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Xbox Game Studios + Bethesda + ABK | OTXVIII | Some Marketers Are Always Trying To Ice Skate Uphill
- Thread starter Andrei Rublev
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Which is... kind of the point?
The idea is, if you can *expect* every Xbox game to come to other consoles eventually, then there's no real need to pick up an Xbox for the average joe.
Your position was that if people really want to buy a game, theyre just going to pick it up straight away, including any hardware they need to play it. Which would be a fair point... if the narrative that every game is going to get a port later on wasn't already being spread. Hell, apparently KFGD is already speculating that Blade will be a one year exclusive, and that game is like *four years away*. It reinforces the idea that a platform other than your own is a one stop shop, and yours isnt.
The idea of paying 400 to 500 dollars plus the cost of a game or an XGP sub to play a single game might make sense for hardcore folks like the people who post on here, but it certainly isnt the case for more infrequent/casual customers.
I agree, recent years have been defined by waiting for Microsoft's hundreds of development studios to actually finish some games. There'll be some irony if Microsoft are ready to finally release the games that'll make their platform attractive but decide to put them everywhere else as well, or kinda worse, release them with such uncertainty over which platforms they'll be released on that it doesn't give the platform the boost it should.
If it turns out Microsoft have made all their exclusives worthless by making everyone think they'll all be on PlayStation down the line, just so they can sell a few more copies of Hifi Rush then this will be a warning to other platforms about what can and can't be flirted with.
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My final predictions for the DD:
Games announced ahead of time for it - Hellblade, Avowed, Towerborne, South of Midnight.
Secret game (like HFR last year) - Kiln by Double Fine.
Hellblade will get a May date and Towerborne will be March or April. Avowed and South of Midnight will just be 2024 and we'll get fall dates at the summer showcase.
Uncertain about Kiln shadow drop but I'm going to say yes.
Games announced ahead of time for it - Hellblade, Avowed, Towerborne, South of Midnight.
Secret game (like HFR last year) - Kiln by Double Fine.
Hellblade will get a May date and Towerborne will be March or April. Avowed and South of Midnight will just be 2024 and we'll get fall dates at the summer showcase.
Uncertain about Kiln shadow drop but I'm going to say yes.
Unsure about ESO personally (I think they might want to keep people guessing and not have a game they had last year) but Shattered Space is a good shout.
It all depends if they keep it as just five games.
That would be smart!
Blessing said he wouldn't be surprised that Blade will be a year late on PlayStation. You could say that is due to Hi-Fi Rush rumors yes.
But Microsoft have still not outright stated any platforms Blade will release on. We have seen leaked documents sure (that Phil Spencer also called dated) but no official confirmation. OD was the exact same.
I think it's pretty obvious something has changed in the last few months internally or since those leaked documents. What that is only Microsoft can say. Hopefully they clear things up soon. It's interesting how distinct Bethesda still is after all this time so I wouldn't be surprised at anything they decide to do with them at this point. But I think we'll know sooner rather than later.
But Microsoft have still not outright stated any platforms Blade will release on. We have seen leaked documents sure (that Phil Spencer also called dated) but no official confirmation. OD was the exact same.
I think it's pretty obvious something has changed in the last few months internally or since those leaked documents. What that is only Microsoft can say. Hopefully they clear things up soon. It's interesting how distinct Bethesda still is after all this time so I wouldn't be surprised at anything they decide to do with them at this point. But I think we'll know sooner rather than later.
I have to agree and since all this rumors keep running, it's already too late.
What changed was the ABK acquisition. They're treading carefully due to FTC looking for a gotcha and CMA homing in on their AI control, MS cant be seen solely pushing their services and want to show they're working with competitors. I do think they need to change operations or at least give that impression due to increased regulatory interest. You may say iits just Xbox, but as we saw from regulatory findings its everything that props up Xbox, Windows, Azure, and now AI , it feels like they're pro actively manoeuvring to disprove the bets they made years ago are going to put them too far ahead of everyone.
I think we might get a larger D_D this time
1st / 2nd party titles
- towerborne with a feb release and a playable beta version launched the day after
- south of midnight with a coming later 2024
- avowed with a coming later 2024
- hellblade 2 with a May / June release date
- are history untold pc march 2024 and console tba 2024
Live service titles
- ESO new expansion
- FO 76 big map expansion
- Halo seasonal update with a teaser screen for a June announcement (tatanka)
Third parties
- stalker 2 launch April 2024
1st / 2nd party titles
- towerborne with a feb release and a playable beta version launched the day after
- south of midnight with a coming later 2024
- avowed with a coming later 2024
- hellblade 2 with a May / June release date
- are history untold pc march 2024 and console tba 2024
Live service titles
- ESO new expansion
- FO 76 big map expansion
- Halo seasonal update with a teaser screen for a June announcement (tatanka)
Third parties
- stalker 2 launch April 2024
Of course it has. 1st party ip going to other platforms -> less console sales -> … -> Not worth investing on a new console -> Not being able to play my digital games anymore
Exactly
It's not a single game, it's the image it shows of their commitment to their console. I won't buy an Xbox if most of their games release on PS.
The thing is that this is single sided, and that's where the problem lies.
Nobody waits for a port because you know Nintendo and Sony games won't be ported to any other consoles. If the prospect is buying a PS6 with all their first party games plus some of the Xbox ones, why would I buy an Xbox?
Exactly
What I found more infuriating is that if all your strategy revolves around gamepass, I still need to see any TV commercial ad (at least here in Europe) explaining what is a xbox and what benefits gives a gp subscription. The xbox marketing is terrible at all levels.
My one wish for the Developer Direct is that they drop the underscore from its stylised title - seeing it abbreviated as 'D_D' bugs me (which is definitely a me problem, I'm well aware!).
Stylised logos/brand names leading to common language conventions being eschewed triggers me. Much of the Australian print media drove me nuts for years printing 'Silverchair' with a lower-case 's', as far as I could tell, simply due to the band stylising it this way on an album cover. Sheer madness, I tell you!
One wouldn't use the abbreviation 'D D' (with a space) if the Developer Direct was stylised as simply that.
Back to lurking and yelling at clouds. This thread has been a fun watch in recent days - some true classics for the scrapbook.
Stylised logos/brand names leading to common language conventions being eschewed triggers me. Much of the Australian print media drove me nuts for years printing 'Silverchair' with a lower-case 's', as far as I could tell, simply due to the band stylising it this way on an album cover. Sheer madness, I tell you!
One wouldn't use the abbreviation 'D D' (with a space) if the Developer Direct was stylised as simply that.
Back to lurking and yelling at clouds. This thread has been a fun watch in recent days - some true classics for the scrapbook.
I know that someone from Xbox in France was asked about the lack of marketing efforts (saying that they're mainly aiming Twitch and sponsored adverts in social networks), but I wish a journalist would ask Phil about that. I don't think he was ever asked about that, and I would love to hear what he has to say.
That is what it's going to be
And their next console will have at least 80% lower sales than the already-low sales of Series X.
Microsoft is in for a rude awakening with that strategy.
I am not here to doom and gloom or console warring nonsense but I think Xbox has two future. And I don't know which will happen.
1. Xbox slowly abandoning day 1 Game Pass releases and returning back to console exclusive. Aiming for higher console market share along with PC release after 0-2 years.
2. Xbox going to third party in far future. They can easily become the leading game publisher. MS is software company at core. They can easily sell millions of games on PC, PS, Nintendo and mobile.
1. Xbox slowly abandoning day 1 Game Pass releases and returning back to console exclusive. Aiming for higher console market share along with PC release after 0-2 years.
2. Xbox going to third party in far future. They can easily become the leading game publisher. MS is software company at core. They can easily sell millions of games on PC, PS, Nintendo and mobile.
Just woke up at 4:45 and jumped my wife's car. She goes to work at night o'clock and her battery was dead. I'm going to drive to Walmart and get a battery once the TLE opens.
How doomy is it here?
Oh, it's pretty doomy. Well since most of the doomers are sleeping, it's not as doomy as usual.
Still seeing some "acceptance" stages, which I guess is good. But I think overall it's still a huge overreaction. I can't even imagine how delicious all this outrage must be to people who want to see the Xbox fail.
I legit will buy one, but I hope it still smells like the old controllers did.
Man, nothing hit as good as opening a new Xbox1 controller and that whiff of air from the box of whatever plastic MS was using at the time. Gamecube controllers and Playstation controllers also had distinctive smells back in those days.
Yeah, I'm talking about controller smell, I've already talked more about SOT this week than I ever have, I'm done cut the show etc, I mean see my above post where I mention I've been up since basically 5am...lol
How doomy is it here?
Oh, it's pretty doomy. Well since most of the doomers are sleeping, it's not as doomy as usual.
Still seeing some "acceptance" stages, which I guess is good. But I think overall it's still a huge overreaction. I can't even imagine how delicious all this outrage must be to people who want to see the Xbox fail.
I legit will buy one, but I hope it still smells like the old controllers did.
Man, nothing hit as good as opening a new Xbox1 controller and that whiff of air from the box of whatever plastic MS was using at the time. Gamecube controllers and Playstation controllers also had distinctive smells back in those days.
Yeah, I'm talking about controller smell, I've already talked more about SOT this week than I ever have, I'm done cut the show etc, I mean see my above post where I mention I've been up since basically 5am...lol
With Ori, you could at least tell yourself "Well, they don't own the studio. Maybe that makes it a little different."
But in retrospect, it shouldn't have happened.
At least in Ori's case, you had Aaron Greenberg come in immediately afterwards and seemingly shoot down further Xbox games being published on other platforms, saying Ori on Switch was only a special case due to Moon Studios themselves pushing for it.
That quenched fears for many for a good awhile. Even when Ori 2 on Switch happened, Microsoft actually did stay true to their word as they didn't even publish it like they did with the first, instead having iam8bit do it.
That quenched fears for many for a good awhile. Even when Ori 2 on Switch happened, Microsoft actually did stay true to their word as they didn't even publish it like they did with the first, instead having iam8bit do it.
The future of this industry is subscription services, Not buying 10-15 hour games at $70 a go.
Well if you play a ton of games and like Xbox's first party output, Game Pass is very cheap way to do that. Even if MS goes third party, as long as they keep their promise with all first party games releasing day 1 on GP, that's imo going to be big enough incentive in the future to keep Xbox the console relevant.
If money's no issue, then yeah maybe PS6 or Switch 2 will be the better option for you (provided MS will publish some / most of their games on Playstation and Switch in the future).
That's fine. They won't buy a $600 console for just that though.
You don't know that. Good games sell still extremely well and game developers are constantly commenting how development costs keep rising. Just now we're seeing MS pivoting to new strategy because clearly GP alone can't cover the costs when you're releasing games to GP day 1 and killing the conventional game sales in the process. Also honestly how many 10 hour $70 games can you even name?
Gamepass alone has never been the strategy it's alaways been a multimodal ecosystem of purchases / mtx / subscriptions
And honestly if games wanna be like spiderman with those budgets they need to be stickier with mtx or they need to be $100 a copy because the margins on $70 are already at big risk as it is
The subscriptions are a nice supplement of steady income to plan budgets around regardless of sales
I imagine it'll be something like "the people watching TV in 2024 aren't buying consoles or playing video games, those people are on Twitch and social media." Who still watches TV etc etc.
Is that an answer that is acceptable though?
When you see god knows how many ads for Playstation games, Switch games on TV, billboards, in stadiums.
Do those ads actually DIRECTLY translate to increased sales though? If PS and Nintendo stopped doing those, would sales suffer at all? I doubt it but obviously they still see value in doing it. But I also understand why Xbox don't, as it's very expensive and probably won't lead to the direct sales impact they would need to justify it.
They did do cinema ads for Starfield. I have no idea if they were also on TV, because I don't watch TV 😂
I have no actual data on where the game prices should be atm and whether Spider-Man or others make good profit or not.
Of course it's not 100% subscriptions, but by releasing your games on a subscription service day 1 the subscriptions do become quite important. MS wouldn't be debating on going third party if their current strategy would be working great.
Yeah I do. It's an obvious future trend that's going to become the norm as the new generation travels toward zero physical content.
People are buying the games at full price digitally though.
Both I suppose. Console warriors who think this is a battle for a "winner" and people who want to see a big company like Microsoft fail in any way (which wouldn't be a first at all).
They aren't debating going third party right now only forum and twitter weirdos are doing that based on a rumour of something that might happen sometime
But they are also simultaneously the biggest 1st party org and 3rd party publisher with ABK and zenimax now so technically they've already been there
The subtext here is that the current state of AAA development is at breaking point, with mass layoffs and project headwinds. Combine that with a company like Microsoft who are only in gaming to make money and increase their value to shareholders and I'm not surprised that there are rumblings of a new model at play. To be clear, we don't know what that is yet and I think a lot of people are jumping to some fairly ridiculous conclusions, but it shouldn't surprise people too much that a company who've already aligned themselves with a "Play Anywhere" strategy with Day One launches outside of the Xbox console are perhaps widening that scope, especially when their console sales have been nigh on abysmal for a decade at this stage.
I really like Xbox as a brand but I was fairly certain it would need another radical reboot to stand any chance in a future generation, maybe this is the start of that. I'm sure they'll communicate something soon because the team do at least seem to respect the online community.
I really like Xbox as a brand but I was fairly certain it would need another radical reboot to stand any chance in a future generation, maybe this is the start of that. I'm sure they'll communicate something soon because the team do at least seem to respect the online community.
In terms of consoles, they are on formats that have sub par subscription services/zero day one first party content.
If those systems changed to a day one first party sub service do you think full price sales remain the norm going forward? I don't.
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Oh shit oh shit. We seeing something long awaited at this DD aren't we…
Obviously there would be some erosion, but it would be gradual over time and I don't expect people to just stop buying Sony and Nintendo first party games because they are in a subscription. Many of those people only play 2-3 games a year and a subscription probably doesn't make sense. Starfield still sold well despite Game Pass.
Isn't it like elusive 12 at this point lol
Well let's wait and see, but HFR and SoT going multiplatform would be a pretty clear indication of that they need the games on other platforms also with their current strategy, or at least some of them, and imo there's too much smoke for all of it to not result to anything.
Of course it's possible that things stay as they are, but technically true or not atm, it would be a massive shift in strategy already if clear exclusive first party games like HFR and SoT would be coming to PS5 and Switch. MS is a third party publisher right now mainly because they've acquired massive third party franchises and that comes with certain disclaimers, not necessarily because they've chosen to be one.
Why would they not translate to increased sales? If historically that wasn't true, do you really think everyone else would still be doing it? All signs point to it being an additional factor yes. You are never reaching the mass market (and the numbers it brings with it) if you only cater to those who were already interested enough to look up your console. You don't reach Switch numbers by relying on word of mouth, targeted ads to already interested consumers, and contacting influencers.
Truth is the one company that needs to try the most is the one that is not doing it. Sony and Nintendo now don't do it to sell a product directly, but to stay relevant, to stay in people's mind.
And no, just because they went on the Las Vegas Sphere for two nights, had buses in a couple of cities, a couple of billboards (I think 100 maximum around the world as they clearly stated it, which is an insanely small number), and maybe the trailer in some US cinemas, that doesn't make it at all a global campaign.
The Xbox team is surprised that they can't expand their console to new people, when what they do is only talk to their own fan.
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