opportunity here would be a publisher, right now they are in testing phase with some studios and see if things work with them.
Try 30-40 years. 20 years ago cellphones were perfectly affordable, and not that big. I wouldn’t even categorize my 26 year old 1995 Ericsson GA388 as overly large (or expensive) but my 2002 Motorola C333 is the smallest phone I’ve ever owned. Both were good phones, (particularly the Ericsson) even if they were relatively featureless compared with today’s pocket sized super computers.
That said, I agree with your overall point. In fact, Microsoft has a history of being too early to market (tablets, and the Xbox One as an all-in-one entertainment unit being two examples that come to mind) only to be left behind when the technology and/or consumers caught up with their aspirations.
So yeah, I definitely agree that they should keep an eye on the VR arena, maybe do some R&D, but not release anything until later, if and when the market and tech is ready.
The vast majority of Windows 10 activations on PC’s will not be via PC gamers.
It’ll be businesses, laptop owners etc.
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They shouldn’t, their current pipeline is still vastly insufficient to feed properly GP (or we wouldn’t have entire months of 0 1st party releases each year) and we see indie/3rd party deals are nowhere near the same scale of 1st party games, as of now. As I suspected, Sony and their allies among publishers are pushing against it, MS position at the end of last gen was weaker than I suspected. Now it’s on them, through acquisitions and deals, even if some “are not worth it” (the mantra for everything japanese you read here) for beancounters in the near term.
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IMO the reason why EA and Take Two are not under consideration is because… they’re so high value cap and platform agnostic that no one can afford to buy them except for Microsoft, this means their will never have to worry about the competition possibly buying them. Instead, MS and these two make Gamepass deals for a very tiny fraction of cost, and neither do exclusivity deals.
We already know they aren’t satisfied with their current IP and studio situation and they’re looking to add content inorganically. Matt Booty and Phil Spencer and Satya Nadella have told us that.
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Xbo Games Studios and their 2nd party contracted partners have roughly 40 games in development at the minute to release over the next 5 years most likely. Eight, games a year, give or take.
Add on games like Stalker 2 that will be developed by 3rd party devs but added to Gamepass when they release.
You then have EA games that come to EA play after 6-12 months that are no added cost… Mass Effect Legacy remake is rumoured soon.
Are you seriously saying that Microsoft haven’t got enough studios under their belt at the minute to feed gamepass?
The reason it looks bare from XGS over the next 6 months is because it takes 3-5 years to make AAA games now… the first of those games will land this summer with Redfall, Deathloop and end the year with Starfield… Forza Motorsport may well land as well.
Crossfire X, Scorn, Ark 2, Warhammer Darktide will also be added.
Gamepass will be fine…
I agree with what Nick said on Colt’s show the other day. He sees Microsoft acquiring Crystal Dynamics from Square Enix along with the Tomb Raider IP. Also, I like his idea of merging The Initiative with CD and simply dropping The Initiative name and just going with Crystal Dynamics which is exactly what I would do as well. They have three studios in three different locations so the main one which I believe is in California where The Initiative is based can be the main primary studio with the other two being secondary.
Really hoping this happens in 2022!! Would be such a great move for both Microsoft and SE since they don’t give a shit about their western studios whatsoever.
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Gamepass doesn’t have enough to attract the user base that they want and feed that user base. They have a ton of ambition and realistically the game per quarter is a drastic understatement that meets their current user base. They’ll ultimately need a game per month of very diverse content to get and sustain 150 million + users.
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Get Crystal Dynamics, IOI, and Eidos and have them operate closely together with The Initiative as a sub-group of studios within XGS
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They have enough in the pipeline for the next 5 years to continue too grow Gamepass. There is no way Microsoft will hit 150m plus, subscribers by 2026… if they are adding 10m subs a year they will be delighted.
They’ll have a 10 year plan for gamepass from it’s inception to be cemented as the industry leader…then they will go for the jugular with games like Elder Scrolls 6 and whatever acquisitions they have in the future.
If they are putting 8 games a year out from 2023 plus any deals they sign with 3rd parties to bulk out any lean months, then they will be in a completely healthy position.
10m subs a year would be fine if you were primarily reliant on console base for growth. They are going to need (and are likely counting on) streaming to take off to really accelerate that.
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They’re definitely hoping for more than 10 million subs per year. They’d probably be happy with that this year, but they’re looking for 40%+ growth rates. That what Satya’s goals are set at for gamepass. That means within the next 5 years they’ll be looking to add 20 miilion per year.
When the chip shortage is alleviated… they’ll be selling consoles by the bucketload. They have the Xbox Live userbase already to coax over to gamepass. The future game line up will also coax Playstation gamers over to Xbox as well.
That’ll be were the streaming stick comes in. You also have an app possibly being added to TV’s.
All of that is way down the line though… no-one is picking up Halo Infinite via Xcloud and trying to compete with a Series X gamer for latency in a multiplayer game.
No let The Initiative be factory of new games IPs, i want to see new games from them and let CD Have PD with TR
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They are sitting at 37% growth rate this year…37% of the 18m subs that was declared in January works out at 6.6m new subscriptions over the last 9 months.
How about eidos?
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Yupp and they missed Satya’s performance goal.
Also I’m not sure what the subscription numbers were at the beginning of the financial year. Their fiscal year also runs from July to June, so the number that was reported in January is old and not a good barometer. 2ere unfortunately in a wait to see with gamepass #s.
They would be acquiring studios for down the line. The portfolio doesn’t have the breadth necessary to attract and hold the people they need to sign up if they want to see growth accelerate.