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[Grinchy]

This is almost as good of a spin as, "It's not that we didn't properly time out our next-gen software to launch with our next-gen console. It's just that for a year, all of our enhanced last-gen software is going to be called next-gen software that is scaled down so no Xbox gamer is left out!"

Good luck with cloud gaming next-next-gen. Hopefully you do something noteworthy while you're arriving there.

 

[ethomaz]

Maybe now MS can win... against Stadia.

 

[Aion002]

Cool! Game pass on Playstation and Nintendo when? He talks a lot but he does so little.

 

[Vawn]

So, now streaming is the best way to game because of what Phil said? And Sony is screwed because they can't do game streaming, only Microsoft, Google and Amazon (please ignore PlayStation has been doing game streaming YEARS before any of them).

Phil Spencer fanboys like Gavon West crack me up. They talk out both sides of their mouths as much as their spiritual PR leader.

 

[Vawn]

Phil: Nintendo and Sony don't count. Our competition is Google and Amazon.

But Mr. Spencer, Google is already failing and Amazon doesn't look to be making any serious moves on the hardcore gamers.

Phil: Xbox wins!

 

[wolffy71]

All of this has already existed for a decade+, it was a bad bet.



If you can't purchase a console, how are you going to afford the subscription... the subscription is still paying for the console, it just isn't sitting at your house. You are paying someone to manage your console., which generally is going to cost more, eventually.

Its a lot easier to afford a few dollars a month than it is to put $700 down when you buy a new console. That should be fairly obvious.

And you're missing the point on game streaming(probably intentionally I imagine). The capabilities of game streaming now isn't what it was ten years ago, and sure isn't what it will be going forward. Its the future and there's no way around it. Its just a matter of when.

 

[wolffy71]

So, now streaming is the best way to game because of what Phil said? And Sony is screwed because they can't do game streaming, only Microsoft, Google and Amazon (please ignore PlayStation has been doing game streaming YEARS before any of them).

Phil Spencer fanboys like Gavon West crack me up. They talk out both sides of their mouths as much as their spiritual PR leader.

Not the best. just viable. He's said himself that consoles will always be the best experience. But console being the best doesn't mean its the only way.

My tv is much better for watching media than my phone but yet I watch a lot on my phone. Same thing.

 

[DanielsM]

Its a lot easier to afford a few dollars a month than it is to put $700 down when you buy a new console. That should be fairly obvious.

And you're missing the point on game streaming(probably intentionally I imagine). The capabilities of game streaming now isn't what it was ten years ago, and sure isn't what it will be going forward. Its the future and there's no way around it. Its just a matter of when.

$700?

I bought my nieces a PS4 with Unchartered 4 bundle in 2016 for $215 w/ tax. You still have to pay for the hardware, and the electricity and the bandwidth, and the management of the consoles, etc.

I'm not missing the point, you are missing the point of why it continues to fail... there is no free lunch.

The capabilities of game streaming now isn't what it was ten years ago, and sure isn't what it will be going forward. Its the future and there's no way around it. Its just a matter of when.

Game streaming actually hasn't changed much in 10+ years, I have no idea what you are talking about.

I'm sure the Model T is the future too.

If you were right.... people would be signing up and would have signed up for the last 10 years. Any just wait until they have to actually charge real world prices for it.... these prices are not even a fraction of what they'll have to charge.... it will all have to cost more than native playing.

 

[Quezacolt]

Thanks Phil. I already had zero interest in getting another xbox after all the mistakes that happened this gen, and now this too? I'll stick with Nintendo and Sony.

 

[cireza]

How the fuck did you even come up this?? "Doesn't mean quality???"

What's sad is how you came to that conclusion in your post. Sheesh!!

When your upper management gives you an objective of reaching "XXX millions gamers by the end of year", you don't go the quality route.
I am actually living the exact same situation in my work, not going to reveal the details of course, but we have a goal that is "reach 5 millions by the end of the year".

I can tell you that when you get such goals, while you were sitting around 100k, you certainly don't think about quality. Instead, you review all the possible means that will attract as many "units" as possible for you to reach the goal. And when everybody's salary raise is going to depend on the success of this goal, you can be sure that nobody will try going in the opposite way.

So obviously, Spencer set as objective to the management below him to reach that "XXX millions of players by the end of the year" (it won't be 7 billion obviously) and the management team will be working towards that goal.

How do you attract all these players in your ecosystem ? Well certainly not by continuing doing what you have always been doing. You have two options :
- either you start making new content that will attract the players (Wii, Kinect)
or
- you buy whatever existing content that has all these players and put it into your ecosystem (Minecraft, PUBG)

So in both cases, I don't see this working well towards what my egoistical self would hope to see in the future coming from Xbox.

I am saying this and I have been a good supporter of Microsoft, and play mainly on Xbox. But they are going to throw their money, again, at stuff like Kinect or Minecraft or PUBG etc... Which is quite sad. They only managed to build 3 very strong IPs since they entered the market : Halo on OG, Forza and Gears on 360, and pretty much nothing on One (maybe Ori ?). I would like to see them releasing great games again and again and build strong IPs, rather than chasing stuff hoping that it will work on the long term.

Just my point of view of course.

 

[Gavon West]

Thanks Phil. I already had zero interest in getting another xbox after all the mistakes that happened this gen, and now this too? I'll stick with Nintendo and Sony.

Phil said, have fun!

 

[DanielsM]

So, now streaming is the best way to game because of what Phil said? And Sony is screwed because they can't do game streaming, only Microsoft, Google and Amazon (please ignore PlayStation has been doing game streaming YEARS before any of them).

Phil Spencer fanboys like Gavon West crack me up. They talk out both sides of their mouths as much as their spiritual PR leader.

This is why I said there was astro-turfing/marketing campaign going on.... heck Google is into the fun as well. Game streaming is nothing new, its very mature than you have all these articles, interviews, and posters on the interwebs ignoring the 800lbs. gorilla in the room... its just fucking game streaming.

I'm like welcome to 2010 and OnLive. I'm like its so fucking futuristic my PS4 from 2013 does it.

 

[JLB]

The PS5 is using cloud gaming too. It was on the slide of features.

What he's saying is that Amazon and Google have massive cloud services they're using for gaming.

Microsoft has Azure. They don't need to invest to make what Amazon and Google already have. Sony signed on to use Azure.

So instead of investing billions making their own cloud service, Sony is using Microsofts. Likely because they realize what Spencer just said about investing to make the infrastructure.

Read this comment kids. Its called common sense.

 

[Virex]

“That’s not to disrespect Nintendo and Sony, but the traditional gaming companies are somewhat out of position"

Says the one in last position. Also hasn't PS Now been around for quite a while and the game streaming platform making the most money at the moment? People want traditional game consoles. PS4 and Switch sales numbers are proof of that.

 

[CyberPanda]

Read this comment kids. Its called common sense.

Naw common sense isn’t allowed.

 

[wolffy71]

$700?

I bought my nieces a PS4 with Unchartered 4 bundle in 2016 for $215 w/ tax. You still have to pay for the hardware, and the electricity and the bandwidth, and the management of the consoles, etc.

I'm not missing the point, you are missing the point of why it continues to fail... there is no free lunch.



Game streaming actually hasn't changed much in 10+ years, I have no idea what you are talking about.

I'm sure the Model T is the future too.

If you were right.... people would be signing up and would have signed up for the last 10 years. Any just wait until they have to actually charge real world prices for it.... these prices are not even a fraction of what they'll have to charge.... it will all have to cost more than native playing.

If you're truly expecting no advances in tech that will make streaming work better then ur crazy. Secondly the Model T is a perfect look into what ur thinking process is, backwards. And it reminds of Ford when he said if he asked what people wanted they would have said faster horses.

 

[Vawn]

Well, I've thought about it and Phil is right about one thing. There really isn't much of a competition when it comes between Xbox vs PlayStation and Nintendo.

PS1 - 101 million

Xbox - 24 million
PS2 - 155 million

Xbox 360 - 84 million (by far, their most successful console - also last place for its generation)
PS3 - 87 million (after 360 having a year head start and a rough launch)
Nintendo Wii - 102 million

Xbox One - 40-50 million (scared to release actual numbers)
PS4 - 109 million
Switch - 50+ million (just reaching prime)

Yup. No need to worry about Sony and Nintendo. Better worry about Google Stadia and Amazon Nothing.

Good luck.

Also, keep booking those PR business trips to Japan Phil. Maybe you could double or triple the monthly Xbox sales there from 40 to 100+.

 

[Fitzchiv]

Oh good. Another thread for DanielsM to smear his ignorant shite over the walls of, time and time and time and time and time again.

 

[Vawn]

Oh good. Another thread for DanielsM to smear his ignorant shite over the walls of, time and time and time and time and time again.

Give an example, because everything I've seen him say has been correct.

 

[Fitzchiv]

Give an example, because everything I've seen him say has been correct.

What are you, his mum. Have a scroll and pick the sweetcorn out. The rest is DanielsM shite.

 

[EMP88]

This isn’t a gaming story in the traditional sense. It’s more akin to who supplies the GPU, CPU etc. in current consoles. To us gamers it doesn’t matter if it’s AMD, NvidIa or Intel. Just as it doesn’t matter if Microsoft, Amazon or Google provide the cloud infrastructure.

Sony & Nintendo could (probably will) continue to dominate the traditional AAA gaming space. MIcrosoft would be content with that so long as they use Azure for their cloud infrastructure.

By mid next-gen I fully expect Microsoft to put their titles on all platforms too. Just as they do with their Office software.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Naw common sense isn’t allowed.

Irony.

 

[Vawn]

What are you, his mum. Have a scroll and pick the sweetcorn out. The rest is DanielsM shite.

Again. Pick one. What did he say that was wrong?

And maybe I am his mum.

 

[Fitzchiv]

Again. Pick one. What did he say that was wrong?

And maybe I am his mum.

Get your kid in line.

 

[Mikey Jr.]

I'm gonna say a significant portion of those 7 billion would prefer to have food and water first.

 

[Bernkastel]

So, when is Jeff Strain making a big budget MMO to counter Amazon. He now has his own studio at New Orleans and they hired so many ArenaNet devs too.

 

[geordiemp]

Got to admit, bosses of some big companies, Sony / MS and Nintendo do talk some utter shit sometimes.

The people working for them must cringe.

 

[DanielsM]

Oh good. Another thread for DanielsM to smear his ignorant shite over the walls of, time and time and time and time and time again.

Which part? (can you possibly be more specific)

Let me give you a hint, most of this is obvious observations.

 

[Mod of War]

Get your kid in line.

Attack the argument, not sling insults.

 

[Mass Shift]

Until that 2 billion gamers are under somebody's umbrella the fight still exists. Nobody has them firmly in their camp so far, so even though Stadia is on life support, the prize hasn't been won. Xcloud isnt even out of beta yet so its still too early to call this for anyone. In this, Phil is making sense.

Sony uses Microsoft's Azure but that's only because its something they could not compete with on this level now. Let Sony have a generation like they did this go around and they may be able to build something on their own on the level of Azure at that time. The first chance they get, I believe they will do it. in the meantime they can play a similar game to what Microsoft is doing with VR. Dip their toes in the water and wait and see how hot it gets.

Microsoft needs to fight all the battles and not forget what got them here in the first place. The reason they are even in the conversation is because of Xbox, which competed directly with Playstation. You don't get to just write them off because they aren't a trillion dollar company. I believe Phil knows this. So I can only guess this is a either a resignation from the console war to in part save face, or a resignation to try to unify the console makers against a much larger threat.

Basically "Winter is Coming".

Fair points.

I would just add that it took MS at least a decade and a half to invest $24 Billion and build their global cloud infrastructure. If Sony is planning to do this for themselves, they will need to get started as soon as possible.

I think it is a legitimate concern that Sony and Nintendo are not prepared for this future. I remember the early internet giants like AOL that had no plan for broadband connection because they had so much confidence/arrogance in their existing business model.

These one time market leaders got their clocks cleaned and were swept aside as irrelevant. I find it personally alarming that Sony and Nintendo haven't taken any significant steps for themselves.

Amazon and Google are heavily invested in cloud services. "Winter is Already Here".

 

[Gavon West]

This isn’t a gaming story in the traditional sense. It’s more akin to who supplies the GPU, CPU etc. in current consoles. To us gamers it doesn’t matter if it’s AMD, NvidIa or Intel. Just as it doesn’t matter if Microsoft, Amazon or Google provide the cloud infrastructure.

Sony & Nintendo could (probably will) continue to dominate the traditional AAA gaming space. MIcrosoft would be content with that so long as they use Azure for their cloud infrastructure.

By mid next-gen I fully expect Microsoft to put their titles on all platforms too. Just as they do with their Office software.

I'll take that bet.

 

[Fitzchiv]

Attack the argument, not sling insults.

That would necessitate attacking in thread after thread, over and over again. I've said my piece - the guy wilfully misinforms people.

Public service broadcast over

 

[DanielsM]

That would necessitate attacking in thread after thread, over and over again. I've said my piece - the guy wilfully misinforms people.

Public service broadcast over

Like what?

 

[lock2k]

Microsoft should take advantage of Sony using Azure and bring their own games to PS as well. It would be great.

 

[DanielsM]

Microsoft should take advantage of Sony using Azure and bring their own games to PS as well. It would be great.

Sony last said there is no business contract to use Azure, they only have an agreement to possible have an agreement on certain technologies. To be honest, not sure what it would add to the end user anyway. Generally, I would say if your technology doesn't work the same or similar in da cloud as it does on-prem.... you're making a huge mistake. However, there is differ of opinion on that.

I'm always curious as to what people think would change?

PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan Clarifies Details On Sony/Microsoft Collaboration

gamingbolt.com

coin-drop.com

coin-drop.com

 

[Jtibh]

Cloud giants?

Tell me about stadia again. Did it die at birth or 3 months in?

 

[Vawn]

Get your kid in line.

But seriously, if you're going to publicly call someone out by name, at least back it up. Exactly what did he say that called for you to call him out?

Otherwise, next time just keep it to yourself.

 

[mckmas8808]

Honestly this kind of argument (made by Spencer) drives me off a bit. I don't see a bright future when this is the actual driving force behind his decisions.

This means that whatever brings new players to the table gets a pass, and this does not mean quality. It was actually pretty shitty with Wii in my opinion. Extremely sad to see gaming going this way.

100% agree with you my friend. This isn't looking to good.

He's not wrong.

• Amazon has Amazon.com, Twitch, Prime
• Google has Youtube, Google search, Stadia
• Microsoft has Xbox Consoles, Mixer, Bing, Game Pass and XCloud.

These 3 companies have strong touch points into their ecosystems. Sony and Nintendo have no presence outside of Consoles.

But it was the head of "Xbox" talking. Not Satella. Google search and Prime have nothing to do with gaming.

 

[Jigsaah]

Sony last said there is no business contract to use Azure, they only have an agreement to possible have an agreement on certain technologies. To be honest, not sure what it would add to the end user anyway. Generally, I would say if your technology doesn't work the same or similar in da cloud as it does on-prem.... you're making a huge mistake. However, there is differ of opinion on that.

I'm always curious as to what people think would change?

PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan Clarifies Details On Sony/Microsoft Collaboration

gamingbolt.com

coin-drop.com

coin-drop.com

I wasn't aware of Jim Ryan's clarification, but it does provide some credence to what I said in my last post:

In the meantime they can play a similar game to what Microsoft is doing with VR. Dip their toes in the water and wait and see how hot it gets.

They wanna see how big it gets and choose when to jump in. They are already throwing a ton of money at VR and I would imagine it's much easier to do than to build their own cloud infrastructure...even if they have GaiKai. Apparently, GaiKai isn't sufficient to compete in that space. If it was there would be no reason to even consider a deal with Microsoft Azure.

 

[DESTROYA]

Losers always generally have the biggest mouth, it’s like a last place team talking trash to a championship team saying they suck.

 

[TGO]

 

[IntentionalPun]

Meh.. I still think the idea that cloud gaming will actually expand gaming is wishful thinking by executives, and not something stemming from consumer demand.

 

[IntentionalPun]

Sony last said there is no business contract to use Azure, they only have an agreement to possible have an agreement on certain technologies. To be honest, not sure what it would add to the end user anyway.

Errr.. how about a massive deployment of data centers that MS partly affords because of all of the other Azure services they sell?

Anyone not actually a cloud provider is at a huge disadvantage trying to re-create a game streaming service from scratch.

It's like trying to run a retail chain that only sells 1 product vs. 1 that sells 100s.

From an end user perspective the difference would be cost and availability; realistically Sony can't afford to sell services at the same price, and certainly not in as many regions as MS / Google / Amazon can.

For cloud gaming to work your "on prem" needs to be thousands of DCs spread across the world, as there is no tech that requires lower latency out there.

 

[NickFire]

Oh no. Last time they decided to win the hearts of gamers they better focus on kinnect and TV. I truly thought they learned a lesson. But here we go again. What is their aversion to just making the best type of games that people who play games want? Why do they always have to try winning a battle that none of their customers actually care about?

 

[wolffy71]

Honest question, do you guys think 5G will have any impact on how this will or won't work?

 

[DanielsM]

Errr.. how about a massive deployment of data centers that MS partly affords because of all of the other Azure services they sell?

Anyone not actually a cloud provider is at a huge disadvantage trying to re-create a game streaming service from scratch.

It's like trying to run a retail chain that only sells 1 product vs. 1 that sells 100s.

From an end user perspective the difference would be cost and availability; realistically Sony can't afford to sell services at the same price, and certainly not in as many regions as MS / Google / Amazon can.

For cloud gaming to work your "on prem" needs to be thousands of DCs spread across the world, as there is no tech that requires lower latency out there.

Well, I think game streaming for money is pretty much crap.

But what you are talking about is just datacenter co-location, you can easily rent co-location basically anywhere you, of course, there could be a cost benefit but to the end user really there isn't any real difference as a generalization.

For cloud gaming to work your "on prem" needs to be thousands of DCs spread across the world, as there is no tech that requires lower latency out there.

Not sure what you mean, seems like you are taking my comments out of context. It means the technology should generally work the same on prem or on your local hardware as it does in remote location say in a datacenter or cloud service provider.... at least that was my point. Although, there are people that will build stuff for specific cloud providers... I personally think they are nuts, actually Stadia could be an example of that craziness.

I mean you basically have all these companies fighting over no demand.

Microsoft has all the advantages over Valve, but somehow Valve continue pound fuck them over a rail i.e. Games for Windows Live and Microsoft Store. Just because there is an advantage, doesn't mean you win. Of course, like I said... not sure what you win in game streaming...no real demand.

 

[DerFuggler]

I have yet to see or hear of--from credible sources--an actual, working cloud based gaming service.

Is this gimmick going to bring the next gaming crash?

 

[DeepEnigma]

Meh.. I still think the idea that cloud gaming will actually expand gaming is wishful thinking by executives, and not something stemming from consumer demand.

This is how I feel.

 

[Pallas]

Hey Phil... quick question... Care to explain again again why you are spending billions to R&D XSX and Lockhart then?! He keeps trying to talk people into jump on board of XSX from one side of his mouth and then uttering words undermining that from the other side...

"Gamers should be playing from everywhere, we do not care which hardware platform it is as long as it is on our cloud solution [Xbox PR guy speaks into his ear]... unless your console is a PlayStation" hehe .

He also said the best way to play would be with hardware currently. Hence why they are still investing into hardware.

 

[DanielsM]

Honest question, do you guys think 5G will have any impact on how this will or won't work?

No, generally speaking. You will get more bandwidth and possibly some improved latency on mobile... but you already have that in most people's house, but you are still limited by hops to the entry point, equipment latency and laws of the universe i.e. speed of light.

Even if it matched native playing - still costs more, more equipment, more electricity, more bandwidth, etc.