Woopah
Member
He's not wrong. As a whole year, 2024 will be more pivotal for Xbox than it will for the Sony or Nintendo.
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Circana (NPD) November 2023: #1 COD MWIII #2 Spider-Man 2 #3 Hogwarts Legacy; PS5 #1 Units + Revenue, XBS #2 Units + Revenue
- Thread starter Thick Thighs Save Lives
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He's not wrong. As a whole year, 2024 will be more pivotal for Xbox than it will for the Sony or Nintendo.
yazenov
Member
Saw this on resetera. Tweet is gone now
This guy is just stating the obvious, it's like common sense. but I don't understand how MS, a 2 trillion dollar company is clueless when it comes to selling Xboxes. I think the heads at the Xbox division are so dumb and clueless, they do not represent MS as a whole. They are an embarrassment to the parent company MS.
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yazenov
Member
Yeah, Xbox doesn't have any GOTG like Starfield next year. And they have to compete with Sony's tidal wave of 1st party and 3rd party exclusive titles and the potential PS5 pro, along the the launch of the Switch 2 and the Switch 1 price cut?
I think 2024 will be the final nail in the XBS coffin.
The parent company MS is basically leading because there's nothing competing against it on the market, and they penetrated the market so strongly that people just get their other shit from them like Cloud and such.
It's not like they are great marketers of B2B. It's because that's all there is. Everything else they tried failed miserably (like their smartphones).
Dick Jones
Gold Member
I was mocking his phrasing. He was confirming 2024 was in fact a year
poppabk
Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
MS as a company sucks at selling hardware - they have only ever done it as a response to someone else's hardware and have been universally terrible at it. The 360 was their most 'succesful' in terms of sales but was likely their least succesful finicially due to the RROD costs. It's why they are pushing for a paradigm shift that we all know is coming eventually but they are trying to accelerate the process.
Woopah
Member
Gotcha
demigod
Member
All time what? The hell is this clown talking about?
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Woopah
Member
He means it's a very important year for Xbox, as they need to turn around their poor performance from 2023.
twilo99
Member
The parent company competes with multiple companies on multiple fronts.
Who do they compete with on the OS front? or the Office suit front?
They competition on server and cloud services from mostly Amazon, but they build their brand through the upper two.
Mibu no ookami
Demoted Member® Pro™
They had no games for the Holidays. They were banking on Starfield but the game failed.
They had no choice but to cut prices as to not fall even further behind Sony.
I think a lot of people need to recognize that sometimes in life you only have bad options at certain points and you have to select the lesser of the two.
The problem now as has been discussed is that their sales weren’t able to achieve what they hoped for December and now you’ve created a new problem.
The obvious choice is to keep the price low.
StealthGoblin
Banned
Yes. Then you have a cultivated userbase that is very price sensitive. Throw in Gamepass and you've then got people who'll buy your console at a huge loss to the company and they then be much more unlikely to spend on software.
Very bad place to be in when you want to launch a new platform in future.
Meanwhile Sony have positioned themselves as the premium brand and are setting sales records even though they've increased the price of the console, the price of their subscriptions (Xbox eating a price rise here also tells you about the price sensitivity of their userbase and the churn) and have had comparatively lighter years for software than is usual for them.
They've dug their own grave and won't be able to get out of it.
In Europe the Xbox is seen as a budget but console but it is by far the most premium build..that's not sustainable.
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Mibu no ookami
Demoted Member® Pro™
2024 will be an existential year for Xbox.
Microsoft can financially prop up the Xbox for the rest of time but they can’t force the industry to keep Xbox relevant.
I just can’t imagine that changing in the future. Another console isn’t going to change that.
Microsoft can financially prop up the Xbox for the rest of time but they can’t force the industry to keep Xbox relevant.
I just can’t imagine that changing in the future. Another console isn’t going to change that.
LordCBH
Member
The only way they can turn it around is by doing something they haven’t done since the first 3 years of the 360 life: focus on games. They have a wealth of great IP’s they do absolutely nothing with. Would all of them move systems? No, but they create a good value proposition for people looking to buy in.
StealthGoblin
Banned
The whispers are that they've actually internally pivoted to a multiplatform development manta for a lot of games. Games that were greenlit as Xbox only are now getting ports factored into their development and older games are being ported too. Lots of talk of this around and generally there is no smoke without fire. That to me is a huge concession in the console space.
I think becoming the largest third party publisher by far is the route to success for them. Trying to compete with Sony and Nintendo is a matter of pride for them but they've now failed four times.
Mibu no ookami
Demoted Member® Pro™
That they haven’t been able to significantly increase their sales despite the heavy discounting is alarming.
Ultimately it means people just don’t want an Xbox. There’s little fixing that.
As far as competition goes it means the demand for ps5 is significantly higher than Xbox to the point where someone will rather spend 150 dollars more to get a comparable device.
To break through that… will take more than a handful of games, additional discounting, marketing, etc.
I don’t get the sense that Microsoft is quite ready to discontinue the Xbox but I also don’t see any path forward either.
LordCBH
Member
I don’t necessarily think your wrong, I’m just sad it’s gotta be this way thanks to them running it into the ground.
Mibu no ookami
Demoted Member® Pro™
As soon as any major game from a non acquired publisher is announced for ps5 the Xbox community will implode.
StealthGoblin
Banned
Phil made the call for all Bethesda games moving forward to be exclusive. That's one to watch.
We've also got this weird situation with blade going on. If that was exclusive they'd have shouted from the rooftops about it.
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adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Hey I've seen this one before ..
LordCBH
Member
To be fair, just mention PS5 in a post that’s 100% unrelated to the Xbox and the Xbox community implodes on some sites.
Mibu no ookami
Demoted Member® Pro™
Blade will get a pass.
Elders scrolls could too.
But if fable, gears, halo, sea of stars etc any of the Xbox studios games it’ll be a problem
Nonehxc
Member
Thirty7ven
Banned
They are not clueless, they are desperate. What else can they do? The market is rejecting the product.
Retards on youtube will try to convince the rest console sales dont matter, but they matter a whole lot.
StealthGoblin
Banned
Then I think there'll be a problem. The people I've spoken to say that the initiative (not the developer!) isn't limited to ABK and Bethesda..I'll wait and see on that, but it does make sense. Why would you deliberately leave platforms that almost always hit 100m plus in sales (PlayStation and Nintendo) when you've invested getting on to 100bn in studios, publishers and content? Particularly when those userbases have proved time and time again that they buy a ton of software?
Being stuck on boxes that struggle to hit 50m isn't wise. PC alleviates some of that, but with the PS5 marching ever on and the Switch 3
2 much more capable to run a wider range of 3rd party games...
Pelta88
Member
Sounds like the evolution of "Wait Till..."
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poppabk
Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
Short term I can see them supporting those platforms but sooner or later the 'support' will be in the form of a gamepass subscription.
StealthGoblin
Banned
They'll be shit out of luck with that. Sony plan to eat more of their lunch in that regard. They'll compete for subs and I suspect the next Xbox will be premium and enthusiast focused.
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Woopah
Member
Welfare's point is that MS can't wait, they need to start turning Xbox around in 2024.
Mr Moose
Member
It's over for Xbox https://www.playstation.com/en-gb/games/sea-of-stars/
Did you mean Sea of Thieves?
Mibu no ookami
Demoted Member® Pro™
I meant sea of thieves
Mibu no ookami
Demoted Member® Pro™
They needed to turn things around last year. It’s too late now.
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poppabk
Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
Honestly I question if they do need to turn things around. If selling an Xbox costs them money, they may be better off just hunkering down and letting gamepass subs drive their revenue along with CoD. They still have a big PC market that is only partially tapped, and even a sizable untapped existing xbox market. Starfield also obviously did pretty well sales wise on PC even with gamepass existing. Of course we don't know their financials well enough to know if this is feasible but it does seem that selling physical xboxes is a lost cause.
Tiago Rodrigues
Member
There's no way Xbox Series will have a better year next year than this one. Not with Sony releasing a PS5 Pro and Nintendo releasing Switch 2.
Playstation literally starts the year with a quarter that has Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Helldivers 2, Rise of the Ronin and TLOU2 Remastered...that's just in 3 months.
Sony will probably have the first price reduction next year once the Pro is released as well...once that happens (in September supposedly) good luck to MS to share the console market with a strong Playstation and a new Nintendo console. People won't even remember they exist.
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Thirty7ven
Banned
It’s really not cool that you are here writing about this stuff like you have actual access.
If you can’t get your shit verified by mods, don’t come over here writing fan fiction as facts.
I do believe it’s a possibility, and MS wasn’t expecting Xbox console to go on the trajectory it’s in, not after being so confident during pre launch and launch year.
But speculating is one thing that we all do, you are actually trying to act like a legit source of information.
StealthGoblin
Banned
I've never said that all. I've even said I'll believe it when I see it.
Go after the other users who've claimed to have worked on the ports and those who stuck their necks out and said they know for certain.
I think you need to read what I write more closely.
If you can't tell the difference between me restating what other users (and even some verified sources of info) have said and me stating it as fact - even though I've qualified my statements then that's on you.
It's gonna be a wild ride.
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adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Good luck. I spent more than a few posts asking him for a single source or citation to back anything he was saying in another topic (I think it was another budgets related one) and his response was to say that he'll put me on ignore rather than answer any questions
DrFigs
Member
The ps5 also had some pretty good deals, right w/ bundles? Obviously the series x isn't doing great. But it's typical to have a price cut by the 3rd or even 2nd year - like the ps4 and xbox one had. I think what's really crazy is having the consoles being the same prices they were going into their 4th year.
I know people have replied to me giving reasons why it's not so easy to drop the price on the ps5 and xbox, but consumer expectations vs what companies are willing to do aren't always aligned.
I know people have replied to me giving reasons why it's not so easy to drop the price on the ps5 and xbox, but consumer expectations vs what companies are willing to do aren't always aligned.
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Mibu no ookami
Demoted Member® Pro™
The cost of selling hardware is their biggest driver of revenue.
The brand and gamepass implodes without a console.
Tiago Rodrigues
Member
That's the weird thing. A Marvel IP such as this one wasn't announced as exclusive and it's weird.
Maybe MS is getting to the point where having console exclusive games isn't the way to go. I mean...if something like Spider-Man 2 is more expensive than 300M...imagine if all AAA games MS is working on is that way. Selling all of those games through a subsctiption service and PC alone could kill these games...having 100M extra users on PS5 would be amazing for them. It's clear people won't leave their homes to buy an Xbox console.
Tiago Rodrigues
Member
PS5 is actually more expensive now than it was on 2020, lmao.
StealthGoblin
Banned
Even something like Starfield would have value when ported now. It's given Xbox whatever shot in the arm it was capable of and boosted gamepass by an amount, but surely taking in hundreds of million from PlayStation and a beefier switch 2 makes financial sense.
It's not a game I want, but I don't think the economics are arguable when console sales are on a downward trajectory.
Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
I disagree. I think 2023 was the most pivotal year. It just didn't turn out to be one for Xbox.
2024 will not have any hope of resurgence whatsoever. 2023 had that.
demigod
Member
2023 was the turn around year, it failed miserably. They had Diablo 4 marketing and Starfield. There is nothing that will save it in 2024.
thismeinteil
Member
How long do you guys think MS is going to absorb all those Xbox losses? Forever?
MS is definitely stubborn when it comes to continually pushing failing HW, I'll give you that. Zune and Windows Phone were basically DOA, but MS pumped billions into them for years. Of course, the lesson remains, they still have a limit.
When it comes to Xbox, because of Sony's missteps with the PS3, the 360 was able to see success. This made MS believe they had a shot at taking over the gaming industry at large. A false notion, because instead of realizing that it was Sony's mistakes that allowed them their success, they thought it was their early start and having more powerful hardware, at least seemingly at the start. Notice how I didn't say it was because of good games, because obviously that's not the lesson MS took from it.
Anyway, the success of the 360 prolonged the Xbox's HW days. Then, after the failure of the XBO, where many of its sales were due to constant fire sales (hmm, is history repeating), MS was thinking about spinning off the Xbox brand to either die of its own weight or be bought. Even Bill Gates said he was fine with this move. Because of leaked emails we now see why they continued.
Spencer convinced the new CEO, who was clueless about gaming and had a background in Cloud, of a pincer move on PS5. Have not only the cheapest, which also meant weakest, console (anchor), but also have the most powerful console, at least on paper, while also investing heavily in Cloud gaming. They could win HW and Cloud gaming in one gen. Unfortunately for them, it didn't work out. Mainly because they were competing with a competent Sony still, but also because they were pumping out mid games for most of last gen and have continued to do so.
You can say Xbox HW isn't going away, but we have emails stating that if they don't reach a certain threshold by 2027, they are done with HW. I highly doubt that date has changed. What has changed is that at first they were going to be done after this gen. However, if rumors are true, it seems Spencer has convinced the CEO to give it one more shot using the "360 strategy," as in launch 1-2 years early. Of course, that's only a small part of the strategy. They're missing an incompetent Sony and more powerful HW, as the PS6 will 100% be more powerful launching 1-2 years later. And while MS hasn't learned this lesson, they still struggle with good games.
Thirty7ven
Banned
It’s clear as day from game release schedules to hardware production capacity that 2023 was the year. 1TB Black Series S included.
They don’t have anything bigger than 23 in the pipeline for the console. Third year into this generation’s gamepass offerings, Redfall/Forza/Starfield, massive discounts, the Xbox showcase. People forget some of the biggest games of the generation launched this year too, like Hogwarts Legacy, Jedi Survivor, Baldurs Gate 3, Diablo 4 etc
And now they had to cut the price of the console, and I say cut not discount because it’s no longer labeled as discounted on local stores. 389.99€ for Series X and 249.99€ for Series S are now presented as normal prices, not discounted. Surely it moved some units compared to the previous prices, but that’s a really big price cut. That’s a 140-150€ price cut on the Series X from just a month ago? And they are producing this hardware on the exact same node, they must be taking a bath.
So now they are going to ride 24 on a price cut, probably try to create yet another hype cycle with an Xbox showcase, because the hype from the recent one is already dead, and hope to god having marketing rights for Call of Duty 34 is going to do what all the Xbox fans think it will do.
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demigod
Member
PS5 most likely won December. I have not seen any discounts near xsx levels in the States.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
This part of the discussion is irrelevant though. They can pull the plug tomorrow, they could have (and were close to) pull the plug a decade ago.
It's not about 'eating the loss', clearly Microsoft as a company is in no financial troubles and Satya is happy enough to sign off massive double digit billion dollar checks for the endeavor.
The whole "X year is the most detrimental factor for Xbox's existence" talking point is already a decade old now. It is not an immediate concern/factor for them.
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