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Microsoft will no longer include Gaming Revenue or XBL Monthly Users in its earnings reports.
DeltaPolarBear
Member
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.
FranXico
Member
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 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.
Airbus Jr
Banned
MiyazakiHatesKojima
Banned
Xbox fans are entering a dark age/chapter and they're not even aware of it.
SAD!
SAD!
DeltaPolarBear
Member
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.
PlayStation is suppose to pull its own weight. PS3 sadly didn't so had to be propped up with buckets of money, but PS4 did better.
FranXico
Member
You mean the XBone was not their Darkest Hour?
MiyazakiHatesKojima
Banned
DeltaPolarBear
Member
It was a pivotal moment. But things can always get worse.
Airbus Jr
Banned
Gamernyc78
Banned
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 smh
Vawn
Banned
So we don't count PC and now we don't count Nintendo either?
GHG
Member
If it does get worse then they only have themselves to blame.
They were the only ones still defending crap and buying crap during the darkest hour(s).
If there is light at the end of the tunnel they are not the ones who deserve the great things that may come of it, it's the people who actually called them out on their shit and demanded better that deserve it.
Animagic
Banned
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.
Mochilador
Member
The numbers, Mason!!
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.
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.
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thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Member
NGL all of this is NOT making me confident in picking up a Scarlett for next-gen. I still kinda hate going Sony-only out of the two, but MS isn't putting up much of a fight doing stuff like this. Just makes Xbox look weak.
I'm for sure still going Switch + PC for the near future, tho.
I'm for sure still going Switch + PC for the near future, tho.
ethomaz
Banned
Do you mean big investors have access to privileged data that others investor not?
That is against the law... it is illegal.
Gamernyc78
Banned
Gamepass isn't making them much profit if any at all I bet. They are trying to get the ppl in with the 1 subs but I wonder how many actually stay on. For example I subbed in August till Sept and played Gears for $1 but then didn't resub.
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ethomaz
Banned
I disagree... sales data should be public for every business.
bosnianpie
Member
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.
DeltaPolarBear
Member
Anyone legally an adult could be an investor. So almost every adult in the world need this information.
Vawn
Banned
With Vita? Yes, they definitely did. They mistreated that poor child in so many ways.
bosnianpie
Member
I agree there, probably not much revenue for Game Pass but they were able to wrap the Game Pass deal with an extension of Xbox Live Gold last quarter. So, they booked future revenue last quarter for extended Xbox Live Gold subscriptions years in advance as part of the extension. So... gaming revenues only took a partial hit last quarter as they pulled future demand forward for Xbox Live Gold.... there will be a huge drop off in coming quarters, yoy.
They are trying to hide the large revenue hit to gaming which I have been speaking about for a few months now.... -10% will be nothing compared to future quarters.
It does say they will still disclose via 10-k, but we will see.
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ethomaz
Banned
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.
MS is doing the same strategy they do every gen... stop to focus and release games for the platform from mid to late of the gen... sure they released Gears 5 but in normal year you needs 3 or more launch similar to Gears.
In that way the Sony strategy/plan for the gen is always good... they keep releasing 3 or more big hits even near the launch of next-gej machine... in fact some big hits even launches after the next-gen start.
Sony is a year from PS5 and they will launch at least 3 big hits before that... what MS will launch? Halo?
ethomaz
Banned
Your company are public with open shares to anybody buy it... so you should disclose that data public.
There is no difference between a person investor and a big fish investor by the law... both can buy shares and invest in a company.
Sales data should be public.
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ethomaz
Banned
Japanese companies are more open than the usual western companies.
They try to share these data even when it is not good... of course they explain why the data was like that.
In these terms Nintendo is still a essentially Japanese company while Sony is already a western company.
Outrunner
Member
How will I know if I want to invest in a company or not if there is no information available on how it is doing?
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??!
Yes, everyone who has criticism about a company that is a major player in an industry they love has to be a "Sony broski". Because no gamer in this world can have genuine interest in how the industry is doing.
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Silent Viper
Banned
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
Jigsaah
Gold Member
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.
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.
Slings and Arrows
Banned
I like tithe see numbers and figures of console companies so that I can see the correlations between making wise moves and dumb moves.
As a customer, are the moves that Microsoft make - and thst appear negative to me- in reality, smart business moves?
The business side of the gsming industry is just as interesting, and in most cases more interesting, than the games themselves.
As a customer, are the moves that Microsoft make - and thst appear negative to me- in reality, smart business moves?
The business side of the gsming industry is just as interesting, and in most cases more interesting, than the games themselves.
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mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
This kills me about MS. It's crazy that they keep making it harder and harder to evaluate how the brand is doing.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
The only people that think like this are people that are invested into a product and they feel like it's failing.
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.
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newtypepilot
Member
who would've thought that in order to be successful all you need to do is release games and not that live service, sports, sports, sports, tv, tv, tv nonsense
ResilientBanana
Member
This isn't to hide anything
Just like the rest of their business, it's not about Xbox Live it's about the total amount of services that they are providing for gaming. So GamePass, Xbox Live, and xCloud. Xbox Live users will start to dwindle and as they start pushing services across multiple devices and does not provide an accurate number as to success. I can have 50 Million Xbox Live users but the reality is I could have 100 Million GamePass and xCloud subscribers. It doesn't make sense to just record one or the other at this point. Not to mention all the Xbox Live Free or PC accounts. It does not equate to a use-able revenue number.
Just like the rest of their business, it's not about Xbox Live it's about the total amount of services that they are providing for gaming. So GamePass, Xbox Live, and xCloud. Xbox Live users will start to dwindle and as they start pushing services across multiple devices and does not provide an accurate number as to success. I can have 50 Million Xbox Live users but the reality is I could have 100 Million GamePass and xCloud subscribers. It doesn't make sense to just record one or the other at this point. Not to mention all the Xbox Live Free or PC accounts. It does not equate to a use-able revenue number.
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Birdo
Banned
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Jigsaah
Gold Member
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.
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thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Member
Nah, not really. If I'm a prospective buyer of, say, Scarlet, and I see this news, that tells me MS probably isn't feeling too confident in their future endeavors. Sony and Nintendo aren't scared to post their sales numbers publicly, why is MS? I'm gonna use this stuff as info in deciding where to put my money next-gen; it just comes off as a weak play by MS to obfuscate numbers they had zero issues putting out there when they were doing well.
It doesn't install consumer confidence, basically.
I think the hit will be to XBLG subscriptions, Game Pass isn't bring in anything or next to nothing... Gold does, they were able to get people to subscribe to XBLG for 1-3 years out for the Game Pass deal. I would suspect they booked XBLG service revenue last quarter which is really future revenue.
(I'm still confused on what they are releasing and not releasing though, I might be wrong on my assumptions of what they are releasing)
Gaming revenue drop 10% yoy last quarter for Microsoft, but game services dropped only 3% i.e. the Game Pass deal???? (idk) (they keep changing their metrics that its almost impossible to tell what is going on)
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Outrunner
Member
When you care about an industry you kinda have interest in how and what the major agents in that industry are doing.
GHG
Member
That's not how it works.
None of these "all you can eat" subscription models are priced in a way that the company breaks even, even if everyone pays full price.
In a few years we are going to look back on these days of Netflix, Prime, Gamepass etc and say it was the golden age.
Because what comes next is that we all get fucked up the arse once they know we have no alternative but to subscribe to these services if we want access to home media entertainment.
Anyone who is subscribed to these services (myself included) just needs to enjoy this while it lasts.
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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.
Personally, I really doubt that gamepass is in any sort of trouble. I think MS gaming side financial health only impacts the company and industry in two possible ways. Staying with or dropping hardware, and bringing gamepass to PlayStation or not. With Sony's move to their servers, and MS removing focus from certain data, I'm starting to believe I might really play Halo on a Playstation someday. If financial metrics show that gamepass will generate huge numbers there, hardware is losing money, and they control the hosting servers, it starts to look like a no brainer.
But no matter what, I do not see any risk to the next Xbox's launch. There's just no way they would pull out now.
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