Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
My two cents, Microsoft should:
- Stop saying and believing that console sales do not matter. The big problems started when they started putting too much weight to Cloud gaming; it's not there yet. Console absolutely matter the most and remain the focal point around which everything else revolves: hardware revenue, first-party software revenue, Game Pass subscribers, platform software revenue cut, MAUs, etc.
- Stop putting AAA games on Game Pass day one and retrain the Xbox userbase to buy first- and third-party games, so they can increase 1P software revenue. That revenue can be used to develop bigger and better games, gradually building upon each iteration and sequel.
- Stop releasing single-player games day one on PC. Stagger the releases, and don't release some games on PC at all. Keep enough ambiguity, so people don't see Xbox as just an optional box. It should feel essential to own and high on a consumer's wishlist.
- Series S misstep they can't do anything about now. It's too late to abandon. But produce more Series X. You want the majority of your userbase to play the best versions of your upcoming AAA titles (Hellbalde 2, Fable, Avowed, Starfield, etc.). Series S would not offer the best versions of the game. If the majority of gamers are playing the worse version, it does not promote good word-of-mouth, especially when those peeps can see the graphical fidelity of Spider-Man, Horizon Forbidden West, Gran Turismo 7, Ratchet, etc. on a PS5.
- Replace Matt Booty with someone capable of managing these studios. He could not manage 5 studios properly, and now he is supposed to manage 18 studios. It's almost unfair for Matt Booty at this stage.
- Replace Aaron Greenberg, and hire someone capable to lead marketing.
- Partner with upcoming AAA games that are expected to go big (e.g., Cyberpunk 2077 marketing was the right move). Do more of those.
- Once you get the contract, market the hell out of those products. See how Sony markets Fifa, COD, and Hogwart's Legacy.
- Increase the marketing budget for Xbox consoles and plaster those ads everywhere where it makes sense.
- If nothing else works, create a new cheaper first-party-only Game Pass tier and put it everywhere: Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo, Steam, Epic, etc. Become a third-party content publisher like EA, cut the hardware losses by gradually phasing out Xbox consoles, and focus entirely on producing great content. They already have the studios and IPs to do that. Once Xbox is phased out, release games natively on PlayStation and Nintendo, like EA does.
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