-
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.
Xbox Boss Phil Spencer: Success Doesn’t Mean Pulling Sony Down
- Thread starter RevengeTaken
- Start date
Microsoft's current game industry strategy is super interesting and I'm excited to see if it works out for them.
Well, "if you ain't first, ye're last".
Or something.
While I think this is indeed a reasonable stance, it's hard not to think they all wish selling more of their own consoles, and that usually means that the competitor sells less on its own.
But yeah especially with MS providing Windows, Visual Studio, DirectX, and now even cloud services, it's pretty obvious their business model isn't solely selling consoles but providing services to any willing business partner, even contextual competitors. "It's just business."
Or something.
While I think this is indeed a reasonable stance, it's hard not to think they all wish selling more of their own consoles, and that usually means that the competitor sells less on its own.
But yeah especially with MS providing Windows, Visual Studio, DirectX, and now even cloud services, it's pretty obvious their business model isn't solely selling consoles but providing services to any willing business partner, even contextual competitors. "It's just business."
Yea, MS were very aggressive with striking deals in their attempt to break PlayStation's stranglehold on the market at the time.
They however did NOT write the book on these practices. Exclusivity deals have been a thing for as long as console have, and they used to be far far worse to the extent that the law got involved. Nintendo didn't used to sign exclusive games... they signed exclusive STUDIOS (like, all of them). If you wanted to publish a game on the NES, then you couldn't develop a game for Sega. A significant part of Sega's development strength, and how they managed to have such an insane output during the 90s was because during the Master System era they basically had to port everyone else's games to the console themselves as a workaround for Nintendo's stance. This ceased with the Genesis, and developers were free to develop multiplatform titles as they wished, but even then you had huge exclusive deals like the one for Street Fighter II on SNES.
Hell, for all the talk of Rise of the Tomb Raider's timed exclusivity, it was Sony that originally signed the entire Tomb Raider IP to have PlayStation console exclusivity for a four year window, blocking out the Saturn or N64 from seeing anything beyond the first game. They entered the industry signing Mortal Kombat 3 to a 6 month hush deal, preventing any acknowledgement of the Saturn version.
So no, MS didn't invent any of this. That's just either people being plain revisionist, or the 7th gen was the first where they had any exposure to the behind-the-curtain realities of the market.
Given that they're currently getting creamed by Sony it's an understandable message to get out there. However I'm fairly confident that if they were in the No1 position they'd be banging the drum about being the biggest console manufacturer out there.
Sorry but I don't buy that. EVERY manufacturer (Sony, MS, Nintendo, Google) is out there to make as much money as possible. The purpose behind all these studio purchases, game pass initiative etc is to get people into the MS ecosystem.
What he's been doing this generation has been great for gamers after a very rocky start for the company but in the end it's all being done to drive sales not as some kind of philanthropic efforts. He may be a gamer at heart but his job is to get people into Xbox.
If MS believed that what's being done currently doesn't/won't benefit the company I can guarantee that Spencer would be out on his ear, same as anyone in the same position at the other manufacturers.
You can safely disregard every post wapplew ever makes. They're never serious.
Executives know that. But it doesn't change the fact that PR take advantage of that sport equivalence.
I used to be a Sony fanboy up to the release of PS4. But now that i own all three consoles i don't care about that console war shit anyway.
I think that happens for people who could only afford one console so resort to shitting on other consoles to justify their purchase , i know i did .
I think that happens for people who could only afford one console so resort to shitting on other consoles to justify their purchase , i know i did .
I don't know anything about being exclusive for Ps3 but MS put a good money on that
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto_IV#cite_note-GTAEpisodesPCPS3-date-86
Yes but that isn't what the post claimed was dirty tactics. Xbox getting games in addition to PS getting those games isn't a dirty tactic and the idea is hilarious, hence the posts laughing at it.
According to a rather well known manager you should strive to become the #1 or #2 on the market - or leave that market entirely.
If we assume that Nintendo is sailing in a whole other ocean - just hypothetically since of course there's only one big market with different customer segments - then yes, MS can be "successful" without becoming the #1 on the market.
However, we don't have any idea how the internal targets for their next gen console look like. I for one assume that revenues from digital services will be the most important one from here on out. Last (this) time "old" MS was quite clear about their targets, they wanted to sell a 9-digit number of Xbox consoles and by that matric it failed, independent of what their competitors managed to sell.
People take his words and infer something else based on their console bias*
Lmao.. So what was your previous post? You jumped in with a reply yet had no idea what the conversation was about?
Yeah, this is PR speak.
Sure, both can survive along each other, but Microsoft and Sony are direct competitors in the console space, and regardless of what one says reducing the competition is one of the goals of any business.
If someone buys a PS4 it's very unlikely they are going to buy an Xbox One. I know there are people that will but I'm gonna guess that's a minority.
Even if you buy the angle that Xbox is now all about the services people buying PS4s still hurts them. They don't offer their games and services on PS4 so that's one less potential customer.
That said, Microsoft is a big company and Xbox is small slice of the pie. Their main product in terms of revenue is Azure so it's easy to see why they are going with the parternship with Sony, even if it cancels a potential advantage they might have in the console space.
Sure, both can survive along each other, but Microsoft and Sony are direct competitors in the console space, and regardless of what one says reducing the competition is one of the goals of any business.
If someone buys a PS4 it's very unlikely they are going to buy an Xbox One. I know there are people that will but I'm gonna guess that's a minority.
Even if you buy the angle that Xbox is now all about the services people buying PS4s still hurts them. They don't offer their games and services on PS4 so that's one less potential customer.
That said, Microsoft is a big company and Xbox is small slice of the pie. Their main product in terms of revenue is Azure so it's easy to see why they are going with the parternship with Sony, even if it cancels a potential advantage they might have in the console space.
What is it with Phil's fake feelgood commentary?
Sony and MS are pretty much competing for the same limited market, as we saw with PS3's failure allowing the 360's success and same with XB1/PS4.
And again next-gen the consoles will be competing with each other, as will their individual streaming services. There's only so much you can expand the market.
Sony and MS are pretty much competing for the same limited market, as we saw with PS3's failure allowing the 360's success and same with XB1/PS4.
And again next-gen the consoles will be competing with each other, as will their individual streaming services. There's only so much you can expand the market.
While this is a cool talk in the end Sony and MS are all fighting for your money and time.
And it´s simple : if you are investing more time and money in one of them you are spending those less in the other.
So yeah MS can find success without pulling Sony down, but they can find even more sucess pulling Sony down and as a company their target will always be more.
And it´s simple : if you are investing more time and money in one of them you are spending those less in the other.
So yeah MS can find success without pulling Sony down, but they can find even more sucess pulling Sony down and as a company their target will always be more.
PR is mostly for the markets, it's designed to make X product seem like it's doing crazy well even if it's only doing moderately well by general standards.
Why is accepted for consoles, but people lose their shit when Epic does it? Shouldn't PC gamers get used to it? Doesn't matter if it didn't happen before.
Some of the most toxic fanboys on social media own both. I don't think it changes much with preferences. PC only fanboys are the worst though from what I've seen.
Last edited:
What shade?
People were genuinely upset that MS "allowed" Sony to use Azure, especially on twitter.
Of course. It's a publicly traded company in a capitalist society, their entire existence is predicated on maximizing profits for its investors. Sometimes that vision for maximizing profits happens to overlap with policies that are decidedly pro-consumer, and sometimes they don't. When Sony decided to not go in a direction that was "Always Online" at the start of the generation, despite their efforts to push it as a decision that was morally imperative, at the end of the day - they simply (and correctly) deduced that such a decision was bad for business and would cut into their bottom line. The same is true for the direction that Microsoft is taking now.
I think the issue is that Epic is doing it with games after they have been announced for Steam.
I don't remember a single case of a game being announced for one console and then being pulled out close to release.
I mean, Rise of the Tomb Raider got negative backlash just because the franchise was mostly multi platform.
That's not exactly true, Microsoft hasn't really done it since 2015 with Rise of the Tomb Raider (and even that was a grey area), while Sony continues to do it but with content that is either timed or permanent. Most famously they have the CoD and Destiny timed exclusives (the later seems to be over thankfully) and you have permanent exclusive content like in the umcoming Control which has an exclusive quest line and Skins.
It's the latter stuff that rubs me the wrong way with stuff like Scarecrow mode in Arkham Knight or some side missions in Watch Dogs 2, though I was never a fan of Destiny's year long exclusive period for some content.
At the end of the day, if you look at the last few years you have all this content you can only get on PS4 which sucks for Xbox and PC players.
Epic is getting a lot of hate but at least they aren't keeping content off other platforms (a store front is not a platform).
I can't imagine a manager looking at the video games business in the last 20 years and saying, "our strategy is to kill one of the other institutions that holds up the industry" rather than focusing on providing a good service and games to play. They've already got their cartel (or oligopoly if you wanna be nice about it) set up and Nintendo isn't even a direct competitor. I don't think they have any interest in becoming the de facto video game platform holders for PC and console games, and dealing with government antitrust probes just so their largely inconsequential gaming division can grow more quickly than it has been.
People who still hold on to the console war mentality are either too young to know better, or just have no awareness of the market they participate in.
People who still hold on to the console war mentality are either too young to know better, or just have no awareness of the market they participate in.
It's a good mentality to have. Rising tides and all that. Let's see how long it lasts if they're ever the one dominating the market again though. Maybe they can break the cycle of "Oh, we're on top now? Better fuck it up and let the other guy take the lead again!". But that ball is in Sony's court right now.
I wish everybody would adopt the game pass part of Microsoft's gaming strategy.
Win in every direction.
Win in every direction.
With the rise of digital services like Gamepass or PS Now exclusive content will become the norm. Why do you think Disney is moving content away from Netflix?
Yeah, it sucks, but this is how platforms actually differentiate themselves from each other. Obviously that was always the case but now it'll become even more important, and common.
Forget power, that train has left the station.
Is that why we spent the last three years hearing how Xbox has or is building the world's most powerful console?
Repeating debunked points about defending Epic doesn't make it true.
Sony does not "own" bluray, though? How do you know they come from Sony and not a different vendor?
As a platform holder you don't want to drag down your 3rd-party developers. What Phil says makes a lot of sense.
You need to think much bigger.
Crossfire has 650 million players.
That's what everyone is aiming for, and what streaming is promising in the future. Incredibly wide global reach with low barriers. That's what everyone wants.
To be fair it doesn't matter, because Microsoft already joined Bluray Association as board of directors.
Right. I know people say Microsoft has changed but I've never bought it for a second. If they were in the position to utterly crush the competition they wouldn't hesitate for a second. They are still the same monopolistic company they've always been. A zebra can't change it's stripes.
I don't really think there's any helping those that can't see the seismic change in MS over the last few years. That's a flat earther level of denial of evidence.
Instead of trying to compete in dragging people into walled gardens of products, they have realised that infiltrating into other's gardens and working in partnership with competitors will be much more profitable. That is both a huge strategic change but it is already leading to tangible change on the ground.
So Office is on I pads and Android devices. Windows phones don't exist. Xbox is on pc and will soon be on pc, android phones and I pads/iPhone soon too, Sony's entire online infrastructure will be dependent on Asure, meaning for every dollar Sony makes from their future, MS will make money too. Much more than say Sony getting cash from Blu Ray. Sony's online success will also be an advert for Asure for commerce,showing business they should go to ms not Google or amazon systems.
In sll likelihood Nintendo will need to upgrade to Asure soon, so MS will provide their online as well.
So if you buy an xbox, MS win, if you just subscribe to x cloud, ms win, if you just buy Sony next gen, MS win.
It's a total change of strategy and one that will reap massive rewards.
Instead of trying to compete in dragging people into walled gardens of products, they have realised that infiltrating into other's gardens and working in partnership with competitors will be much more profitable. That is both a huge strategic change but it is already leading to tangible change on the ground.
So Office is on I pads and Android devices. Windows phones don't exist. Xbox is on pc and will soon be on pc, android phones and I pads/iPhone soon too, Sony's entire online infrastructure will be dependent on Asure, meaning for every dollar Sony makes from their future, MS will make money too. Much more than say Sony getting cash from Blu Ray. Sony's online success will also be an advert for Asure for commerce,showing business they should go to ms not Google or amazon systems.
In sll likelihood Nintendo will need to upgrade to Asure soon, so MS will provide their online as well.
So if you buy an xbox, MS win, if you just subscribe to x cloud, ms win, if you just buy Sony next gen, MS win.
It's a total change of strategy and one that will reap massive rewards.
I don't have anything insightful to say but I do want to add that this is a legendary post and I won't be forgetting it anytime soon.