Microsoft Refutes Reports of Xbox Division Facing Closure Back in 2021

[Vayra86]

Game variety has nosedived.

We have an over supply of MMO's, online Shooters, GAAS, and dark soul/DMC type clones.
Under supply of platformers, puzzle, story based games, traditional RPG style games.

What do Microsoft do? they buy a game company that is primarily about shooters and GAAS. Not only did they buy it, they brought it for obscene amounts of money.

Xbox 360.

Fable games. (they closed the studio, morons)
JRPG's funded by Microsoft.
Their arcade collection, including loads of indie platformers etc.
Loads more games released per year, vs less releases with blockbuster budgets.

I brought my xbox series S so I can play 360 classics on newer CPU hardware. That says it all really. Xbox one didnt interest me at all.

Sony have a similar issue, but they have a stronger brand (at least in the UK) which seems to be carrying them, but the games library for PS5 is a joke. Both vendors carried really by backwards compat, its saved them. They wasted huge some on a fortnite clone. Idiots. Think of how many single player RPGs, platformers etc could have been out of that budget. Wouldnt surprise me if we find out one day 60% of Sony revenues during PS5 era is people buying replacements for broken controllers.

What?! No man. They are all there. Just not in AAA. Indie is where you need to look. There is so much I cant even decide what to invest real time in

 

[eidairaman1]

MS should close the Xbox division and concentrate on improving their OS and make a striped down version of Windows for gaming.

Yeah a os without xbox features what hamper the os into a stuttering game mess

 

[Darc Requiem]

What you say is true, but the world has changed and today it is no longer possible to support an exclusive video game because it costs too much to create them.
Nintendo manages to maintain exclusives because its games are made with a small budget compared to the triple A xbox and playstation, that's why we have seen exclusives disappear in recent years.

While development costs have increased significantly, AAA games still have over inflated budgets. Black Myth Wukong had a budget of 65 million dollars, The high end budget estimate for Stellar Blade is 50 million with the low end being 32 million. Sony dropped over 315million on Spiderman 2. Spiderman 1 only cost them 90 million. Horizon Forbidden West has a 212 million dollar budget while Horizon Zero Dawn had a 45 million dollar budget. The increase in budget between their sequels is insane. Which is why Sony is porting their games to PC. My question is are they paying attention to where their money's going. I can't imagine they are keeping a close eye on their spending.

 

[chrcoluk]

What?! No man. They are all there. Just not in AAA. Indie is where you need to look. There is so much I cant even decide what to invest real time in

My point was these in the past were funded or released directly by Microsoft studios, not just indie titles. The focus of the 1st party development has gone off track. Indie titles are ok, but they dont fill the void of titles like lost oddysey and fable.

 

[Vayra86]

My point was these in the past were funded or released directly by Microsoft studios, not just indie titles. The focus of the 1st party development has gone off track.

I agree, but such is the pitfall of all things mainstream. Its just a bad place to be. Move elsewhere. Even indie titles look great now.. play and run well... there is nothing setting them apart from AAA except predatory tactics and shit aftersales.

What you say is true, but the world has changed and today it is no longer possible to support an exclusive video game because it costs too much to create them.
Nintendo manages to maintain exclusives because its games are made with a small budget compared to the triple A xbox and playstation, that's why we have seen exclusives disappear in recent years.

Nonsense. There are just too many games... but the potential playerbase is immense too. The reality is you gotta make something actually worth playing. Making games became easier... where games cost more is where studios think they need to have hollywood cast and movie standards.

Indie titles are ok, but they dont fill the void of titles like lost oddysey and fable.

Perhaps... At the same time, I think some things are also just lost in time; we will also probably never get another WoW, even though I would jump in right away. Some experiences, also collective experiences, are just simply one-time affairs, only enabled by the time they happen and the possibilities of that time. Even WoW itself will never become what it used to be. People and the game and the world have evolved past it. Even the supposed return to ye olde stuff isn't quite the same, because the people aren't new in it.

Today, a 'blockbuster' game with high production standards and with a strong set of mechanics and still the nice little details and easter eggs that you would expect in the most obscure titles just doesn't happen anymore... oh wait... Baldur's Gate 3 exists Elden Ring exists. Horizon... and many more. Its not the next-gen Fable, no. But these are games that tick all the boxes just the same, don't they? And was Fable that perfect... I don't know about that.

I'm personally quite convinced that studios in their lifetime manage to create one, maybe two to three amazing titles, more often than not building on the success of the one and expanding upon it further. After that? Difficult. There are very few teams that can reinvent things well every time. More often, you just need a new team of people fresh together to get something truly new.

 

[HeadRusch1]

Back when Apple II's, Atari's and Commodores were the only PC's we really had at home, we all dreamed of a day when a 5 1/4" floppy could be popped into ANY pc and we could just game, no matter which friends house we went over.
Today the PS5 and the Series X are essentially "the same". Not Literally, but figuratively.....they offer almost nothing the other does not, even down to performance variances measured in barely double-digits and that depends on how the dev's execute the code. The PC is the common factor.

Microsoft understands this because they are a software company. Sony hates this, because they are primarily a Hardware Company. Game developers hate both because they want to make the most money possible on a successful game now that the Gaming Sheep (that's us) have become self-aware that we have the ability to say "You know what, this thing you're producing....kinda sucks" and we've stopped preordering and started protesting.

Stop Preordering Everything. Learn to appreciate what we have, and what we have had. Make the gaming industry take our wants seriously and not just churn out whatever they want and expect us to show up at the trough.

Sony releasing a $700 system that takes 30fps games and turns them into 60fps with "barely observable" increases in visual fidelity is insulting, MOSTLY because they promised (I know, I know) the PS5 would be that 60fps OMG machine.

Microsoft has, in a fit of temporary (no doubt) sobriety that none of us saw coming, said "yeah uh, we're just sticking with the hardware that is out there for right now..."........my guess is they will leverage Dell and Asus and whoever else to start turning Xbox into a "Brand" of standards that PC code bases running Windows 11 or some kind of Steam Deck/Xbox Kernel Hybrid will support natively, aka: A pc that is a game console first with an option to go Mouse/Keyboard and run WORD and so forth once you open up some widows, but the thing basically boots to an xbox/steam interface that is 100% controllable with a joypad.

Sony needs people to keep buying hardware revisions, Microsoft....just needs people to stop buying their hardware and move their gaming to WIndows because.....they own that market completely. If Sony's best games are on Windows, then the future is Sony's walled garden and handful of exclusives versus all the games that run on Windows PC's of a certain spec.

Nintendo, meanwhile, is Nintendo and for the purposes of this argument kinda just does it's own thing.

 

[AsRock]

It’s a software company, they should drop their console business and just do games.

Ever have that feeling thoug that they are trying to get all consoles and playing together so MS will have the the reason for subscription fee's like consoles do ?.

 

[Imouto]

The problem with Microsoft is that they have too much money and they think that every problem can be fixed by catapulting trucks full of it in its general direction.

They can't sustain exclusives with the sales of Series falling off a cliff and that's precisely why they are announcing more and more titles for PS5 and my best guess is that they will be among the publishers with most titles for the Switch 2 launch. Lets not forget they've been releasing absolutely everything day and date on Steam. They even phased out the Bethesda launcher and gave away Steam keys instead of Windows Store ones.

It's like they are trying to save face in the weirdest roundabout manner with a (very expensive) controlled demolition.

 

[kondamin]

Ever have that feeling thoug that they are trying to get all consoles and playing together so MS will have the the reason for subscription fee's like consoles do ?.

At the moment the big 2 are amd ryzen apus with gddr memory.
there is no technical reason for them not to be running the same software.

so yeah Microsoft just doing Gaming as a Service on pc and the console would probably better for their bottom line and be great for kids

 

[Chrispy_]

Certainly no decent games have come from Activision, Blizzard, or King for a long time before Microsoft bought them.

Those names are associated with successful games 15 years ago, but clearly corporate greed pushed all the talent away and all that is left is a high-churn rate of new staff trying to get a big AAA studio on their CV so that they can get out of the oppressive sweatshop and work somewhere making actually new IP for a company that doesn't try to satisfy shareholder dividends above making a quality product that ensures the studio has a future.

 

[kapone32]

The PC is the Master Race. Consoles are as close to PC today as Atari. The narrative still holds true but is even more nuanced, Has anyone seen the cost of new Games today? The attack on Exclusives was from the enjoyment that we all had playing those Console ports. The Xbox represents NA Gaming so Battlefield, Call of Duty and Halo or FPS became the norm. PS from the release of the original has those Japanese Gaming houses that produced classic like Metal Gear and Final Fantasy. There was a time where Square was undisputed and if you saw Namco, Taito, Konami, Capcom or Altus on the box you knew it would be good., I know Xbox has a Flight sim game but those of us that grew up on Atari were blown away with Ace Combat. Colony Wars was a PC worthy Space Sim. Having said all of that TWWH3 is not a Game for Consoles.