Microsoft Consoles and Updates

[shinymcshine]

Maybe it's the cultural issue of how poorly MS sell in Japan, whereas part of the tie-in with the NS through the Activision deal was to try to take a slice of that market (even if it's not through direct console sales).

 

[DisturbedSwan]

1 hour ago, HandsomeDead said:

Make sure not to pull anything moving those goal posts.  I'm talking about in the current moment.  Of course Nintendo have overall smashed it with the Switch but the last year, maybe two they've absolutely been coasting just relying on the strength of the platform.  That strength came from a good launch (where exclusives are more meaningful) and exclusives later in the lifespan at best maintain it.

I don't know how anyone can argue against that the table is set around a year after a consoles launch and the vast, vast majority of times no amazing set of exclusives will change that.  I don't think it even matters that it doesn't.  I just want good games for the sake of having good games, but they're not gonna change the market share dramatically and setting the standard that they will is so silly because it has never worked out that way (except the PS3 which we talked about, but even then it was slim and at the very end of the generation (and more because of a failure of MS than an achievement of Sony), but it certainly doesn't happen at the stage we're at now).

 

Overall I just see "just make more exclusives and you'll be the market leader" is such unreasonable rhetoric.  It's pull yourself up by you bootstraps arguement and I'm going a little insane having to take it seriously.

 

 

Actually, why are forecasts taken at face value so uncritically.  Just because they foresaw a dip it means things are all good?  I... I dunno this is going way out of the scope of discussion the Phil clip was pointing at.

 

Okay, Sony and Nintendo are killing it by their own criteria, so are MS I guess.  So am I even.  I've met all my projections.

 

I mean 'I don't think any of the console manufacturers are doing well at the moment, it's weird to single out MS for that.' Is a pretty vague, nonsensical thing to start off with that's factually incorrect so I don't really know any goalposts were set in the first place lol. I think the angle I think you're coming at it from is strength of the games line-up where the angle I'm coming at it from is strength is sales numbers. I'd definitely agree with you in terms of games line-up the Switch was relatively front-loaded in that regard but there have been just the right amount of exclusives every year to still entice people in, even if they were 'B' Tier franchises so to speak. 

 

I will agree with you insofar as it's difficult to turn the ship around so to speak after the first year, but it's definitely far from impossible, PS3 did it after all, putting out stellar exclusives predominantly during the last few years of its lifecycle which caught it up with the 360 and put it into second place in the pecking order. It can definitely happen again, the more stellar AAA exclusives Microsoft puts out, that review well, that are well received by the general public, the more consoles it will sell, it's as simple as that. Sony and Nintendo have these big tentpole releases, ones where they make limited edition consoles, limited edition bundles for and all that jazz, they 'eventise' these flagship games, Microsoft haven't had one of them since Horizon 5 and Halo Infinite and that was in 2021. They need more of those and more people will buy their consoles, that isn't the only issue MS has though, they have a lot of other issues they need to rectify in order to sell more consoles, to get Game Pass in the hands of more people, which is surely their ultimate goal. 

 

It's not as simple as sell more consoles and you'll be the market leader, if I intimated as much then I apologise, my overall point is that AAA exclusives, big flagship exclusive titles sell consoles. A myriad of other factors do come into it but peoples heads are turned by big exclusives, no matter what Phil says to the contrary.

 

I think different companies vary in accuracy when it comes to sales forecasts for the upcoming FY, some like to overpromise and underdeliver to appease shareholders, others like to do the opposite in under promising then overdelivering so shareholders are ultimately happy. Others, like Sony, tend to lean on the overpromising side of things but they do tend to pull it off and the sales figures for Q1 (the biggest number of consoles sold in Q1 in history) seem to suggest they are accurate even if at first place they might seem a bit unrealistic. It forecasts 25 million consoles sold for this FY which would be the most sold in one year in history if it pulls it off. 

 

Sales figures never lie ultimately, it's the most worrying stat of all the recent figures to come out of Microsoft's FY results keynote, in that a console so young is declining in sales whilst its rivals (one a 6 year old console) is outselling it by a significant margin. That was my point here, sales figures don't lie, ultimately, I hope MS turn things around I really do but without that momentum a big AAA flagship release would have then I can't see a surge in sales until Starfield hits in September - and that's if it's as successful and as well received as we're all hoping/expecting it will be.

[HandsomeDead]

14 minutes ago, DisturbedSwan said:

It's not as simple as sell more consoles and you'll be the market leader, if I intimated as much then I apologise, my overall point is that AAA exclusives, big flagship exclusive titles sell consoles. A myriad of other factors do come into it but peoples heads are turned by big exclusives, no matter what Phil says to the contrary.

 

But that was never what was said! 😩  Urgh, this is just going around in circles. 

 

I dunno how to put it simply.  Exclusives can increase console sales but not to the point of a shift in the market (look at any third placer: e.g GameCube)

Shifts in the market happen not just because of exclusives but are reliant on a failure on the competition (the PS3/360 being the only time this happened).

 

The standards you're using are practically unachievable and just an excuse to talk shit quoting the criteria set by some soulless ghouls.  "Eventise" jfc

[mmmark]

European Commission reportedly set to approve Microsoft's Activision Blizzard deal

[Nag]

That's what they said before the CMA announced their verdict and look how that went...🙄

 

Although it's the UK vs Europe so I doubt they'll agree...😂

[Nag]

Because there's only ever bad figures posted in regards to Xbox here (Microsoft murdered 40.000 puppies in 2022 alone!, that kind've thing) I'll post this...

 

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/xbox-series-s-and-x-hit-2m-sales-in-the-uk-12-weeks-faster-than-nintendo-switch

 

Good for them but something tells me they won't be reaching Switch numbers anytime soon.

[one-armed dwarf]

EU says aye

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/gaming/eu-approves-microsofts-69-billion-acquisition-of-activision-blizzard-clearing-major-hurdle/ar-AA1bdfRU

 

 

[mmmark]

Noice. 

[DisturbedSwan]

I for one hail our trillion dollar mega corporation overlords lol.

 

In all seriousness, it's a shame this went through but reading Smith's comments after the CMA ruling regarding the EC process, it always seemed like he liked it a lot more and that it would sail through. So much for the EU taking on Corporations eh? 

 

But yeah, finally some good news for Microsoft in a super rough year, NPD April sales come out shortly too which may give them some more good news possibly.

[Nag]

🎉🎉

[mmmark]

1 hour ago, DisturbedSwan said:

I for one hail our trillion dollar mega corporation overlords lol.

 

In all seriousness, it's a shame this went through but reading Smith's comments after the CMA ruling regarding the EC process, it always seemed like he liked it a lot more and that it would sail through. So much for the EU taking on Corporations eh? 

 

But yeah, finally some good news for Microsoft in a super rough year, NPD April sales come out shortly too which may give them some more good news possibly.

Did you have such reservations when Disney bought marvel and Star Wars and ensured nothing could compete for months around their release dates?

[one-armed dwarf]

That fox Disney stuff should definitely have been blocked

 

But hey at least it means the xenomorph will be fighting Woody and Donald Duck in that Smash clone

[DisturbedSwan]

1 hour ago, mmmark said:

Did you have such reservations when Disney bought marvel and Star Wars and ensured nothing could compete for months around their release dates?

I didn’t at the time no, as I was blinded by the excitement of possibly seeing the X-Men in the MCU, as silly as that sounds.

 

I can hold my hands up now and say that I was wrong, it was an awful decision and demonstrably anti-competitive. I love the properties, I love the IP but yeah, it was and is definitely anti-competitive. I was silly and let my own selfish personal self interests interfere in my own judgement. 
 

People get things wrong sometimes, it’s fine to be wrong, more people in the world need to take L’s sometimes and realise that rather than be too prideful to realise they’re in the wrong or are wrong about a certain subject, topic etc. 

 

I think some folks here who are pro-this merger but typically anti-corporation are similar and in hindsight if this goes through may feel similar in a few years time but who knows.

Just to compare the two for a second though, Disney has a $168B market cap, Microsoft a $2.3T market cap. Microsoft are roughly 14 times bigger than Disney.
 

If you’re anti corporation, be consistent, big mergers of this scale with these mega corporations are never a good thing. I took awhile to realise that, but yeah, there are so many examples out there.

 

[DANGERMAN]

3 hours ago, mmmark said:

Did you have such reservations when Disney bought marvel and Star Wars and ensured nothing could compete for months around their release dates?

I know you're not addressing me, but I did and I stand by it. People in favour of both acquisitions are turkeys voting for Christmas 

[mmmark]

1 hour ago, DisturbedSwan said:

I didn’t at the time no, as I was blinded by the excitement of possibly seeing the X-Men in the MCU, as silly as that sounds.

 

I can hold my hands up now and say that I was wrong, it was an awful decision and demonstrably anti-competitive. I love the properties, I love the IP but yeah, it was and is definitely anti-competitive. I was silly and let my own selfish personal self interests interfere in my own judgement. 
 

People get things wrong sometimes, it’s fine to be wrong, more people in the world need to take L’s sometimes and realise that rather than be too prideful to realise they’re in the wrong or are wrong about a certain subject, topic etc. 

 

I think some folks here who are pro-this merger but typically anti-corporation are similar and in hindsight if this goes through may feel similar in a few years time but who knows.

Just to compare the two for a second though, Disney has a $168B market cap, Microsoft a $2.3T market cap. Microsoft are roughly 14 times bigger than Disney.
 

If you’re anti corporation, be consistent, big mergers of this scale with these mega corporations are never a good thing. I took awhile to realise that, but yeah, there are so many examples out there.

 

Thorough answer, thank you.  

[Sly Reflex]

Disney fucked cinema. It's what the public is buying though. We get what we deserve.

[HandsomeDead]

It's hard to say it's totally the public when Disney has the cinema pretty much monopolised.  There's so much less choice when you do turn up, especially since they make them do more screenings than needed.

[one-armed dwarf]

To an extent, but its mostly the corps.

 

People should go back and read that Scorcese op-ed.

[Maryokutai]

I'm against both, but it's not always black and white. Fox was fine on its own (one of their last big releases was Alita of all things) but Activision is a trainwreck right now that wobbles over the rails thanks to the strength of Call of Duty and Call of Duty alone. Not to mention the fiasco around their leadership. Microsoft has too many eyes on them to allow such behaviour and for that alone I think the argument can be made that the merger would be a good thing, to some extent.

[HandsomeDead]

I just don't see CoD as unbeatable as well.  Every big publisher made a game that wanted to be CoD rather than beat it for so long (and mostly not doing a great job of it).  A lot of luck is involved with a break out game, the conditions just have to be right and CoD doesn't do anything so remarkable that another studio couldn't do.  Something like Titanfall could do it for example.  They built up a solid foundation of goodwill with that second game that could be built on.

I guess there is the Blizzard IP too but they're not where they once were.  WoW still does business but I'm fairly sure it has been toppled by FFXIV at this point which shows it can happen.

 

I really don't want monopolisation but I just don't think the arguments against this merger have been very strong.  If a different precedent had been set by the Bethesda deal then maybe the arguments would be stronger but it is what it is.

 

And with cloud gaming it's inherently low investment for the user so if another cloud gaming company had a hit, cancel for a bit and go to another service if it had a new breakout game everyone plays.  Like the film/TV streamers.

But that's all speculation at this point, it may never get adopted as much as they think.

 

So I don't really care about this deal specifically and I think a way I would get behind something like this is if there was also a real effort to stop monopolisation by breaking up the ones that already exist across the entertainment industry because kicking up a fuss over this one example is just meek and unconvincing.