I think they might be safe, but I think they def need to move on from hellblade and work on a new IP.
Why would he acknowledge the closures on twitter? Itâs easy for many here just to come out and put them on full blast without knowing or understanding anything. Too many are in their emotions.
I donât think they lied about some of this things mainly they had a change in direction which sucks but companies do it all the time.
For Game Pass I think it can only go so far. Itâs just not big enough to support the whole business right now perhaps if they were like at 60 to 100 or more million subs.
according to Jeff Grubb once Starfield didnât move Game Pass it put them in a panic mode where they had to come up with another strategy. The multiplatform approach is just an addition as it wonât get them where they want to be. They have to figure a way to make Game Pass work as it is at the core of their business and its success determines their strategy moving forward.
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They just had the time of their life with UK regulators. Iâm sure they donât want a repeat of that.
Not really all that shockingly different for us Xboxers then, except that we get Steam store. But it probably will make porting from PC even easier, I assume?
I think thatâs the intention. Current Xbox dev tools already try to make it as simple as possible, next gen is trying to get that to the next level in order to facilitate work on the developer side as well as lower costs and Iâm guessing it would also help MS push the vision of one unified store (the Play Anywhere initiative) as it wouldnât have additional cost to devs to make both the PC and Xbox SKU as they essentially be the same.
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Gamepass wonât grow if they canât move consoles because PC players opt for purchasing games on steam instead of a gamepass sub. I feel sub levels have plateaued and it will only decline with the multiplat strategy unless theyâre able to release an EA play version of gamepass on Nintendo, Playstation, and Steam.
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No subs arenât growing on PC because the sub isnât meeting them where they want to play. Players want to play PC game on Steam, Steam won the war on that platform. I would fully expect some form of partnership or deal with Valve moving forward that brings GP to Steam in some capacity in exchange for whatever store agreement they have on the next system.
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That should hopefully ensure that publishers will keep supporting Xbox overall, at the end of the day that remains my onlyâŚconcern I guess. A little.
And of course the censorship starts lol
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No way Steam would allow Microsoft to undercut launch sales. The only solution Microsoft can work with Steam is first party only that join the service 6-12 months after launch. Thatâs the only way it would be allowed on other platforms. Also, the WIndows store not being an attractive place for PC gamers is all on Microsoft for not providing a good solution
If there is no difference between a PC game and an Xbox game, there is no âsupporting Xboxâ. Developers are going to make PC ports no matter what.
I am unsure how anyone in this economy can be confident. I think we focus too much in the games in this scenario without acknowledging the state of the market and the economy. They had to make cuts, so they made the hard choice of Tango and Arkane. If they did not have to make cuts, both of those studios would still be around.
There is no evidence of a desire to shut down studios based on performance in a notmal market.
True, but I feel a studio would be safe if they hit certain metrics that theyâre looking for. Unsure what the heck Hifi Rush was measured on, but that game was set to fail what ever target they set out for it
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You have no basis to make the claim. You think console sales are super important and MS is telling you with every move they make they donât think they are. There are any number of methods they could use to make it mutually beneficial. The most obvious being taking a cut of subscriptions through steam.
It was stated during both the epic trial and if I recall the FTC stuff that Phil and Gabe Newell meet regularly. Everything that is in motion now has been in the the works for years.
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Dude stop dooming and jumping to the worst possible outcome:
- Tango COULD have been closed because core leadership left and Bethesda had to prioritize elsewhere
- Next Gen is already confirmed, so hardware isnât going anywhere
- 3rd party support is better this Gen than ever before and with a cloud and handheld play coming, it wonât make sense to miss the platform, Xbox is also paying up to make sure it doesnât happened
- Some games will go to other platforms as they have for a while (Ori, Minecraft games, Quake remasters,etc.) and that will only help revenue and funding more games that go Day One into Game Pass â Doom may be one of these franchises they plan on going everywhere
- Overall industry is in a shit storm right now (see PlayStation, 2K and EA studio closures and layoffs), but for fear of Xbox being successful, only their cuts are being discussed
- Meanwhile, their revenues have never been stronger, Microsoftâs corporate commitment to Xbox as a business lines has never been more secure in its history
- Console sales have stagnated, but theyâve eventually rebound, and Xbox is not reliant on it as much as PlayStation is
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Even if not at the studio level, individual folks canât be all that secure in this industry either. Look at the layoffs that have hit studios of all qualities.
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why would steam allow gamepass in itâs current form on itâs service? Starfield had a peak concurrent at 330k, so why would Steam sacrifice taking 30% cut on 330k cocurrent users playing at launch week. Thatâs a $7million cut they get for distributing a game like Starfield. Other Microsoft games have performed well at launch, so again why would Steam allow gamepass in its current form interfere with their 30% cut they get on sales?
Also you have to remember some indies, AAs, and AAAs launch on gamepass, so thereâs no way those publishers and steam want to lose out on the 30% cut they get on those titles.
Again, I think in order for gamepass to go on steam, psn, and nintendo is for it to be similar to EA Access where games join service after 6-12 months because in that way its not disruptive to the 30% cut they get on sales during launch window which is peak hype period for games
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True, tech in general is brutal and layoffs everywhere. Like I know corporation I work for had like 1000 cuts late last year
Yeah, itâs wild out there. Hope things can turn around soon. Itâs particularly bad in gaming.
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We should be good then, nice.