-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
Great thread. Wonder if for developers being told that your goal isn't to sell this game to as much people but for as much people to play your game kind of changes some mindsets.
Something that stood out to me when I recently interviewed Phil Spencer was his emphasis on rising player counts, which I think is key to understanding Microsoft's strategy. I want to share where that conversation went (warning: this will be a bunch of tweets!)
You might say, of course, game companies always boast about this stuff, but this metric seems key to Microsoft, which recently shared that Halo Infinite reached 20 million players, Forza Horizon 5 reached 18m. (remember, that was helped with mixes of Game Pass and free-to-play)
Spencer to me: "I love the Forza 5 and Halo stats...I love how many people played Psychonauts 2 vs. Psychonauts 1. "So, when I look at the teams, when Todd and I talk about Starfield, it's: 'How do we make sure this is the most-played Todd Howard game ever?'"
(Bear in mind Todd's team made Skyrim) He continued: "As a platform, I think we have a lot to do with that. Quality of the title is number one, no doubt about that...
"But that will be success for me for the individual games: Can we really make these games–can we allow them to reach more players than they've ever seen before? And I say that because I believe in the social impact of interactive entertainment."
Since we were talking in the wake of the Microsoft-buying-Activision announcement, I wondered: Meaning, make Call of Duty and World of Warcraft even more popular? Like, how??
Spencer: "Yeah, I want more people to be playing WoW in five years that are playing today. I want more people to be playing Call of Duty in five years, more people to be playing Candy Crush in five years, because we've made it more accessible to more people."
How can Todd's next game reach more people if you're skipping a key platform? I asked him this.
I asked about whether Microsoft's policies in general could really be as generous as he makes them sound, because there are catches, no?
"Well, that specific question of, 'Hey, there's only one place that I want to play games. And if that game doesn't end up on the one place that I want to play that has its own business requirements for me as a creator…those people can go play those games...
...They're just going to say, I'm choosing not to, because it's not on the one device that has its specific [trails off]. So I get that."
Stepping back, I asked Spencer about his rep among gamers as head of Xbox. To some, he seems to nice, too complimentary of competitors, too generous with deals like Xbox Game Pass, and surely the other shoe will drop. "You're looking for the evil Phil," he joked.
"I see people tweeting at me: 'Hey, there's nothing altruistic about Phil Spencer, head of Xbox.' "I don't know if I'd say there's nothing...I have a vision about the role that video games can play. But I am in charge of running a business inside of a publicly traded company"
"What I think we've been able to do--and this is from our perspective--is we've built a strategy that I think is supportive of players and creators" He notes competitors won't love all that they do and says he'll play hardball when ended (said he did for Minecraft crossplay)
"We were going to be forceful in that conversation, understanding that in previous generations we we had been on the other side. I wasn't making those calls, but still, I if you're looking at Xbox, you say, Hey that's different."
"I think people who point out it's just a suit or somebody who's running a business, I'm absolutely running a business...my responsibility, the teams, is I'm going to continue to run a good business so this company continues to support us I think that's a primary responsibility"
Circling back to skepticism of Xbox's plan: "I feel like I can't prove this negative. [People ask] when is the Game Pass price is going to get go up? 'They're buying all these studios. You know, it's inevitable.' Even though it's been what, now, four years we haven't raised it."
"But it's like, 'You know, it's coming' 'When they are number one, they're going to start doing all those exclusive deals that, like, you know, Xbox has history' and all I can do is is make the decisions that are in front of us and try to be explicit about what our goals are"
(Folks, if you did a double-take when he said they won't do exclusive deals, me too, but we already went down that road higher in the thread)
Back to Spencer: "I honestly mean... you can see it with Forza and Halo the last releases. Those are the most played games in those franchises because we made them available on more screens than we ever have, through more business models than we've ever made them available."
And there you go. One extra. Re: Blizzard: "You and I grew up at a time where Blizzard was almost as synonymous as Pixar in terms of quality. That's where I aspire those brands to get to get to, and I'd love the opportunity to go work with creative teams to make that possible"
You might say, of course, game companies always boast about this stuff, but this metric seems key to Microsoft, which recently shared that Halo Infinite reached 20 million players, Forza Horizon 5 reached 18m. (remember, that was helped with mixes of Game Pass and free-to-play)
Spencer to me: "I love the Forza 5 and Halo stats...I love how many people played Psychonauts 2 vs. Psychonauts 1. "So, when I look at the teams, when Todd and I talk about Starfield, it's: 'How do we make sure this is the most-played Todd Howard game ever?'"
(Bear in mind Todd's team made Skyrim) He continued: "As a platform, I think we have a lot to do with that. Quality of the title is number one, no doubt about that...
"But that will be success for me for the individual games: Can we really make these games–can we allow them to reach more players than they've ever seen before? And I say that because I believe in the social impact of interactive entertainment."
Since we were talking in the wake of the Microsoft-buying-Activision announcement, I wondered: Meaning, make Call of Duty and World of Warcraft even more popular? Like, how??
Spencer: "Yeah, I want more people to be playing WoW in five years that are playing today. I want more people to be playing Call of Duty in five years, more people to be playing Candy Crush in five years, because we've made it more accessible to more people."
How can Todd's next game reach more people if you're skipping a key platform? I asked him this.
I asked about whether Microsoft's policies in general could really be as generous as he makes them sound, because there are catches, no?
"Well, that specific question of, 'Hey, there's only one place that I want to play games. And if that game doesn't end up on the one place that I want to play that has its own business requirements for me as a creator…those people can go play those games...
...They're just going to say, I'm choosing not to, because it's not on the one device that has its specific [trails off]. So I get that."
Stepping back, I asked Spencer about his rep among gamers as head of Xbox. To some, he seems to nice, too complimentary of competitors, too generous with deals like Xbox Game Pass, and surely the other shoe will drop. "You're looking for the evil Phil," he joked.
"I see people tweeting at me: 'Hey, there's nothing altruistic about Phil Spencer, head of Xbox.' "I don't know if I'd say there's nothing...I have a vision about the role that video games can play. But I am in charge of running a business inside of a publicly traded company"
"What I think we've been able to do--and this is from our perspective--is we've built a strategy that I think is supportive of players and creators" He notes competitors won't love all that they do and says he'll play hardball when ended (said he did for Minecraft crossplay)
"We were going to be forceful in that conversation, understanding that in previous generations we we had been on the other side. I wasn't making those calls, but still, I if you're looking at Xbox, you say, Hey that's different."
"I think people who point out it's just a suit or somebody who's running a business, I'm absolutely running a business...my responsibility, the teams, is I'm going to continue to run a good business so this company continues to support us I think that's a primary responsibility"
Circling back to skepticism of Xbox's plan: "I feel like I can't prove this negative. [People ask] when is the Game Pass price is going to get go up? 'They're buying all these studios. You know, it's inevitable.' Even though it's been what, now, four years we haven't raised it."
"But it's like, 'You know, it's coming' 'When they are number one, they're going to start doing all those exclusive deals that, like, you know, Xbox has history' and all I can do is is make the decisions that are in front of us and try to be explicit about what our goals are"
(Folks, if you did a double-take when he said they won't do exclusive deals, me too, but we already went down that road higher in the thread)
Back to Spencer: "I honestly mean... you can see it with Forza and Halo the last releases. Those are the most played games in those franchises because we made them available on more screens than we ever have, through more business models than we've ever made them available."
And there you go. One extra. Re: Blizzard: "You and I grew up at a time where Blizzard was almost as synonymous as Pixar in terms of quality. That's where I aspire those brands to get to get to, and I'd love the opportunity to go work with creative teams to make that possible"
Last edited:
I still don't understand this "we want these games to be doing way better than they are right now" mindset if they're going to skip two massive platforms moving forward. Like Phil really doesn't have an answer for that question when Stephen brings it up, and it's really blatant.
I feel like he's the perfect exec for the current times given that he seems genuine in his love of games and realization that happy workers are the best workers.
If/when society pendulums back towards there being more job seekers than jobs, I could see the higher ups coming in and replacing him, but for now, I say enjoy the ride.
If/when society pendulums back towards there being more job seekers than jobs, I could see the higher ups coming in and replacing him, but for now, I say enjoy the ride.
What's wrong with a few joke questions? You're acting like that was all he was asked.
User Warned: Platform Warring
This thread, like many others involving Spencer, won't go well. Some people just seem to get triggered by him. I don't see the hate from Xbox fans for Jim Ryan, most of the hate for him seems to come from PlaysStation only fans lol.
Phil is being as honest as he could be and that's one of his more appealing traits. He still dodges questions but he still speaks with confidence and candor that it's hard to say he's bullshitting you. It is a good trait to have in this industry and he'll likely stay at Xbox for a long time to come because of it.
Basically another way of saying "we aren't releasing on PlayStation and Nintendo, stop bugging us until they say yes to Game Pass".
Nintendo and Playstation don't want gamepass and xbox first party available on their platform. It's not a 1 way street.
They tried to double the price of Xbox live for literally no reason. Gamepass will - someday - cost more.
It's PR. Every company wants to sell more of their consoles.
Having higher player numbers whilst skipping those two platforms is still very likely with Game Pass.They'll likely exceed 50 million subs in the next few years.
Agree.
With Nadella and Spencer, I'm not going to fret about what Xbox will look like.
What worries is if and when Phil is no longer there. We know how quickly things can change within these giant corporations when you bring in the wrong replacement. Things can go south very quickly.
I mean Netflix did not increase prices for like five years. And after that…
It just occurred to me that Phil Spencer has probably done more for me as a consumer than any other CEO in the world. Maybe I'm being myopic but I can't think of another CEO whose direct influence has directly had a positive impact on my life in the last decade. Can you think of some others?
I'm not sure I follow what is being said here can someone interpret this for me?
Pretty much, and since they never will say yes to Game Pass on their platforms, and he knows that, it's just a weird answer.
Luckily, it seems like Microsoft wants Phil to pick his successor.
Xbox ‘is pushing Phil Spencer to line up a successor’ | VGC
Phill Spencer has revealed in a new interview that he is considering his successor for the role of Xbox boss.
www.videogameschronicle.com
More of an issue with gamers that refuse to go elsewhere. Theres non Xbox options out there on top of low cost options, but primarily, it is a business of making Xbox the best place to enjoy games. And making Xbox accessible to as many screens as possible, that provides new opportunity to Devs and allows their games to be played by a continually growing audience.
This ignores PC and also Game Pass which probably has a much higher adoption rate of newer games than releasing it on a competing platform.
I'm not sure what's controversial about that. It's kind of cringe, but Phil has done a lot to "democratize" gaming. Coming from a casual background where I only bought CoD and maybe Madden every year, Game Pass really got me invested into games I would've never played, even on competing platforms.
They don't really need PlayStation to reach that goal. Game Pass will do the job.
You should probably go ask Jim Ryan to allow Game Pass on Playstation platforms
Starfield will break all BGS launch records for number of players whilst skipping PlayStation.
He wants people on their ecosystem, staying in their ecosystem, spending more money in their ecosystem than anywhere else. That's where the money is. As the man says, he's running an business and if the gaming business doesn't make money then MS wont invest in gaming. It's not complicated.
I get what point you are trying to get across but you are bringing up a pointless debate tbh. we all know the fate of games now that they are under the Xbox label. it's just a fact that of you want these games on other platforms, then they better be ready to have GamePass on said platforms
Having a bunch of people accessing your game it's easier when you give it for a low price. Generating the same revenue is what matters and Starfield 100% won't.
I guess he's hoping that that xCloud will bring in more users via Mobile (plus SmartTV apps, streaming stick in the future) will more than offset the loss.
Not really.
Those who really want to play will do so on PC or buy an Xbox.
Last edited:
Well, judging by the trajectory that Game Pass is following, it won't be too long before it becomes such an all-encompassing service that it'll render any PlayStation and Nintendo versions of mulitplatform games completely irrelevant.
Nobody has ever come up with a cogent argument for why Sony or Nintendo should allow Microsoft to just directly steal revenue off of their respective plates by putting a competing subscription service on their hardware. It's a deal that blatantly favors Microsoft over either Sony or Nintendo. Why would any sane business agree to a deal like that?
Like this cuts both ways too, why would Microsoft agree to Sony putting Spartacus (whatever the hell it winds up being) on Xbox hardware? These companies are well aware that a "well we'd support them if they just let us put OUR subscription service on THEIR platform" argument is a blatant non-starter for any actually competent business leader.
Microsoft did not acquire Bethesda so that they could "generate the same revenue" from disc and digital sales. They acquired Bethesda to 1) provide a bigger incentive for gamers to purchase an Xbox, and 2) to increase the number of subscribers to Xbox Game Pass. It's a pretty good bet that Starfield will help them achieve both of those goals.
Microsoft doesn't care if that singular game isn't generating that value, because the consistent monthly fee of all those millions of people paying for Gamepass just to have the option to play Starfield is what makes them that money. And that's more valuable to them than Playstation money.
Because after all is said and done. They only but Starfield once. They buy Gamepass every single month and will keep buying gamepass and end up spending more money in the long run.
A user spending $120+ a year on Gamepass is far more valuable than spending $60 or less on Starfield.
It'll boost GP subs that may hook in new gamers to stay, over the course of a generation that'll do more for their income then $70 day 1 big bang releases.