Stock price today finished up 4.21% ($323.17), not including post trading which bumped it to $323.40.
All this before a Halo Xmas, xCloud on legacy console hardware, xCloud on Smart TVs and xCloud via a streaming stick. Just a shame regarding the semi-conductor storage and the related supply issues.
I feel like a large acquisition is coming. It is just a feeling.
Because they will go aggressive on traffic acquisition for Azure. And it could mean getting into media streaming too.
I mean I doubt the stock price is influenced that much by gamingâŚ
It is interesting because clearly PlayStation is so much more critical to Sony than Xbox was to MS, but that just means Xbox is a growth opportunity. Hence why Satya jumped at the chance of embracing Xbox fully. 9% of such a massive number is not to be sniffed at and shareholders will want to see Satya grow that absolute figure now they have really started to invest in gaming.
PlayStation has always been more critical to Sony than Xbox is to MS and it is why you see Sony be so agressive when it comes to PlayStation, because if the business faulters than the rest of the company does when it is not necessarily the case with MS and possible why we have seen MS take their eye off the ball in the past.
There is indeed massive growth opportunity for Xbox hence, but the business will never become so critical to the rest of MS just due to the number of pies MS has their finger in.
It also shows that for Sony if they lost just 1% of gaming to anyone including Xbox itâs complete disaster. Whereas Xbox is not propping up MS so can take risks and adjust to the market.
The downside for Xbox is that obviously once Satya is not there itâs a risk as to what happens. But for now they are in the best position theyâve ever been.
This is weird - it would not have survived Satya, btw, had it not been for Phil. It would not have survived Ballmer too - who was much more P&L minded. Although, even Ballmer persisted with this, and many other super long term projects.
In fact the CEO has less of an effect as compared to the division leaders who were genuine risks - Myerson and Sinofsky for instance. None of them gave room for Xbox to grow, and it was always a side project for those two Windows division heads. Massive jerks. Myerson had almost dismatled the team after 2013, and they were spread out. Check the interviews of Phil about that period when he was pitching about Xbox to Satya. Removing it off the hands of Windows division and making it a legitimate independent large division has been the best and lasting thing both Satya and Phil have done.
But beyond that - donât underestimate how long they plan for, and how much they consider this business important. Any business that is over 10bn in MS is considered a successful business and worth investing in. This is purely an observational take based on years of watching them. That threshold figure used to be 1bn for any business during the Ballmer years.
And it is interesting how they are configuring all their businesses including Xbox - with Azure at the centre. Amazon coming knocking on the doors of MS for Xbox in 2015 should have been a massive wake-up call. Not just for Xbox, but for the whole of MS. .
They started massively reconfiguring everything in MS during that period. And a lot fhe results can be seen now.
Donât disagree that Phil was the key. And that more local decision making and skill obviously influence massively. But the point is Satya was persuaded after probably initially being sceptical. But a new CEO can change direction you just never know. The point is that gaming to MS is a small piece of a massive pie and that always leaves it to some extent down to the whim of the current leaders. However much Xbox grows itâs never going to be their biggest profit driver.
The point is two very heavily skeptical CEOs stuck with it despite very bad circumstances. Would playstation have done a red-ring of death replacement â highly unlikely.
What you are saying is universal of any company including Playstation.
The second point I wholly disagree â not a small piece anymore if you are a 10bn+ business.
Donât assess businesses like that â small or big. What matters is the threshold for a business to be a part of the larger vision - and Xbox fits that. Both Linkedin and Xbox are in this bucket, now of 10bn businesses and being part of a larger picture. And for good contrast, Github might make much less but is also a part of this large picture along with Dynamics365 which makes even less.
They are for now. But PS basically is Sony consumer division now. Itâs all theyâve got. MS are going to be heavier and heavier dependent on the cloud. Not saying that Xbox isnât an increasingly relevant portion but just that itâs always the reality that MS could theoretically ditch Xbox in the future whereas unless the bottom falls out of the market Sony cannot with PS.
If the bottom falls out of the market it just means Sony itself goes down with it.
Yes. If Sony lose a tiny percentage of the market to anyone itâs a disaster. But Xbox can survive those fluctuations.
You have to know that â⌠for nowâ as a phrase in any sentence is a conversation stopper. haha
You canât have a logical discussion as soon as you add that time qualifier.
I think , like I said earlier, in reality they could have ditched that during 2013 or even 2005 â where it did not even matter, and they had an ongoing crisis and it was a much much weaker business with little connects to rest of MS. 2013-14 was bad â real real bad. Not because of the business, but because of Myerson. Any business that can emerge from that has to be considered strong.
If you are looking at likelihoods â which is a much better qualitative measure â that likelihood of them abandoning this field is a very miniscule figure - today and for the immediate future. Which should give all of us good confidence.
What we both definitely agree on is - Sony has to fight for PS. That is accurate. They have almost no margins otherwise. And no choice. Even with PS they had a weak quarter (zero margin) a few months back. There is merit to the Sony selling off discussion btw, which a lot of people donât seem to realize.
you mean Sony selling off PS division ?
No - and, I did not write that in error.
ps - btw, sony without ps actually makes zero sense.
Werenât there rumors of Apple buying Sony ? I think it makes a bit sense .
Apple does not spend easily. They are more frugal than Amazon on spending large.
But interesting possibilities certainly.
what would apple PlayStation be like? exact same but twice the cost for everything? $1000 console, $140 games
Haha.
I would imagine they would function like the worst qualities of Rockstar, PS and Apple all rolled in one.
âBuy thiis remaster at 140. And the new game at 160.â
And every generation they increase the price of the Apple Playstation by 100. Marketing line - âWhy drive the Tesla, when you can sell it and purchase the Apple Playstation 12.â lol
The smartest thing Phil did with Xbox was chain it to Azure, thatâs Microsoftâs golden child and by chaining Xbox to Azure with xCloud and all the dev tools for gaming that will and is tapping into Azure is big.
I would also love to see the split between PC revenue and console that would be cool to see.