Technically it’s all “good enough”. They just want MORE, same reason Sony is expanding. PlayStation makes a ton of money but they don’t keep enough and want growth. All of these platforms are healthy for sustainability. The changes/discussions are all growth focused.
I think the trouble for the industry is that games are talking too long to make and taking so many staff to make a single title.
I’m all for more people having the ability to play Xbox but I think there are a lot of people out there with no interest in gaming be that from Xbox, Sony or Nintendo and they’re happy with social media and the likes of Tik Tok for their social time.
I think the industry needs to get game development back to 3 years and for teams to work on more than one project at a time ; I admire the Yakuza team for this and also fair play to Obsidian for being able to work on multiple projects at the same time including being able to release two AAA RPGs in the same year
I don’t think you just grow your way out of the issues of how long and how much money it takes to make games but I could be wrong of course
Pulling Windows Phone didn’t “allow” Android to become the dominant OS. Microsoft pulled out because Android/iOS were the dominant platforms, for years.
And Google bought Android in 2005, when smartphones (as we know them) didn’t even exist.
Some major revisionism here across the board
Windows phone was verifiably a Ballmer blunder, but facts don’t matter to most in 2024 anymore.
Watched this sometime ago really enlightening. In some ways this addresses the current situation. The need to understand the market and move accordingly.
Sorry, but I just stated the facts, as far as I could verify them. Which part is “major revisionism?”
We had Smartphone before the i-Phone not that I really want to go down the rabbit hole of what defines a smart phone
All I will say it was becoming clear that devices were getting smaller and looking to be able to handle various different tasks and that should have been where MS struck gold, but it allowed Google to get in there . Still all big tech firms make mistakes and bad calls not least Google
It’s a shame too I only had a Windows phone through my old employer, but they were really good with a slick interface and the best camera around at the time imo. I love my work unit
Apologies, tagged on to yours as a agreement and addendum; yours wasn’t the revisionism
Yeah but if we’re to look at it, Microsoft lost because they continued in the traditional way with business as usual while apple came with a disruptive strategy. That would be more like Xbox staying the traditional way while Valve ends up taking everything. Looking at it another way if Xbox is releasing all this games multiplat and doing the marketing, it could seriously push a lot to their platform maybe not consoles but the PC or streaming. In which case temporarily Sony could make money but in the long run lose customers.
Honestly, am more concerned in another direction: How will Xbox incentivize current users of console to migrate towards the next one without much fuss or fear of their library being gone for good? The latter is a dumb question cause i think Play Anywhere is the endgame plan, at least Sega and Square seem to think so alongside indie publishers like Chucklefish and No more Robots,Like most won’t really bat an eye at first i believe but i do wonder what kind of incentives they would NEED in order to gain customers within that line of sight in a supposed on Exclusive lineup.
Exclusives are fine but I think it plays more in the console space than the overall space. On PC this year there has been over 18000 games released and with that number being exclusive is a death sentence as you’re looking to give your game has much visibility as possible. Like someone said Xbox going hybrid will still have lots of exclusives be it they may all be PC focused from publishers like Blizzard. Then there are thousands of games on PC that don’t come to consoles. There is evenly the likelihood that if Xbox gets enough of an audience with their next platform they may choose not to port the games over just like Steam ported some games to console but these days they don’t. Counterstrike 2 is not on consoles and Deadlock doesn’t seem to be headed for consoles. As for Migration I think the Xbox OS could play a big part there and of course Play Anywhere. The current Xbox OS there I say is the best for gaming and supports features like Quick Resume and Play Anywhere which I think are huge for today’s audience also I think if Xbox gets a lot of partners like Samsung, LG, Lenovo, Asus and so on to build their own hybrid Xbox/PC consoles this OEM partners could leverage their relationship with their audience in selling and boosting Xbox also they could demand Xbox games stay on Xbox OS to avoid competition from Sony and Nintendo as a way of Xbox giving them a leg in the market. If anything, I think execution will be what matters most for Xbox. I think they could redefine or maybe even reset the gaming industry if they play their cards right.
To your thought I’d say the best way I think they can keep existing gamers is with great content and with embracing PC and bringing in PC exclusives like WOW and other Blizzard IPs and other RIOT IPs. Infact by going PC they will be able to give all publishers and developers a chance to have their PC only titles which would be exclusive to PC but playable on Xbox NextGen platform.
The traditional way of thinking was, what cost MS? I feel back then, they no doubt felt you still needed a PC with Windows.
Now with a tablet and a mobile, you don’t need a PC at all and almost all phones and tablets are powered by Android when it could have been Windows, especially for tablets.
I think the big issue isn’t getting your tech on every screen its more that a lot of people don’t want to play console/PC-style games they rather Tik Tok
Yeah you’re confused here. I’m not talking about Sony at all.
I’m talking about Xbox Game Studios marketing their PC offerings.
Xbox is going to become a gaming eco system where your games/saves etc go with you and you play them on whatever hardware you want to.
It’s a pretty simple concept, it’s actually the console exclusive business model that is an odd ball here where the natural course would be just buy your games and play them wherever you want to.
Nintendo had to pivot to stay afloat now Xbox will be pivoting, Sony has strong armed the industry for decades and unless you want everyone to end up like Sega and Sony to be the only higher end console related choice the other players in the industry will need to pivot and that’s what they are doing.
Eventually Sony will be the only player left practicing this old business model celebrating a hollow victory no one else really cares about, much like how Sony won the Blu-Ray VS HD-DVD war, nowadays that is also irreverent.
I believe Sony is fully aware they will need to evolve with the times to get to more players. That Insomniac leak was pretty telling that they’re comparing their infrastructure to Microsoft’s.
And it makes sense. As a growing entertainment company, Sony locking down its content to specific devices is the exact opposite of what all the other entertainment companies are doing to get on as many screens as possible.
Playstation has already taken steps to release on PC and update the PS Portal for cloud streaming. I believe Sony is positioning their teams to take even more steps to breaking out beyond the console. Earlier this year the COO separated the roles of Platform (Platform/Hardware/OS/Store) and Content (Studios). On the surface, it’s not dissimilar to what Xbox did in dividing things up between Bond and Booty.
I have no doubts whatsoever that we will eventually see some experiments in terms of day one SP releases on PC and PS Portal cloud-streaming. I also wouldn’t be surprised if they bring back a Playstation app for cloud streaming to PC and/or TVs eventually. They will gauge the effect on the buying habits of Playstation users and if in large they observe a net gain in players (i.e. more wallets), without being materially detrimental to spending habits, then they’ll do even more of it.
You said there’s nothing that SONY or Nintendo can do. Well if SONY look to use STEAM far more that could take away from Xbox sales on the platform.
There are 20000 games that released on steam this year, an extra two or three will change nothing
If Grand Turismo was day 1 on the PC that could take away from Forza’s day 1 sales and that’s one example of a possible future of SONY and Nintendo going all in on PC and being day 1 like XBox.
There are dozens of big car racing games on PC already. One more is a drop in the bucket.