The Xbox Series X, Holiday 2020 (1 Viewer)

[Morgan Jolley]

The biggest mistake with the revised X is that it's looking like full price despite losing the disc drive. If you're taking something away, consumers are going to expect a lower price. I think its a good idea to have an option without a disc drive at a lower price for people who want that and there's no real issue from my view with offering the more powerful Series X without a drive, but...cut the price.

 

[Sam Posten]

 

[Edwin-S]

A commercial celebrating concentration of ownership as a beautiful day. Just fucking terrible.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

It's more like the death knell of ABK. Once MS buys a studio, they seem to mismanage it until it's a shell of its former self, they implode it to generate one or two live service games, and live off the back catalog on Game Pass.

Which is fine because ABK is essentially already a dead husk that lives off a few live service games.

 

[Alex...]

Xbox Ending Platform Exclusive Call of Duty Content

Xbox boss Phil Spencer wants '100% parity' for Call of Duty versions.

comicbook.com

 

[Edwin-S]

It's more like the death knell of ABK. Once MS buys a studio, they seem to mismanage it until it's a shell of its former self, they implode it to generate one or two live service games, and live off the back catalog on Game Pass.

Which is fine because ABK is essentially already a dead husk that lives off a few live service games.

I see two of Bethesda's key people are leaving. One is retiring and the other is going over to another dev.

I'm pretty sure Microsoft will somehow manage to slaughter the pigs they have acquired. They acquired a lot of smaller piglets along with the big three. I doubt a lot of those smaller decs they acquired under the ABK umbrella will survive their tender mercies.

It's all.Call of Duty this and Call of Duty that. You'd think it was the only game ABK makes the way it gets talked about. The media constantly focusing on one game being non-exclusive serves to keep the attention from all the othe other ones that used to be platform agnostic, like Bethesda's games, that will soon be only available on XBOX and PC; however, to some.thatnis considered to be good for gamers and competition.

 

[LeoA]

It's more like the death knell of ABK. Once MS buys a studio, they seem to mismanage it until it's a shell of its former self, they implode it to generate one or two live service games, and live off the back catalog on Game Pass.

It's traditionally been no better even when they have a close working relationship with Microsoft, too (i.e., what gamers would classify as a 2nd party studio). Ask the Bizarre Creations guys about how that works out.

I wouldn't be surprised if it will go the route that so many before have, like Aces Game Studio (the long-time developers of Microsoft Flight Simulator before MS scuttled the franchise after FSX until the semi recent revival many years later).

The name will live on as will Call of Duty, but the individual studios and their workforce might not like how things evolve down the road. But hopefully we'll be shown that Microsoft has learned from their past missteps with studio ownership. They've done a good job of staying hands-off and cultivating Turn 10 and Playground Games for instance and have been regularly rewarded with highly rated commercial successes.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

The reason the focus has been on Call of Duty is because it's an annual franchise that continuously sells very well on multiple platforms. Most of the other ABK franchises are 4-5 year releases or basically dormant, living off remakes/remasters. People are upset that like Elder Scrolls 6 will be Xbox/PC exclusive but it also probably won't be out until the next gen of consoles, anyway.

The reason MS probably wants to push for console parity with Call of Duty is because their console is the one that kept getting the worst versions recently OR they are trying to announce that the Series S will bottleneck the series but make it sound nice. I don't play CoD so it means nothing to me, personally.

I think this really was about getting a foothold in the mobile space. MS happily gave up streaming rights to Ubisoft and is aiming to put Call of Duty on Nintendo consoles with parity across platforms, but they're relatively quiet about mobile plans. I wouldn't be surprised if they announce GamePass for Mobile some time soon and have it work across iOS and Android.

 

[Alex...]

 

[Sam Posten]

https://x.com/thehornetsfury/status/1750612652873928949?s=46

 

[Morgan Jolley]

I saw someone write under an article about this stuff on facebook something along the lines of "you never see Nintendo having mass layoffs, instead their CEO took a huge pay cut when the Wii U bombed."

 

[Morgan Jolley]

Xbox just cut their physical retail division and I just read that 10% of retail physical game sales were from Xbox. I wouldn't be surprised if they're pushing into a digital-first or even digital-only future now.

That leaked new Series X from last year with no disc drive is likely being announced before summer?

 

[Morgan Jolley]

This was quite the weekend for Microsoft news. Apparently they're looking to essentially turn into a 3rd party publisher. Put all, or at least most, of their games on PlayStation and/or Switch while shifting to a digital-only release strategy for Xbox (and possibly other platforms, too). The issues seem to be that the Xbox Series S/X aren't selling well enough and the temporary $350 price for Series X around the holidays did nothing to drum up enough extra sales, so the developers are upset they're being essentially punished with low sales of their good games because Microsoft can't get enough hardware sold. GamePass is also not turning a profit, even with price increases, because it's so expensive to maintain all the licenses and there aren't enough consoles for the customer base to support the overall cost.

The rumors are that Hi-Fi Rush is coming to Switch and PlayStation (all but confirmed through recent datamining of the anniversary update of the game), Sea of Thieves is coming to PlayStation, and then future releases like Hellblade and Indiana Jones will go to PlayStation at launch or soon after. Then Starfield and any other major Xbox exclusives (probably short of Forza and Halo, the stuff Xbox built their brand on) will come to other platforms. This basically means the Xbox hardware is a GamePass platform, so you can pay $200/yr to get everything Microsoft and their companies release (minus Call of Duty, apparently) on Xbox OR you can buy games individually when they are out on other platforms.

I'm not sure what to think about this. Its a business decision that will anger people who feel they should get exclusives for buying into the Xbox ecosystem, but it's also good for the developers because they can be more profitable by expanding their sales base.

 

[Alex...]

New improved Xbox Series X rumored to release this year.

It is supposed to be:

White color
Improved heat sink
An upgraded Nexus card
No disc

New and Improved Xbox Series X Rumored to Release This Year

Xbox supposedly has a new, white Xbox Series X coming this year.

comicbook.com

 

[Morgan Jolley]

Sounds a lot like the leak from the FTC documents last year.

Alleged Xbox Series X Refresh Revealed in Colossal FTC Court Docs Leak

Microsoft's Xbox Series X refresh is all-digital and will come standard with 2TB of storage

www.tomshardware.com

 

[Alex...]

Rumor: Xbox working on handheld prototype

Xbox Handheld Reportedly Being Prototyped at Microsoft

Rumors of Xbox making its own handheld continue to grow stronger.

comicbook.com

 

[Morgan Jolley]

A native handheld gaming platform would be a tough sell in today's market. Either expensive like a Steam Deck (basically the high end of new console prices) and it plays digital versions of the same games on the consoles OR a new platform that is underpowered compared to the consoles and gets unique versions of games, even if they're just downscaled (which amounts to developers having to make a new-ish version of their games). Considering Xbox is already facing a lot of headwinds for their platforms, this is probably DOA. But it's great to see them at least prototyping it.

 

[Alex...]

Leaked pics of the All-Digital white Xbox-Series X, said to be launching this summer.

[Exclusive] Here's Your First Look At The Upcoming White, All-Digital Xbox Series X

Sources close to eXputer have revealed images of the white, digital-only Xbox Series X that's coming in June or July this year.

exputer.com