being developed behind the scenes, bombs. Chris Dring is making a story out of the fact that there is lull in games right now, which is resulting in less xbox sales in Europe/everywhere. I guess the sky is falling. Anyone with common sense knows that sales will pick back up with the release of more games (please re-read list of games yet to release). We have idiot journalists who should go back to school and get a degree in something other than journalism.

I'm laughing at the quote, "I think Xbox is in real trouble as a hardware manufacturer." Chris Dring is a moron.
Chris Dring is making a story out of the fact that Xbox Series sales are collapsing in Europe.

This puts Microsoft in a bit of trouble, as low hardware sales has an impact on software sales (first and third party), subscriptions and microtransactions.

Future releases may turn things around, but there's no guarantee of that.
 
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