Jigsaah
Gold Member
So you don't think taking on Google Stadia in the streaming arena and making a play for the 2 billion gamer market isn't a paradigm shift of strategy compared to what they have been doing for the past 20 years damn near?
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Microsoft will no longer include Gaming Revenue or XBL Monthly Users in its earnings reports.
12Dannu123
Member
Vawn
Banned
Microsoft would respond with something like, "The B button has been pressed MILLIONS of times!"
HeresJohnny
Member
Well this clearly makes sense because Microsoft isn’t into selling games and hardware anymore. It’s alll about GaaS now.
DunDunDunpachi
Patient MembeR
Airbus Jr
Banned
Ok looking at these numbers now i understand why they dont show numbers anymore
www.vgchartz.com
Video Game Charts, Game Sales, Top Sellers, Game Data - VGChartz
VGChartz - extensive game chart coverage, including sales data, news, reviews, forums, & game database for PS5, Xbox Series, Nintendo Switch & PC
www.vgchartz.com
New Yorks Finest
Banned
JoeyWestSide
Member
I don't think the trillion dollar company gives a shit about how successful last gen was and are only focused about how to keep growing.
Hawking Radiation
Member
This.
Remarkable turn of events. MS bigwigs would repeatedly take to twitter to yell from the top of the rooftops on sales numbers. Ever since this gen started they slowly been removing the information they share.
But make no mistake when they back on top again you will see Aaron Greenberg and the like take to twitter again to boast.
JoeyWestSide
Member
I didn't know it was the same executive leadership running MS from back in those days? Wait its not? You can't hold the actions of one person to someone else. Also I didn't realize that Aaron Greenberg ever stopped boasting on Twitter? Better him boasting online than random people on forums.
Panajev2001a
GAF's Pleasant Genius
Hence you skip communicating bad data and if nobody minds the lack of transparency wait until things get better and start reporting / boasting that again. It is fair for them to do this, it is not like their entire business is collapsing, but taking about it in other terms feels disingenuous. Same but when Apple stopped reporting unit sales of phones and tablets...
JoeyWestSide
Member
If people don't mind the lack of reporting in bad times, then its irrelevant to start reporting again when they're good. We live in a non-gaap world now, reporting is changing and it seems permanent as unit sales is becoming irrelevant. Want to know more? Go to the sec website. In apples comparison Android had always been the world leader with 3/4 of the market so "hiding it because of the competition's numbers" isn't true. Sad thing about Apple is that its their largest revenue source, Xbox is the MS's smallest. In reality, these companies aren't going to succeed or fail because of the way they report.
Panajev2001a
GAF's Pleasant Genius
You are circling a bit around my point I think. See the Apple example: that did not happen because of how they compared to Android. It happened because their HW sales were stagnating and/or declining YoY and the revenue figures were made look good by avg sales price rises for their HW (offsetting sale results with higher margins).
Apple was definitely hiding the numbers, their sale trends, because they were painting them in a bad light.
They are also a company that is betting more and more on services despite still a sporting very very profitable niche, but investors deal with spotting trends and murkier the water there was how they addressed some concerns.
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Elenchus
Banned
Vawn
Banned
Ten years ago the heads were different people. But yea details right...
Yeah THAT'S the difference. Not being lapped by the competitors.
SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
Everyone does this. Sony is doing it right now. They wont reveal Days Gone's sales figures. This after gloating over Horizon, GoW and Spiderman selling millions in weeks. Its just the nature of the business.
MS is literally handing out their biggest game for a dollar. they are in it for the long haul which is only good news for gamers.
MS is literally handing out their biggest game for a dollar. they are in it for the long haul which is only good news for gamers.
Elenchus
Banned
Who never wants to talk about d**k sizes?
That's right...
So is this the part where I remind you of MS’s market cap and you tell me that the overwhelming success of the company doesn’t matter because we’re in adult-make-believe-land?
Fine I’ll play along and when I log into my Robinhood account today I’ll ignore MS’s financials and buy shares based on NPDs and forum posts. Ya know...because that’s how all investors decide where to park their cash.
Is that good enough? Did I make the grade this time Gandalf? Lol. Let me know.
FranXico
Member
There you go! You almost had me there for a bit.
I was beginning to think you had no sense of humour and underestimated people you don't know. Glad I was wrong.
Vawn
Banned
Is anyone claiming the company Microsoft is in any danger of going away? No. But, who cares? This is a gaming forum. We are talking about XBOX.
What the rest of Microsoft does means as much to me as Apple, Wal-Mart, Chevrolet or any other corporation.
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Well that means they aren't very good. Because I will bet you an entire paycheck that if their stuff was selling like hot cakes they would be proudly announcing it to the world.
They dont want to show how poorly they are doing because they dont want to push away potential customers, potential developers from developing for their system and to worry share holders.
Honestly I think if this wasn't a billion dollar giant like Microsoft behind the xbox they would have gone bankrupt a year ago. Microsoft has the money to keep a sinking ship afloat. The xbox is like justin long, the consumers keep saying no but there is always someone with money behind them that keeps saying yes.
They dont want to show how poorly they are doing because they dont want to push away potential customers, potential developers from developing for their system and to worry share holders.
Honestly I think if this wasn't a billion dollar giant like Microsoft behind the xbox they would have gone bankrupt a year ago. Microsoft has the money to keep a sinking ship afloat. The xbox is like justin long, the consumers keep saying no but there is always someone with money behind them that keeps saying yes.
A.Romero
Member
I don't see what the problem is.
This information is for investors. It's in Microsoft's best interest show the numbers that make their business look better. It doesn't really matter if they are on top of not. We need Microsoft in the market.
Didn't we get numbers just recently showing that Sony has 4 out of the 5 best selling consoles? Doesn't sound that cyclical to me...
This information is for investors. It's in Microsoft's best interest show the numbers that make their business look better. It doesn't really matter if they are on top of not. We need Microsoft in the market.
Didn't we get numbers just recently showing that Sony has 4 out of the 5 best selling consoles? Doesn't sound that cyclical to me...
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Every maker hides things that aren't going well.
Sony and MS will cherry pick the good numbers. And things go bad, it's dead silence or baked into some obscure number. Or even worse, misleading numbers.
Last gen, Sony used to combine PS2, PS3 and PSP sales into one number. And then say it sold more than Wii. But of course, they didn't include NDS or 3DS sales.
Sony and MS will cherry pick the good numbers. And things go bad, it's dead silence or baked into some obscure number. Or even worse, misleading numbers.
Last gen, Sony used to combine PS2, PS3 and PSP sales into one number. And then say it sold more than Wii. But of course, they didn't include NDS or 3DS sales.
Animagic
Banned
I don’t do console wars. My statement wasn’t a defense of the Xbox brand.
Cocky companies make big mistakes
Elenchus
Banned
You separate MS from Xbox because MS’s clear success undercuts your narrative but investors do not. It’s one company. Time to come home Frodo.
Is MSFT Stock a Buy With Earnings and xCloud Launch on the Horizon?
When Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) reported fourth-quarter and full-year earnings in July, the company impressed analysts and investors, blowing past estimates for both earnings and revenue. The next earnings report for the trillion-dollar company is due in five weeks. And after closing at $136.33...
Vawn
Banned
What narrative is anyone pushing that Microsoft's success outside of gaming (which is the vast majority of the company) undermine again? I'm really confused what you're talking about.
I'm not telling anyone they should or should not buy Microsoft stock. We are talking about Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo (the one company almost solely focused on video games) here.
Unless you can show me anyone here claiming Microsoft the corporation is in bad shape, you are arguing with a strawman.
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Elenchus
Banned
The thread is about how MS will handle its financial reports for its gaming division going forward.
It’s related to Xbox sure but the decision of how to handle MS’s reports is not up to Phil Spencer and Azure financials are reported in a similar way. Revenue and growth are the focus.
You don’t understand because you are analyzing this through a narrow prism. It’s one company and I kinda doubt the decision of how to handle these reports was driven by a desire to protect MS’s image on NeoGAF or Twitter.
It’s a silly notion in the real world but makes perfect sense in adult-make-believe-world. But that’s fine I guess. Middle-earth is cooler than Manhattan. Aragorn is cooler than de Blasio.
But Prince Caspian will kick all of these dudes’ asses. Narnia fucking rules...
A.Romero
Member
Oh yes, they do.
I appreciate the no console wars part. Me neither. If I was I would be behind the PC team. I am very interested in the business side of the industry, though. This is a very interesting time to follow it.
Personally I don't do Xbox anymore ( I have an OG Xbox and had a 360 for a while) but I still think we need them to keep at it. They do a lot of things right that would be missed if they tapped out.
Animagic
Banned
I got an Xbox for Forza and the Forza Horizon games instead of buying a new pc and this was long before they were working on cross platform releases and stuff.
I’ve had fun with it. It seems like they are really kind of painting themselves into the corner with gamepass. Trying to look ahead to prospective future Xbox hardware launches up against the expectation they are creating for customers...
...seems unsustainable for a console launch to me, when new packaged game sales are so vital.
Nikana
Go Go Neo Rangers!
The key is to get people subbed once they have the console and keep them subbed. The average gamer doesn't buy games that often and a lot of times buys a game or two at launch then waits months or even years to buy another game and the likely hood of that being a first party game is less and less viable as the generation gets longer.
If you entice the consumer day 1 with let's say Halo infinite on gamepass yes you lose out on the revenue that you would of gotten day 1 from the $60 sale but now you've got them subscribed for potentially a lot longer than that intial release.
Rhazer Fusion
Member
Manufacturers or companies do cherry pick or hide numbers when they are not up to their standards, but I’m actually a little surprised Sony released their VR peripheral numbers. I guess their projections or expectations weren’t that high considering it was a $500 add on.
Bkdk
Member
If they include flight, AOE4, halo infinite and wasteland 3 next year then the game pass will still be worth it after it leaves beta. I mainly buy it for outer worlds but doesn’t hurt to play the games it offer now with the beta price.
Gavon West
Spread's Cheeks for Intrusive Ads
The reason they're doing this is because Microsoft is going all in on the Xbox gaming division, and the gaming division is primarily funneled into GP. They plan to take a loss as they build their subscriptions from consumers which will grow once Xcloud (they plan) exponentially.
Essentially, Xbox is here to stay in a big way with this move. They aren't hiding anything from investors, at all actually. They receive a mainstream breakdown of growth each quarter.
The biggest losers are the console warriors, which I think is funny.
Panajev2001a
GAF's Pleasant Genius
... which explains how they are not punishing their MAU’s how? C’mon this essentially the same as when Sony was reporting home and portable console sales together or when Apple decided to stop reporting the iPhone and iPad sale numbers anymore... numbers are not painting the reality they want to paint, so they progressively remove them from public eyes (including console warriors which could help negative word of mouth) or so the thoughts would go.
Coulomb_Barrier
Member
MS: Xbox continues to be a great success
MS: Hides all data that could reveal how successful Xbox is
Me: Xbox sales have fallen off a cliff
MS: Hides all data that could reveal how successful Xbox is
Me: Xbox sales have fallen off a cliff
TLZ
Banned
Now that no reporting is available, some will claim it will definitely reach 100mil 10 years later, since there's no way to prove them wrong.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
No I don't. It's an evolution of strategy. Companies have been giving us ways to play games through streaming for years now. MS is just taking it to the next (obvious) level. And with doing that, they don't need to hide numbers to achieve that goal.
fast_taker
Member
Companies are evolving, new KPIs replace the old ones. This is normal.
ellias
Banned
We need competition. Not Microsoft.
A.Romero
Member
Well yes but they are one of the few willing to go all in. Plus they have made really good things like pushing online gaming or the elite controllers.
Microsoft does not split out Game Pass revenue nor do they give subscription numbers (generally speaking, although Phil said millions of subscriber without saying if that was total or free or close to free), of course, even if they gave subscription numbers - not sure how useful they'll be immediately as they basically gave away the service. Microsoft does split out service revenue, assuming the Game Pass revenue will be in that figure.
yurinka
Member
I think it's just another PR twist trying to find some good looking metric. Which means that traditional numbers like numbers of consoles sold, games sold, or if they even want to include extra revenue from DLC/IAP/subs then they could say "that game generated $XXX milions in revenue" don't look good. And even the new metrics that they kept using also don't look good specially when compared to the competition.
It's getting weird.
It's getting weird.
"millions of subscribers" can be 2 million who paid $1 each. If they don't mention the specific number of millions of users, or millions in revenue generated, or profit, or even that it reached certain milestone like "hey, we have 10 million Gamepass users!" is because the number isn't good enough to mention it publicly.
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Elenchus
Banned
Every subscription service starts with a low price to build an install base and then increases price over time. Problem with GAF is that too many have short memories.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13694225/export_QPPQY.png)
www.vox.com
The history of Netflix price increases in a single chart
Subscribers will now pay between $9 and $16 per month, depending on the service.
www.vox.com
So let me get this straight, they are not reporting gaming revenue or XBL numbers because they are taking on google stadia? Can you explain why google stadia subscriptions will make revenue made from gaming as a whole and XBL subscription numbers irrelevant?
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cireza
Member
It was a joke post based on the title of the topic. I was wondering if they would include Gaming revenu and XBL Users information in Gamepass instead of the reports...
I'll do better next time.
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