I think it’s difficult to pinpoint it directly to Brexit but a combination of events including our own governments failings.
I don’t think it helps that many of the benefits we were promised by UK government as a result of Brexit were a complete fabrication (for example the extra £350 million a week to healthcare was a lie) and the remainder have been negotiated extremely poorly and and therefore are no longer benefits. The UK government were unfortunately fu**ing up before Brexit and I’m sure they will continue for years to come. All of our public services (or services which should be public) have been sold off to highest bid in the private sector pushing up prices everywhere.
In summary it likely has had a negative impact, however I think our government is the bigger issue.
Brexit put them in a situation where they needed to play their cards perfectly to improve over what they had in the EU. They played them terribly and got booty blasted by Covid to make things worse
I see Pentiment is already on sale on the eshop. I assume it didn’t do that well on the Switch to be on sale this quickly, but hopefully people try it out for this price
I listened to the clip and I’m not really sure what it means. Nobody is doubting Microsoft’s commitment to gaming, or their commitment to hardware in the immediate future. People are doubting the need to even own an Xbox going forward if Microsoft continues to port their games onto other platforms. I understand Rare needed another revenue stream and I don’t blame them for it, they’ve pretty much squeezed every last drop out of their existing player base. That said, having brand new critically acclaimed 1st party IP’s like Hi-Fi Rush being treated like glorified timed exclusives is not a good look, especially since we had to wait a year for Deathloop and Ghostwire. If they do intend to keep bringing 1st party games to other platforms Xbox console sales will continue to decline month over month, and then in 2030 who’s to say Microsoft won’t change their mind about the need for hardware then?
Sorry long reply here but I think you need to apply context.
In think the context here is that they perceive the industry is changing and therefore (in their view) this new strategy would set them up for a future where they have the leg up over the competition (so to speak) for decades to come.
It will also allow them to continue producing hardware during this period, which people will actually want to buy.
They see a new generation of customers (Gen-Z) who are not interested in closed hardware ecosystems such as Xbox, Playstation and Nintendo, therefore continuing to do this is setting themselves up to eventually fail as the hardware sales will keep declining.
I even see this with my nephews, being a good uncle they both had Xbox’s as kids but now as teens they are not interested in consoles at all, they are only interested in PC and Phones where they can play with all their mates. My own kids are only really interested in playing on their phones and my eldest just asked for a laptop.
If they jump ahead of the trend and make good hardware and software where you can play all your games, people will flock to their hardware rather than the other closed ecosystems.
Having ‘Xbox’ branding all over this and Xbox all over the UI would likely influence people to use their store (especially if the Xbox store takes preference in the UI).
If regulators eventually force this (just like Apple & Google on mobile) then they will have the head start and we know the early bird always gets the worm. Once there’s a leader it’s very difficult to de-thrown them which we’ve seen with Xbox & Playstation for years.
You make great points. However Xbox sales are already declining all over the world yet Xbox console gamers are playing on Xbox more than any other time in the history of Xbox . I guess they will address their strategy and not subsidize their hardware and make the customers pay more for it. It also seems that all the Xbox Game Studios need to be profitable going forward. I don’t know why Rare doesn’t make more smaller games you can’t just rely on Sea of Thieves and Everwild.
Well said. Phil did mention they are profitable now in the Polygon article but the thing they want is to expand the market. As the market is now it’s not strong enough to support the industry. However, opening up the walled gardens could bring about an explosion of business give Epic games and Xbox a leg to compete with steam maybe bring about custom hardware from manufacturers in regions Xbox aren’t in.
With all this just how is Sony holding on. None of their first party exclusive has broken or sold over 10 million copies on PS5 except Spiderman 2 and it had bundles. Also, very few third-party games have reached that number without having to be crossgen. With Sony saying 50 million sold, I do wonder just how many are sitting on store shelves.
To be fair, more than half of Conservative Mps (including the Prime Minister, David Cameron who resigned when the result came in) backed remain. 95% of Labour MPs backed Remain.
Plenty of the claims of the leave campaign, including the 350m for the NHS were being debunked well in advance of the vote.
That is true, although once information is out it’s out. Many people get their information from social media which is not fact checked and many can’t be bothered to look up the information for themselves.
The amount of lies and general nonsense that was spreading around during Brexit and the general election was ridiculous!
For example love him or hate him the social media hate campaign against Jeremy Corbyn prevented any chance of Labour ever winning. I even remember my cousin posting one of the many fake Corbyn IRA funeral images (which both looked and was confirmed to be fake), many of my family members even commented saying it was disgusting so they can’t vote for him .
I personally liked many of the policies he suggested such as nationalising railways (like much of Europe) and broadband.
I think a big proportion of the people who wanted to vote out were members of the public who felt like they were lied to when we originally opted into the EU (it was portrayed by the media as just a trade deal, rather than complying with the wider EU requirements).
Those and anyone with anti-immigration views despite much of what they know about immigration being completely false (again mostly fake social media information).
It’s not that hot. I think this gen will be more like the 360/ps3 gen. I don’t see this going over 90million. The industry has been projected to shrink further next year. There needs to be a radical change and I think opening the consoles to bring in more storefronts is the best bet.
.
I personally liked many of the policies he suggested such as nationalising railways (like much of Europe) and broadband.