- Was he really that bad? Wasn't the predecessor dude the guy who said something along the lines of "all games will require an Internet connection, you cavemen" or something along those lines?
- Xbox has been languishing badly and Microsoft games in general have not been doing very well over the past decade despite gaming becoming completely mainstream so one might suspect that he is being retired rather than retiring. Yes, he was better than Mattrick but that was a very, very low bar to clear.
I will give Spencer a bit of credit though for bringing back Microsoft Flight Simulator.
- I want to agree but I don't see the greener grass at all. Please bear in mind that this is totally anecdotal.
I own all three major consoles. My PS5 has been switched on about six times since I purchased it at the time the PSVR2 was released. Is it because I'm not into the funky and weird JRPG titles or am I just sold to the Xbox ecosystem? I play Xbox almost every single day. My PS5 is just using up space and for two titles which didn't fully grip me (Horizon and The Last of Us).
What am I missing here? Is the answer PC/Steam?
- You're sold to the Xbox ecosystem.
All Xbox games are available on PS5. You can play Forza Horizon just fine on PS5 but Ghost of Yotei is never coming to Xbox. Microsoft had to do this because Xbox sales are dismal (below Xbox One) and they're being outsold 3:1.
- I haven’t looked at the specifics but it’s seemed to me that for years anything that came out on Xbox also came out on PC on the same date, and the PC has titles that aren’t on either Xbox or PS5. There are a lot of games that come out on PS5 and then either never come to PC or there’s a year+ delay. Thats why I have a PC and a PS5 and haven’t considered buying an Xbox for a long time.
- 2020 yes. 2024 on PS5 IMO was a waste of money. The problem is they both require tons of computing power to run smoothly and look good.
- Yes.
One of very recent examples: handheld Xbox.
There are rumors about upcoming handheld Xbox. Many like the idea
It is announced, marketed as handheld Xbox (asus xbox ally x). Quite expensive, but okay.
After some time (!) they reveal that this handheld Xbox actually won’t play your Xbox games/subscription. It will play your pc subscription and pc games. Wtf
Literally about time when the sales of the device actually start, Microsoft racks up the price of Xbox ultimate from $20 to $30 per month. They unsubscribe page is overloaded.
How any coherent management would allow this?
- Yeah, there was a nice youtube documentary about this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYCYHKOChA4
MS appointing someone with no game experience isn't a good sign, but to be expected at this point. Gamers abandoned the platform and I don't expect it to survive much longer.
- Strangely I thought Phil Spencer was doing a lot of good for the Xbox brand, minus some of the recent price gouging.
- He oversaw a lot of good things. Recently he's been in "admit defeat and dissolve the brand" mode. To me this has smelled like a "my hands are tied and someone above me is making bad decisions" path, but I don't have anything to justify that other than it doesn't make sense to absolutely fold when it's your name on the line and it's the brand you've spent your life building.
- Sure, but they pretty conclusively lost, and it would likely require a major fumble by Sony to change that. So I'm not sure what they're supposed to do?
- Loss is admitting defeat when you have a mature hardware team, decades of fans, and a brand that was born from, and reached its heights, from really connecting with what people want. That's fertile ground that got doused in salt. At some point you just have to admit that people don't want what they don't want. No reality distortion field will make people want crap games made without love bloated to the gills in microtransactions. Microsoft would rather shut the whole thing down than admit that though.
- I certainly think he's good at branding but very poor execution during his reign.
Both Playstation and Nintendo Switch significantly exceeded xbox in terms of good games in the last decade imo.
- Good riddance. Unfortunately with the length of dev cycles his successor is inheriting such a mess that he’ll have target on his back from day one.
- His successor seems to have zero experience in the industry
- It feels that they’ve finally got understanding that Xbox is total mess and try? To reboot completely. Because “Xbox president” seemingly is booted too
> Alongside him, Xbox President Sarah Bond is also exiting the company, who many suspected would be Spencer's successor in leading Xbox.
- His successor looks like a mess to the gaming section.
- Seems like his successor does not have much of a plan either.
> In another internal email addressing staff, the new Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma gave some hints as to how the future of Xbox will look.
She outlined three commitments: "First, great games." "Second, the return of Xbox." and "Third, future of play." She went on to say that the company will continue to invest in its franchises and studios, keep Xbox spreading across platforms to reduce barriers, while also inventing "business models and new ways to play."
- Reads like the standard Nadella special, they probably share the same copilot template
it's clear they are going to continue gutting the place and spin it off
- Except that Satya whined about people using the term "AI slop" and Sharma specifically uses that term in her e-mail. An interesting contradiction.
- To be fair, that is a great social engineering technique to trying an win back the market.
I'll take it as a social engineering technique because that is the sector she came from and still being pushed by the CEO.
- Sounds like a concept of a plan. I was always an Xbox person instead of PlayStation, I was part of the Xbox Live beta and had so many great memories from that era. After the lack of exclusives on the Xbox Series X, their game pass shenanigans, and the horrible UX decisions over the years, the Xbox brand is trash to me. Same with Halo, what a freaking waste of an IP.
- > Sounds like a concept of a plan.
It's safe to assume that her first e-mail to staff is not going to include a comprehensive breakdown of every action she plans to take.
Not saying she does or doesn't know what she's doing, but it would be weird if she went into much more detail at this point before she's even ramped up.
- > keep Xbox spreading across platforms to reduce barriers
Read: we're not going to do console exclusives and instead we may not even make an Xbox anymore, and instead put the Xbox brand on PCs.
- That's what Xbox has already been doing. New "Xbox" games run best on PS5 Pro (for consoles at least). I don't think there's a single Xbox Series exclusive, everything is on PC or some other console now.
- The “everything is an Xbox” line they’ve been repeating is embarrassing. Did SEGA drag it out this long when they threw in the towel?
- > New "Xbox" games run best on PS5 Pro (for consoles at least).
I dunno, the way Windows 11 is going these days that caveat is getting a lot of scrutiny. I would say that, in many cases, they run best on PS5 Pro full stop - at least until the GabeCube releases, for those who can afford it.
- Yep. There are no exclusives anymore, not even timed ones. Those releases that aren't Day 1 on Playstation now is only because they were too far along in development to make that happen. This is part of their "Everything is an XBox" mantra, giving people pretty much zero incentive to buy XBox hardware right now.
- What a glorious clickbait title.
- I also fell for it.
- I for one welcome our new AI executives, oh lame it's a fallible C suite human again, all hail the monolith!
- I was disappointed to learn that a human was taking over and not Skynet
- I found this quote from the AI executive slightly reassuring:
"As monetization and AI evolve and influence this future, we will not chase short-term efficiency or flood our ecosystem with soulless AI slop," Sharma added. "Games are and always will be art, crafted by humans, and created with the most innovative technology provided by us."
While I'm sad to see someone who's been with the company for so long leave, it's undeniable that the Xbox brand has really faltered under his watch
- Yeah, that's a great thing to hear? At the end of the day it's all exec speak, but it softens the blow of the title a little.
- People say a lot, especially when it benefits them in the moment to tell people what they want to hear.
"I guarantee that you won't need to log into your Facebook account every time you wanna use the Oculus Rift." — Palmer Luckey (2014)
"No advertising coming onto Netflix. Period." — Reed Hastings, Netflix co-CEO (2019)
"Read my lips: no new taxes." — George H.W. Bush (1988 Republican National Convention)
"I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again: Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars." — Franklin D. Roosevelt (October 1940 Campaign Speech)
"If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what." - President Barack Obama (June 15, 2009, AMA Speech)
"I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them." — Donald Trump (July 5, 2024)
- > Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars — Franklin D. Roosevelt
Not a lie or broken promise because it wasn't a foreign war. WW2 came to America's doorstep. The first American battle of the war was fought on US soil.
- Correct, specifically the Territory of Hawaii, which America had annexed 60 years earlier but not yet made a state.
- how did Obama break that promise? i don't recall people having to change plans? i know you have to have a health care plan but if you already have one, did Obamacare force you to change it?
- It didn't force people to change insurers, it forced insurers to change their policies, which ended in about 4 million people getting cancellation notices.
- Even Obama later admitted it was a lie and apologized for it. It was NPR's lie of the year.
https://www.google.com/search?q=obama+admits+lie+health+plan...
- Yeah hence the "slightly" in my comment. At least it seems like they understand understand the problem, even if they may change their mind in the future
- Spin off Xbox, it’s horrible as a neglected division.
- Under Phil they spent 69 billion acquiring Activision with what looked like a big move against Sony only to give up exclusivity to titles like Halo and Forza and game pass going from a budget friendly option to a premium subscription. Basically they went from having some moat to just throwing in the towel.
- Next up: Executive AI takes over from AI executive
- I'll be honest my initial read of the headline caused me th think they were have MS Copilot act as the new head of Xbox, not the person taking over Xbox used to be the guy in charge of an AI product.
- Would it make a difference?
- How do we know Asha is not AI. She certainly looks the part.
- wow, end of an era
- Now it will play video games for me. Great!
- https://www.teamblind.com/post/does-someone-here-know-how-th...
Can we take a look at this post? she was replaced by someone who climbed ranks while destroying everything she touched, is is purely because she is Indian? what is going on in America?
- That's a good post but we don't even need this post to tell of her incredible power of smashing great things. I wish to see her in the next Shehulk movie.
- A lady full of word salads was the vice president of united states for 4 years. Was then even nominated to be a president. No different here. America has been ruined.
- It took MS this long to yeet the incompetent Phil from the corp... sigh. The problem is, MS was never good in nurturing creatives. Why would anything change?
- [dead]
- Xbox isn’t doing very well so of course it’s now up to a woman to clean up the mess. I don’t envy the position that Asha has landed in, especially with how much misogyny exists in the gaming subculture.
82 points by bundie 5 hours ago | 56 comments