Xbox Game Studios Stupidity Hate Thread Game Pass Edition

[Soggy Floppa]

If everyone hates Game Pass, who pays for it?

They recently removed Xbox Gold and replaced it with Gamepass Core, so if you want to use the internet you are already paying for you need to shell out money and buy Gamepass. I assume they only did this to inflate their Gamepass metrics.

 

[moocow]

Seriously though, did no one at Microsoft think to say something about these problems when they were designing the Game Pass?

Sure they did. They were fired for their trouble.

(this is standard operating procedure for corporate America btw -- you don't question management or bring up potential problems unless you have a cash-positive solution ready to go)

If everyone hates Game Pass, who pays for it?

They used to have a loophole that let people effectively pay $1 per month (abusing the "one month for $1" promo thing they had going) but I think they buttoned that up that recently.

At $1 a month, it was probably a steal for a lot of people (and it effectively was a steal since they were sort of ripping MS off). But once they started enforcing $15/mo. pricing, I'd wager a lot of people just walked away.

 

[TheHarbinger]

At $1 a month, it was probably a steal for a lot of people (and it effectively was a steal since they were sort of ripping MS off). But once they started enforcing $15/mo. pricing, I'd wager a lot of people just walked away.

According to an employee at Microsoft they were giving away free Game Pass subscriptions to all employees including family bundles of multiple codes. And even then the overwhelming majority of both Microsoft and Xbox employees were not even redeeming the codes. Or even bothering to use the service. They would rather just purchase the games that they want to play rather than deal with Game Pass. Or just have another hobby or life outside of gaming. Meaning something like Game Pass does not entice people to having gaming as a new hobby.

One of the selling points of investors for Game Pass was that it would drive hardware sales "through the roof". Children would be begging their parents to buy them an Xbox to play games on Game Pass. Instead of wanting a new Halo or Gear or whatever franchise Microsoft is wiping out currently.

 

[Incecticyder]

Sure they did. They were fired for their trouble.

(this is standard operating procedure for corporate America btw -- you don't question management or bring up potential problems unless you have a cash-positive solution ready to go)

So, the option to sit down and and spitball ideas to come up with a solution to a problem that might destroy the company is not in the cards, is it? I mean, I kinda get, "bother us only if you have ideas to solve it", but shooting messengers is stupid as they will stop warning you and every time they notice a problem, they will try to find another job instead and let the company burn. No profit there.

They recently removed Xbox Gold and replaced it with Gamepass Core, so if you want to use the internet you are already paying for you need to shell out money and buy Gamepass. I assume they only did this to inflate their Gamepass metrics.

They used to have a loophole that let people effectively pay $1 per month (abusing the "one month for $1" promo thing they had going) but I think they buttoned that up that recently.

At $1 a month, it was probably a steal for a lot of people (and it effectively was a steal since they were sort of ripping MS off). But once they started enforcing $15/mo. pricing, I'd wager a lot of people just walked away.

Let me see if I got it right. It was a steal at first but became impossible to sustain at such prices and when prices went up, neither the customers wanted to pony up the money for "The Netfix of Games" (especially since the Netflix model is incompatible with gaming), nor did the devs want their games on it as it can cannibalise the sales (and free demos work just as well). Did I miss something?

 

[TheHarbinger]

Let me see if I got it right. It was a steal at first but became impossible to sustain at such prices and when prices went up, neither the customers wanted to pony up the money for "The Netfix of Games" (especially since the Netflix model is incompatible with gaming), nor did the devs want their games on it as it can cannibalise the sales (and free demos work just as well). Did I miss something?

One of the points of an investors meeting at Microsoft was that if Game Pass was not profitable by 2027 (with no sliding timeline offered) that Microsoft would discontinue Xbox as a brand and begin exiting gaming entirely in the long run. Meaning that we are most likely under three years from Microsoft officially announcing the abandonment of the Xbox from top to bottom and the hardware and software being either sold off or written down as a loss. Because their strategy of purchasing third party franchises and brands and relying on them to generate Game Pass subscriptions has been a complete disaster.

Game Pass was the center of the Xbox brand according to the Microsoft board when they would talk to investors. Game Pass's model would drive hardware purchases, developer acquisitions, third party exclusivity deals, long term growth of the entire ecosystem, enhance brand loyalty. It was some of the most absurd corporate speak in history.

 

[blablabla]

If everyone hates Game Pass, who pays for it?

legit the only person who i know is a divorced dad

 

[Incecticyder]

Game Pass was the center of the Xbox brand according to the Microsoft board when they would talk to investors. Game Pass's model would drive hardware purchases, developer acquisitions, third party exclusivity deals, long term growth of the entire ecosystem, enhance brand loyalty. It was some of the most absurd corporate speak in history.

Let us breakdown each one:

1. Hardware purchases: Game Pass is available on PC. The PC gamers do not need to buy new hardware they would not otherwise buy and in no universe would Xbox be the most dominant console (at least not by a mile) as it would be necessary for the growth the investors want. It is just not realistic.

2. Developer acquisitions: Monopolies would not be allowed. Microsoft was forced to do some shedding after buying ABK with Toys for Bob. This would continue.

3. Third party exclusivity deals: It might had been seen like a good idea in the early years of the Game Pass but now, exclusivity deals with Xbox = Game Pass = less sales. Third parties might still put games on Xbox but forget exclusivity deals especially after Square Enix promised no more exclusivity deals after what happened with Sony and the PS5. Unless, the console has already sold a lot, third party exclusivity deals are a sucker 's game.

4. Long term growth of the entire ecosystem: That is a bunch of vague buzzwords. This platform might do well but the next generation might not. Wii did well but WiiU did not. The expectation that just because on console did well so will the next is unrealistic. In every generation, the winner is decided not purely by who does well but also by who fucks up the least: e. g. The WiiU was underpowered and badly marketed. The XBone was badly marketed, highly controversial, expensive and lacked good exclusives. The PS4 was a good console with no crippling flaws. The PS4 won. You might put a good product on the market but success demands as little fuck ups as you can manage on your part and as many as possible on the part of the competition. Here comes the problem: you have no control over how many fuck ups the competition does.

5. Enhance brand loyalty: This one is the easiest as well as the hardest. Just releash good, well marketed products at affordable prices until the end of time. No magic recipes that involve eyes of newts or crow talons needed. If that is too much for Microsoft, oh well. Nintendo has brand loyalty by promising fun games with a seal of quality assurance and, for most of their history, they kept that promise. Sony promised powerful hardware for developers to work on and for players to play on and again they kept that promise for the most part. What did Microsoft promise again? I am seriously asking as I do not know.

Absurd is a very good way to describe that corporate speak. Surreal is another term that fits it. Microsoft seems to think that to succeed in the industry, you need to develop black magic spells and is trying to figure out how to summon success by looking at what Sony and Nintendo are doing and not understanding shit.

 

[Lone Wandering Courier]

You know I just had an interesting thought.

A big thing that people point out as one of the nails in the Xbox One's coffin was much of the marketing was centering around TV and Movies. When you really think about it though, the marketing wasn't really that out of touch. After all, there are many anecdotal reports where consoles are often used for streaming and sometimes they are almost exclusively used for streaming.

 

[Green Kitbash]

Microsof never recovered from the "TV! TV! TV! Water cooler, TV!" launch of the Xbox One in my opinion. I always thought of Game Pass as a desperate attempt to recover the lost mindset of lost market share that didn't worked in the end.

The dumb naming convention of their consoles didn't help either, I still see people referring to the Series S/X as Xbox One, just like how it happened to the Wii/WiiU debacle.

They had a naming convention problem with the Xbox 360. But in a sense the 360 name made some sense in 2005 because that was the edge era of Nu Metal and the X Games so I can see a marketing executive thinking "360 so powerful it'll spin you around". But now you have that issue. Lets look at competitors

Sony, well they are boring. PS1, PS2, PS3 etc. However it works. Version names, updates, etc a lot use this. Hell Microsoft does this with Windows.

Nintendo. Well they went Nintendo to Super Nintendo. Alright that is a more advanced version of Nintendo ok. Then Nintendo 64. OK that is like a 360 situation, the whole console war was hyping up bits and shit so it essentially works for the era. But then what do you do? Well they initially solved it with the Gamecube and then Wii. Like if the Gamecube was the Nintendo 4 that wouldn't make much sense after the Nintendo 64. Of course then they fucked it up with Wii U. Hell even Wii 2 would have worked better but wtf is a Wii U suppose to be?

Then Sega, well Sega never had either problem siince they skipped to what Nintendo did after the 64 right with the Master System. So what does Microsoft do? Well they can't do the Xbox 3. Xbox IS the brand, they established it with the Xbox 360 and the whole concept of "Direct X Box". So they essentially found themselves in a corner. And STILL chose the worse option with the Xbox One name. They might as well had just called it the Xbox, which I bet they tried since that was hip at the time. Doom 4 is now Doom. Tomb Raider Reboot is now Tomb Raider etc.

So in order to fix that with the last console they went with Series X and S. Now they are two variations of essentially the same thing, like a Xbox One and Xbox One X. So is the new console the Xbox Series? If they make another console WTF are they suppose to do? Are they gonna continue the series name convention? Something crazy like the Xbox Two?

While the Playstation has a boring name convention, it is way easier for a layman to understand than what Microsoft did.

 

[DocAwe]

The N64 should have been the
Super Duper Nintendo.

 

[The Last Stand]

You know I just had an interesting thought.

A big thing that people point out as one of the nails in the Xbox One's coffin was much of the marketing was centering around TV and Movies. When you really think about it though, the marketing wasn't really that out of touch. After all, there are many anecdotal reports where consoles are often used for streaming and sometimes they are almost exclusively used for streaming.

When you announce a game console, you need to focus on GAMES. Why spend $500 on a forced camera, always on Internet, a cable box extention and a bulky VCR? The PS4 successed because they know their target audience.

 

[Corette]

The N64 should have been the
Super Duper Nintendo.

I was genuinely disappointed that it wasn't called Hyper Nintendo.

 

[TVB]

The N64 should have been the
Super Duper Nintendo.

It was called Ultra 64 during its development stage, but I'd wish they would've called it Ultra Nintendo

I was genuinely disappointed that it wasn't called Hyper Nintendo.

Hyper Nintendo could've been the name of the Gamecube

 

[The Doom Slayer]

Hellblade 2 has collapsed on Steam sellers to #66 and is #30 on Xbox "most played". The game is fucked. I predict they port it to PS5 as a last ditch effort and then when that fails to gain traction NT gets taken out back and shot in the head.

It just feels like Xbox overall is in a hole they can't get out of. No one gives a shit about it after all the years of fuckups degrading the brand. There's rumors a Gears collection will be announced at the upcoming showcase... and it'll be releasing on PS5 as well. I think if normies start realizing even tentpoles like that are going to other consoles then Xbox will enter an even bigger freefall.

 

[Krayt Dragon]

Guys on /v/ are saying Hellblade 2 takes about three and a half hours to complete, maybe five if you're slow.

This is a walking sim with barely any gameplay and it still took Ninja Theory five years to develop.

Microsoft needs to tard wrangle their studios some more, holy shit.

ninja theory exploiting Microsoft's lack of oversight and conning them out of millions and millions of dollars?

Based. Microsoft deserves worse.

 

[Incecticyder]

Hellblade 2 has collapsed on Steam sellers to #66 and is #30 on Xbox "most played". The game is fucked. I predict they port it to PS5 as a last ditch effort and then when that fails to gain traction NT gets taken out back and shot in the head.

It just feels like Xbox overall is in a hole they can't get out of. No one gives a shit about it after all the years of fuckups degrading the brand. There's rumors a Gears collection will be announced at the upcoming showcase... and it'll be releasing on PS5 as well. I think if normies start realizing even tentpoles like that are going to other consoles then Xbox will enter an even bigger freefall.

ninja theory exploiting Microsoft's lack of oversight and conning them out of millions and millions of dollars?

Based. Microsoft deserves worse.

Expected. Microsoft bought more studios than they can oversee (they might be big but they are just one publisher) and now they are paying the price. Hellblade should have remained an AA game with modest budget. If they wanted AAA stuff, they could have releashed a DMC clone whose gameplay is an improved version of DmC: DMC, call it something else and rack up some cash and accolades. Who knows when DMC6 will come out? An appetizer would have been nice as it would help them further hone their skills.

But why should they try to make something excellent. Tango succeeded and yet here we are. It might be better for Ninja Theory to get their sallaries and brush up their resumes as success is impossible with the Game Pass around.

 

[Peaches the Wonder Cat]

Hellblade 2 has collapsed on Steam sellers to #66 and is #30 on Xbox "most played". The game is fucked. I predict they port it to PS5 as a last ditch effort and then when that fails to gain traction NT gets taken out back and shot in the head.

Down to #71 on Steam now.

https://techtroduce.com/hellblade-2-is-being-deemed-a-walking-simulator/

Hellblade 2 Is Being Deemed A ‘Walking Simulator’​

It has not been a week since Hellblade 2 launched, and while early previews of the game were very positive, it seems the game has not particularly delivered in terms of gameplay. People around the world are finding the game’s mechanics quite boring.

Players are getting so bored that some have even dubbed the game a “walking simulator,” saying that the forward key is the core mechanic of the game. One streamer seemingly was falling asleep while playing, which many attribute to the lackluster gameplay.

Why it matters: Hellblade 2 was expected to be Xbox’s blockbuster title for this year, with high anticipation fueled by exciting early previews. However, it has turned out to be a bit disappointing due to its lack of content and short length.

A Twitter user even mocked Phil Spencer, suggesting that his excitement for Hellblade 2 was because it helped him get a full night’s sleep.

 

[ZMOT]

If they wanted AAA stuff, they could have releashed a DMC clone whose gameplay is an improved version of DmC: DMC, call it something else and rack up some cash and accolades.

they could've just made another enslaved ffs.

At $1 a month, it was probably a steal for a lot of people (and it effectively was a steal since they were sort of ripping MS off). But once they started enforcing $15/mo. pricing, I'd wager a lot of people just walked away.

same as password sharing for netflix, it's great to boost numbers, but once those have plateau'd it's when they tighten the thumbscrews.

They had a naming convention problem with the Xbox 360. But in a sense the 360 name made some sense in 2005 because that was the edge era of Nu Metal and the X Games so I can see a marketing executive thinking "360 so powerful it'll spin you around". But now you have that issue. Lets look at competitors

nah, just microsoft being microsoft. people are retarded, bigger number -> better, so...

after that? xbox 1080, xbox 4k. that shit would sell itself to normalfags.

When you announce a game console, you need to focus on GAMES. Why spend $500 on a forced camera, always on Internet, a cable box extention and a bulky VCR? The PS4 successed because they know their target audience.

A big thing that people point out as one of the nails in the Xbox One's coffin was much of the marketing was centering around TV and Movies. When you really think about it though, the marketing wasn't really that out of touch. After all, there are many anecdotal reports where consoles are often used for streaming and sometimes they are almost exclusively used for streaming.

you all forget "gaming" was not the initial goal, it was "owning the living room" all running on windows and MS software. xbox made a bit of money (still peanuts compared to the rest), but in true microsoft fashion their incompetence fostered by sitting on fuck-you money lead to stuff like rrod and the billions of dollars it cost them. xbox on their own would've made completely different decisions simply to survive and be successful.

what microsoft actually wanted was this - they just missed that people moved onto tablets and phones, and where they suddenly had to actually compete instead of sitting of a 80%+ desktop OS share after paying people off.

 

[TheHarbinger]

When you announce a game console, you need to focus on GAMES. Why spend $500 on a forced camera, always on Internet, a cable box extention and a bulky VCR? The PS4 successed because they know their target audience.

The PS2 was the most used DVD player of all time to watch movies. PS3 is likely the most used Bluray player of all time in terms of watching movies on it. Then you factor in that those devices played games and you have the entire home media experience right there. There is a large demand for people to be able to watch movies and stream from video services on their console. It's one of the main ways that college students watch television shows, sports, or movies which is a huge market. One of the biggest selling points of these devices is that they are a home media center.

Stuff like forcing always online, removing physical media, forced camera integration and motion controls, and other nonsense helped kill Xbox for sure. But being able to watch movies and shows is a huge upside for owning these devices. The convenience of playing a game then watching a movie or television show all on the same device is great. Nothing else is needed.

you all forget "gaming" was not the initial goal, it was "owning the living room" all running on windows and MS software. xbox made a bit of money (still peanuts compared to the rest), but in true microsoft fashion their incompetence fostered by sitting on fuck-you money lead to stuff like rrod and the billions of dollars it cost them. xbox on their own would've made completely different decisions simply to survive and be successful.

Stuff like forcing Kinect cameras and motion controls on people has nothing to do with "owning the living room". It was Microsoft chasing trends and embarrassing itself. Combined with abandoning physical media and forcing their console to be always online halted their momentum. Things like RROD or YLOD or controller drift are because of cheap manufacturing and parts. Everyone modern console is made terribly compared to older devices.

People just want games, movies, and television shows in their living room. They don't need the Xbox to run stuff like Photoshop or Pro Tools and act like a home computer. It's meant to be a dumb media device that is simple to operate. Not one that requires endless online updates, has no actual physical media, is always breaking down, unreliable hardware, and no games.

 

[Get the rope Macaulay!]

supposed to be the game equivalent of Netflix, imagine the offerings.

people forget but a decade ago that was pretty much Netflix' catalog, no one in hollywood ever felt the need to be on the internet because of all the cool shit there was to do irl in LA, so they didn't realize giving Netflix all their back catalog for pennies might be a bad move. like if Gamepass was more like playstation's service where its a fuckload of older games you might enjoy because of nostalgia and their only cost is server upkeep.

Gamepass is a pretty sweet deal if you're new to vidya games and want to catch up on older shit.

Microsoft never understood the industry.

they lucked out hard with halo, between that and xbox live they dominated the era, then ps3 fucking up early on and barely any exclusives early on meant so many people brought a 360 because everyone they knew did too. by the time ODST came out you could tell shit was starting to go down hill for Microsoft, Reach copied a lot from COD and the kinect in the same year proved Microsoft was just a lucky bunch of retards.

I'd wager a lot of people just walked away.

literally what happened for me. got 3 years for less than the cost of one video game. never went back.

the marketing wasn't really that out of touch.

they were though, bragging that your console is good for tv and movies is like talking about how good your dick is at peeing or how much of a cock hungry whore your wife is. even if its true it sours people's image because its not what people demand from such objects. Its like that seinfeld episode about the tipping calculator. don't focus on such a small part of the product when a $20 usb can do the exact same thing or when any smarttv can do the same thing.

If you make the marketing about "you can watch youtube with our product" people won't go "wow i can also watch youtube with this" they go "why buy that when i can watch youtube with my phone,tv,computer,fridge,shoes"

this is an especially bad fuck up when the ps3 launch was all about how the high price was because you were paying for blu ray and the backwards compatibility

But now you have that issue.

call it the 720, it also would have been smart with HD quality gaming and shit like that, when they could do the next console and chose either 1080 or 1440. the xbox 2017 refresh was all about fourky gaming anyways