Xbox digging it heals into single platform strategy and putting the fate of the entire division to monthly Single hardware sales?
Or Xbox uncoupling your games/saves and services from a single point of failure (Xbox Hardware) and allowing you to play the Xbox Eco system on any device you want and thus feeing up the money you have spent over the decades to ensure a much longer life cycle where you still have access to all the games and services you have previously purchased?
Cause those were the choices since gamers and the gaming media fell subject to Sonyâs narrative and the fact Sonyâs sells based on brand loyalty alone.
For most of this gen Xbox has had the better hardware, better services, better 1st party games and better overall eco system. But because of brand loyatly to Sony it did not make a bit of difference.
So do you want Xbox to be stubborn and go down like Sega? Or do you want them to pivot to not only stay alive but thrive as the world biggest game publishers that also provides itâs own 2 gaming platforms in Xbox Console Hardware and Xbox for Windows and also allows their full eco system on many many other devices? Also the Xbox OS thing will just allow Xbox to be natively on almost anything.
People need to get the fuck over the Console Exclusive bullshit, that era of gaming is over and even Sony will be pivoting away from that as we have seen.
Iâm telling you guys if you really love Xbox and value all the time and money you have put in the Eco System then their recent moves should be applauded cause it ensureâs the long term viability of all the money and time youâve already put into it.
You have to change out the hardware anyway every 5-8 years, next time around you will just have ALOT more choices as to which and where you play your games.
The problem is their is a Cottage industry that popped up with the sole intent of tearing down Xbox, (PCgamer and Starfield are a prime example) because Sony fans are fucking click happy and revel in any bad news for Xbox. That is a psychological thing that Sony have catered to over the decades and it is a lost cause to fight it.
All Xbox can do is offer better games and a better eco system and innovate where it makes sense which is what they are doing.
You canât fight decades of Gaming media narratives and Sony curating their brand into a cult.
You can understand the rational and be ok with the move. I agree the the industry is changing. But you can be critical of the implementation of it.
If you canât be objective & take a step back and see that, by putting games on PlayStation opens themselves up negative press then youâve got your head in the sand & just donât want to hear it.
It doesnât even have to be the truth, as many have said before the discussion about games isnât about the game itâs about will it come to PlayStation. Thatâs an example of a negative effect.
Iâm objectively speaking as the other day you had a day of good news with the developer direct a mystery game, jez saying it could be bigger than expected, and just 24 hours later that positive message is completely nuked by rumours of the pillars going elsewhere.
& this is where Iâd actually like a proper debate not about money which is what debate comes down to obviously they will make money doing it but in the long run does it harm the brand.
Itâs the exact reason PlayStation take their time putting games on pc and have only slowly reduced the time it takes to get to pc.
It seems like maybe they havenât decided on exactly how to move forward. The destination is clearly Xbox everywhere the implementation however has been up and down. I think probably the things like the Xbox OS or integration are just not ready and might be one thing hampering all this. I would think if they came out like Steam that the full Xbox experience with your library will go with you on every device this issue would have been mitigated.
I completely agree with MS having issues with strengthening the Xbox brand. Leakers are one thing, but the messaging outside of leakers has been inconsistent.
And thereâs a practical reason for that inconsistency, MS has been open about the fact that theyâre experimenting. In less charitable framing: they donât know what theyâre doing. As harsh as that sounds, itâs not inaccurate. Theyâre trying to find a balance here and this involves multiple aspects of their business. They risk cannibalizing certain aspects of their business so they canât go all in as a 3rd party developer. Otherwise the best plan is to put everything everywhere tomorrow.
So nevermind leakers, who are simply guessing which titles will follow MSâs plan of multiplatform releases, the entire idea of titles hitting other platforms muddies brand perception.
I realize that MS is doing something new. Something that makes business sense in terms of revenue. But the mass market doesnât understand this yet. For them itâs confusing and itâs hurting the brand. Many people think that MS is leaving the hardware business. This means less console sales and the stagnation in the growth of Game Pass.
I personally would guess that people at Xbox know exactly what they should be doing but MS execs are the ones that are confused here.
Iâd be curious about console sales despite having a fantastic 2024 line up and Game Pass wise.
I find this type of response more frustrating than anything Xbox are doing. As itâs totally reductive.
I donât particularly care I own a PlayStation and an Xbox I just find talking the industry interesting.
You can say I understand the vision, which I do and understand see where itâs going long term.
Whilst also saying in the short term medium term theyâve left themselves open to negative PR that can hurt their brand.
Unless Xbox can find a way to market game pass to mainstream with all these new games highlighted showing the better VALUE proposition that it brings compared to having to buy them on PlayStation then their message will forever get lost in the negativity that surrounds it
They need to show more and talk less, like Nintendo and Playstation, while minimizing their missteps.
With a historic investment in ABK they probably canât stay quiet and theyâre going through a massive pivot as a gaming business that is now one of the primary growth pillars of one of the most valuable companies in the world. Itâs probably going to be messy until they can finally show off this new Xbox OS in action. If this new OS works really well then I think the media and gamers will get behind it. If Xbox steps on the rake then theyâll be rightfully blasted.
Of course it all matters, which is why Microsoft is not gaining sales in their home territory.
Microsoft is at one of their worst spot mindshare wise, which is reflected in how easy it is for positive news to turn negative. Plus, on social media the brand is damaged and itâs more about nostalgia about 360 era than current position. I am unsure if brand can recover, but damage has been done. I think porting over most of their upcoming games to other platforms is damaging their brand when talking about console space.
I donât think we can be dismissive of what this move has done to the brand. Things are always changing for Microsoft. First it was about gamepass growth. Now that itâs growth stagnated itâs now about revenue. It wonât shock me if they make more changes to gamepass due to the hole theyâre in on the console space.
Lastly, Microsoft has many cool features, but the average person doesnât know them. Itâs why if Sony were to do something similar to would get praised. Itâs also why people now want to play Microsoft games because it was never about the quality of the games itâs just that they donât want to purchase an xbox to play them. I donât think Microsoft over the years created enough incentives for people to jump to platform, which is why where we are today
I mean, some of us really see the incentives of owning an Xbox, or else we wouldnât have bought into the ecosystem. Iâm actually surprised why we donât see more people jumping in, especially at a time where inflation is kicking our collective asses and money is harder to come by than ever. The Series S with Gamepass is the best freakin value in the business. Or if you are about f2p, again a Series S is the cheapest way to start playing Roblox, Fortnite, Warzone, Genshin Impact, etc. My daughters exclusively play F2P and Minecraft and the Series S has been awesome in that regard and it works better imo than the low end PC I built for one of them a few years ago.
Like the amount of exclusives is one thing, but beyond that I have a hard time as a grown ass man understanding how one looks at both Playstation and Xbox and thinks Playstation is the better value, it does not compute! I think itâs solely about mindshare due to years of publicity and pushing the Playstation brand to the masses, which is where MS has fumbled the ball.
Either they just keep focusing on their strong markets and use the multiplat approach to sell to the rest of the world, either their Xbox/PC thing just amazes the world and changes everyoneâs lives, or the multi manufacturer approach is the right move to have region specific companies better market their ââXboxââ to each region and thatâs how MS reverses the tides.
I do somewhat agree with Jez Corden though when he says Xbox is spread too thin. I think MS feels like it needs to counterattack on every front and while they have the money to do so, they might not have all of the ressources. So their mind is in the right place I think, but the execution just isnât always there.
He shouldnât have leaked that, but still didnât Nate say even he was surprised how people reacted? Then I think the Xbox team also said they were surprised by some of the âconcernsâ floating around.
In any case, seeing how quickly some of those ports released after that leak it was just a matter of a few weeks before it would surface from Xbox. I donât think it would have played out much differently because the console warrior types would have amplified the same narrative.
Theyâre not even talking which is why leakers are taking the front. To me it seems more like using the other platforms to gain the prominence in the space.
There is a lot of potential for them, but they certainly have their work cut out for them especially with Valve now pushing Steam OS which many have observed just perform much better for games for now atleast. I think it would do them good to get behind a cohesive message that addresses the questions that seem to push this ongoing doom and gloom. I do agree that the Xbox OS could be the answer, but they need to either show it or tease it. At least give people a glimpse of the destination, so they know where they are headed, itâs clear many are jumping off or leaving because they either have no idea of the destination or have a wrong presumption of it.
Iâm telling you all most of the costumer base is not aware of the bad media coverage of Xbox and that MS cannot do anything about said media coverage as much you donât like it. The media coverage was negative before they did the pivot, it would be bad if they didnât do the pivot. It will continue to be bad as they release more games to other consoles to accomplish their business goals.
It doesnât matter because imthe media coverage wonât be the deciding reason why they succeed or not.
The series s is actually a smart idea in creating an entry console. I think the issue lies in Microsoftâs brand power where the move will get rejected. I think if Sony were to go with that approach it wouldâve worked due to brand power. Logically the series s is a good machine if you want to play F2P games with some gamepass on the side. However, the market is mixed on it and I think itâs due to marketing and brand.
I think Microsoftâs major issue is they donât know how to market their moves, which is why most have mixed results. I know they canât control rumors and leaks, but they def need to send a strong message to give consumers and idea where theyâre heading. I donât know what their plan is for their next console, but it has to be something different than their previous consoles because sales wise youâre not going to move many units with the multiplatform approach. Plus, they have to account for losing consumers by making the move.
I think the rumor of multiple storefronts is intriguing because itâs not that easy to build a PC. If they can create a subsidized hardware that has access to steam, epic game store, and xbox store. Then thatâs a very intriguing product that might get people to stay and possibly gain some consumers due to cheap way to have a console like experience on PC. If theyâre going that route they would need to remove online paywall, and might not be that bad to do that because most MP games are F2P. i think the only eceptions are sports games because other than that itâs mainly F2P games.
Perhaps, but even then it would be taken with a grain of salt. Only seen as a possibility.
What turns this nebulous prediction into a concrete reality for a lot of people is actually seeing a multitude of Xbox games hitting the PlayStation and Switch. People are turning on their PlayStation and Switches, checking out the store, and are seeing Xbox games. It makes that âleaving the console industryâ idea way more believable and so much of use is rooted in their archaic view of the industry.
They donât understand that Xbox hardware will still be around and that these games will be on Game Pass. I think this is an easy problem to solve and I donât understand the pushback against addressing it.
I donât see the drawback in educating the mass market on their new strategy and I think ads for Multi-Platform games like Doom: The Dark Ages could spell it out nicely. âAvailable for purchase on the Switch and PS5. Available for free* on the Xbox with a Game Pass subscriptionâ.
Have we seen ads like this for any existing multiplatform title? Not sure why Xbox hasnât done so yet. It doesnât matter if itâs an older title like SoT or Hi-Fi Rush, such an ad is more about communicating the new strategy than those specific games.
I donât understand why there would be any pushback against this.
Information like this defines the brand. Seeing ads stating the same for the biggest games coming out in the next half decade people are going to clue in that the Xbox is getting preferential treatment for these games. Thatâs building a prestigious brand image.
To me itâs creating a âhaving your cake and eating it tooâ situation with this multiplatform strategy. People are currently wondering why they should buy an Xbox and this strategy spells it out.
Maybe they have this strategy in the cards, but Iâm genuinely surprised that they havenât fully expressed this yet in mass market advertising.
When things arenât spelled out like this, thatâs when people create their own narratives to explain whatâs happening. The leaker situation sucks but they didnât leak any new strategy. Theyâre referencing an existing strategy and are only speculating on what titles are part of that strategy. This would be a non-issue if Xbox already communicated to the mass market their strategy.
