Phil Spencer says Microsoft's approach isn't about selling more consoles than Sony or Nintendo

Any thoughts on this? I understand completely and it’s something I highly agree with… Its all bout game pass… Xbox n PC is just a vehicle to get the Gamepass and xblive subs directly to u with diff choices on where to play and different entry points…

All fine with me. I’m sure console warriors out there will ridicule this and what not but I don’t care. As long as they keep investing in great new games, small, medium and big ones its A okay with me.

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I think it is worrisome, we already saw this gen a couple of devs alienating XB1 over PS4, and I would think MS would try at all costs sell more consoles to avoid the gap they had this gen. The math is simples, if they sell considerably less consoles than Sony they will also lose developer support at some extent. I’m console guy super invested in the platform, and for me his words are a bit worrisome. Also I don’t get why we didn’t get Fly Sim at release and we still can’t play Age of Empires on Xbox console, once their new mantra is play wherever you want. The other way around is flawless tho.

I’m good with it as long as we keep getting options to buy great consoles to play Xbox titles on. I prefer console over pc.

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MS need to be careful with their wording. Devaluing their console business isn’t smart, they put a lot of effort into these consoles and it shows in the final product.

Personally I think the console and service go hand in hand. The series X chip is also going to replace all the blades in the cloud right?

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Perfectly fine with me as I see Microsoft playing the long term game as they see subscriptions and services including game streaming as the future which it is while Sony stays with what they’re excellent at but will be 3-5 years behind when consoles are no longer manufactured and games are streamed via an App on your Smart TV.

I personally wouldn’t waste money on timed exclusives or content unless it’s going into Game Pass day one (like getting every Destiny 2 expansion day one in Game Pass is huge) but I would like to see Microsoft and Spencer become more aggressive in regards to studio acquisitions because if you truly want to be the Netflix of gaming (so to speak) then you’re going to need more quality exclusive content on a consistent basis and acquiring studios which eliminates the need to depend on outside sources will increase the success of that greatly.

Other than that, I don’t have any other complaints. Three more months to go!!!

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The moment Spencer took over his gameplan was to sell software and subscriptions as part of their transition to become a services company.

It started with Windows 10 releases of Xbox exclusives, Xbox Play Anywhere. Then it was Xbox Game Pass. The final step will be xCloud and the removal of the multiplayer paywall.

MS doesn’t care where you play their games, just that you’re playing them now.

Whether it’s on dedicated Xbox hardware, PC, smartphone or tablets, they just want you on game pass.

Their platform approach to the Xbox ecosystem already makes it pretty clear,they don’t care if you buy a box, they would rather you stream on xcloud, or buy games on pc/gamepass or buy a console and get gamepass.

Instead of one avenue of approaching/entering the xbox ecosystem you suddenly have 3 large points of entry to it.

All they want is as many XGP subscriptions as they can possibly get and for people to be locked into their ecosystem. The consoles will continue for many many years to come still or decades depending on how well things take off in the cloud game streaming space.

Phil has said this about 30 times now with varying forms of elaboration. I’m not sure why it keeps getting headlines/articles (no, I know why). At no point is it saying it’s fine if they sell like 10-20m consoles or no consoles at all, It’s simply saying a victory for them isn’t outselling two systems likely to sell anywhere from 80-140m on average.

If Microsoft wanted to divest from or “devalue” their console business they wouldn’t in fact be increasing the number of consoles they are making (Series X and Series S) . It’s just not the sole focus and selling their consoles isn’t a zero sum game of outselling or outdoing other systems.

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Not to single you out here, but this type of thought is what fuels the fanboy wars and constant focus on exclusives and sales. Just how many games are people realistically playing? Right now there are probably like 4,000 games available to play on the PS4 or XB1. If one console misses a few “exclusives” there is still a ton to play. But everything boils down to list wars and trying to prop up their console and damage the other one on the hope sales increase so more games come to their console when no one realistically can play them all.

Now say you are a power user and will burn through all of the games you are interested in on one console. If that is the case you definitely have enough money to buy the other console(s). Heck buy both consoles and take advantage of the different sales on each of them and it will probably pay for the cost of the console.

All that said console sales over one or the other isn’t even a big deal. If you have one console at 100+ million and another at say 75 million. It isn’t like developers are just going to ignore selling their game to 75 million users just because. I assure you MS will take the lower number there as opposed to selling 10 million consoles and Sony selling 5 million consoles.

This has been obvious for a while.

Deep down they know that they can no longer compete on a “console war” level unless they throw countless billions at it.

If they can make a tonne of money other ways then business wise that makes more sense.

The whole “console war” thing is completely made up in the first place. Just what exactly is “winning the console war”? Is it who makes the most revenue? Profit? Who sells the most hardware? Game attach rates? MAUs? Etc…

What happens when Nintendo blows away both Sony and MS in sales? Oh they don’t count their console is for casuals, kids, and soccer moms not real gamers like us. How about game sales of Minecraft, Roblox, Fortnite? Nope don’t count those aren’t real games. Call of Duty, Battlefront, or other FPS games? Nope only dudebro fratboys play those. Simulators? Racing? RTS? Nope. Forget about even considering mobile games as real games.

All this “winning” is just completely made up BS where people pick and choose whatever they feel like to further the narrative they are the winning vicariously through their plastic box.

So yeah if the measure is that Xbox has to be better than Sony is at being Sony they are never going to “win” that one.

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well, in first place, I’m sorry if you took it as fanboy fueling post or something, but was a genuine concern post of guy that is heavily invested on Xbox platform that doesn’t want to see games skipping the platform. Plus I couldn’t care less if they sell more or less than Sony (Npd wars, bump that crap) now a big gap? it is not good for Xbox, whatever argument they come up with, developers don’t like thay either. It is not a matter of who’s the best selling, but being competitive.

Xbox One is an example, it got alienated at some extent by the Ps4, not because ps4 sold more, but because it sold considerably more, among other things, of course, but it build a big enough player base to keep competitive. So, yes, watching Spencer devaluating their console business is not a good sign for me. Imo, would be a better pharasing if Spencer had said, “ok we want to reach the most number of gamers as possible, console and PC, mobile whatever and I will do everything to get us to that place”

Finally, my intent is not fuelling any fanboy crap, which I despise as well, but give my honest opinion about something that, as consumer that had in my MS account probably a couple thousands of dollars (not my country currency tho), I disagree and see with caution, instead of blindly praising how open or whatever Spencer is.

I mentioned I didn’t want to single you out so I apologize if you felt that was me calling you a fanboy or something, that wasn’t my intention. I just wanted to jump off from your train of thought.

IMO, sales based thinking is what fuels most of the fanboy crap. People are so focused on sales driving everything that it becomes their whole existence to try an influence them one way or the other. Everything becomes this fight to hype or smear games with the intention of helping or hurting sales and thus getting more games for their platform of choice. It’s just so toxic and not only hurts developers directly it hurts the quality of games with false feedback too.

Don’t worry about games skipping the platform, they are just a drop in the bucket. Things like this will happen no matter what. People just need to support good games no matter where they show up and it will benefit everyone. Take for example Cuphead. Some people see that game going elsewhere as a loss for the Xbox because they want people to be forced to buy an Xbox if they wanted to play it. That is just the wrong way to feel IMO. I see it as a big win where MS and Xbox players supported a small developer such that they can now create even more great games. Or look at the Yakuza series that used to be associated with Playstation. That was a niche game and is now branching out thanks to their support.

All you need to do is focus on supporting quality games and more quality games will follow. The sales will come as a natural evolution of that. They don’t have to be console sales mind you, they can be Gamepass subscriptions too.

That is correct, eventually the server blades will be replaced with series x components. With that upgrade alone, it is possible to have 4 instances on one blade! So that’s really cool!!

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And how are they going to sell gamepass without Xbox?

So either Xcloud is a runaway success (see Stadia taking the world by storm) or they won’t sell anything.

Selling consoles is obviously important but they have multiple ways to make money. If they only wanted to sell consoles they wouldn’t be putting their games on multiple platforms and services

You are presuming the economics pivots on console install base. That is no longer true for MS/Xbox. That’s the central flaw in all the chatter online about Xbox and its competitive ‘issues’. Folks just legit do not grasp that the lens through which they grade all these moves is no longer applicable. MS’s model is the future (not just Game Pass, but xCloud, Azure cloud-compute, machine learning too).

In my opinion, Sony will become outpaced in tech areas very quickly this gen. Without the tech edge, I don’t think Sony’s first party catalog is anywhere near as impressive as it seemed this gen. There are several MAJOR technical leaps being pioneered by MS/Xbox that Sony/PS5 are not positioned to even take part in at all. They are losing a game they don’t seem to realize they are playing yet (game streaming, cloud compute, machine learning).

I do not think ppl understand how big of a leap things like machine learning and cloud compute are. Flight Sim is a proof-of-concept turned AAA masterpiece. It’s just the start and already outclasses Sony’s output in terms of tech mastery by a longshot.

Selling consoles is archaic as a business model. The future is about cloud compute + streaming.

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They don’t need to sell more consoles than Sony or Nintendo in order to succeed. “More” consoles is a meaningless metric it could be Xbox: 15 million and PS5: 10 Million lifetime (Xbox WINS!), that abysmal overall though. Or Sony could sell 150 million and Xbox 100 million, it’s a loss in the “war” but that would be awesome sales for both.

Gamepass doesn’t need the Xbox to sell more than the PS to succeed. The attach rate for games on consoles averages out at like 10 games or less. If those are full price that means people spend $600 lifetime on games for a console. Even if we assume that is 100% digital sales that means Xbox earn $180 LIFETIME from each console owner on game sales and that is generous. A Gamepass user who spends $10 per month on GP will spend $120 PER YEAR.

I dont think they will loose developer support. As gamepass gains momentum more developers would like their game to played by a large user base.

I think Microsoft will also look to the Netflix model where they will try to produce a lot of original content for gamepass.

Microsoft is changing the way games are consumed as a whole and the No of consoles sold is not the only metric to measure success.