The point is they haven't narrowed down shit yet. Every single game they ever announced has been delayed again and again. With MS, until you're actually holding the game in your hand, you have jack. Just a bunch of old games you've already played 70 times (assuming you're an actual gamer and don't play 2 games a year like most of the people on this forum), and the promise of things to come.
Wouldn't hold my breath for that 11-11-22 date either. Seems oddly specific for a game with so far a 30s trailer of a sandwich on a table and a chick in a cockpit.
It's not sure that DOOM and Fallout will be XBOX exlcusive. MS doesn't even know themselves.... Starfield is the only confirmed exclusive so far from Bethesda
I think Microsoft will just evaluate how much their Bethesda games are console salers and if it's worth selling more consoles rather than selling more games. Or they will be XBOX exclusives for 1 year then when they know nobody will buy Xbox, they will sell them on PlayStation.
I don't think anyone at MS really know what's going on, they probably have a whole department that will do the maths
The point is they haven't narrowed down shit yet. Every single game they ever announced has been delayed again and again. With MS, until you're actually holding the game in your hand, you have jack. Just a bunch of old games you've already played 70 times (assuming you're an actual gamer and don't play 2 games a year like most of the people on this forum), and the promise of things to come.
Wouldn't hold my breath for that 11-11-22 date either. Seems oddly specific for a game with so far a 30s trailer of a sandwich on a table and a chick in a cockpit.
IMO consoles at their current shape going to "die".. not really though.
What I mean there probably be only 3rd parties games and current consoles manufacturers will probably be still provide hardware but no longer the way PS, Switch or Bonnie going, more Like Valva or even Asus.
Without going into too much detail, not long after the last round of layoffs (next one should be coming in Q1 26 btw - and its going to be just as massive as the last one), some rumblings out of Xbox starting coming out that were a little hard to believe.
The ramifications of the CoD GP gambit not working out were just starting to get properly measured, but the thing that really stuck out to me was that suddenly, really concrete plans for actual MS Xbox HW went from being definitive, to up in the air, which was really startling given that this thing was meant to be out relatively soon. It was one of those situations where, despite folks being told 'hey, we wanna pull the trigger on this in 2026', the steps you would need to take in the lead up to delivering a new console gen weren't being met.
Lots of things that were 'sure things' started getting pushed. The Costco retailer pulling Xbox, and apparently they are one of many that we'll learn about soon, told me all I needed to know.
To sum it up: the future of Xbox is software publishing, with a significantly honed-in focus on profitable IPs (CoD, WoW, Minecraft, Candy Crush, Forza Horizon), Cloud gaming being the home of the 'Xbox platform', transititioning GamePass into basically becoming the point of entry subscription for xCloud access (which will continue to drive its price tag higher btw, they aren't done there just yet either), and releasing their software on any device that has a marketplace and users willing to buy their titles.
Maybe some OEM thing will take up the Xbox name, but given what is clearly a collapse in favorable mindshare and faith in said brand, i'm not even sure a 3rd party OEM is gonna want to have an Xbox console by the time MS is done with their reorienting of the division.
So first this leak out of Neogaf, from someone who apparently has near perfect track record with this kind of insider information.
Microsoft of course refuting it, likely to placate shareholders and maybe the consumer base.
"We are seeking a Gaming Content and Studios Finance Lead to strategically unify and lead the financial vision for our first party Gaming Content and Studios (GC&S), encompassing ABK (Activision, Blizzard, King), Zenimax, and additional independent studios.
"This role will provide a holistic perspective across all gaming studios, driving the consolidation of financial processes and systems across global organizations.
"You will collaborate with business owners and Gaming Studio CFOs (Chief Financial Officers) to identify and resolve challenges, as well as support the President of GC&S in executive reviews.
"By fostering seamless integration and alignment, this leader will enable operational efficiency, compliance, and transformation across our diverse gaming portfolio."
Responsibilities
-Develop and champion a holistic financial strategy for multi-billion-dollar gaming franchises, driving execution and accountability.
-Be the central finance lead for understanding first party Gaming Content and Studio revenue forecast, and provide insights and recommendations to help the organization exceed their revenue and accountability margin goals.
-Partner with studio CFOs (Activision, Blizzard, King, Zenimax, Xbox Game Studios) to optimize finance processes, identify issues, and foster cross-studio solutions.
-Support executive reviews by delivering clear, data-driven insights and process clarity.
Gaming Finance Transformation Lead
"We are seeking a Gaming Finance Transformation Lead with deep integration prowess to drive transformation initiatives with urgency and lead financial process and system harmonization across Gaming studios.
"This role will ensure seamless alignment of financial processes, systems, and reporting standards across multiple entities, enabling operational efficiency and compliance to align with business objectives."
Responsibilities
-Accelerate and drive financial transformation efforts for acquisitions and system consolidations, ensuring alignment with corporate policies and regulatory requirements.
Digital Foundry also did a quick video cover of it in their weekly update.
Really seems to be accurate, rebranding and changing focus more into a publisher company with less hardware focus.
What counters it so far is the AMD news about the hardware updates and coming features for both the next XBox and the Playstation, but plans change all the time.
I'm expecting much of the leaked info to hold true, must suck for the employees if there will be another sweeping layoff that is almost as big as the first one and the possibility for even more projects to be cancelled or entire studios to be shuttered, Microsoft and their ongoing effort to recoup the financial losses from the Activision deal and the info recently about the Game Pass changes, which also aligns here with how it just wasn't working out financially, with particular focus on Call of Duty.
The near unavailability of the actual XBox hardware is also very concerning, early on it appeared that Microsoft was putting focus on the data centers and adding more hardware to the server blades there for the improved cloud features, but the hardware continues to be entirely absent from most stores here and elsewhere in Europe, less so in the US at least.
You'd be surprised. People have kept buying their latest xbox generations even when a playstation would have gotten them further. Lineup was the same, but playstation had their exclusives. Now Microsoft got their exclusive games also though
At the times One X and Series came out, Microsoft had renewed investment in the Xbox division. Things have never been so bad since the days following the original Xbox days, when Gates was disillusioned by console gaming because his first generation console didn't beat the well established competition. This are really bad these days.
Microsoft havent really done anything interesting since the Xbox360 era. Plenty of games and the console had very high value. Since then? Its just a few games all in all really. You could play for gamepass for a handful of games you wanted to play, but these games were available everywhere. Had they produced exclusives at the same degree as Sony then i would understand it, but it's just been stagnation central. A couple or so of Halo games, a couple of Gears of war games and a shite crackdown game. They need console sellers. As it is now, invest in a PC, not buy a shite Xbox and that has been true since post 360
I don't think Microsoft did nothing since Xbox360. Forza Horizon 5 and Indiana Jones are great games : proof it sells like hotcake on PS5. They also did innovative stuff with their Xbox360 emulator on Xbox Series with (some) games running in 4K 60fps.
I don't think Indiana Jones is worse than your generic Sony exclusive. If anything, and I'm a fanboy, I think GoW Ragnarok was so so and a copy pasta job from GoW 2018.
Xbox Series X made sense initially: you could play all these games for only 10$ a month (even less thx to uncle rajesh) and the console was more powerful than a PS5 (and cheaper than a PC).
Problem of Xbox lies into something deeper than this gen and Xbox Series.
Halo saga for instance is not as huge as it was and I'm pretty sure Microsoft would have preferred an IP like Uncharted rather than Halo. I was myself never a Halo or a Gears of Bore fan. You can keep doing them them all you want, these IPs are not that great and tiring, and declining : see Halo Infinite, it was a failure. Developers were restructured and many lay off. Forza Motorsport dev = out, fired.
But Forza Horizon and Indiana Jones were great and a great boost to their sales.
You only see Xbox 360 as the savior because it was released 1.5 year before PS3, was performing better in initial 3rd party games, and it was easy for developpers to port their games on Xbox unlike PS3. Xbox 360 was a great 3rd party console and the best one for it, but for 1st party? It never was. Gears of War, Halo, Forza Motorsport (not Horizon) are not Uncharted, the Last of Us, Gran Turismo, God of War, the Quantic Dream games.
PS4 made the console war even again for 3rd party games + added 1st party Sony IPs (some from PS2) ---> why would you buy an Xbox? Worse exclusives, worse 3rd party ports (on Xbone). I remember that Banzoo Kazooie game on Xbox360... Come on, it sucked ass. This was already more than 10 years ago. And you are probably biased because you could also pirate games almost instantly so "it rocks, best console eva" unlike PS3 which took many years.
Xbox Series X has nothing to do with it, if anything it tried to make things better.
Not sure why I'm wasting my time giving my thoughts though, as usual I'm sure Stormwolf will attack me saying "You're 10000000% wrong, that's bullshit, i'm 100% right, stfu"
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