I think the way Sony threw the kitchen sink at PS3 1st party game development, all the way to PS4 launch, is enough proof that they made their decision to keep PlayStation way before PS4 launched.To be fair, Sony also held back a bit with the PS4. They had that attitude of "ok, we can do better than with the PS3" but were more conservative. They just got lucky with the XBone TV, TV, TV shenanigans. After that reveal, then Sony went into attacking stance.
Maybe MS are hoping that Sony will screw up in comparable magnitude, who knows.
And from then until the Insomniac news, we only heard of 1st party studios closing. They are not exactly the same company since the PS3.I think the way Sony threw the kitchen sink at PS3 1st party game development, all the way to PS4 launch, is enough proof that they made their decision to keep PlayStation way before PS4 launched.
I don’t recall Sony making regular moves to hide data before PS4 launched. I agree that they lucked out by the absurd choices MS made, but not sure how that relates to what MS is doing.To be fair, Sony also held back a bit with the PS4. They had that attitude of "ok, we can do better than with the PS3" but were more conservative. They just got lucky with the XBone TV, TV, TV shenanigans. After that reveal, then Sony went into attacking stance.
Maybe MS are hoping that Sony will screw up in comparable magnitude, who knows.
Yikes!!! That can't be good
The money spent to keep PS3 alive was never sustainable. You can't do it every generation. Just as Square Enix can't afford to rebuild FF14 from scratch more than once.And from then until the Insomniac news, we only heard of 1st party studios closing. They are not exactly the same company since the PS3.
You mean the XBone was not their Darkest Hour?Xbox fans are entering a dark age/chapter and they're not even aware of it.
SAD!
It was a pivotal moment. But things can always get worse.You mean the XBone was not their Darkest Hour?
It was a pivotal moment. But things can always get worse.
Remember when it was first announced these dudes were like "yeah bro it's going to sell tons" but we were telling them nahhhh too much money and ppl don't care and tht automatically made a person a fanboy lol They stay taking L's smhSAD!
I meant new games coming out on a direct competitor platform (not Switch). And Minecraft games are an exception. That probably was part of the deal when Notch sold Mojang.
You mean the XBone was not their Darkest Hour?
This industry is cyclical so I’m sure whoever is at the bottom will be on top again at some point, at least in the US.Ten years ago the Xbox heads were bragging about units sold and Metacritic scores.
My how times have changed.
If they show the real data no investor will want to invest in Xbox... that is the point.The investors can't question your business decisions if you consolidate things like this.
The last thing they will want is investors once again questioning the value of Xbox as a business line in the lead up to next gen.
Do you mean big investors have access to privileged data that others investor not?If the biggest investors really want to know, they can find out...
I've been mentioning over the last few weeks that gaming revenue was about to crash for Microsoft. 15-30%+ crash yoy in gaming revenues easy... maybe more, imo.
What they did was pull xbox live gold subscriptions forward with the Game Pass deal, so now there is going to be a huge hole in service revenue for quite a few years unless they can find something to fill the hole.
I disagree... sales data should be public for every business.I don't think anyone should be sharing sales data, to be honest. I hope the others follow suit.
The only people who need this information is investors.
The only people who care are the warriors.
I could be wrong, but I don't think Nintendo attempted to hide Wii U's numbers.
Anyone legally an adult could be an investor. So almost every adult in the world need this information.I don't think anyone should be sharing sales data, to be honest. I hope the others follow suit.
The only people who need this information is investors.
The only people who care are the warriors.
You are probably right, I just assumed they did. It's not really unusual when a product tanks. My bad. Sony however did for sure.
With Vita? Yes, they definitely did. They mistreated that poor child in so many ways.
Gamepass isn't making them much profit if any at all I bet. There trying to get the ppl in wuth the 1 deals but I wonder how many actually stay on. Fir example I subbed in August till Sept and played Gears for 1 but then didn't resub.
Microsoft is a public company and information like this is very relevant to current owners and people interested in buying shares.
I disagree... sales data should be public for every business.
Anyone legally an adult could be an investor. So almost every adult in the world need this information.
Just to add the engagement is hold by constant releases... if you don't have that to hold these guys playing you of course lose them and the MAU goes down.Assuming for the moment that MAU is down, what does it physically mean?
It might mean that there was a measurable drop in the number of people still connect to the Xbox services in 2019, compared to 2018. That they didn't just not gain customers, but have actually lost customers who already own Xbox consoles. And those people are the "high engagement" customers, people who are suppose to spend the most money and the last to jump ship.
Well, the last to jump ship, has now started to line up in front of the lifeboats. Good thing a new ship is being launched next year. We will see if the new ship Scarlet would pick up the slack... or not. Who knows.
Your company are public with open shares to anybody buy it... so you should disclose that data public.
Japanese companies are more open than the usual western companies.I could be wrong, but I don't think Nintendo attempted to hide Wii U's numbers.
This is also relevant to potential customers. The more a console sells, the more the console is supported in software, especially by third-parties. Just look at the difference in support between the Wii U and Switch.
I don't think anyone should be sharing sales data, to be honest. I hope the others follow suit.
The only people who need this information is investors.
The only people who care are the warriors.
Great move by MS..more salt, more guessing for Sony broskis..its truly amazing how so many of them get involved in MS threads and truly, positively care about the brand..right...riiiiiight broskies??!
Making it more and more blurry so it's harder to estimate how good xbox as a platform is doing in comparison to the competition.
I don't think anyone should be sharing sales data, to be honest. I hope the others follow suit.
The only people who need this information is investors.
The only people who care are the warriors.
Now that I've taken a bit more time with this...this seems to be in line with the direction Microsoft is taking things.
Microsoft as a platform is moving to a Netflix-esque type of service. Game Pass and Xcloud seems to be their future. We've all known this for quite some time.
So having their reports focus solely on this just shows once again how different of a company they are than Sony. I don't mean this in a good or bad way. It's just different. They have poised themselves to compete with the like's of Google and Amazon as that is the tier of company that they are.
People might think that the dismal sales of Gears 5 is partially to blame, but let's do the math here. If your best offering this gen sold 23k units in it's first week, but yet you have over 3 million players on the game and you're breaking records...this is clearly because of Gamepass. Which number would you rather report? More importantly, which one is a better measure of the success of what you're selling. They aren't selling us Gears 5, their selling us Gamepass. Yes, Gamepass has been offered for pennies for months now but as we can clearly see...what's on offer with this service has clearly improved and at this point...the content really has more room to improve than it does to fail.
They are trying to get people hooked. I don't wanna compare them to a drug dealer on the streets but this "The first one's free" method is showing promise, at least in it's first phase. We'll just need to see how this plays out after that first year of GamePass ultimate runs out. For me that will be next July. I'll hold my final verdict until we get to that point.
Instead, it's reporting "Xbox Content & Services Revenue Growth."
The only people that think like this are people that are invested into a product and they feel like it's failing.
Are you saying that you expect after the honeymoon period of Gamepass ends their retention will be so low that it would be reflected in this hit you're referring to? I don't know if I see it this way. For the people who continue to use Gamepass 1 person paying 15 dollars a month is essentially worth 15 people who got it for a dollar who may not continue. If they can convert 1 in 15 people to stick with and pay for Gamepass at full price then they break even. That seems like a very low bar to achieve.To me I read this to mean they are no longer splitting out gaming revenue (service, hardware, software, etc), so kind of the opposite of what you are saying. (again, still trying to figure out what they are now excluding) Sounds like to me they are going to give one figure i.e. gaming revenue. My guess, so they can imply that hardware sales was the reason for the revenue hit, but I actually think "service" revenue is going to be hit harder going forward.
My guess, hide the sausage i.e. major hit to game service revenue. (but we will see what they actually disclose)
Service game revenue only took a -3% hit last quarter, but that was after the GP/XBLG deal, going forward the service hit should be quite high.
I don't think anyone should be sharing sales data, to be honest. I hope the others follow suit.
The only people who need this information is investors.
The only people who care are the warriors.
Are you saying that you expect after the honeymoon period of Gamepass ends their retention will be so low that it would be reflected in this hit you're referring to? I don't know if I see it this way. For the people who continue to use Gamepass 1 person paying 15 dollars a month is essentially worth 15 people who got it for a dollar who may not continue. If they can convert 1 in 15 people to stick with and pay for Gamepass at full price then they break even. That seems like a very low bar to achieve.
I don't get why gamers so interested in earnings call for all these corporation. How does it matter or affect you unless you have shared in company
Are you saying that you expect after the honeymoon period of Gamepass ends their retention will be so low that it would be reflected in this hit you're referring to? I don't know if I see it this way. For the people who continue to use Gamepass 1 person paying 15 dollars a month is essentially worth 15 people who got it for a dollar who may not continue. If they can convert 1 in 15 people to stick with and pay for Gamepass at full price then they break even. That seems like a very low bar to achieve.
I share your view on this issue. They essentially just need a 1 in 15 retention rate to stay revenue neutral I would think. But perhaps D DanielsM is looking at it from a different angle. Perhaps he is implying its not really making money or even losing money currently due to costs. If that were true, then a 1-15 retention rate might be devastating. Or maybe the profitability point requires microtransactions which require large bases.Are you saying that you expect after the honeymoon period of Gamepass ends their retention will be so low that it would be reflected in this hit you're referring to? I don't know if I see it this way. For the people who continue to use Gamepass 1 person paying 15 dollars a month is essentially worth 15 people who got it for a dollar who may not continue. If they can convert 1 in 15 people to stick with and pay for Gamepass at full price then they break even. That seems like a very low bar to achieve.