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Microsoft Will Focus Primarily On Xbox Live Usership, Not Console Shipments.

system11 said:
Focusing too much on ecosystems, media and other things unrelated to the core concept of playing a game is exactly what brought them here in the first place too.

It's a pretty interesting way of admitting failure, I think on balance I just wouldn't have said anything and stuck with numbers.
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Yeah why even say anything at that point. I mean i appreciate the honesty but man, not exactly creating an exciting "buzz" with that type of talk.

And mentionning Live subs... you need to sell consoles for that to go up! What, people are gonna get a Live sub on windows 10 for solitaire? Jesus...
 
Just report your numbers honestly and keep fighting Microsoft. If you want to focus on your users than you don't have to worry about PR spin.
 
SystemBug said:
I mean this is good. They can enage with consumers better.

I really don't get it. Xbox has been doing so well the past year in terms of bring good quality games to its system but so many of you people are always like lol sales.
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Sales thread bruh

Lol at the engage with consumers better part as well
 
VincentMatts said:
Yeah why even say anything at that point. I mean i appreciate the honesty but man, not exactly creating an exciting "buzz" with that type of talk.

And mentionning Live subs... you need to sell consoles for that to go up! What, people are gonna get a Live sub on windows 10 for solitaire? Jesus...
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Right now yes, but it opens the door for other devices to contribute to that number. What they haven't done is demonstrated what that's going to look like, I have no idea what the ecosystem surrounding Killer Instinct or Sea of Thieves is going to be like on PC, or how they will be effectively courting mobile developers on their smartphones. They've been taking steps into establishing a larger Microsoft ecosystem but I feel they're not moving fast enough to that end given they seemingly are dead set in getting there.

It feels as if the old 'islands of devices' Microsoft at Xbox is too slowly adapting to Nadella's more unified modern Microsoft.
 
Sounds in line with Microsoft's overall shift to services.

Doesn't really do much to further justify their continued presence in the hardware space though.
 
I wanted to add more...

The damage control for Microsoft here is massive. We pretty much have to make assumtions at this point at the sales of the XB1. Hoping for NPD leaks, and then doubling it to give us WW sales (as microsoft usually gets 1/2 its sales from the US).

And what exactly are xbox live users? People just on Xbox with gold? All Xbox's who use their accounts? Or just everything, including PC's? Engagement means shit! And that 39 million figure is actually LOWER than before the release of XB1, giving me the feeling some have jumped ship. What next? We haven't heard ANYTHING since december? Will we ever know when the XB1 reaches 20 million, or will be guess at it?
 
SparkTR said:
They've been taking steps into establishing a larger Microsoft ecosystem but I feel they're not moving fast enough to that end given they seemingly are dead set in getting there.
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Yea, this is what is going to take a bit. Apple started the App ecosystem for iOS with iPhone, but that took a while to kick off. Then came the iPad with its compatibility to the App Store, which helped. And finally they started to phase in the Macs, but they still have their own App Store that is separate. The unifying thing for Apple is their iCloud with Apple Account that makes everything so seamless.
Microsoft have improved their stance towards apps significantly, they are allowing iOS apps to run natively (?) or with minimal effort, and they have an app store that works across all their devices (tablet, phone, dekstop, laptop), and the apps will even work on XBO natively, but obviously it will be curated by the Xbox team.
I don't think it will take too long, though, until developers will think about putting their apps on the Windows Store at the same time as the App Store. As I mentioned already, Windows 10 is pulling massive numbers already.
 
Hmm, part of me thinks this is a poor attempt to try and cover up just how bad sales are, but then part of me thinks this is a deliberate move to change how they report numbers as this is their last console and next gen will be entirely about ecosystem that's accessible from PC or Surface or whatever other device they want to allow access from.
 
allan-bh said:
Sony is doing the same thing with Vita now.
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Yes, but they're sharing the PS4 numbers. Microsoft is not sharing Xbox One numbers or 360 numbers. Sony shares PS4 numbers, Microsoft shares nothing. Besides, my post was a response to someone saying what Microsoft is doing here is similar to what Sony did with Vita and PSP, which is untrue.
 
bluedawgs said:
Yes, but they're sharing the PS4 numbers. Microsoft is not sharing Xbox One numbers or 360 numbers. Sony shares PS4 numbers, Microsoft shares nothing. Besides, my post was a response to someone saying what Microsoft is doing here is similar to what Sony did with Vita and PSP, which is untrue.
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Exactly. At this point, they simply hide what isn't good. Why else did Microsoft "reshuffle" their devisions. To make sure their declining revenue in Windows and Office (not 365) simply doesn't look "as bad".

Also, were you the guy who I did the bet with on a certain site that "guesses" sales figures, but we both ended up perma-banned?
 
etta said:
Yea, this is what is going to take a bit. Apple started the App ecosystem for iOS with iPhone, but that took a while to kick off. Then came the iPad with its compatibility to the App Store, which helped. And finally they started to phase in the Macs, but they still have their own App Store that is separate. The unifying thing for Apple is their iCloud with Apple Account that makes everything so seamless.
Microsoft have improved their stance towards apps significantly, they are allowing iOS apps to run natively (?) or with minimal effort, and they have an app store that works across all their devices (tablet, phone, dekstop, laptop), and the apps will even work on XBO natively, but obviously it will be curated by the Xbox team.
I don't think it will take long until developers will think about putting their apps on the Windows Store at the same time as the App Store.
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I'm sorry but your post is wishful thinking. Apple and Google have the market for apps locked up for the foreseeable future. The easy porting stuff is an admission of failure to gain traction with their OS marketplace. Even though they ship lots of copies of windows, the open nature of pcs means that people can and do get most of their apps from the web and not through the windows store. The number of xbox devices out there is dwarfed by Android and iOS, surface is niche and windows phone is a non starter and only sells small volumes at the lowest price points (the type of people coming off cheap feature phones) to the third world. MS's ambitions of having a strong content ecosystem is a pipe dream, it's a duopoly now until the next major tech shift (whatever that is). Until then MS will Lord over their increasingly irrelevant Windows Empire and become a diminished company that tries to milk services like Office 365, so they have steady income in perpetuity. They will probably do the same with Xbox live, try to extend it or bundle it with other services.
 
I have the feeling that Microsoft wants people feel sorry for them or something. And when people do that, you see the same are going to hate Sony.
 
super6646 said:
Exactly. At this point, they simply hide what isn't good. Why else did Microsoft "reshuffle" their devisions. To make sure their declining revenue in Windows and Office (not 365) simply doesn't look "as bad".

Also, were you the guy who I did the bet with on a certain site that "guesses" sales figures, but we both ended up perma-banned?
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yes, yes i am that person. nice to see you here bruh
 
uncledonnie said:
The stock is up more than 11% today, clearly due to this decision. Good call Microsoft.
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They've shoved the xbone numbers under a bus in a clear statement of intention that consoles aren't really their future, and you say 'good game MS!'. Shareholders are making money, woo! Now what happens to the consoles and the games?

And do you really think the share price rose because they stated they aren't releasing sales figures for the x-consoles? I'm mean, huh?
 
Cthulhu_Steev said:
They've shoved the xbone numbers under a bus in a clear statement of intention that consoles aren't really their future, and you say 'good game MS!'. Shareholders are making money, woo! Now what happens to the consoles and the games?

And do you really think the share price rose because they stated they aren't releasing sales figures for the x-consoles? I'm mean, huh?
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Pretty sure that's sarcasm :P
 
Cthulhu_Steev said:
They've shoved the xbone numbers under a bus in a clear statement of intention that consoles aren't really their future, and you say 'good game MS!'. Shareholders are making money, woo! Now what happens to the consoles and the games?

And do you really think the share price rose because they stated they aren't releasing sales figures for the x-consoles? I'm mean, huh?
Click to expand...

I thought the sarcasm was obvious.

But I do seriously have to laugh at the people saying XBOX is going away.
 
Microsoft is moving to Monthly Users as a primary metric across *all* divisions.

It's obviously a more useful number than hardware shipped. The Whole Point of consoles (for Sony and Microsoft both) is to use them as loss-leaders to lock people into platforms. They make their money on game and now media sales. That's been true for years and years and years. Ten consoles getting active use (and paying Xbox Live Gold) is way more important from a profitability standpoint than one hundred consoles sold but sitting in closets gathering dust.

And anyway it's a more useful number for developers, too. Just think of the Wii. The Wii had an enormous install base but horrifically low usage rates after a year or two. A bunch of developers chased the install base to their despair. I'd rather develop games for a small-but-active Xbox 360 base than for a huge-but-dead Wii base.
 
etta said:
That's not gonna happen lol.

Why do people still think this? Xbox numbers shoved under the bus because it has no future?
This thread is too much.
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Because history has showed
I mean whoever actually thought Atari and Sega would vanish from the physical console playing field? Growing up I didn't

What I'm saying is, Microsoft is not going to pump billions and billions into the Xbox division if it starts to sputter
 
Brakke said:
Microsoft is moving to Monthly Users as a primary metric across *all* divisions.

It's obviously a more useful number than hardware shipped. The Whole Point of consoles (for Sony and Microsoft both) is to use them as loss-leaders to lock people into platforms. They make their money on game and now media sales. That's been true for years and years and years. Ten consoles getting active use (and paying Xbox Live Gold) is way more important from a profitability standpoint than one hundred consoles sold but sitting in closets gathering dust.

And anyway it's a more useful number for developers, too. Just think of the Wii. The Wii had an enormous install base but horrifically low usage rates after a year or two. A bunch of developers chased the install base to their despair. I'd rather develop games for a small-but-active Xbox 360 base than for a huge-but-dead Wii base.
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Good post. This thread is just too much.

Makes much more sense to focus on active users than hardware sold.
 
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