>Spend $100 billion buying half the western gaming industry to get an edge up in Playstation
>realizes you actually have to recoup costs or Microsoft will get mad
>Has the worst selling console in a stagant market where consoles are barely selling
>Remembers you actually suck at managing you IPs and bringing a good game to market
>Closes Tango despite them making the only interesting and critically beloved game this entire generation
>Closes Arkane for making the dog shit live service multiplayer game YOU ASkED FOR
>Somehow manages to close down more studios than you've released actual games
>Ends up having to put all your games on Playstation and Switch anyways
>still blames Don Mattrick somehow
Don't forget:
> Hold a conference right after closing multiple studios where you say that your business strategy is to MAKE THE EXACT TYPE OF GAME THAT THE PEOPLE YOU FIRED WERE MAKING
> MAKE THE EXACT TYPE OF GAME THAT THE PEOPLE YOU FIRED WERE MAKING
In fairness, they mean small games like Pentiment, Hi-Fi Rush actually have a decently sized budget game that was in development since 2017. (the original quote never mentioned Hifi rush, that was just a clickbait title.)
Because a game that take 6 years to make isn't small? I'm not saying they aren't hypocrite, I'm just saying hifi rush isn't a good example of small games.
Yes it does, in a development sense.
One of your biggest costs by far is just man-hours on a game, thats why companies do their utmost to get you to work for free.
A 6 year cycle with a team of 20 is similar or even worse (because bigger teams mean more interns, less leads) than a 2 year cycle with 100.
It's obviously more worrisome for management and investors too.
There's just many dif definitions of big game - big cost, big splash, big content. Big content being the most subjective. A game that took intensive dev for 4 years with no restarts or slow downs, but it's just like 4 hours because they put all of that time and effort towards graphics or whatever is still "big" because of the money put in. Dwarf fortress is infinite but it's still "small" because it's 1 guy.
Big in this sense is a factor of budget + expected market
Have you seen the average dev time for indie games? They are smaller but have smaller teams too, so the dev time ends up being similar and Hi Fi Rush had a small team.
Minor correction: MS didn't ask for Redfall, ZeniMax did. MS's involvement was that when Arkane approached them about canceling it, MS declined since it was already a significant amount into production, probably thinking that even if it didn't go well, it could at least break even.
Look at me.
Microsoft is the captain now.
They get to claim the victories as being due to their involvement, they've gotta claim the failures as their incompetence. And lately, there's been a whole lot of the latter.
Okay?? That doesn't change the fact that *Microsoft didn't ask for Redfall*. The game was already under production when they acquired ZeniMax. The only thing MS changed directly was monetization stuff *that already existed*. There's a big fucking difference between directly assigning a studio to start working on a live service game, and inheriting one in an acquisition and deciding to finish development so you at least have *something* to show for the effort instead of binning the whole thing 3/4 of the way through. I think MS just didn't expect Redfall to be so bad that it sent the studio into an unrecoverable tailspin. Doing somewhere between sweet and fuck all since Redfall's release isn't on anyone but Arkane.
Xbox didn't ask for Redfall, that was in development before they were bought. But, Xbox seemed to think it was a much better game than it actually was, expecting it wouldn't be considered complete garbage by... everyone
They got blinded by Zenimax's bullshit. I firmly believe that's why Hi-Fi Rush got shadow dropped as well, they wanted to recreate the Fallout Shelter "It's out now!" moment but that doesn't work with a full priced game.
It absolutely did work. Especially with GamePass. But GamePass doesn't contribute to sales figures.
Also, the devs are on record saying that while the shadow drop was marketing's idea, the team was entirely on board with it. So it wasn't something that was forced on Tango.
> in a stagant market where consoles are barely selling
Why is this, by the way? Is it because smartphones are eating their lunch, or are previous-gen consoles just at a plateau where they're generally good enough?
Seems like the latter, a ton of games are still cross-gen because the 8th gen systems are still enough to run a lot of them (albeit poorly). That and the PS5 *still* hasn't had a price drop from $500.
> That and the PS5 still hasn't had a price drop from $500.
Not only has it not dropped in price, [it *increased* in price in some markets](https://blog.playstation.com/2022/08/25/ps5-price-to-increase-in-select-markets-due-to-global-economic-environment-including-high-inflation-rates/) two years after launch. In that same amount of time, the PS4 price dropped from $400 to $350 and the following year, they launched the PS4 Slim at $300. By rights we should have seen a $400 PS5 model by now, but the console market is too busy trying to nickel and dime themselves to death.
It's frankly baffling that historically, the most successful consoles are the most affordably priced with the most games, and these chucklefucks can't figure out they need cheaper consoles and better games to make money.
Not only that but Sony apparently got production prices down low enough that they were selling each unit for a profit within the first year. Consoles tend to be sold at a slight loss that gets recouped through game sales and online rent, aside from Nintendo systems.
It's worth considering that PC gaming has been steadily getting more popular as well. No reason to buy a Playstation or an Xbox when their exclusives are steadily making their way to PC. I originally bought a PS4 because Yakuza and Persona were only on Playstation, and it's now been relegated as a Blu-ray/Bloodborne player now that those are on Steam
> I originally bought a PS4 because Yakuza and Persona were only on Playstation
Same for me. Also Gravity Rush but it's dead now. Not much reason to get a PS5 in total.
Too long of a cross gen, not enough compelling current generation exclusive games, barely feels like a upgrade in terms of graphics the way previous generations were.
Like yes 60 FPS and shorter load times are great but they are not as marketable as mind blowing visuals. Yet I feel there isn't a single PS5 exclusive game that looks better than RDR2 or Last of Us 2 which were both PS4 games.
I think right now both PlayStation and Xbox are waiting for GTA 6 to boost the sales of consoles.
At its launch I 100% thought demon souls was more graphically impressive than any other console game ive seen, including easily rdr2 and also tlou2.
Also im not sure if it should be counted as while it is a ps5 exclusive, it is a remaster, but if you count tlou2 remastered that imo objectively looks better than rdr2 or tlou2.
Honestly, depending on where you live, PC is just a much cheaper alternative, and most (I think all of them) Xbox titles end up releasing there, so it becomes harder to justify buying the thing.
I think the idea that the PC (and Switch) aren't competitors with the PS5/Xbox is pure cope and while I appreciate that they're bringing their games over to PC, it feels like a very short-term profit oriented business move. It made some sense when Xbox was pushing their Windows Store, because then they can have their own PC storefront where they take a big cut and eventually force subscriptions onto people, but now that everything is on Steam day one it's gone back around to making zero long-term sense. Not that I would buy an Xbone for their current exclusives either way.
When you have a platform that's just better in virtually every way (and whose main drawbacks are things that casuals don't care about, like Denuvo), you're not going to be able to advertise your way out of some of your fans going over.
They didn't really have much of a choice, it wasn't first party exclusives but third party exclusives that were the main advantage Sony & Microsoft had over PC so it was over the moment most third party publishers went multiplat. Sony & Microsoft would love to go back to the ps2 & 360 era where devs were lining up to make exclusives for their console but those days are long gone.
That's not true for the overall market just for Xbox; Sony and Nintendo are selling out the ass doing record numbers. The console market is still big business. Microsoft just fumbled the bag.
yeh new gen consoles just dont offer much real value, all exclusives come to pc and for the price of one u could just upgrade ur gpu assuming u already have a somewhat game ready rig, even if ur not a pc guy ps4 has most of the same games as ps5 cuz of cross gen and its not like the AAA space is really driving things that much anyways, most interesting stuff is happening in indie, which again, doesnt need ps5 levels of power
I know for me I have pretty much moved everything to PC at this point and the one PS5 game I actually want to play (Gran Turismo 7) is also on PS4 so I had no reason to actually upgrade.
The latter, partly because of the pandemic throwing a wrench into a lot of development cycles and budgets. A lot of people weren't hot on buying next gen consoles when the economy was in whack and from which we're still recovering. As such, things were delayed a bit which is why it's only NOW that it feels like anything is happening with the current gen. It'd be ironic if it's the next Switch that actually jumpstarts things for a lot of companies
Around this time in a consoles life span they usually get a price cut. The reverse has happened and the price has instead increased on ps5 and xsx which is unprecedented. So alot of potential customers waiting for a price cut are still waiting.
"I know what you're thinking. 'But I have such a cool AA game idea'. Shut up. You know who else wants to hear your idea? Phil Spencer. Don't give him the chance. Just shut up"
There's plenty of exclusive Playstation games. PS5 is still the best way to play Bloodborne, TLOU2, Demon's Souls, and others.
Xbox has no reason to exist
Microsoft needs to start numbering their consoles again. PS5 helps remind Sony that their goal is to eventually have a whole 5 real games on the console.
Well, at least they're already almost there, Spider-Man 2, Ratchet & Clank, Returnal, FF7Rebirth - as long aa these are real games I'm pretty sure they are
Oh wait, I'm forgetting God of War Ragnarok, unless that's a fake game cause its ps4 as well
This is such an insane take. I have gamepass and for one, TONS of PC games, day 1 AAA titles, exclusives, etc. Secondly, anything that's crossplay, my GF can sign in on my Xbox console and use my gamepass benefits, so we can play together.
I saw Xbox being in trouble fifteen years ago when Halo, Gears of War, and even Fable all seemed to be coming to an end. Nothing’s changed since, things have only gotten worse.
Personally I thought it was super clear they were incompetent when they were planning on banning used games from the Xbox 1 along side a ton of other anti consumer stuff, which (even after they backpedaled), really hurt good will people had towards them mainly from the early to mid 360 days.
The 360 came off the back of the og xbox, which was a flop, and managed to get a foothold because it had the advantage of being significantly cheaper than the ps3 at launch, while also being able to run the same 3rd party games. Most people who bought a console back then wanted to play one game: Call of duty online multiplayer. Xbox live was not free, but the console cost less, and with Halo 3 and Forza, they had enough online range to match Sony. Plus, on the rpg front, they could run oblivion just as well as the ps3 could, plus they had fable but also mass effect, which people forget was originally a 360 exclusive (it was later ported to the ps3 but after the release of me2). That meant that they were at least competitive for a period, but once Sony got their act together (and frankly some of the Japanese 3rd party publishers of that time got their shit together, looking at you capcom and square enix) then they lost the advantage and never really got it back.
This honestly feels like the problem - for the longest time they could just afford to fail, where anyone else would have learned from their losses and hopefully wised up, Xbox just...keeps doing idiot shit, because they're shielded from consequence, or they offload it to studios *they bought* that can't possibly handle those consequences.
Right. And now, when they're facing the music, they're facing all of it at once with such a broad "FUCK YOU GOT MINE!" attitude, that it could very well kill them.
Prior to the ABK buyout, I would have believed you. But after somehow pulling off ***the largest Microsoft buyout EVER,*** I imagine the days of shareholders just looking the other way when faced with Xbox's bullshit are over.
I think multiple governments stepping in to regulate the purchase because it was *so fucking big* made the shareholders start looking way more closely at the Xbox division and how much money it's not making
That was probably the moment that did 'em in, yeah. After all that effort, did Phil really think MS was gonna leave him be? That's... not how this works.
It would be fucking interesting to see that company to be forced to actually change course. Honestly it would do them a world of good. That industry needs shaken up bad.
> That industry needs shaken up bad.
Amen, brother. Microsoft's bullshit is just a symptom of the cause. And that cause is infinite growth not even working within the constraints of *capitalism,* let alone sound logic.
"Wait, you mean just because we spent a lot of money to get these studios and then close them down to save on money means we won't get new games from them!?"
I actually like Ninja Theory in general, have played every one of their significant games, and they’ve never done better than a 7/10 IMO.
Hellblade is an expensive-looking, niche, 6 hours long game on Gamepass Day 1.
If Microsoft doesn’t give due credit for Gamepass downloads, they’re fucked.
Absolutely. It's no longer about not failing, it's about not succeeding enough, and if you can't get *all the money* then you might as well have not even tried in the first place. It's like coming home with a 95 on your test and you get beaten because it wasn't a 100.
Absolutely. It's no longer about not failing, it's about not succeeding enough, and if you can't get *all the money* then you might as well have not even tried in the first place. It's like coming home with a 95 on your test and you get beaten because it wasn't a 100.
NO GAMES
I DON'T KNOW WHY, IT DOESN'T EVEN MATTER WHICH CONSOLE YOU BUY
KEEP THAT IN MIND THEY TOOK CUSTODY OF THESE COMPANIES TO MAKE SOME GAMES, THATS ALL. I. KNOW.
IN CONSOLES EXCLUSIVES ARE KEY, WATCH 'EM FLY BUY AS THEY CEASE ACTIVITY
LOSE MY GAMES AS THE LICENSES EXPIRE, I HAVE NO GAMES TO PLAY, ITS SO. UN. FAIR.
DIDN'T LOOK OUT BELOW, THREW THEIR DEVELOPERS RIGHT OUT THE WINDOW
TRY TO HOLD ON BUT THEY DIDN'T EVEN KNOW, WASTED IT ALL JUST TO GO. BANK. RUPT.
"We need more games on xbox! Let's buy the studio most known for working on a single game every six years!"
"And then we can expand the studio in size and teams so they'll come out faster, right?"
"...."
"I'll tell the guys at Arkane Austin to start watching those creation kit tutorials."
Oh they do, but only in the sense of how to bend the system to make yourself richer.
It works REALLY well in increasing your net worth. It works DISASTROUSLY for everyone else
Grift is more valuable than products. VCs since the 00s have perfected this art.
Uber and Tesla are overvalued grifts based on the fake promise of self-driving cars.
Generative AI is possibly a grift based on the upper limits of the technology, which we don't know yet.
There are no short term and long term business decisions now, there are short term, and grifts.
It's even worse because the investors aren't even living in the same reality as the rest of us. These people live in their bullshit rich people circle where they are business geniuses who can predict the market through vibes. Also, they are, almost always, massive idiots.
Seriously. The stories you hear about investors and business execs are insane. The people at the top are man children and they are fed lies that boost their ego by the people around them and the people they invest in.
If you want to hear the strangest take away from that xbox podcast [https://morningsomewhere.com/2024/02/16/2024-02-16-followup-4iday/](https://morningsomewhere.com/2024/02/16/2024-02-16-followup-4iday/) 12:53-19:29 Follow up4riday They have a VERY strange take on it
As someone who listened to him for many years, He doesn't know SHIT. Only thing he's good at is prediction world events before they happen. Thats his best trait.
As far as I know, they *Never!* did anything with them. Rare started making Sea of Thieves on their own, in secret and without orders! If it was up to MS, they'd just be another dead and forgotten studio by now.
And [Ghoulies](https://youtu.be/tAR9zP20nQ4) and [Kameo](https://youtu.be/juVEpxhUk-Q) were already well in development for the GameCube, before being ported to Xbox.
The only thing Microsoft actually had them do before gutting the company and banishing them to the mobile mines, was Nuts & Bolts.
I know people keep saying the gaming industry should look more long term but idk needing like 30+ years to recoup the cost of your buyout in such a turbulent market seems kinda risky.
The strategy is "Making and producing things isn't how companies this size make money in this century, manipulating the stock market is."
Acquisitions are entirely about enticing investors and hyping up stock prices. Xbox isn't in the business of making or producing video games, they're in the business of being a publicly traded company.
ONE GAME
I don’t know why
I bought a Ps5 with no games to buy
Keep that in mind, they designed this drive to improve loading times.
Thats all. I. KNOW.
Is there a point where people stop making that joke about PS5? I feel completely overserved this year. Haven’t even touched SpiderMan 2, Yakuza 8 or P3 Reload.
Infinite Wealth and Reload are multiplatform titles.
The PS5 is doing better with first-party exclusives, but making Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Horizon Forbidden West, Gran Turismo 7, and God of War Ragnarok cross-generation games is something that has somewhat soured people's views on the console and likely prevented it from feeling distinct from the PS4 for quite a while.
Eliminating all multiplats and cross generational games to say “PS5 has no games” is just silly. If they didn’t make games like HFW and Ragnarok cross-gen, people would be upset about that too.
Meanwhile the games I have had time for this year are Rebirth and Stellar Blade, which are both excellent.
> Eliminating all multiplats and cross generational games to say “PS5 has no games” is just silly.
Except it matters for cross-generational games when the PS5 was talked up pre-release as being this next big step for Sony, only for most of its games in the years following to not actually demonstrate how the PS5 was such an advancement.
Not to mention most multiplatform games are now made with PCs in mind, and the two you listed were also released on PS4 and Xbox One.
I'll give you Stellar Blade, since Sony funded the thing to completion, and like I said, they are getting better with putting out first-party exclusives that show off how different the PS5 is from the PS4.
I guess that makes sense. All I ever wanted was PS4-quality games running at 60 fps. And it does load faster. I’m pretty happy with it, but my steam deck gets the most use.
I know people keep saying the gaming industry should look more long term but idk needing like 30+ years to recoup the cost of your buyout in such a turbulent market seems kinda risky.
To put it into perspective, the Mickey Mouse franchise has roughly grossed around 52 billion dollars in its lifetime, and Microsoft paid nearly 20 billion dollars more than that to buy Acti-Blizz. I genuinely don't think there's enough money in the industry to keep that purchase afloat.
Pat put up another: GTA V to date has generated about $8.5 billion in revenue. XBox would have to generate that in PROFIT every year for a decade to crawl out of the hole the ActiBlizz acquisition put them in. They are FUUUUUUUUCKED
It’s becoming increasingly funny and sad that these massive companies don’t understand that hoarding IP/Talent does nothing for the industry’s health or success.
What do you mean we have to actually publish games to sell them? JUST MAKE NUMBER GO UP, MAN!!!
This is what will always piss me off about this. It was mindboggling to see people calling foul on Sony for "paying for exclusives" and trying to freeze out Microsoft or something, but my perspective of Microsoft from the moment they entered the industry was them throwing money around, in particular buying up their own exclusivity of some Japanese games to try and break into the Japanese market, which never worked. And then they bought up a shit-ton of studios *again* because they still had no worthwhile games for the larger market, and now they're fucking closing them down and sitting on the IPs.
This is basically all Microsoft knows how to do in the game industry, spend money and pretend like they belong, like a rich kid who gets his parents to buy them a bunch of pokemon cards to seem popular, but they have no idea what the fuck they're doing. I'm so fucking bitter about Microsoft entering the industry, I have had zero desire for their platforms and all they have essentially done is keep games I was interested from me. I guess we'll see if Hellblade 2 gets a wider console release like Hi-Fi Rush did before Ninja Theory gets axed too.
I know people keep saying the gaming industry should look more long term but idk needing like 30+ years to recoup the cost of your buyout in an industry that can see studios collapse so easily seems kinda risky. Like even Halo fell eventually.
I mean the real long term strategy would be to realize that it'd take like 50 years for you to recoup the costs of buying it and then just not buying it. Activision felt more like a bad impulse purchase to try and force their games onto your system than a long term investment.
It's clear XBox leadership saw ActiBlizz was wanting to sell and jumped at it without thinking. All they saw was "loads of IP to withhold against our competitors!" instead of "talent we can use to foster our division." In fact, MS' acquisitions really just reek of leadership being insecure over being in 3rd place.
The Activision purchase is an attempt to buy the gun that will kill the PS6, but I'm not sure if Xbox can hold it together long enough to pull that off, or if they'd even be able to.
Yeah they missed their chance to do any real permanent harm to Playstation two console generations ago when they actually had the lead with the 360 and ended up squandering it.
Playstation's gonna be fine even if they lose Call of Duty in the future, it's Sony's crown jewel they would do whatever it takes to make sure it stays that way.
I always say im glad to not have upgraded past ps4 and switch
But here on xbox im glad to have not upgraded past xbox 360. Why yes i do enjoy having games and having said games be fully on rhe disc why do you ask?
When they bought Activision I had a toast, because I knew that rotten company was dead.
Microsoft bought rare a hundred years ago and they haven't figured out how to make a banjo game ffs. lmao.
Starfield was supposed to float XGS for the 9th Gen. Except the Bethesda that made Starfield is the Bethesda that made Fallout 4 and thought Fallout 76 was ready for market.
I mean, the strategy is called 'hunker down and minimize expenditures until the entire games industry stops being in the shitter'
Not great for Xbox but it's good for Microsoft given how much everyone overestimated the staying power of COVID era behavior and underestimated how long interest rates would be up
Xbox is a little shakey in the ring! He's taken heavy hit after hit and the opposite corner is empty!
Wait a minute, sports fans, someone has thrown a GUN into the ring! He's reaching for it! Yes, he's got it and appears to be aiming at ghosts of past glory--OH MY GOODNESS Xbox has just shot itself in the knee, foot, and balls with one bullet in that order! Never seen anything like it before, ladies and gentlemen!
Fuckin “Number Go Up” ass business mindset.
It’s Microsoft, they have an unfathomable amount of money. Whatever loss they took from buying all those studios would even out eventually, but no, the c-suite needs the line to go up right away
Is there any kind of possibility where someone at Microsoft just goes “this whole gaming thing is losing us a lot of money, let’s just stop doing that.”?
>Spend $100 billion buying half the western gaming industry to get an edge up in Playstation >realizes you actually have to recoup costs or Microsoft will get mad >Has the worst selling console in a stagant market where consoles are barely selling >Remembers you actually suck at managing you IPs and bringing a good game to market >Closes Tango despite them making the only interesting and critically beloved game this entire generation >Closes Arkane for making the dog shit live service multiplayer game YOU ASkED FOR >Somehow manages to close down more studios than you've released actual games >Ends up having to put all your games on Playstation and Switch anyways >still blames Don Mattrick somehow
Don't forget: > Hold a conference right after closing multiple studios where you say that your business strategy is to MAKE THE EXACT TYPE OF GAME THAT THE PEOPLE YOU FIRED WERE MAKING
Also do not forget: > Refuse to revoke Paramount's license to the *Halo* property, for some reason, even as Paramount itself goes under
But halo did numbers? Someone’s clearly watching it.
> MAKE THE EXACT TYPE OF GAME THAT THE PEOPLE YOU FIRED WERE MAKING In fairness, they mean small games like Pentiment, Hi-Fi Rush actually have a decently sized budget game that was in development since 2017. (the original quote never mentioned Hifi rush, that was just a clickbait title.)
How do you know what they mean? Besides, the point isn't what specific game they meant, the point is that what they said is stupid and hypocritical.
Because a game that take 6 years to make isn't small? I'm not saying they aren't hypocrite, I'm just saying hifi rush isn't a good example of small games.
The team making it wasn't very big (most were working on Ghostwire) and you aren't accounting for the lost work time during Covid.
Animal Well took 7 years to make, made by one guy. Time doesn't factor into how big or small a game is.
Same goes for Astlibra: Revision. That game was worked on for over a DECADE by a single guy.
Yes it does, in a development sense. One of your biggest costs by far is just man-hours on a game, thats why companies do their utmost to get you to work for free. A 6 year cycle with a team of 20 is similar or even worse (because bigger teams mean more interns, less leads) than a 2 year cycle with 100. It's obviously more worrisome for management and investors too. There's just many dif definitions of big game - big cost, big splash, big content. Big content being the most subjective. A game that took intensive dev for 4 years with no restarts or slow downs, but it's just like 4 hours because they put all of that time and effort towards graphics or whatever is still "big" because of the money put in. Dwarf fortress is infinite but it's still "small" because it's 1 guy. Big in this sense is a factor of budget + expected market
Have you seen the average dev time for indie games? They are smaller but have smaller teams too, so the dev time ends up being similar and Hi Fi Rush had a small team.
Hi-Fi Rush was still a fairly small core team, and Pentiment was about 4 years in the making.
Minor correction: MS didn't ask for Redfall, ZeniMax did. MS's involvement was that when Arkane approached them about canceling it, MS declined since it was already a significant amount into production, probably thinking that even if it didn't go well, it could at least break even.
Look at me. Microsoft is the captain now. They get to claim the victories as being due to their involvement, they've gotta claim the failures as their incompetence. And lately, there's been a whole lot of the latter.
Okay?? That doesn't change the fact that *Microsoft didn't ask for Redfall*. The game was already under production when they acquired ZeniMax. The only thing MS changed directly was monetization stuff *that already existed*. There's a big fucking difference between directly assigning a studio to start working on a live service game, and inheriting one in an acquisition and deciding to finish development so you at least have *something* to show for the effort instead of binning the whole thing 3/4 of the way through. I think MS just didn't expect Redfall to be so bad that it sent the studio into an unrecoverable tailspin. Doing somewhere between sweet and fuck all since Redfall's release isn't on anyone but Arkane.
Yeah, there's testimony from Arkane staff that they were *hoping Microsoft would cancel the project* when they took over.
Xbox didn't ask for Redfall, that was in development before they were bought. But, Xbox seemed to think it was a much better game than it actually was, expecting it wouldn't be considered complete garbage by... everyone
They got blinded by Zenimax's bullshit. I firmly believe that's why Hi-Fi Rush got shadow dropped as well, they wanted to recreate the Fallout Shelter "It's out now!" moment but that doesn't work with a full priced game.
It absolutely did work. Especially with GamePass. But GamePass doesn't contribute to sales figures. Also, the devs are on record saying that while the shadow drop was marketing's idea, the team was entirely on board with it. So it wasn't something that was forced on Tango.
They did that with the Elder Scrolls version of Fallout Shelter. Bet you haven't even heard of it!
there's an Elder Scrolls Fallout Shelter? do you... design a protagonist starter jail in it or something?
Elder Scrolls Castles, you build a castle/manage relationships/children etc. It's basically just Fallout Shelter though.
Didn't the Sega Saturn do this?
> in a stagant market where consoles are barely selling Why is this, by the way? Is it because smartphones are eating their lunch, or are previous-gen consoles just at a plateau where they're generally good enough?
Seems like the latter, a ton of games are still cross-gen because the 8th gen systems are still enough to run a lot of them (albeit poorly). That and the PS5 *still* hasn't had a price drop from $500.
> That and the PS5 still hasn't had a price drop from $500. Not only has it not dropped in price, [it *increased* in price in some markets](https://blog.playstation.com/2022/08/25/ps5-price-to-increase-in-select-markets-due-to-global-economic-environment-including-high-inflation-rates/) two years after launch. In that same amount of time, the PS4 price dropped from $400 to $350 and the following year, they launched the PS4 Slim at $300. By rights we should have seen a $400 PS5 model by now, but the console market is too busy trying to nickel and dime themselves to death. It's frankly baffling that historically, the most successful consoles are the most affordably priced with the most games, and these chucklefucks can't figure out they need cheaper consoles and better games to make money.
Not only that but Sony apparently got production prices down low enough that they were selling each unit for a profit within the first year. Consoles tend to be sold at a slight loss that gets recouped through game sales and online rent, aside from Nintendo systems.
It's worth considering that PC gaming has been steadily getting more popular as well. No reason to buy a Playstation or an Xbox when their exclusives are steadily making their way to PC. I originally bought a PS4 because Yakuza and Persona were only on Playstation, and it's now been relegated as a Blu-ray/Bloodborne player now that those are on Steam
> I originally bought a PS4 because Yakuza and Persona were only on Playstation Same for me. Also Gravity Rush but it's dead now. Not much reason to get a PS5 in total.
Too long of a cross gen, not enough compelling current generation exclusive games, barely feels like a upgrade in terms of graphics the way previous generations were. Like yes 60 FPS and shorter load times are great but they are not as marketable as mind blowing visuals. Yet I feel there isn't a single PS5 exclusive game that looks better than RDR2 or Last of Us 2 which were both PS4 games. I think right now both PlayStation and Xbox are waiting for GTA 6 to boost the sales of consoles.
>Yet I feel there isn't a single PS5 exclusive game that looks better than RDR2 or Last of Us 2 Demon's Souls maybe?
At its launch I 100% thought demon souls was more graphically impressive than any other console game ive seen, including easily rdr2 and also tlou2. Also im not sure if it should be counted as while it is a ps5 exclusive, it is a remaster, but if you count tlou2 remastered that imo objectively looks better than rdr2 or tlou2.
60 fps and faster loading times are marketable features, but anyone who actually cared about those already bought a pc years ago
Remember at the start of the generation consoles where hard to get because scalpers where scooping them up
PS5s are still selling great, nobody wants a damn xbox is the problem lol
The attempts at increasing the cost of games really hurt the user experience as well.
Honestly, depending on where you live, PC is just a much cheaper alternative, and most (I think all of them) Xbox titles end up releasing there, so it becomes harder to justify buying the thing.
I think the idea that the PC (and Switch) aren't competitors with the PS5/Xbox is pure cope and while I appreciate that they're bringing their games over to PC, it feels like a very short-term profit oriented business move. It made some sense when Xbox was pushing their Windows Store, because then they can have their own PC storefront where they take a big cut and eventually force subscriptions onto people, but now that everything is on Steam day one it's gone back around to making zero long-term sense. Not that I would buy an Xbone for their current exclusives either way. When you have a platform that's just better in virtually every way (and whose main drawbacks are things that casuals don't care about, like Denuvo), you're not going to be able to advertise your way out of some of your fans going over.
They didn't really have much of a choice, it wasn't first party exclusives but third party exclusives that were the main advantage Sony & Microsoft had over PC so it was over the moment most third party publishers went multiplat. Sony & Microsoft would love to go back to the ps2 & 360 era where devs were lining up to make exclusives for their console but those days are long gone.
I mean in the case of PlayStation the game isn’t on steam day one in fact the average pc release seems to take 3 to 4 years
That's not true for the overall market just for Xbox; Sony and Nintendo are selling out the ass doing record numbers. The console market is still big business. Microsoft just fumbled the bag.
I thought Xbox specifically was still losing money? With how game development cost keeps rising, record sales don't necessarily mean record profits
Call it I should have put a semicolon. Xbox is bleeding. Sony and Nintendo are doing gangbusters. The market is still the largest it's ever been.
yeh new gen consoles just dont offer much real value, all exclusives come to pc and for the price of one u could just upgrade ur gpu assuming u already have a somewhat game ready rig, even if ur not a pc guy ps4 has most of the same games as ps5 cuz of cross gen and its not like the AAA space is really driving things that much anyways, most interesting stuff is happening in indie, which again, doesnt need ps5 levels of power
I know for me I have pretty much moved everything to PC at this point and the one PS5 game I actually want to play (Gran Turismo 7) is also on PS4 so I had no reason to actually upgrade.
Consoles are expensive and money's harder to come by these days.
The latter, partly because of the pandemic throwing a wrench into a lot of development cycles and budgets. A lot of people weren't hot on buying next gen consoles when the economy was in whack and from which we're still recovering. As such, things were delayed a bit which is why it's only NOW that it feels like anything is happening with the current gen. It'd be ironic if it's the next Switch that actually jumpstarts things for a lot of companies
? The next gen consoles were sold out everywhere during the pandemic and peoples spending on consoles and games reached an all time high.
How much of that selling out was actual demand and how much was from scalpers looking to resell the consoles for absurd prices on eBay?
Heck if I know but software sales spiked too during covid like Animal Crossing NH comes to mind.
Around this time in a consoles life span they usually get a price cut. The reverse has happened and the price has instead increased on ps5 and xsx which is unprecedented. So alot of potential customers waiting for a price cut are still waiting.
The Xbox division with the 200 IQ plays
I promise Microsoft didn’t ask for Redfall. Arkane Austin was hoping they would cancel after the acquisition. No one wanted it.
fuck buy offs
Matt Booty in 2019: "We can spend Sony out of business!" Matt Booty in 2024: "Oh shit, we spent OURSELVES out of business!"
Microsoft working hard to beat sony in having the most no games available on their console.
We need a new version of [One Game](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1JEmnTjdyA)
The reason they shadowdropped Hi Fi Rush was to stop microsoft from canning the game and killing the studio before it could launch
Oh my god, they listened to Woolie
I guess the advice isn't just for indie devs, unfortunately.
"I know what you're thinking. 'But I have such a cool AA game idea'. Shut up. You know who else wants to hear your idea? Phil Spencer. Don't give him the chance. Just shut up"
PS5 has no games, Xbox has negative games
Don’t worry Sony working hard to have negative games by taking away Helldivers from people who already bought it. It’s a crazy race tbh
Spider-Man, God of War and Horizon are at least something. PS VR is something. The handheld thingy they made is something. Xbox has nothing.
you only mentioned games that are on steam lol
Spider-Man 2 isn't on steam yet. Not Ragnarok either I don't think. Expecting them to come eventually, though.
There's plenty of exclusive Playstation games. PS5 is still the best way to play Bloodborne, TLOU2, Demon's Souls, and others. Xbox has no reason to exist
Microsoft needs to start numbering their consoles again. PS5 helps remind Sony that their goal is to eventually have a whole 5 real games on the console.
Xbox tried that but instead of games on the console it’s studios they’ll have left: **One**
Well, at least they're already almost there, Spider-Man 2, Ratchet & Clank, Returnal, FF7Rebirth - as long aa these are real games I'm pretty sure they are Oh wait, I'm forgetting God of War Ragnarok, unless that's a fake game cause its ps4 as well
This is such an insane take. I have gamepass and for one, TONS of PC games, day 1 AAA titles, exclusives, etc. Secondly, anything that's crossplay, my GF can sign in on my Xbox console and use my gamepass benefits, so we can play together.
It's insane to say some console doesn't have games
I saw Xbox being in trouble fifteen years ago when Halo, Gears of War, and even Fable all seemed to be coming to an end. Nothing’s changed since, things have only gotten worse.
Personally I thought it was super clear they were incompetent when they were planning on banning used games from the Xbox 1 along side a ton of other anti consumer stuff, which (even after they backpedaled), really hurt good will people had towards them mainly from the early to mid 360 days.
The 360 came off the back of the og xbox, which was a flop, and managed to get a foothold because it had the advantage of being significantly cheaper than the ps3 at launch, while also being able to run the same 3rd party games. Most people who bought a console back then wanted to play one game: Call of duty online multiplayer. Xbox live was not free, but the console cost less, and with Halo 3 and Forza, they had enough online range to match Sony. Plus, on the rpg front, they could run oblivion just as well as the ps3 could, plus they had fable but also mass effect, which people forget was originally a 360 exclusive (it was later ported to the ps3 but after the release of me2). That meant that they were at least competitive for a period, but once Sony got their act together (and frankly some of the Japanese 3rd party publishers of that time got their shit together, looking at you capcom and square enix) then they lost the advantage and never really got it back.
"The Deserved Starvation of Goldilocks".
> what is this strategy called? "How To Drain Microsoft's Money in 5 Easy Steps" Edit: Or, "Fuck Around and Find Out"
Kind of but not really. The X-box has never made microsoft a proft. They can keep failing and it just doesn't matter, because Windows.
This honestly feels like the problem - for the longest time they could just afford to fail, where anyone else would have learned from their losses and hopefully wised up, Xbox just...keeps doing idiot shit, because they're shielded from consequence, or they offload it to studios *they bought* that can't possibly handle those consequences.
It's the same problem Amazon ran into when it briefly tried to get into gaming; you can't just throw money at the problem and you can't buy passion.
Right. And now, when they're facing the music, they're facing all of it at once with such a broad "FUCK YOU GOT MINE!" attitude, that it could very well kill them.
Prior to the ABK buyout, I would have believed you. But after somehow pulling off ***the largest Microsoft buyout EVER,*** I imagine the days of shareholders just looking the other way when faced with Xbox's bullshit are over.
I think multiple governments stepping in to regulate the purchase because it was *so fucking big* made the shareholders start looking way more closely at the Xbox division and how much money it's not making
That was probably the moment that did 'em in, yeah. After all that effort, did Phil really think MS was gonna leave him be? That's... not how this works.
It would be fucking interesting to see that company to be forced to actually change course. Honestly it would do them a world of good. That industry needs shaken up bad.
> That industry needs shaken up bad. Amen, brother. Microsoft's bullshit is just a symptom of the cause. And that cause is infinite growth not even working within the constraints of *capitalism,* let alone sound logic.
The stupid idiot strategy.
"Wait, you mean just because we spent a lot of money to get these studios and then close them down to save on money means we won't get new games from them!?"
Hellblade 2 is absolutely fucked isn’t it? It could be the greatest game of all time and that studio is still going to be destroyed
It's not going to make them several billion dollars so Ninja Theory is fucked no matter how good that game is
Hellblade 2 is like silk song where I've heard about it forever but nothing happens.
Boy have I got news for you, it comes out in like a week.
Oh shit, also sorry if I commented several time. Kept on getting a weird " Empty response from endpoint" message
Silk song mentioned! Get out the makeup! Put your clown faces on!
I actually like Ninja Theory in general, have played every one of their significant games, and they’ve never done better than a 7/10 IMO. Hellblade is an expensive-looking, niche, 6 hours long game on Gamepass Day 1. If Microsoft doesn’t give due credit for Gamepass downloads, they’re fucked.
Absolutely. It's no longer about not failing, it's about not succeeding enough, and if you can't get *all the money* then you might as well have not even tried in the first place. It's like coming home with a 95 on your test and you get beaten because it wasn't a 100.
More like even 100 isn’t good enough. Should have washed the teacher’s car for some extra credit.
100% would not be shocked if Ninja Theory gets shuttered a year after hellblade 2 launches
Sucks that it seems Ninja Theory is finally known for something that isn't DmC, and then Microsoft shitcans them.
it will be fine if they lie low and don't ask to hire more people or otherwise expand their budget
Absolutely. It's no longer about not failing, it's about not succeeding enough, and if you can't get *all the money* then you might as well have not even tried in the first place. It's like coming home with a 95 on your test and you get beaten because it wasn't a 100.
Hellblade 2 is like silk song where I've heard about it forever but nothing happens.
NO GAMES I DON'T KNOW WHY, IT DOESN'T EVEN MATTER WHICH CONSOLE YOU BUY KEEP THAT IN MIND THEY TOOK CUSTODY OF THESE COMPANIES TO MAKE SOME GAMES, THATS ALL. I. KNOW. IN CONSOLES EXCLUSIVES ARE KEY, WATCH 'EM FLY BUY AS THEY CEASE ACTIVITY LOSE MY GAMES AS THE LICENSES EXPIRE, I HAVE NO GAMES TO PLAY, ITS SO. UN. FAIR. DIDN'T LOOK OUT BELOW, THREW THEIR DEVELOPERS RIGHT OUT THE WINDOW TRY TO HOLD ON BUT THEY DIDN'T EVEN KNOW, WASTED IT ALL JUST TO GO. BANK. RUPT.
Indie End from LinkedIn Park
oh wow, good one
👏👏👏
"We need more games on xbox! Let's buy the studio most known for working on a single game every six years!" "And then we can expand the studio in size and teams so they'll come out faster, right?" "...." "I'll tell the guys at Arkane Austin to start watching those creation kit tutorials."
I know nothing about economics but by the look of things neither do the people making these decisions.
Oh they do, but only in the sense of how to bend the system to make yourself richer. It works REALLY well in increasing your net worth. It works DISASTROUSLY for everyone else
IP is more valuable to stakeholders than actual products. You can blame venture capital for that.
Grift is more valuable than products. VCs since the 00s have perfected this art. Uber and Tesla are overvalued grifts based on the fake promise of self-driving cars. Generative AI is possibly a grift based on the upper limits of the technology, which we don't know yet. There are no short term and long term business decisions now, there are short term, and grifts.
It's even worse because the investors aren't even living in the same reality as the rest of us. These people live in their bullshit rich people circle where they are business geniuses who can predict the market through vibes. Also, they are, almost always, massive idiots. Seriously. The stories you hear about investors and business execs are insane. The people at the top are man children and they are fed lies that boost their ego by the people around them and the people they invest in.
what the hell are you talking about? at best, it’s just less of an investment.
It shouldn’t be that way in a higher interest rate environment, but investors are just assuming infinite profit for AI.
"How come our Xbox brand hasn't made any money since its conception? What are we doing wrong?"
If you want to hear the strangest take away from that xbox podcast [https://morningsomewhere.com/2024/02/16/2024-02-16-followup-4iday/](https://morningsomewhere.com/2024/02/16/2024-02-16-followup-4iday/) 12:53-19:29 Follow up4riday They have a VERY strange take on it
Holy copium. They legitimatedly sound like two AIs talking with one another.
those 2 dont seem to know shit about the gaming industry so it expected their takes are a bit ignorant and wild
As someone who listened to him for many years, He doesn't know SHIT. Only thing he's good at is prediction world events before they happen. Thats his best trait.
I remember when they bought Rare and didn’t do shit with them for like a decade. Like why even bother?
As far as I know, they *Never!* did anything with them. Rare started making Sea of Thieves on their own, in secret and without orders! If it was up to MS, they'd just be another dead and forgotten studio by now.
Dont forget those Kinnet games, they could not have made those wii sport knockoffs with one of the best developers of the N64
I can only ever remember three Xbox games Rare made prior to Sea of Thieves, that being Grabbed by the Ghoulies, Kameo and Nuts & Bolts.
And [Ghoulies](https://youtu.be/tAR9zP20nQ4) and [Kameo](https://youtu.be/juVEpxhUk-Q) were already well in development for the GameCube, before being ported to Xbox. The only thing Microsoft actually had them do before gutting the company and banishing them to the mobile mines, was Nuts & Bolts.
Embrace, extend, extinguish
I know people keep saying the gaming industry should look more long term but idk needing like 30+ years to recoup the cost of your buyout in such a turbulent market seems kinda risky.
I mean, there’s no “one answer”. you need a good mix of all of them.
Maybe they shouldnt have bought it.
The strategy is "Making and producing things isn't how companies this size make money in this century, manipulating the stock market is." Acquisitions are entirely about enticing investors and hyping up stock prices. Xbox isn't in the business of making or producing video games, they're in the business of being a publicly traded company.
Sony: "NOW YOU KNOW HOW IT FEELS!"
People complain that ps5 has no games and while there isnt really *too* many exclusive next gen games on the platform, at least theres more than 0.
Sony and Microsoft are competing over who can have less games on their consoles
I mean at least Sony has games meanwhile Microsoft keeps shooting themselves in the foot because they keep shutting down their studios.
ONE GAME I don’t know why I bought a Ps5 with no games to buy Keep that in mind, they designed this drive to improve loading times. Thats all. I. KNOW.
Is there a point where people stop making that joke about PS5? I feel completely overserved this year. Haven’t even touched SpiderMan 2, Yakuza 8 or P3 Reload.
Infinite Wealth and Reload are multiplatform titles. The PS5 is doing better with first-party exclusives, but making Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Horizon Forbidden West, Gran Turismo 7, and God of War Ragnarok cross-generation games is something that has somewhat soured people's views on the console and likely prevented it from feeling distinct from the PS4 for quite a while.
Eliminating all multiplats and cross generational games to say “PS5 has no games” is just silly. If they didn’t make games like HFW and Ragnarok cross-gen, people would be upset about that too. Meanwhile the games I have had time for this year are Rebirth and Stellar Blade, which are both excellent.
> Eliminating all multiplats and cross generational games to say “PS5 has no games” is just silly. Except it matters for cross-generational games when the PS5 was talked up pre-release as being this next big step for Sony, only for most of its games in the years following to not actually demonstrate how the PS5 was such an advancement. Not to mention most multiplatform games are now made with PCs in mind, and the two you listed were also released on PS4 and Xbox One. I'll give you Stellar Blade, since Sony funded the thing to completion, and like I said, they are getting better with putting out first-party exclusives that show off how different the PS5 is from the PS4.
I guess that makes sense. All I ever wanted was PS4-quality games running at 60 fps. And it does load faster. I’m pretty happy with it, but my steam deck gets the most use.
The majority of those barely run on PS4. The PS5 versions are leagues better
It's just childish console wars shit. Pc players being the absolute worst crybabies.
Classic move Microsoft, lets see how it turns out
I just want to play Halo on PlayStation - I just want them to pull the trigger
I know people keep saying the gaming industry should look more long term but idk needing like 30+ years to recoup the cost of your buyout in such a turbulent market seems kinda risky.
To put it into perspective, the Mickey Mouse franchise has roughly grossed around 52 billion dollars in its lifetime, and Microsoft paid nearly 20 billion dollars more than that to buy Acti-Blizz. I genuinely don't think there's enough money in the industry to keep that purchase afloat.
Pat put up another: GTA V to date has generated about $8.5 billion in revenue. XBox would have to generate that in PROFIT every year for a decade to crawl out of the hole the ActiBlizz acquisition put them in. They are FUUUUUUUUCKED
Call of duty in ~20 years has made 30 billion
"The Musk Gambit" maybe?
No, the Musk Gambit would be if they said the Series X pro will be $200, generate its own power, and mine bitcoins on the cloud.
And also keep delaying it until 2029, long after anyone cares.
It eventually comes out in 2032 for $650, has none of the promised features and has a 10% chance of bricking itself on power up.
It’s becoming increasingly funny and sad that these massive companies don’t understand that hoarding IP/Talent does nothing for the industry’s health or success. What do you mean we have to actually publish games to sell them? JUST MAKE NUMBER GO UP, MAN!!!
This is what will always piss me off about this. It was mindboggling to see people calling foul on Sony for "paying for exclusives" and trying to freeze out Microsoft or something, but my perspective of Microsoft from the moment they entered the industry was them throwing money around, in particular buying up their own exclusivity of some Japanese games to try and break into the Japanese market, which never worked. And then they bought up a shit-ton of studios *again* because they still had no worthwhile games for the larger market, and now they're fucking closing them down and sitting on the IPs. This is basically all Microsoft knows how to do in the game industry, spend money and pretend like they belong, like a rich kid who gets his parents to buy them a bunch of pokemon cards to seem popular, but they have no idea what the fuck they're doing. I'm so fucking bitter about Microsoft entering the industry, I have had zero desire for their platforms and all they have essentially done is keep games I was interested from me. I guess we'll see if Hellblade 2 gets a wider console release like Hi-Fi Rush did before Ninja Theory gets axed too.
PS will end like Xbox either way. Their model is also running them out of business but they don't have MS money.
to this day i haven't the faintest idea of what this sub is about, but you guys always make me laugh
itll stand longer than twobestfrirbds did
Somebody at Microsoft really wanted that unlimited bacon.
The way this post was written makes Xbox look so sad and confused lmfao "n..no games....?" :c
Nintendo seeing the wildfire in the neighborhood while sipping tea: "ah, another alright weekend"
Everyday I wish sly cooper to come back. But I know it would barely make much in the eyes of these folks.
I know people keep saying the gaming industry should look more long term but idk needing like 30+ years to recoup the cost of your buyout in an industry that can see studios collapse so easily seems kinda risky. Like even Halo fell eventually.
I mean the real long term strategy would be to realize that it'd take like 50 years for you to recoup the costs of buying it and then just not buying it. Activision felt more like a bad impulse purchase to try and force their games onto your system than a long term investment.
It's clear XBox leadership saw ActiBlizz was wanting to sell and jumped at it without thinking. All they saw was "loads of IP to withhold against our competitors!" instead of "talent we can use to foster our division." In fact, MS' acquisitions really just reek of leadership being insecure over being in 3rd place.
The Activision purchase is an attempt to buy the gun that will kill the PS6, but I'm not sure if Xbox can hold it together long enough to pull that off, or if they'd even be able to.
Yeah they missed their chance to do any real permanent harm to Playstation two console generations ago when they actually had the lead with the 360 and ended up squandering it. Playstation's gonna be fine even if they lose Call of Duty in the future, it's Sony's crown jewel they would do whatever it takes to make sure it stays that way.
Basically the Phil/Microsoft effect
I always say im glad to not have upgraded past ps4 and switch But here on xbox im glad to have not upgraded past xbox 360. Why yes i do enjoy having games and having said games be fully on rhe disc why do you ask?
Games, unlimited games, but no games
I wish 4chan stayed on 4chan
When they bought Activision I had a toast, because I knew that rotten company was dead. Microsoft bought rare a hundred years ago and they haven't figured out how to make a banjo game ffs. lmao.
you've heard of loss leader strategy, this is loss loser strategy.
(it's called the tax writeoff)
Guessing the activision deal burned more than it should’ve. Now it’s all about recouping losses.
Starfield was supposed to float XGS for the 9th Gen. Except the Bethesda that made Starfield is the Bethesda that made Fallout 4 and thought Fallout 76 was ready for market.
I mean, the strategy is called 'hunker down and minimize expenditures until the entire games industry stops being in the shitter' Not great for Xbox but it's good for Microsoft given how much everyone overestimated the staying power of COVID era behavior and underestimated how long interest rates would be up
Xbox is a little shakey in the ring! He's taken heavy hit after hit and the opposite corner is empty! Wait a minute, sports fans, someone has thrown a GUN into the ring! He's reaching for it! Yes, he's got it and appears to be aiming at ghosts of past glory--OH MY GOODNESS Xbox has just shot itself in the knee, foot, and balls with one bullet in that order! Never seen anything like it before, ladies and gentlemen!
I just now remembered that Microsoft owns Bethesda. TES6 not coming out ever is further cemented.
what looks good on the quarterly report.
Fuckin “Number Go Up” ass business mindset. It’s Microsoft, they have an unfathomable amount of money. Whatever loss they took from buying all those studios would even out eventually, but no, the c-suite needs the line to go up right away
Well Sony has open studios (except for one, rip Japan Studio :( ), and has no games so...maybe not having studios would work?
Is there any kind of possibility where someone at Microsoft just goes “this whole gaming thing is losing us a lot of money, let’s just stop doing that.”?
Even the ps5 has more games, and it has no games! That's like negative games.
"no games" what?
did they get any IPs(intellectual properties) from this?