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Brad Smith on Xbox Console Market Share vs Sony: 20/80 in Europe, ~30/70 globally and 4/96 in Japan; (outsold 31/69 toward end of last year)

Watership

Watership

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,120
Pein said:
Maybe microsoft should make more appealing products than buying up big publishers.

Gears and the rest of the exclusives they had on 360 lead it to be a serious gaming platform basically evening the odds between microsoft and sony, now they cry about marketshare while putting out lackluster software.

Trillion dollar companies buying up everything is awful.
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Do people think that the Xbox Games studios puts out bad or lackluster software, or that the cadence of that software has been bad lately?

In the past 2+ years of Microsoft games we've had Forza Horizon 5, Flight Simulator, Age of Empires IV, Psychonauts 2, Halo Infinite, Grounded, Pentiment, and Hi-Fi Rush. I think people may look at some of those games and say "I didn't like it" but nothing in that list is 'bad software" Even Halo Infinite's problems are not that the game is bad, but the content was slow to come out.
 
Sems4arsenal

Sems4arsenal

Member
Apr 7, 2019
3,627
Zeroing said:
As a designer who is trapped on Adobe's endless buying the competition method and the anti consumer practices I do see similarities. If most people are happy with a multibillion company buying almost everything and having tons of control, maybe we as consumers have learned nothing. But maybe that is just me, I am a pessimist by nature.
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Geniuenly astonished people are defending this when we have Disney doing the same shit. Consumers never learn.
 
iareharSon

iareharSon

Member
Oct 30, 2017
8,945
Gordon's Tulpa said:
It paves the way for further consolidation with monopolistic results as the logical conclusion.
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This decision does absolutely nothing to beat back industry consolidation. Maybe I'd agree if regulators provided compelling reasoning for being weary of this deal, but they're so laughably off-base that they'll have effectively painted themself into a corner where only ABK, Take Two, EA, and EPIC can't be acquired due to Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, Madden, and Fortnite being franchises deemed too important to the industry to not be protected. Pretty much everything else is open season based off existing justifications for denying this acquisition.

Acquiring Sega, Capcom, and Square Enix would probably cost less than acquiring ABK for Microsoft, and based off of regulator's concerns, is somehow less detrimental and disruptive to the health of the industry for competition and consumers.
 
Version 3.0

Version 3.0

Member
Oct 27, 2017
11,214
I gotta say, this whole thing is kind of surreal. Back when the Xbox was first revealed, one of the wonders/worries was that Microsoft was just going to buy their marketshare. And they absolutely did.

And here we are 20+ years later, and they are buying marketshare.
 
DarthWalden

DarthWalden

Prophet of Truth
The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
6,030
The skeptic in me wonders if Microsoft cut stock to make that number appear more favorably for Sony so they use that in this argument.

Sony absolutely hammered out Playstations in Q4 and managed to meet the huge demand the system had, on the flip side Series X's are becoming more and more scarce for whatever reason.
 
Lego

Lego

Member
Nov 14, 2017
2,100
Microsoft has tried and continues to try to buy their way into this market and it's not working. They're basically giving away all their games in desperation and it's not working.

They need to look at the Xbox 360 and what they did with that and why it was so successful, and in my opinion it's simply that their games were better then.
 
gifyku

gifyku

Member
Aug 17, 2020
2,751
Sems4arsenal said:
Geniuenly astonished people are defending this when we have Disney doing the same shit. Consumers never learn.
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This kind of argument only makes sense if consumers are being harmed. Its hard to say that consumers were harmed by Disney's acquisition of Fox. Those titles came to Disney+. Prices increased for all consumer streaming services, not just Disney+, including Netflix who increased prices after losing content.

Same deal with Adobe. I know some folks have issues with Creative Cloud and so on but hard to generalize and say that consumers were overall harmed by it.

The idea that consumers should care about non-pocketbook concerns is the novel argument;
 
Misterhbk

Misterhbk

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,313
get2sammyb said:
Sony does a better job of marketing and localising their products in Europe, though. PlayStation is outselling them in Europe because they're delivering a better product to that market.

I don't see how this has any relation to whether the buyout should/shouldn't be allowed.
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This is the first thing I thought about. Sony should be punished for not ignoring a market that MS has? How many languages do they cater to again compared to Sony? It's really no wonder at all.
 

Robes

Member
Dec 9, 2021
394
Lego said:
Microsoft has tried and continues to try to buy their way into this market and it's not working. They're basically giving away all their games in desperation and it's not working.

They need to look at the Xbox 360 and what they did with that and why it was so successful, and in my opinion it's simply that their games were better then.
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I think they did that already, hence why they are buying publishers of good games and ditched the TV strategy.
 
dlauv

dlauv

Prophet of Truth - One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 27, 2017
11,515
Publisher of the year for 2021 makes fine games but showed up to 2022 with legit nothing. That and game pass deals where they hype up games that come out and rate low.
 
GulfCoastZilla

GulfCoastZilla

Member
Sep 13, 2022
6,613
Matush said:
LMAO, are you for real? MS has been in the gaming market for more than 20 years already.
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And they are now investing and playing catch up. What did you think was going to happen when Phil convinced his boss to give Xbox a chance? We could have been a reality where only Nintendo and Sony remained and that would have truly been awful.
 

Deleted user 125633

User requested account closure
Banned
Sep 13, 2022
485
Magneto said:
Why would they ? Europe is a Playstation continent. There is no point in trying to catch up. This is not happening.
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Perhaps some of that money being used to buy a publisher could be spent convincing people their toy box actually exists through a marketing campaign of some sort.

I mean, shit. Imagine if Sony, back during the PS3 generation, just said "Well, North America's a lost cause. May as well give up."
 
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Dinjoralo

Dinjoralo

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,164
Lego said:
Microsoft has tried and continues to try to buy their way into this market and it's not working. They're basically giving away all their games in desperation and it's not working.

They need to look at the Xbox 360 and what they did with that and why it was so successful, and in my opinion it's simply that their games were better then.
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I mean, they kinda bought their way into their success in the market back with the 360. They cut so many corners with production on the 360, so they could beat the PS3 to launch, that 68% of the units coming out of the factories weren't fit to be sold. That alone would have probably driven anyone else in the industry close to bankruptcy, before they spent another billion dollars dealing with the resultant RROD's. Xbox has always been leaning on Microsoft's massive warchest.
 
poklane

poklane

Member
Oct 25, 2017
27,964
the Netherlands
PJsprojects said:
Was thinking the same thing, can't think of any marketing in the UK for years!
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Netherlands here, only time I can remember seeing any Xbox related marketing is when they have some promotional deal with something like Pringles or when you have the Xbox logo in front or after an ad for a game they have the marketing rights for.
Magneto said:
Why would they ? Europe is a Playstation continent. There is no point in trying to catch up. This is not happening.
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It's not like us Europeans are somehow genetically modified to automatically prefer PlayStation over Xbox or anything. Sure, Sony has a big advantage because they've been dominant here for a long time, but if Microsoft properly marketed their products I don't see why they can't get at least a part of the PlayStation playerbase to move. Especially with the economic hardships and the Xbox Series S' lower pricing the timing for a push was perfect, but marketing was just nowhere.
 
Fisty

Fisty

Member
Oct 25, 2017
20,252
EZMode said:
And they are now investing and playing catch up. What did you think was going to happen when Phil convinced his boss to give Xbox a chance? We could have been a reality where only Nintendo and Sony remained and that would have truly been awful.
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Buying what is likely your competition's biggest revenue driver is not "investing"
 
Sparkedglory2

Sparkedglory2

Member
Nov 3, 2017
6,426
Isn't that more on MS though? They absolutely have the ability to market their products better and compete much closer on a global scale.
Them failing to do so doesn't mean they should be allowed to buy one of the biggest publishers in the industry.

If it were something along the lines of the Bungie deal then I doubt most would care, but who knows what would happen after the whole Bethesda situation.
 
Baobab

Baobab

Member
Feb 4, 2021
943
Zeroing said:
As a designer who is trapped on Adobe's endless buying the competition method and the anti consumer practices I do see similarities. If most people are happy with a multibillion company buying almost everything and having tons of control, maybe we as consumers have learned nothing. But maybe that is just me, I am a pessimist by nature.
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Sems4arsenal said:
Geniuenly astonished people are defending this when we have Disney doing the same shit. Consumers never learn.
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i agree with both of you, the consumer protections should be bigger, and especially the market protection from mergers and acquisition should be pursued world wide on much higher level.I hope soon the democracies around the globe will find legal tools to start dismantling these huge conglomerations and in the process made them pay their taxes.

Not mentioning also Sony in this perspective though is absurd and just wrong.
sony is not some small defenseless company, it as a behemoth that uses all the means at their disposal to crush and acquire smaller competition.
since you are talking about adobe , Sony in that analogy would be Auto Desk.
Any musician will tell you horror stories about Sony and their practices.
You mention Disney as an example …but Sony is one of the few others remaining players in the film industry that plays by the exact sam rules!!
They are buddies!
sony is not the innocent guy in this game.We are watching two shark bite their tales of , one shark seems bigger then the other but they are all sharks.
we as citizens should champion politicians that are willing to break these companies down.

I can highly recommend the book chokepoint capitalism on this subject

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjECf3OtZWY
 
brokenswiftie

brokenswiftie

Prophet of Truth
Banned
May 30, 2018
2,921
IMG_6224.png

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I was just seeing a random champions league match and lol
PS5 and Destiny ads are plastered everywhere

No wonder Sony gets such mindshare among the European base
never really seen Xbox market like this
 
Pein

Pein

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,259
NYC
Watership said:
Do people think that the Xbox Games studios puts out bad or lackluster software, or that the cadence of that software has been bad lately?

In the past 2+ years of Microsoft games we've had Forza Horizon 5, Flight Simulator, Age of Empires IV, Psychonauts 2, Halo Infinite, Grounded, Pentiment, and Hi-Fi Rush. I think people may look at some of those games and say "I didn't like it" but nothing in that list is 'bad software" Even Halo Infinite's problems are not that the game is bad, but the content was slow to come out.
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are they bad? I don't think so, are they the type of games that make gets the public talking about your game and console? that's a different thing.

Nobody is getting an xbox series x for pyschonauts 2 a sequel to a game that bombed 15 years ago. Some games draw in new people, I don't think games like grounded are really setting the hearts of gen z on fire.

Gears of war sold me on the 360, what piece of software does xbox bundle that's a must have for the holidays?
 
Kolx

Kolx

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,505
EZMode said:
And they are now investing and playing catch up. What did you think was going to happen when Phil convinced his boss to give Xbox a chance? We could have been a reality where only Nintendo and Sony remained and that would have truly been awful.
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And he gave Phil more money to spend than ever before and yet they failed. All these acquisitions including a major publisher like Bethesda and they're somehow doing even worse than last gen and that one had DRM and no used games fiasco.

Maybe they need to start with the basics like market your console instead of cutting your marketing budget and make the desirable console (XSX) available instead of stuffing the channels with series S when clearly it's not working?

And maybe try to localized your games in more countries and support them there before complaining Sony is beating your there handedly.
 
Marus

Marus

Alt account
Banned
Aug 6, 2022
1,929
I get MS wants this deal done but this wow is me attitude is sad as hell lol.

Also MS don't need anyone here cheering on this deal or making excuses for them. This massive corporation will be ok if this deal doesn't happen.
 
akintheuite

akintheuite

Member
Oct 27, 2017
354
London
Zeroing said:
As a designer who is trapped on Adobe's endless buying the competition method and the anti consumer practices I do see similarities. If most people are happy with a multibillion company buying almost everything and having tons of control, maybe we as consumers have learned nothing. But maybe that is just me, I am a pessimist by nature.
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Microsoft is not dominant in console gaming. Both Sony and Nintendo are bigger in console gaming; and Valve rules PC. So how is Microsoft dominant?
 

Deleted user 125633

User requested account closure
Banned
Sep 13, 2022
485
User banned (2 weeks): Console war rhetoric over multiple posts
Sparkedglory2 said:
Isn't that more on MS though? They absolutely have the ability to market their products better and compete much closer on a global scale.
Them failing to do so doesn't mean they should be allowed to buy one of the biggest publishers in the industry.

If it were something along the lines of the Bungie deal then I doubt most would care, but who knows what would happen after the whole Bethesda situation.
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It's important to remember that everyone who claims that the buyout is for "competition" doesn't actually know what competition looks like despite having watched their preferred brand eat dirt worldwide for multiple generations straight. That has always been competition. That it didn't gently cup the nuts of poor wittle Microsoft, just trying to get by in this cruel world filled with laws and regulators and other brands who aren't doing the equivalent of eating crayons in the corner of the room out of sheer deference to one of the biggest tech companies on the planet, doesn't make it anything less than competition.
 
t67443

t67443

Member
Oct 30, 2017
1,810
brokenswiftie said:
IMG_6224.png

IMG_6225.png


I was just seeing a random champions league match and lol
PS5 and Destiny ads are plastered everywhere

No wonder Sony gets such mindshare among the European base
never really seen Xbox market like this
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I watched my kid play FIFA the other day thru GamePass and I was AMAZED when the digital ads in that game showed off PlayStation.
 
JABEE

JABEE

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,858
This doesn't address the crux of the CMA's issues. To me, this appears to be flailing.
 
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