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Spencer on Why There Are No Xbox Series X Exclusives: We’re Putting the Player at the Center

Gavin Stevens

Formerly 'o'dium'
So you think calling people poor is a smart move? :messenger_tears_of_joy: Most of the gamers are casuals and i bet 80-90% will never read what Phil said. Only core gamers like us do. He could say "I hate you guys, don't buy an Xbox" and the impact would be manageable.

I originally used “homeless poor peasants” so be thankful 🤣
 
D

Deleted member 775630

Unconfirmed Member
I think it’s a wise business move. But that’s what it is. A business move. They aren’t doing it out of the goodness of their hearts to help consumers or gamers. They’re doing it as they had to find a way to make more profits from their games and services than they could from the base willing to buy and Xbox One and knowing they were unlikely to sell a ton more consoles next gen unless Sony fucked up somehow.
Why can't it be both? If people are missing something in their life, they might create it themselves and find out that other people also want it, so they start selling it. That's just creating a new business while helping the world going forward. The same with Microsoft now. They talked to gamers, thought about it and decided to create these services that are pro-consumer AND obviously profitable for them. That's just capitalism.

But you are talking as if they don't care about gamers, as if everyone at the Xbox division is an empty shell that doesn't care about gaming themselves and only about getting a paycheque. While of all the divisions of Microsoft, I'm pretty sure that Xbox has the most dedicated people because they all love gaming, just like us.
 

Shmunter

Member
But it has its limits. The app side, Microsoft can control that 100% with impugnity, because that's totally their domain, their storefront, their platform dashboard. In a new console generation for the kinds of games that can be made, and for what systems with an entirely different, much enhanced feature set, Microsoft can't force a third party studio to stretch their resources and budget that thin to the point where they need to support the much older, weaker systems.

They could issue a mandate that devs must support lockhart and Series X, but, again, that's quite different because Series X and lockhart will share so much in common with minor differences. Scaling down and up will be reletively easy. Same CPU, same SSD, same class of GPU architecture, just weaker, and presumably less RAM. This is why I'm not really concerned.
A mandate could be as simple as requiring game to execute on Xbox family of consoles. Nothing more nothing less.

The dev then pull's out their dev kit and makes the sausage however they deem fit; Target Xbox VCR and port up, or Target XsX and port down, or maybe something in the middle. Having limited insight into games development, if such a mandate were to be in place I'd wager targeting the least powerful is the simplest and porting up can be a basic res/texture/framerate increase job and calling it a day. The other way around becomes trickier as you could easily end up with a 10fps title that looks horrendous and which won't pass the acid test requiring potentially significant re-work.

In saying all this, their latest statement gives me hope that 3rd party is free to target a single sku if they so choose.
 
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Gavin Stevens

Formerly 'o'dium'
I would also like to add that you can support your older console without making first-party games cross-gen.

GT6 was released on the PS3 the same year the PS4 came out, for example.

God of War 2 was released for the PS2 right after the PS3 was released.

The trouble is, people think that this new amazing so powerful generation will mean games can’t be scaled, and that’s true... some what.

Games can be scaled, it just depends how much work you want to put into it. If you have a dedicated team you can make anything run on anything within reason, regardless of SSD or cpu upgrade. This is why they mentioned it’s only for a short period, and not for the life of the console.

And even THEN, people are kidding themselves if they think anything will be ultra next gen never before seen for a while. People need to wake up to the fact that more then likely, the first stage of a new consoles life is playing the exact same games made in the exact same way as the previous gen. of course there will be some rare cases that push it, but for the most part, the best you will hope for is smoother frame rates, higher resolutions, better textures and more complex scenes. Games will be taking advantage of BOTH SSDs right away because to be blunt, there’s nothing that will eat up that bandwidth.
 

Grinchy

Banned
I would also like to add that you can support your older console without making first-party games cross-gen.

GT6 was released on the PS3 the same year the PS4 came out, for example.

God of War 2 was released for the PS2 right after the PS3 was released.
Exactly. And if the PS3's launch year didn't have Resistance and other next-gen exclusives, but instead had only God of War 2: Upscaled Edition, who the hell would have bought into the spin that this is actually better because now everyone gets to play?

No one except the most extreme fans would ever be convinced by anything that dumb. And here we are :messenger_tears_of_joy:
 

Gavin Stevens

Formerly 'o'dium'


.... we can render at 60hz
... 69bit uncompressed never seen pixels and fish have a.i


What is this helping other than fuel console wars? Oh and look who liked it. Shocking.

Also what you just quoted was a combination of bullshit and twisted logic. Yes, the X can render 4k at 60fps. That’s a fact. And yes, it hits that, quite often. Uncompressed pixels is a term than essentially means no upscaling, like the Pros “4k” that it uses all the time.

This sort of fanboy stuff isn’t needed, mate.
 
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DanielsM

Banned
Oh look another thread predicting doom n gloom for the Xbox. In other news, the sun came up today. Calm down. It's going to be fine. 🙄🤦‍♂️😅

What is Xbox? Depends on what you think Xbox is or gaming is to Microsoft.

Satya doesn't give two shits about plastic, very much the opposite - services. Xbox as a Hardware has been in decline for about a decade and that's not from very high levels. For them to rollout services like Satya likes, which would be following his mobile strategy. The hardware has to be sacrificed, meaning the services have to be expanded to other devices/os/markets. Right?

So, at this point you have a declining install base and now you are making the hardware meaningless to the underlying software, games and service. Right?

So, the closed eco-system is being sacrificed for the services, which is what Satya wants. Right?

The problem with this is... Phil didn't just promise Satya just Microsoft software/games on other devices/os/markets/etc. but the services that 3rd party publishers/developers would use i.e. use Microsoft as a middleman. This is where Xbox as a Service Platform comes in. Right?

The issue with that is three fold, and this is where the problem comes in

1. The closed eco-systems (iOS, Nintendo devices, PS devices, etc.) already have non-competing stores on their own devices, furthermore, even Sony has all the services MS wants to rollout for many years. These closed systems make money thru royalties i.e. licensing for access to the device. So, competing stores makes very little sense, it would be like me having my own store on Xbox hardware. Right?

2. On the open-systems (Windows, Linux, Mac, etc) the large publishers have no real use for Microsoft. They all have their own store fronts, services and subscription models.... unlike Microsoft ones they are actually successful in the open system world. This is why the large publishers generally don't publish to Microsoft's digital storefronts i.e. Games for Windows Live (RIP) and Microsoft Store... they serve no real purpose to them.

3. As the install base of the hardware craters even further, those publishers will start to pull back on support as its obvious Microsoft is moving to the other devices/os/markets for their own software and services. In turn the Xbox games will no longer be needed, at this point we're talking about PC games and any game deployed to the other closed systems.

So, is it doom and gloom for Xbox. I would say if you believe in Xbox as a Hardware, those days are long gone. I would say if you believe in Xbox as a Service Platform for large publishers/developers to use on other devices/os/markets, that isn't going to work. I would say if you believe in Xbox as a Service for Microsoft developed games as a traditional publisher/developer.... I see nothing wrong with that, the problem is that isn't what Phil is promising Satya.

The only future I see for Microsoft is as a large publisher like they were in the 90s, but that isn't going to fly with Satya.

Doom and gloom - I think it depends on what you want from them. If you want Microsoft published/developed games.... well, in theory that can continue... the rest not so much. There simply is limited opportunity outside the closed system called Xbox as a Hardware for Microsoft to roll out services, and rolling out the services will inflict the death blow to the hardware.

Xbox as a Hardware ❎
Xbox as a Service Platform❎

Xbox as a Service for Microsoft published/developed games - maybe
Microsoft as a Game Publisher/Developer ☑
 
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mejin

Member
Exclusion of everybody else...Xbox one won't go anywhere it sunk, Phil....even your community know it. They need a new ship asap and you won't attract new buyers selling multis and services since you alread tried and failed this whole gen.
 

Great Hair

Banned
Also what you just quoted was a combination of bullshit and twisted logic. Yes, the X can render 4k at 60fps. That’s a fact. And yes, it hits that, quite often. Uncompressed pixels is a term than essentially means no upscaling, like the Pros “4k” that it uses all the time.

"When the character of a man is not clear to you, look at his friends!"


Phil Spencer is a living vaporware. He likes to talk, a lot ... and had to back-peddle so many times when spewing shit on twitter that he made so many 180º turns, he prolly travelled thru time few times.

;)
 

Gavin Stevens

Formerly 'o'dium'
"When the character of a man is not clear to you, look at his friends!"


Phil Spencer is a living vaporware. He likes to talk, a lot ... and had to back-peddle so many times when spewing shit on twitter that he made so many 180º turns, he prolly travelled thru time few times.

;)

Again, what is this helping? You’re essentially slagging off the figure head of a company for promoting his product even when it’s doing bad? No shit, what do you expect him to do?

Give me five minutes and I could come up with lists just the same Sony, Nintendo, Apple etc

You’re pretty mush showing everybody how much of an obsessed fan you are, and it’s cluttering I’ll the thread. The mods have already warned against posting this sort of shit. Like I said, I could post far worse things that Sony have done and said. Every company does it, because that’s the whole point. PR.
 

thelastword

Banned
idXSbJ7.gif



New face, same story.
At least Mattrick gave them some good games on 360, got them a few worthwhile and popular exclusives.....Phil has been belly dancing the entire gen....

Oh look another thread predicting doom n gloom for the Xbox. In other news, the sun came up today. Calm down. It's going to be fine. 🙄🤦‍♂️😅
Well no such direction in the OP....You look at Phil's quotes and argue either way......It's an equal playing field......As can be seen, some people in the thread believe that Phil's vision here is actually genius, so not everybody disagrees,,,,



As for me, I think Phil lacks a vision, pretty much everything he does is reactionary and too much based in tricky PR.....Have a vision and hold it firm....You cant be talking you are about spreading games on all devices, that specific hardware is not important, every game should be played everywhere, when you are building a powerful series X and trying to 1up the competion in specs at the same time.....

Too much hype and not much delivery....Studios were bought, you hyped that, fine, but everybody knew these studios just recently bought would not be able to deliver games of the AAA caliber so soon, especially the smaller AA studios they bought, which have been struggl;ing with quality as it were.....When those studios were bought, Phil and many articles followed that they would be prepared for next gen.....As a matter of fact, many articles said they were the only ones preparing for next gen, but looky here again.......It's looking like this is not the case.....Phil is still not ready to deliver next gen......So to the fans, what's the point of talking up Series X specs when the best you have to push it are a bevy of studios like Compulsion games, who are also bent on churning gamepass games every three months at that, so what quality do you expect...? it's pretty much an oxymoron executable.....Are you pushing X as the most powerful, the be all console and how is such messaging sustained with how the devs are also focused on delivering for gamepass and making the game not as ambitious so it can look ok and play on past non series X devices....

His plan is all over the place, it's not consistent or coherent....Seems to me All MS studios are just not ready, games and game concepts are just not coming along yet....so they said, how do we PR this, because I told them next XBOX will have a tonne of great games from the studios we bought.....So phil says to his devs."So you guys not ready, this game isn't looking good compulsion games, we gonna get roasted on Meta if you release this in this state".....So he says, hold on, I got your back...."We will say that exclusives are anti-consumer", a motif we tried all gen long which didn't work and gained us no traction....I phil will try it one more time, at a time when everybody in the media has propped and pegged you to deliver next gen and already said that you were ready....


Phil always has a vision...When Xbox sales are not great, his vision was to hide numbers, when his games are no longer doing well on Meta and being panned he asks "are you having fun though". When his installbase is below par for MP, he now has a vision for crossplay to boost his player count at the expense of the competition or else they are anti-consumer.....When his games are not doing so well at retail, he has a vision to give them off on gamepass as a way to get people to at least boot the game once.......When XBONES was panned in power by the competition for 4 years straight, whilst also having the better exclusives, Phil's vision was to deliver "the most powerful console, with no compromise in pixel performance".......Phil always has a vision, but yet they are all reactions to his circumstances...….I bet you if XBONES had sold 100 million units, Phil would say that services are crap and not ready for primetime.....


Just as his stance on VR. If the competition sells 50 million VR units next gen and we are peppered with great VR content as we had this gen....towards the end of next gen or perhaps at year 3, Phil will announce......Series X VRX, the most powerful and innovative VR device in history......I can see the Forbes articles now "MS VR to revolutionize and finally bring some blood into the dead veins of VR gaming as we know it"...Fans will be all over on forums hyping it up as a game changer.......Phil will go on stage around 2023 and say, "we've heard you and we are bring the best VR unit ever imagined"....People will prop it, just as they did XBONEX, gamepass, Xcloud, when you ask phil for the numbers he simply hides behinds curtains and promises the next big thing, if he get the memo that can't deliver or arent delivering, he then says thing is not as important, it's actually anticonsumer. Rinse repeat........
 

DanielsM

Banned
I think giving him 2 years after the XSX launch would be generous imo. His empty promises won't survive a new console gen especially if it flops early. He's gonna fuck around and talk himself out of a job.

The problem with that is Phil has told Satya that he can simply by pass Sony royalties on Playstation by deploying "services" :messenger_tears_of_joy::messenger_tears_of_joy::messenger_tears_of_joy::messenger_tears_of_joy:, Satya has some big surprises coming to him. Satya has been sold on Microsoft being the middleman for third party software. :messenger_tears_of_joy:

giphy.gif
 
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DanielsM

Banned
As for me, I think Phil lacks a vision, pretty much everything he does is reactionary and too much based in tricky PR.....Have a vision and hold it firm....You cant be talking you are about spreading games on all devices, that specific hardware is not important, every game should be played everywhere, when you are building a powerful series X and trying to 1up the competion in specs at the same time.....

He's full of shit, but he is just working with what he has i.e. Satya Nadella. He has to lie to the existing customers, he also had to bullshit Satya about "gaming services" or all those Xbox people would have been out of jobs including himself. Satya wants "service" revenue, anything other than that doesn't mean much.

The axeman cometh if you don't produce service revenue, so all the lies are to keep the customers so he can come up with a plan for service revenue... the problem is... there really is no path to that.

Satay-Service-Revenue.png
 
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Please stop just repeating the PR spin and the emotional manipulation, they changed strategy good... I suspect they just did not have games that took serious advantage of the new hardware so they spin it as "see we are nice", now get gamepass. This is as good as PR can be, so I'm not holding it against them... But their fans should know better.
IDK but they signed a deal with Azure for a reason.
Azure is a backend cloud storage and processing service, its completely transparent to the end users.
 

DanielsM

Banned
Please stop just repeating the PR spin and the emotional manipulation, they changed strategy good... I suspect they just did not have games that took serious advantage of the new hardware so they spin it as "see we are nice", now get gamepass. This is as good as PR can be, so I'm not holding it against them... But their fans should know better.

Azure is a backend cloud storage and processing service, its completely transparent to the end users.

Well, I think they have one game, "Halo Infinite", the problem there is its a huge GaaS game, so we're talking mega-bucks, right? They know hardware will continue to decline because in part if you are going to services that is the intent, the problem is... you have no install base to deploy Halo Infinite, which will need 10s of millions of users. Nobody buys from the Microsoft Store, so... not even close to enough install base to support that game without Xbone.

They could in theory deploy to other platforms, but there is no way of selling the real gaming services on those platforms.

(agree with your azure comment)
 
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Game engines are pretty damn scaleable these days. I’m not expecting any innovative gameplay leaps next gen anyway. Just more games pushing 60FPS at higher resolutions, ray tracing and other graphical bells and whistles and so on. All that stuff can easily be scaled down or not included in the last gen ports, much like older PCs can just play on lower settings and disable some things.
Try to play PC games with an old AMD CPU, or even a 4 cores i5, as soon as there is some serious action the frame rate tanks, there is stuttering, etc. They do scale, but if the core of the game is demanding, it won't really scale that low, even the base xbox can't handle games at a reasonable frame rate or resolution, no matter how low you go with the settings, it has many games that play mostly in the 20s... new games will play in the 10/5 fps range? or their scope will be severely limited so they play ok on the og xbone?

As a reminder, Sony has a more balanced approach: games already in the pipeline will be "cross gen" .. so made for the PS4, but feature enhancements for the new console, while they will also make true next gen PS5 exclusives day 1 (as they always do).
 

Matt_Fox

Member
"we wanted to go build a gaming console, that was going to be the absolute best that we could deliver on a TV and deliver unique capability to creators that they could use to go create the best games."

Yes Phil, this is exactly what we want to hear, next gen goodness, this sounds great....

"But you don't want to do that."


Doh!
 
Game engines are pretty damn scaleable these days. I’m not expecting any innovative gameplay leaps next gen anyway. Just more games pushing 60FPS at higher resolutions, ray tracing and other graphical bells and whistles and so on. All that stuff can easily be scaled down or not included in the last gen ports, much like older PCs can just play on lower settings and disable some things.

I get why some are disappointed, but I don't really care about enemy AI advancements or big changes in gameplay. I mostly play simpler, story driven games, have no problems putting things on easy to enjoy it more etc. So I'm not looking for smarter enemies, crazy physics, tons of enemies or npcs on screen. As long as I keep getting more things like RDR2, God of War, Horizon, Mario Odyssey, Gears 4 and 5, Ori, Spider-Man, Pokemon and the various other games I've loved this generation I'm golden. I started seriously playing games with the NES and this gen has been one of my absolute favorites. I don't even care about how big the graphics leap is. I'm still on 1080p and if there's a lot of cross gen stuff I'll probably be slow to upgrade to a new console or upgrade my PC anyway.
So why only 1 year of no Scarlet Exclusives? By your argument, Microsoft should maintain Xbox One compatibility indefinitely for the next twenty years. Hell, maybe just keep it six years.
 
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Deleted member 775630

Unconfirmed Member
So why only 1 year of no Scarlet Exclusives? By your argument, Microsoft should maintain Xbox One compatibility indefinitely for the next twenty years. Hell, maybe just keep it six years.
It's just like for PC. There comes a time that minimum requirements increase, and that's not yet the case now. Because there are still games being released for which the minimum PC requirements are lower than the power of the Xbox One. So why exclude those gamers on a console if they can still play it on the PC? Don't forget that almost every first party game of Microsoft also releases on PC.
 
It's just like for PC. There comes a time that minimum requirements increase, and that's not yet the case now. Because there are still games being released for which the minimum PC requirements are lower than the power of the Xbox One. So why exclude those gamers on a console if they can still play it on the PC? Don't forget that almost every first party game of Microsoft also releases on PC.
You haven't answered my question; why only one year? Why couldn't it actually last long enough to actually make a difference. Three years is the minimum for it to actually affect anything in a detectable way. One Year is a joke.
 

GHG

Gold Member
It's just like for PC. There comes a time that minimum requirements increase, and that's not yet the case now. Because there are still games being released for which the minimum PC requirements are lower than the power of the Xbox One. So why exclude those gamers on a console if they can still play it on the PC? Don't forget that almost every first party game of Microsoft also releases on PC.

Yeh, those games are typically indie games.

The first encounter we've had with a next gen Microsoft title on PC is the next Flight Simulator, did you see the requirements to get into the beta? Typically 32gb ram.

That's not coming to the OG Xbox One any time soon. The only way I see it happening is via XCloud.

People are being sold dreams.
 
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Deleted member 775630

Unconfirmed Member
You haven't answered my question; why only one year? Why couldn't it actually last long enough to actually make a difference. Three years is the minimum for it to actually affect anything in a detectable way. One Year is a joke.
That's not a hard set time frame. He said 1-2 years, because he doesn't know exactly. He's making an estimate.

Yeh, those games are typically indie games.
Just look at minimum pc requirements of AAA games being sold in 2019. Why would this be so different in 2020, and even 2021 if Microsoft lets a separate team port the game towards Xbox One S?
 
He did so by hearkening back to a speech at the Xbox Spring Showcase in 2016, which is when Microsoft decided to commit to releasing all Xbox games on Windows 10 PC, too. That was the start of a new player-centric, instead of device-centric, vision.






Later in the chat, Spencer also discussed his own seemingly anti-VR statement when he said there was no demand for it among Xbox fans.






https://wccftech.com/spencer-on-why...usives-were-putting-the-player-at-the-center/



----------------------
Here it is folks, Phil Spencer on no exclusives and no VR...…...
It’s a really refreshing idea I’ve always wanted to play the latest games on my Atari
 

vkbest

Member
New narrative: As the xbox has no exclusives, exclusives are anti-consumer

Anti consumer is a hard word for this. But launch exclusive games just have the mission for people buying the new console instead old console. I’m sure Knack could run on PS3

Don’t think launch PS5 exclusive games will look much better than TLOU 2
 
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Xbox : Here's a big powerful box with some amazing games
Xbox 360 : Here's a powerful box with amazing games, all games should be multiplayer
Xbox One: Tv Tv Tv
Xbox Series X: ???

I don't understand the message of XSX. Until Microsoft make a clear statement and standby it, I won't be buying day one. Hell, I don't need to buy day one, I'll just keep playing on the X.

But why launch a new console at all? Why not delay it a year, release it more powerful than the PS5 at a cheaper price and cut their legs off?

Why, Why, why?
 

Shmunter

Member
Xbox : Here's a big powerful box with some amazing games
Xbox 360 : Here's a powerful box with amazing games, all games should be multiplayer
Xbox One: Tv Tv Tv
Xbox Series X: ???

I don't understand the message of XSX. Until Microsoft make a clear statement and standby it, I won't be buying day one. Hell, I don't need to buy day one, I'll just keep playing on the X.

But why launch a new console at all? Why not delay it a year, release it more powerful than the PS5 at a cheaper price and cut their legs off?

Why, Why, why?
I’m now quite convinced they wouldn’t bother if Sony wasn’t ready to go. It’s just an inconvenient necessity to keep up in the arms race and goes against MS’s grand plan of pure services.

Alternatively it would just be the current gen extended indefinitely until streaming is out of the oven.
 
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Deleted member 775630

Unconfirmed Member
Xbox : Here's a big powerful box with some amazing games
Xbox 360 : Here's a powerful box with amazing games, all games should be multiplayer
Xbox One: Tv Tv Tv
Xbox Series X: ???

I don't understand the message of XSX. Until Microsoft make a clear statement and standby it, I won't be buying day one. Hell, I don't need to buy day one, I'll just keep playing on the X.

But why launch a new console at all? Why not delay it a year, release it more powerful than the PS5 at a cheaper price and cut their legs off?

Why, Why, why?
At first Sony was planning on releasing a console holiday 2019. So Microsoft would've done just that what you said. Then Sony changed strategies, and you can't keep extending the date of your console launch since there's a lot of time and money that is poured into this. Also the message of XSX is exactly the same as the one of the Xbox, Xbox 360 and the Xbox One X. Powerful box, amazing games, best quality for consoles.
 

DanielsM

Banned
I’m now quite convinced they wouldn’t bother if Sony wasn’t ready to go. It’s just a an inconvenient necessity to keep up in the arms race and goes against MS’s grand plan of pure services.

Alternatively it would be just the current gen extended indefinitely until streaming is out of the oven.

Yeah, I'm actually confused as to why anyone would be confused. Hardware is just there to keep who they got as long as possible as they roll out services. This has been communicated as to what they are doing i.e. services for the last 10 years.

What do they think Microsoft has been talking about for the last decade?
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
One S spec is what back-ends their streaming servers, so in order to establish that service over the next couple of years (as an added-value feature for GamePass), supporting that is first-party priority.
 
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Calling no xbox one exclusive "spin" is literally retarded. Its not spin when its a decision. If they were interested in changing it they could.

The term "spin" - particular bias, interpretation, or point of view, intended to create a favorable (or sometimes, unfavorable) impression when presented to the public.

You may feel its a bad decision but its not spin lol

this exactly lol. if anything half the people on this thread are putting a weird spin on it lolol All phil is trying to say is that games will be available for xbone and xsx so that people who bought an xbone today won't be shafted on new games coming out for at least a year or two. He's not mandating 3rd parties follow suite and it's only for xbox studios. so even though i'm buying an xsx i can still play halo infinite with my friends who are sticking with their xbone for another year. this is a win to me.
 

Moogle11

Banned
So why only 1 year of no Scarlet Exclusives? By your argument, Microsoft should maintain Xbox One compatibility indefinitely for the next twenty years. Hell, maybe just keep it six years.

Because they of course need to gradually move the base over to Series X and ideally expand the base. To do that they eventually, and pretty early in the gen, will have to go all in and have exclusives on it to get people to buy even if that means leaving copies sold to the bigger X1 base on he table.

They just apparently aren’t willing to risk having big budget games like like Halo Infinite sell limited copies to a new console building its base Day one. They probably don’t have the financial leeway with their investors and other internal divisions to take losses by not maximizing profit on key software sales after the Xbox One sold way below their expectations and they’ve probably been losing profits by propping up Game Pass with free months, $1 deals etc. and people like me play games like Gears 5 on those deals when I would have bought the game in the past.

It’s not an ideal way to launch a console. They, and/or their investors, are just in a weird spot where they don’t want to go all in on Series X and have Halo and other big games exclusive to it as they want and need the big profits from selling a ton of copies right now, but they also weren’t ready to take the risk inherent in getting out of the console business and focusing on PC, Gamepass and Xcloud. So we’re getting a less than ideal launch strategy to allow them to keep their toes in that door while they continue to build a Gamepass member base and get Xcloud ready and figure out their PC strategy (Their app and steam? All stores? Any market for their own line of HTPC and gaming laptops? Etc).

So I’m not saying it’s a good strategy necessarily, and it’s definitely not an ideal way to launch a console. Those are just my reading between the lines on why they’re choosing not to go all in on Series X from day one. Time will tell and I have no sense whether any of this will work out for them. They’re in a tough spot as they sucked in sales relative to Sony two of the three generations they’ve been around and it took a major fuck up by Sony with the PS3 launch for them to get ahead—and even then they finished largely tied for second last gen. Sony is unlikely to fuck up again, has the money to match or undercut them in launch price etc. so it’s hard for me to see Series X doing any better than Xbox One. They’re just in a tough spot and trying to spread things out to mitigate risk in case Series X sElla the same or less than Xbox One. That may we’ll end up biting them in the ass if the lack of early system sellers exclusives contributes to it bombing AND Xcloud and Gamepass don’t become the huge money makers they expect.

Again, time will tell and it’s not worth continuing to argue and speculate about. I’m done here. This site is too argumentative and hostile and has too much console warring stuff (and I’ve gotten sucked into a bit of this industry speculation stuff that I frankly don’t enjoy and have just been sick and bored) and too little chatting about games folks are playing. Even then the gaming-related threads are full of gamefaqs levels of hyperbole of calling games garbage, turds etc. and being super hostile to people for daring to like games they don’t and vice versa. I thought things might be better here than other places with more traffic, but nope. Game forums are just cancer anymore. Oh well, I get more done when I’m not wasting time on forums at work anyway. Peace out and enjoy next gen fellas.
 

DanielsM

Banned
this exactly lol. if anything half the people on this thread are putting a weird spin on it lolol All phil is trying to say is that games will be available for xbone and xsx so that people who bought an xbone today won't be shafted on new games coming out for at least a year or two. He's not mandating 3rd parties follow suite and it's only for xbox studios. so even though i'm buying an xsx i can still play halo infinite with my friends who are sticking with their xbone for another year. this is a win to me.

That's kind of only half the story. What he is saying is they don't have any install base on PC (Microsoft Store) either so all of their games will fail.

We really don't want to sell plastic.
Even if we wanted to sell plastic, we're expecting volume to continue to crater.
We really don't have any customers on the Microsoft Store so no help there.
We really don't have any install base without Xbone.
We really have no place to put our services first and games second.

Give us some additional time while we try and figure out how our services work on other os/devices/markets.... they pretty much won't... but pretty please give us time.
 
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