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MS CFO: Manufacture of Xbox Consoles may slow down or stop...

From what I have seen watchdogs is THE game non hardcore gamers are looking forward to, I have friends who game but don't really follow the industry much yet they are all pumped for Wd.

Yep, and the marketing will kick in soon. Many are excited fro WD and then destiny, Last of us as well in the summer. PS4 will have a strong year throughout.
 
So Kinect-less Xbone is actually gonna happen, right?

Neglect? They announced three first-party titles coming to the West recently. Granted, they're localisations, but only one of them was already out in Japan.

Kinect isn't the reason this thing isn't selling as well as it could.
 
From what I have seen watchdogs is THE game non hardcore gamers are looking forward to, I have friends who game but don't really follow the industry much yet they are all pumped for Wd.

Yup, same thing i'm hearing around college.

Off-topic as hell but:

I asked some of my friends if they were as pumped as I was about Mario Kart 8 next month aswell and the reply was:

'Oh wauw, they still make those?'

I'll convert them, no worries.
 
I don't know what the title was originally, but it's not clickbait now. It's simple math.

If Microsoft's demand is lowered for the slow time of the year and they have plenty of stock already, they will have to reduce their console manufacturing rate.

The only thing in the OP I would say is "reading into" things is

due to market saturation.

This could mean many things. If it means the Xbone has hit consumer saturation, that's a terrible assumption. If it means the Xbone has hit retailer saturation, then it might be right.
 
I would argue that Yusuf Mehdi was probably just as responsible for the initial vision as Mattrick was.

Of the top Xbox executives, Spencer is the one who comes off looking good because he handled his responsibilities rather well.
Which is why I mentioned Yusuf in my original comment as well. I always saw them very much so as the integral parts of the XB1 vision, as they were always the ones best versed in the development of policies and overarching vision.
Proof?? It was MANY peoples direction. Thats like saying KAz was the guy behind ps4, mark cerney and others had zero to do with it.,
It's... not at all like saying Kaz. Kaz would be analogous to Ballmer, which is a silly comparison.

Here's all I can find at the moment:
http://www.fastcompany.com/3013767/don-mattrick
http://business.financialpost.com/2...-play-to-control-living-room/?__lsa=c0f2-674f

He spear-headed acquisition of "TV" talent, while ramping down relation to streaming services. By the rest of the executives in the Xbox division, he is attributed with the discovery and push for Kinect. He is also described by Xbox execs as the one with the "ambitious vision". Not to mention the little excerpt about him leading the planning of the Xbox One.

He is very much at the center of the design philosophy for the Xbox One, but again, as I said before I also blame Yusuf (which is less founded, since I've never really researched him like Mattrick). Yusuf might actually just be a figure-head, since I'm not too familiar with his background.
 
I honestly don't get the Yusuf Mehdi hate or the overenthusiastic Spencer love.
We know nothing of either party's involvement in the initial vision.

Mehdi unfortunately has to get the short end of the stick just because he's not the "games guy."

I'm not blaming Mehdi because he's not a games guy. He's the head of Xbox marketing and has on several occasions candidly expressed his complete confidence in the initial vision of the XBO. He was responsible for scoping the market, doing the research and shaping the box according to the demands of the customer. To some extent they achieved that, but in many ways they did not.

The head of the team and the head of the team's marketing are the key decision makers on the key elements of a product. If they're not responsible, who is?

Spencer on the other hand had a different job and his efforts are clear as day. XBO has a great set of AAA exclusives.
 
I don't actually think the 800K or whatever they have in the retail channel is actually that severe. Although the continental European channel might be more stuffed I imagine.

I also don't think Microsoft are completely stupid and didn't expect sales to slow down a) post-holiday and b) in the Summer months which are always slow and in which they don't really have major releases, and that reduction in shipments in these times wouldn't be factored into their production already.

On the prudent decision, that seems like it would depend on what kind of expenses they would incur to significantly alter production levels - if that was actually required.
Weren't they talking about selling half a billion consoles this generation? I think they're behind on that estimate. This is the company that let DRM make it to the E3 conference, so we can't really call them prudent.
 
From what I have seen watchdogs is THE game non hardcore gamers are looking forward to, I have friends who game but don't really follow the industry much yet they are all pumped for Wd.

Same here. A couple of my friends that don't follow the industry much thought it was being made by Rockstar. They're really looking forward to it.
 
Come on Miles, that thread title is just a bit sensationalist don't you think?

But it's definitely been clear that people just aren't buying Xbones as fast as MS is making them and shipping them. The demand is just not there. This was bound to happen sooner rather than later.
 
Which is why I mentioned Yusuf in my original comment as well. I always saw them very much so as the integral parts of the XB1 vision, as they were always the ones best versed in the development of policies and overarching vision.

It's... not at all like saying Kaz. Kaz would be analogous to Ballmer, which is a silly comparison.

Here's all I can find at the moment:
http://www.fastcompany.com/3013767/don-mattrick
http://business.financialpost.com/2...-play-to-control-living-room/?__lsa=c0f2-674f

He spear-headed acquisition of "TV" talent, while ramping down relation to streaming services. By the rest of the executives in the Xbox division, he is attributed with the discovery and push for Kinect. He is also described by Xbox execs as the one with the "ambitious vision". Not to mention the little excerpt about him leading the planning of the Xbox One.

He is very much at the center of the design philosophy for the Xbox One, but again, as I said before I also blame Yusuf (which is less founded, since I've never really researched him like Mattrick). Yusuf might actually just be a figure-head, since I'm not too familiar with his background.

Baseless assumptions, this vision came from many on the org and had to get sign-off, if you think mattrick had that kind of single total authrority over a multi billion dollar console launch then LOL. Mattrick had to get everyone on board and sign off on the money to spend, everyone with decision making authority had a say. Mattrick has a biug player but so were many others.
 
I dont understand. MS is yet to launch XBONE on several country's. I dont get the problem. And by the way, XBONE its a great product. I really like mine.

Sales are declining in the two territories that actually care about Xbox and you think countries such as Saudi Arabia and Finland (no disrespect) are going to help? Give this argument up, please.
 
Watchdogs is going to be huge....Game forums, and neogaf are a miniscule portion of gamers and pretty irrelevant in the scheme of things. Pre-ordrs for wd are big.

Sure why not? If people can get excited for games like Putty Squad or Kinect Sports Rivals, I'm sure there will be some who are excited for Watch Dogs.

From what I have seen watchdogs is THE game non hardcore gamers are looking forward to, I have friends who game but don't really follow the industry much yet they are all pumped for Wd.

Yikes. Well I hope it turns out to be a great game. But the appeal is completely lost on me.
 
I honestly don't get the Yusuf Mehdi hate
Yusuf Medhi said:
"I think it's fair to say there's a segment of consumers at this show in particular who really pay attention, who are very passionate about all aspects of gaming, and that we listen to closely. In a broader set of community, people don't pay attention to a lot of the details. We've seen it in the research, we've seen it in a lot of the data points."
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/06/microsoft-defends-the-xbox-ones-licensing-used-game-policies/
 
Baseless assumptions, this vision came from many on the org and had to get sign-off, if you think mattrick had that kind of single total authrority over a multi billion dollar console launch then LOL. Mattrick had to get everyone on board and sign off on the money to spend, everyone with decision making authority had a say. Mattrick has a biug player but so were many others.
Indeed.
 
I guess when they go on the hunt for the buried E.T. games they can throw a few Xbones in and bury them too.

Kidding
 
I don't actually think the 800K or whatever they have in the retail channel is actually that severe. Although the continental European channel might be more stuffed I imagine.

If we're looking at a slow several months (I'll aim high and say 200-300k sales), that might not go away until the summer. Is it extremely alarming? No. It's not even a bullet for the console war. But it's also not entirely dismissible either.

I also don't think Microsoft are completely stupid and didn't expect sales to slow down a) post-holiday and b) in the Summer months which are always slow and in which they don't really have major releases, and that reduction in shipments in these times wouldn't be factored into their production already.

On the prudent decision, that seems like it would depend on what kind of expenses they would incur to significantly alter production levels - if that was actually required.

It's true, we don't know if the "channel inventory drawdown for Xbox consoles" was premeditated or reactionary. But we do know that there's a surplus, and surpluses cost someone money.
 
Neglect? They announced three first-party titles coming to the West recently. Granted, they're localisations, but only one of them was already out in Japan.

I have not seen a commercial for the Vita since it launched, and I'm only assuming I actually saw some then, because honestly I can't even remember the last Vita commercial I saw. I've had co-workers come up to me while I'm playing it at work, telling me they have one too, thinking it's a PSP. They've never even heard of the Vita. How can you claim to support a device when it seems like you'd rather pretend it doesn't exist?
 
The makers of Modern Warfare released an "earth shattering" exclusive on Xbox One with millions in advertising, fantastic reviews, bundles and price drops. It barely moved the needle. That shows weakness. Maybe Halo and Gears can pick up the slack but I don't see it doing much besides selling to people who were already interested in buying Xbox One in the first place.

Then it wasn't earth shattering. And gameplay wise Titanfall didn't stage a revolution for multiplayer shooters, Titanfall had CoD gunplay, killstreaks replaced with titans that everyone would get, along with a really good twist on traversal being part of the gunplay.

Most people buy consoles to play future games, Titanfall wasn't a title that people were willing to buy a console to play it instantly.
 
Watchdogs is going to be huge....Game forums, and neogaf are a miniscule portion of gamers and pretty irrelevant in the scheme of things. Pre-ordrs for wd are big.

Yeah, it's an Ubi Assassin's Creed-style game, those things are massive sellers. I know plenty of people that only play those, Fifa and CoD over the entire lifetime of a console, no other games even ping their radar.
 
Isn't the Xbox One doing better numbers than the 360 compared to the same time period?

Sure is.

But they're not operating in a vacuum and their direct competitor is outselling them world wide 2:1, while their market share in their best regions (UK/US) has reversed in one, and evaporated in the next.

All at a time when shareholders want out of all hardware devices, and executive management was shaken up (and its view on devises not clear).

Spencers promotion is excellent news, but there's a lot of work to be done and ground to be taken back.
 
Stopping production would be silly, slowing down might make a lot more sense though. I can't imagine retailers being happy to find extra warehouse space for unsold Xbones. Granted I doubt its all that much at any particular location, but higher ups will complain to Microsoft if its across the company which most anecdotal evidence seems to point too. It's also possible to read that they don't think post E3 hype or their holiday line-up will really jump-start the console. A stretch at this point, but most of us thought the Xbone not being the bestselling console in North America in March was also a stretch.
 
Wouldn't be shocking...with Day One Editions coming back in stock at Amazon, MS/retailers have to be sitting on boat loads of these things...
 
Weren't they talking about selling half a billion consoles this generation? I think they're behind on that estimate. This is the company that let DRM make it to the E3 conference, so we can't really call them prudent.

I still can't believe they actually said that.

It boggles the mind that people actually signed off on that whole reveal.

Wouldn't be shocking...with Day One Editions coming back in stock at Amazon, MS/retailers have to be sitting on boat loads of these things...

What? They still haven't sold all their day one editions?
 
Then it wasn't earth shattering. And gameplay wise Titanfall didn't stage a revolution for multiplayer shooters, Titanfall had CoD gunplay, killstreaks replaced with titans that everyone would get, along with a really good twist on traversal being part of the gunplay.

Most people buy consoles to play future games, Titanfall wasn't a title that people were willing to buy a console to play it instantly.
Titanfall did move consoles. It just moved most of them in the months prior to March.
 
That's what happens when all you have are marketers whispering into your ear.

If the markets were whispering in their ears, they would have done vastly better.
They had no idea what the market wanted, that is clear considering how they can't seem to sell enough to even clear their inventory.
 
I dont understand. MS is yet to launch XBONE on several country's. I dont get the problem. And by the way, XBONE its a great product. I really like mine.

Those countries have little interest in the XB1 and are Sony controlled.

Microsoft developed a console that was primarily catered to the west with it's features
(Read North America)
. They are reaping what they sowed by having such a limited scope.
 
Titanfall did move consoles. It just moved most of them in the months prior to March.

Definitely, the point I was addressing was there being no interest in the Xbox One in general. Titanfall helped, but it wasn't the title that Microsoft needed to move consoles in March and probably beyond.
 
The topic of Microsoft's Xbox business was barely raised during its investor call, with no analysts asking about it at all. Some of CFO Amy Hood's statements did imply, however, that there is more supply than demand for its Xbox consoles.

I also think that this is an important part of that article. No one is even asking about Xbox, even after it's big exclusive and second quarter out the gate. Investor and consumer apathy.
 
This title isn't accurate, and the OP is overly alarmist. She didn't mention manufacturing at all. Channel drawdown is just fewer consoles shipped next quarter. It's entirely possible that manufacturing will continue at its present pace. If their contract is for something like a million a month, then they need to manufacture more units than they ship in summer anyway, to supply the holiday markets.

Here are the quotes in context:

Xbox One has sold in over 5 million units since launch and engagement has been high with users spending nearly 5 hours per day on their console. We will continue to extend the unique entertainment value proposition of Xbox One, particularly in markets outside of the U.S. where some services aren’t as mature. Xbox 360 sales exceeded our expectations this quarter. And across the platform, Xbox Live members continued to embrace the service with transactional revenue growing 17%. We do expect to work through some inventory in Q4.

Let’s start with Devices and Consumer. In licensing, we expect revenue to be $4.1 billion to $4.3 billion. This range reflects an expectation that the benefits of XP End of Support will moderate. In hardware, we expect revenue to be $1.3 billion to $1.5 billion in what is a seasonally slower hardware quarter. This number also reflects channel inventory drawdown for Xbox consoles.

So they've overshipped and they're going to have a slow quarter next year. This is hardly a Gamecube situation yet.
 
Not in the context implied here. Post launch some slowing of production is not uncommon but this strongly implies this is due to a significant difference between demand estimates that drove the production in the first place and the actual demand that materialized - in other words this is yet another oblique confirmation that post the big initial demand spike at launch ongoing demand for XB1 is below their projections and since they manufactured and sold to retail on those projections... there's too much stock everywhere and the whole machine needs to slow up or even stop for a while to allow what demand there is to work through the excess stock.

So not than normal for post launch in this time-frame and dovetails neatly into MS switch to focusing on sold-in vs sold to consumer in recent statements/PR.

Depending on how big the issue is and how much trouble MS has working with retailers to increase demand I forecast further meltdowns/mayhem if we see sales/shipments dip vs PS4 to a significant degree.

I wonder how often those estimates are revised though. I mean if they are still working on pre-launch predictions, then that seems kind of dumb given the way things have played out so far. On the other hand, I expect a company like MS to be on the ball with this kind of thing, and revise them frequently, but I also assume they are locked in to a manufacturing schedule, and have been told that to break them - by not needing more units - can cost vast sums of money in what amounts to essentially compensation for the manufacturing plant.
 
I dont understand. MS is yet to launch XBONE on several country's. I dont get the problem. And by the way, XBONE its a great product. I really like mine.
Xbox consoles don't really sell in those countries. The few who had interest mostly bought the PS4 instead due to it being released first.
 
I dont understand. MS is yet to launch XBONE on several country's. I dont get the problem. And by the way, XBONE its a great product. I really like mine.

The Tier 2 countries and below I would estimate account for no more than 25-30% of the projected install base of the Xbone, why do you think that is not a problem? And while the Xbone can be a great product to you, the majority of current gent console consumers prefer the competitors due to other reasons and that is showing on all the data that has been reported.
 
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