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Phil Spencer: announcement this week

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Free marketing, and publicity. I can easily seeing Microsoft doing it for those two reasons and more. again, it’s gonna be stuff like hi-fi rush, starfield, Indiana jones etc. I think Jeff plub and most of the Xbox influencers were getting mixed information.

But if MS sees good sales from Starfield and Indiana Jones, then Masterchief and Gears will be next.

I'd like to point out that Phil tweeted that there will be a business update.

I read that as something that could significantly impact Microsoft stock.

If nothing was happening at all -> twitter denial (simple)
If one or two games going multi-plat -> official announcement/blog post


The fact that this is a "business update" suggests a significant restructuring/change of strategy. I may be *way off* but I think it's a big enough change that it would cause market movements for the stock and as such they'll have to be careful how they put the presentation together and double check that there are no stock sales by execs occurring right now (or they'll be hammered for insider trading). I'm thinking that's the reason for the week long delay - they need the time to get the ducks in a row as it's actually quite a big thing.

(and yeah of course they will message it in the most positive way they can)

The damage has been caused because it leaked *before* everything was ready.

100% on point and logical. Nothing else would make sense.
 
Welcome aboard, where this train goes nobody knows
2AndTv5.jpg
I want a ride.
 

JohnnyFootball

GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
Entirely possible they tested the waters and haven't even finalized what they will port, if anything. No matter what though, I stand by my belief that responding to these rumors with a wait until next week statement would be extremely foolish if the rumors weren't true. Getting free press / attention is good at times, and bad at times. Said free press / interest can sell games to a captivated new audience. Free press / interest in whether they are going 3rd party (or worse) will not sell consoles though. It will just put a little voice in the back of some purchasers minds when deciding where to invest 500-800 on a console, extra controller, and a couple games.

On the possibility of announcing specific new hardware for 2026, well, that would be very interesting indeed. IMO, seems very unlikely beyond a cloud streaming puck (etc) though. Announcing a full blown console this far out could sink the Series line even in territories where its doing best. They can't afford to accelerate market share losses in the age of digital libraries if they plan to stay in the high end console market.
This kind of free press is literally the worst kind Xbox can be receiving. If there wasn't significant smoke, they should have put them out.

if the goal is to increase subscriptions and console sales. Letting all this drama out in the open is absolutely counterproductive.

However, a lot can happen between now and next week. there are a ton of moving pieces and whenever they do speak, I doubt they will tell us all that much.

However, I do think releasing Starfield sooner rather than later would be the smarter move, so they can also get DLC sales from PS. I doubt that will happen,
 

JohnnyFootball

GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
That, friends circle / word of mouth, and no physical presence in local retail stores will be more than enough to eradicate the brand's presence in my opinion.

Gaining goodwill for the XBox brand after all this fiasco will be another huge challenge for the (new?) leadership team.
Yes. which is why it's lunacy to think that MS is doing this for marketing. I wouldn't put it completely past them since they are known for dumb decisions. But if they're really now being run by bean counters, you'd think they would get a handle on it.

But who nows....xbox gonna xbox.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
This kind of free press is literally the worst kind Xbox can be receiving. If there wasn't significant smoke, they should have put them out.

if the goal is to increase subscriptions and console sales. Letting all this drama out in the open is absolutely counterproductive.

However, a lot can happen between now and next week. there are a ton of moving pieces and whenever they do speak, I doubt they will tell us all that much.

However, I do think releasing Starfield sooner rather than later would be the smarter move, so they can also get DLC sales from PS. I doubt that will happen,

If the bolded happens, then that means ANYTHING can come to PS5. Starfield was supposed to be Xbox's GOTG.
 

JohnnyFootball

GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
If the bolded happens, then that means ANYTHING can come to PS5. Starfield was supposed to be Xbox's GOTG.
It won't happen. That I am confident of, BUT it would make the most financial sense. How many more sales can they realistically expect to get on Xbox?
 

Fabieter

Member
I double down it was all marketing. They will have the atention of all fans from all brands next week. New series full digital. The announce of next gen for 2026. A few old games on switch and ps. Maybe a change on gamepass model. This will let they buy more publishers and later take these games out of other platforms and they let people know what they have and maybe buy a xbox or play at cloud. It is a smart move.

If you are this anti competitive after your aquisition is complete than you might face consequences to lose said company again. They cant buy half the industry swearing that they are for all platforms just to fuck over all completion.
 

efyu_lemonardo

May I have a cookie?
So basically Xbox will be an app that runs on everything. You'll be able to play your Xbox library on any of your devices with cross save in the cloud and other convenient features yet to be announced. This is a vision Microsoft has had for many years.
 

Fabieter

Member
This is exactly what I think - go after the newly formed handheld pc market - MS version of steamdeck but with platform lockin so MS get all the revenue from the game sales. Also the only time they've been somewhat competitive with Sony in the home console arena is when they launched early. Nextbox is going to be earlier than PS6 by 18months-2 years.

It will be essentially off-the-shelf bits (again) and any "customisations" will be only there to serve DirectX x.y.z APIs (as they've always done in the past).

It will be a jump above the PS5 pro, but coming in early will mean the PS6 will be a gen ahead - in some ways it'll be really nice for hw speculation threads as we'll have them back to back, like going from watching the Euros to watching the World Cup only 2 years later!

The other option is that they choose to do a streaming stick style of thing and push hw into the data centre - I think we're 1 gen too early for that to really work, but they've been working on some of the underlying tech for this for a while so I can see that ramping up - maybe they think it'll be ready in 25-26 <shrug>

You think a next gen console in 2026 will be significantly stronger then the ps5 pro console in 2024 for a competitive price?
 
So basically Xbox will be an app that runs on everything. You'll be able to play your Xbox library on any of your devices with cross save in the cloud and other convenient features yet to be announced. This is a vision Microsoft has had for many years.

Yep and one that no one has been asking for. People have literally been screaming at them to make better games and be more consistent and once again they just do their own thing and ignore what gamers are telling them to do. Don't get me wrong this is cool and a good idea but it's not something that is going to make me invest in their ecosystem.

You know what would have been great for them to do with all that money? Stop the contractor rule they have in place for all game studios and actually build a team of good devs\employees you can rely on to create quality games.
 

foamdino

Member
You think a next gen console in 2026 will be significantly stronger then the ps5 pro console in 2024 for a competitive price?
Yeah, ps5pro will be based on ps5, the nextbox would be a generational break.

I expect ps5pro to be based on a zen2 cpu, nextbox to be based on zen5 - that is a jump.

However, the Nextbox will be significantly weaker than the PS6 - by quite a large chunk.

That's my expectations
 

Alebrije

Member
So for their next ejecutive meeting instead of Sting Microsoft Will hire The Weekend to perform " Save your tears for another day"...
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
So basically Xbox will be an app that runs on everything. You'll be able to play your Xbox library on any of your devices with cross save in the cloud and other convenient features yet to be announced. This is a vision Microsoft has had for many years.
No, they are not putting GP on PlayStation, so not an app. They are just porting XGS games to PlayStation and Nintendo just like any other third-party publisher, as per the rumors.
 

Audiophile

Member

Japanese company circa 2001 - Basically gets up on stage looking like they're about to commit Seppuku, humbly expresses third-party intentions and provides honest, logical reasons.

American company circa next week - Probably bullshit everyone with business speak telling us "we heard you" and "we value you", while slowly becoming third party over 5 years or so without ever actually saying it.
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
I think the next gen Xbox will be more expensive than what people are used to
If they go to the OEM route, it will definitely be more expensive. And it is also one of the big reasons why I think they will be eventually squeezed out of the hardware market.

Consoles are always sold at a loss, only because they money is made after selling software in a walled garden. With that out of the picture, the consoles will have to be sold at a profit per unit.

So, theoretically, a similarly-specced and powerful PS6 console can be up to $300 cheaper than the Xbox Next. I don't think there is going to be any meaningful market for a $300 more expensive console with the least amount of games (first- and third-party) and no or very, very few exclusives.

Just my 2 cents.
 
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Fabieter

Member
I think the next gen Xbox will be more expensive than what people are used to

Well its possible than but selling significantly more expensive didn't do the ps3 any favors. But i dont think xbox cares because i expects consoles more frequently from them like every 2 to 3 years. Games will be "will work at your xbox if you bought it after 2027" something like that.
 

Killjoy-NL

Member
If they go to the OEM route, it will definitely be more expensive. And it is also one of the big reasons why I think they will be eventually squeezed out of the hardware market.

Consoles are always sold at a loss, only because they money is made after selling software in a walled garden. With that out of the picture, the consoles will have to be sold at a profit per unit.

So, theoretically, a similarly-specced and powerful PS6 console can be up to $300 cheaper than the Xbox Next. I don't think there is going to be any meaningful market for a $300 more expensive console with the least amount of games (first- and third-party) and no or very, very few exclusives.

Just my 2 cents.
$300 difference?

The new xbox would be practically DOA then, outside some hardcore Xbox fans and people with money to burn.
 

efyu_lemonardo

May I have a cookie?
Yep and one that no one has been asking for. People have literally been screaming at them to make better games and be more consistent and once again they just do their own thing and ignore what gamers are telling them to do. Don't get me wrong this is cool and a good idea but it's not something that is going to make me invest in their ecosystem.

You know what would have been great for them to do with all that money? Stop the contractor rule they have in place for all game studios and actually build a team of good devs\employees you can rely on to create quality games.
Microsoft's approach seems to be that good (meaning profitable) games are something that will pretty much happen independently, and they just have to build a ubiquitous business platform on top of that foundation that capitalizes on the hits, whenever those occur. It's similar to EA's failed approach with monetization and their own storefront back in the day, but on a bigger scale.

The philosophy is not that you'll necessarily have to think about investing in their ecosystem, but rather that they'll be everywhere, on every device. So the next Minecraft or Cuphead or Palworld has a day one potential audience of up to a billion players.
 
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