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Tom Warren: Insiders are backpedaling because not many inside MS know what Phil will say

Topher

Gold Member
I’m more and more convinced this is going to be an almost nothing burger. Yes, Hi-fi Rush is coming. And a few more in the next years. And that’s it.

Would not surprise me at this point. Imagine selling all your Xbox shit based on what we know right now.

Espn No GIF
 

Three

Member
Yea but a day after Phil Tweeted you're seeing people backtrack. They probably didn't expect MS to say anything and wanted to ride the wave of outrage/confirmation bias clicks/engagement.
Why would they expect Phil of all people not to respond to a made up story? People are misunderstanding here. There might be some backtracking because the current insiders (who are still working there) don't know what Phil and co will decide to do or present come next week. I suspect Phil and co are also looking at data from the outrage and how it affects them between now and then too. If it was completely made up by ex-employees Phil could have debunked it 2 days ago and it wouldn't have got any traction.
 
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mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Its done guys. It literally makes sense to pivot at this point. Nothing else to say. Series consoles and GP were a last try at a golden age in gaming, and a resurgence of AA diversity, and consumers rejected it.

I agree that it's done. But the bolded is silly talk. GamePass DOES NOT MAKE A PROFIT!!! It's not the consumers fault that they didn't like a business strategy from a $3 Trillion company. You can't force consumers to buy into something that they do not like.
 

HeisenbergFX4

Gold Member
I’m more and more convinced this is going to be an almost nothing burger. Yes, Hi-fi Rush is coming. And a few more in the next years. And that’s it.
I think so too but it will be deeper, he will try to assure people Xbox hardware is fine

I honestly think he mentions their future as a hardware maker

The fake ;) Heisenberg007 Heisenberg007 has brought up a good point in other threads that I think is related to all of this, them expecting a 40% drop in hardware sales
 
I used to play Madden every year. I must have bought every madden from 2001 to 2009 and then gave them another chance with Madden 25. There is almost no chance I'd give them my money ever again.

When things start getting progressively worse, you really have to start paying attention. Was the same when I bought Blackberry phones.
 

Three

Member
I agree that it's done. But the bolded is silly talk. GamePass DOES NOT MAKE A PROFIT!!! It's not the consumers fault that they didn't like a business strategy from a $3 Trillion company. You can't force consumers to buy into something that they do not like.
He's just mixing up the fact that he was exposed to smaller AA games because MS got cheaper content for their sub but he could have just as easily actively seeked out those AA games that existed without it before.
 
I think so too but it will be deeper, he will try to assure people Xbox hardware is fine

I honestly think he mentions their future as a hardware maker

The fake ;) Heisenberg007 Heisenberg007 has brought up a good point in other threads that I think is related to all of this, them expecting a 40% drop in hardware sales

I would be stunned if they make any mention of giving up hardware. I think there is a zero percent chance they announce that next week.
 
Pentiment? Hi Fi Rush? 2 games that were in development prior to them making acquisitions, what else recently?



It's not clear man, hence people are engaging with you in discussion to get clarity on what you mean.

Why you're only wanting to draw comparisons to what Sony are doing instead of considering the broader gaming landscape I don't know. And even if you are to only consider Sony what you're suggesting is still questionable considering some of their more recent partnerships with the likes of ember labs, enhance and annapurna.

I dunno where he claims that Sony is all AAA either

Like, Stray, Sifu, Kena, AstroBot, Returnal etc suddenly don’t exist or something

These were all funded/supported by Sony
 

twilo99

Member
Yes, stuff that was already on PlayStation before MS bought them. They haven't released any NEW games on PlayStation I believe.

Oh, so they will have to reinvent themselves as a 3rd party publisher by releasing more games on PlayStation?

Fair enough.
 

//DEVIL//

Member
Would not surprise me at this point. Imagine selling all your Xbox shit based on what we know right now.

Espn No GIF
If the new series X is digital only, then I wouldn't trade the Xbox I have for anything. It will be the last Xbox console to have a physical media drive. Almost a collector item if that digital Xbox takes off and MS pull the old one from stock.

Let's just hope it's not the last Xbox ever lol.
 

Dorfdad

Gold Member
I have all three consoles and a pc, but damn if I’m not pulling for Microsoft to announcing something awesome just so all these console warriors and haters have to eat some crow..

Can we just wait a week and than act foolish based on what’s said instead of running rampant with rumors from “influencers”
 

RickMasters

Member
Xbox failed you and you failed Xbox. Your failure as a hardcore fan to hold them to account is the reason why they are where they are.

I've seen you post for a long time and the Xbox defense squad here at GAF making excuse after excuse for Microsoft is what enabled this.

The same defense force that was praying for the ABK deal to go through without considering what that would ultimately do to the industry. Had Xbox fans been more against the deal, maybe just maybe Microsoft wouldn't have gone through with it. If the purchase of Bethesda wasn't championed, maybe it never comes to that in the first place, but you all cheered the consolidation.

PS3 didn't sell nearly as well as Sony had hoped and Sony adapted and changed with PS4. Gamecube didn't sell as well as Nintendo hoped and they adapted and changed with the Wii. The Wii U failed and Nintendo changed again.

Xbox fans just buy whatever Microsoft gives them, even after the DRM fiasco which should have been your real warning sign you still stayed... that was a decade ago.
Lol…. I stopped reading at the first paragraph. Talk about painting with a braid brush, mate…. Xbox failed us….. I spent my money, wisely. My first Xbox one was the series X because I refused to buy into that Underpowerd VCR with a camera attached to it…. So don’t sit there and tell me I never spoke with my wallet at the time and held them accountable. You don’t have a fuckin clue.



Also….. show me where I once excused their fuck up…. Go pull up a quote….. I know for a FACT if I check my comment history I can see only examples of my disappointment and disapproval of their bad choices….


But you know what? Who gives a flying fuck about your opinion🤷🏾‍♂️….. you ain’t the one that spent the money in these games collections we built up. Your opinion of me and this whole fiasco is a fart in the wind.
 

Dural

Member
You lost me half way through the first sentence. Being invested in Xbox and its ecosystem doesn't make you a fanboy. Some people have considerable investment that spans the entire history of the brand.

This…… it’s like we are supposed to brush thousands of dollars of backlog in some cases going back as far as 2008, under the rug….. just shrug and say nothing.


They are having to much fun kicking Xbox customers on GAF down to even show an iota of empathy for the fact that we are wondering what future device we play those huge and expansive back kings on. Says everything really….. who knew backing the ‘ wrong horse’ on the GAF would be such a chore? We just have to laugh about it bro.


You are not wrong in nothing yu are saying. Just don’t get wound up by the people using this as em excuse to do some kind of victory lap in every post about how Xbox failed….. they never failed them… Xbox failed us. We are the ones who paid the cash for this stuff. 👊🏾

He's a huge Playstation fan, there's really no reason for him to even be in the Xbox threads other than to be a troll.

Of course people are going to be upset if they have a huge library and there's uncertainty on how they're going to play them in the future. They're not going to just transfer to another platform, and for those that are always online how long will they be available to play?
 

tommib

Member
I dunno where he claims that Sony is all AAA either

Like, Stray, Sifu, Kena, AstroBot, Returnal etc suddenly don’t exist or something

These were all funded/supported by Sony
Returnal is not a AA product. It's a AAA production. I know people can only interpret AAA when they see hours of motion-capture cinematic but that game had all money thrown at it. Look at its credits.
 

tommib

Member
It’s basically an AA game with higher production values
Lol which makes it AAA then? 5 years in the making with a team of 70 people + Playstation Visual Arts/Xdev - mocap in California studios. Hiring Bobby Krlic as composer tells you everything you need to know about the budget intentions here. Not even going into the state of the art sound design used for it. Housemarque even wrote about how they were making a AAA game with Sony because arcade was dead-long live arcade. But whatever, you've been wrong twice today, I'll let you go in peace.

 
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SEGAvangelist

Gold Member
I agree that it's done. But the bolded is silly talk. GamePass DOES NOT MAKE A PROFIT!!! It's not the consumers fault that they didn't like a business strategy from a $3 Trillion company. You can't force consumers to buy into something that they do not like.
I feel like all this profit talk is not understanding how loss leading works. Game Pass was never going to profit in the beginning years of the service or maybe even ever. The hope was to grow it so much that it would eventually bring enough people into the ecosystem to eventually profit off the Game Pass sub, and more importantly to lock people into the Xbox ecosystem through use of an instant library. It was Xbox's idea on how to solve the issue of bringing over people with libraries in other ecosystems. Obviously, that isn't happening, and likely will never happen unless something drastic happens in cloud gaming (doubtful). Phil probably sold it this way to Nadella (prompting acquisition season), and now after the ABK investment Nadella sees the writing on the wall and is forcing the shift in strategy.
 

Killjoy-NL

Member
He's a huge Playstation fan, there's really no reason for him to even be in the Xbox threads other than to be a troll.

Of course people are going to be upset if they have a huge library and there's uncertainty on how they're going to play them in the future. They're not going to just transfer to another platform, and for those that are always online how long will they be available to play?
Phil Spencer literally said it in that interview:

"We lost the most important generation last-gen, when people started to build their digital libraries".

The outcome we're facing was clear when XBO and PS4 were announced.

Buying into the Xbox eco-system after that point is entirely on xbox fans themselves.
 
He's a huge Playstation fan, there's really no reason for him to even be in the Xbox threads other than to be a troll.

Of course people are going to be upset if they have a huge library and there's uncertainty on how they're going to play them in the future. They're not going to just transfer to another platform, and for those that are always online how long will they be available to play?

You should give up looking at things through the lens of console wars.

People can be upset, but they should only be upset at themselves.

I only play games digitally, big proponent of digital games. If I lost my entire digital library, I wouldn't be happy, but it wouldn't be the end of the world either. It's not a cancer diagnosis. Let's try to keep things in perspective.
 

Solidus_T

Member
Considering that Phil would have outright denied the rumors if they were false, I have a hard time believing otherwise. We basically have confirmation that Hi-Fi Rush is being ported. It seems logical that others will follow. I don't believe the suits at MS will keep bleeding massive amounts of money to appease these toxic influencers shills like Timdog and Riskit when there are billions to be made releasing their games on Playstation and Switch
 
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NEbeast

Member
I'm not understanding the blasé attitudes on display here.

Should the latest rumblings prove true, it would be difficult to not see this as a betrayal. I for one would immediately sell my Xbox and cancel my GamePass sub; as would many others. I wonder what the scale of the outcry would be if this was coming from Sony or Nintendo. Some of you would have to be on suicide watch.

For now all we can do is wait. Speculation can be fun but it is clear we require more information.
Sad Cry GIF
 
Lol which makes it AAA then? 5 years in the making with a team of 70 people + Playstation Visual Arts/Xdev - mocap in California studios. Hiring Bobby Krlic as composer tells you everything you need to know about the budget intentions here. Not even going into the state of the art sound design used for it. Housemarque even wrote about how they were making a AAA game with Sony because arcade was dead-long live arcade. But whatever, you've been wrong twice today, I'll let you go in peace.


For one, they’d need to triple the headcount or more. True AAA games are not made by 70 people
 

demigod

Member
I feel like all this profit talk is not understanding how loss leading works. Game Pass was never going to profit in the beginning years of the service or maybe even ever. The hope was to grow it so much that it would eventually bring enough people into the ecosystem to eventually profit off the Game Pass sub, and more importantly to lock people into the Xbox ecosystem through use of an instant library. It was Xbox's idea on how to solve the issue of bringing over people with libraries in other ecosystems. Obviously, that isn't happening, and likely will never happen unless something drastic happens in cloud gaming (doubtful). Phil probably sold it this way to Nadella (prompting acquisition season), and now after the ABK investment Nadella sees the writing on the wall and is forcing the shift in strategy.
How did you miss your Lord and Savior lying and saying gamepass was profitable?
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
I think so too but it will be deeper, he will try to assure people Xbox hardware is fine

I honestly think he mentions their future as a hardware maker

The fake ;) Heisenberg007 Heisenberg007 has brought up a good point in other threads that I think is related to all of this, them expecting a 40% drop in hardware sales
My guess is that this "event" will have a very positive tone and will NOT be targeted to Xbox fans. It'll be targeted to shareholders. And the language used will piss off the Xbox community even more.

Something like: "We're excited to announce a fantastic new future for the Microsoft Gaming division (not Xbox)." (It's not exciting for the Xbox fans, but it'd be for shareholders).

The gist would be software (not hardware), along the lines of, "we'll be able to sell even more games now than ever before by targeting the additional 250 million userbase of PlayStation and Nintendo platforms, two of the biggest console companies in the world."

More software > more engagement > more MAU > more revenue = Happy shareholders.

just guessing.
 

tommib

Member
For one, they’d need to triple the headcount or more. True AAA games are not made by 70 people
You can't just think of Housemarque. It's a Playstation production:

Climax Studios
Sony Production Studios, XDEV
Sony Interactive Entertainment, Korea, San Diego
PDSG visual arts
Decagon

Just scroll through the credits and see the amount of worldwide studios that helped with Returnal:



True AAA is based on your feelings. This was a Sony production with all money thrown at it.
 
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My guess is that this "event" will have a very positive tone and will NOT be targeted to Xbox fans. It'll be targeted to shareholders. And the language used will piss off the Xbox community even more.

Something like: "We're excited to announce a fantastic new future for the Microsoft Gaming division (not Xbox)." (It's not exciting for the Xbox fans, but it'd be for shareholders).

The gist would be software (not hardware), along the lines of, "we'll be able to sell even more games now than ever before by targeting the additional 250 million userbase of PlayStation and Nintendo platforms, two of the biggest console companies in the world."

More software > more engagement > more MAU > more revenue = Happy shareholders.

just guessing.

This is exactly what Microsoft is doing.

There is no guarantee that Nintendo/Sony fans will buy Xbox games and as gamers leave the Microsoft ecosystem, Xbox will lose their third part revenue and their subscription revenue.

We will see in ten years if the new strategy pays off.

One thing is for sure, if Microsoft wants to compete as a third party then they had better start releasing great games. Xbox fans have been waiting many years for that to happen….,
 

tommib

Member
They didn’t throw 250M on it like they did GoW, SM2, or HZ

It’s certainly not an AAA game. That’s not a disparaging remark as I love returnal. That’s just a fact
Those are open-world blockbuster intensive cinematic motion-capture games with dozens of actors and programmers bloating the games. Of course Returnal didn't cost that amount. It didn't need that budget. Is Demon's Souls not a AAA product then? Housemarque itself called it AAA. That's enough for me. It's a AAA arcade game. Maybe that helps.
 

Papa_Wisdom

Member
Of course no one knows.

It’s a multi billion dollar division within a trillion dollar company. A handful of individuals will be aware of what is going to be said.

As if some fat dork in Wisconsin, who films YouTube videos in front of a wall of He Man characters, is going to have the scoop.
Happy He Man GIF
 
Considering that Phil would have outright denied the rumors if they were false, I have a hard time believing otherwise. We basically have confirmation that Hi-Fi Rush is being ported. It seems logical that others will follow. I don't believe the suits at MS will keep bleeding massive amounts of money to appease these toxic influencers shills like Timdog and Riskit when there are billions to be made releasing their games on Playstation and Switch
I agree with this. There is just wayyyy to much smoke around this for it to be a nothing berger. It's not like there has only been one leaker/influencers. We've gotten reports on different games from different people. Feel like this is just trying to save face for Xbox a little bit until the meeting happens next week.
 

Papa_Wisdom

Member
And typically gaming trends can be at odds with other digital subscriptions.

I was subscribed to Gamepass last year, then BG3 came out, took up pretty much all of my gaming time for months, so I cancelled it. Same thing with Elden Ring.

The price is significant enough for me to pay attention to when I’m not getting any value, which is most of the time really. New games can be absolutely massive and one can mean I don’t need access to hundreds of others I have no interest in.
I have a backlog, and I will want to play new games this year that aren’t on gamepass. There’s just no value there for me.

Usually people tell me also I should stack years of gamepass to get it cheaper but I think that’s an even worse waste of money when I know I will go months without using it.
I agree with this tbh, series x is the only current gen console I own.

I did a game pass trial for £1 for a month years ago. Literally downloaded the outer worlds and that was it.

Game pass is just not for me. I have no fomo for new releases and a massive backlog. Why would I add to that?

Hell I even have an unused 3 month sub card that was bundled with my series x about 6 months after it launched.

I also buy any ms games that are available on it. Flight simulator, psychonaughts 2, killer instinct etc. Usually physically then get the digital version when it’s sub £20

I’m not 15 and have all the time in the world to plow through multiple games in tandem.

I’m prob not ms ideal customer in that respect but I do like Xbox ecosystem more than PlayStation.

If people are happy with game pass that’s great, just not for me.
 
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