Asha Sharma has to defeat Satya Nadella to save Xbox

[Marees]

Microsoft doesn't want to sell xbox (hardware)
because they are after apple like margins
mediatek like margins are absolutely unacceptable for Microsoft

the result is in several markets there is no xbox hardware on the shelves despite demand being there

https://www.windowscentral.com/gami...n-or-steam-she-has-to-defeat-microsoft-itself

To save Xbox, Asha Sharma doesn't have to defeat PlayStation or Steam — she has to defeat Microsoft itself.​

Features
By Jez Corden published 3 hours ago

I've been covering Xbox for over a decade, and the same cycle keeps coming up time and time again: Microsoft itself is Xbox's biggest enemy. And to save Xbox, Asha Sharma will need to convince CEO Satya Nadella that subsidizing their recent sprint of poor decisions will take more than one or even two fiscal years.​

Microsoft's insane profitability aspirations have been Xbox's biggest enemy so far.

Post Activision-Blizzard acquisition, for some odd reason, Microsoft came to Xbox with an insane and somewhat unprecedented aspiration: Xbox, the gaming company, would now chase a 30% profit margin target. A target that no other gaming platform in history has even come close to consistently.​

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Chasing this profit margin (known as an "accountability margin" internally) had an absolutely devastating impact on Xbox as an entity, with ramifications that will continue to play out long into the future.​

Asha needs to defeat Microsoft itself​

One of the things Microsoft sacrificed to chase these "aspirational" profitability metrics was Xbox hardware stock. Xbox Series X|S consoles are not sitting idle on store shelves. The demand is there. The stock isn't. Microsoft didn't purchase the units required to meet demand, quite clearly because the hardware itself doesn't translate directly into high margins. ​

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And now, in the year of Grand Theft Auto 6, Microsoft will have no Xbox Series X|S stock to sell. The memory has already been purchased by PlayStation and other firms that think annually rather than quarterly. And as the AI route continues to destroy memory inventory, there's absolutely nothing the new Xbox leadership can do about it.​

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documents seen by Windows Central and verified by proven sources revealed a range of options Xbox considered to try and meet Microsoft's "30% by 2030" accountability margin targets. These included every absolutely dire option you can imagine. It included things like cost-saving by cutting backward compatibility with Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S generations with future hardware, and moving towards "evolving to be more software-based vs. hardware-based."​

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More short-term gains for long-term pain followed: putting games onto competing platforms, like PlayStation, helping Sony meet its own targets at the expense of Xbox's long-term viability as a platform. ​

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The fact that Microsoft engineered Xbox to have as little hardware stock as possible helped justify this move away from exclusives. And the stock situation remains in play, which is why you should not expect Asha Sharma to have a great deal of breathing room on exclusive games. ​

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At least in the near-term, Xbox has no stock to sell ... so why invest in exclusive games? Why invest in marketing Xbox hardware that doesn't exist to sell?​

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It's a self-perpetuating problem now, and at least in the medium term, selling games on PlayStation and other platforms will help Xbox invest in its future. But, it well and truly remains to be seen whether or not Xbox hardware will survive Microsoft's short-term auto-immolation on this front.​

Asha Sharma has only known success so far: will Microsoft let her succeed?​

Games take years to make — not quarters. Xbox needs a plan that spans years — not quarters. Fixing Xbox's image, desirability, and depleted trust will take years — and absolutely, not quarters.​

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Saving Xbox will require full subsidization to correct the mistakes that CFO Amy Hood and CEO Satya Nadella made, as well as vast new investments in its Xbox PC efforts, as well as on-going investments in an increasingly competitive gaming franchise space. And further investments in finding ways to appeal to younger cohorts, which Microsoft (and the industry at large, frankly) has utterly neglected.​

 

[vegeta535]

I am actually surprised this chick is trying to do the right thing. And no, MS will not let her succeed. Seems they just want to kill the Xbox division.

 

[Aurelius]

On point — the Xbox team has had to fight Microsoft culture since the start.

Remember, Microsoft was originally pushing for the Web TV team to lead Xbox development and treat it as a Windows CE "appliance." J Allard and crew at DirectX had to push to make it an honest-to-goodness gaming machine. The Xbox One was sabotaged by Ballmer's dreams of having a Trojan horse for Windows media features in the living room (remember that "TV, TV, TV" supercut video from the intro?). The Xbox Series X/S is closer to the platform's roots, but it's still a vehicle for subscriptions and cloud services.

The Xbox 360 was the peak in part because the team had more free rein. Sure, there were Microsoftian moves like Xbox Live, but it was allowed to be a game console first and a business delivery vehicle second.

Sharma is doing well so far precisely because she's a relative outsider coming in at a time when Microsoft knows the Xbox brand is in trouble. She's not a lifelong Microsoftie who either embraces the toxic culture or is too sentimentally attached to be disruptive. Her background is from Instacart and Meta — she's used to moving quickly and pivoting when necessary.

That's not to say Sharma will have the next Xbox outselling the PS6, but she at least gets that she's there to revitalize the brand, not turn it into a sales platform for something else.

 

[KazeoHin]

Propaganda.

They want you to think there's anyone making decisions at Microsoft that is thinking of the consumer.

The consumer is the cow, and this "I'm fighting the big bad guys to make it about games " is just sweetening the grain.

 

[Twisted Kidney]

I am actually surprised this chick is trying to do the right thing. And no, MS will not let her succeed. Seems they just want to kill the Xbox division.

She's corporate through and through, her soul is corporate, her mind is corporate, her language is corporate. Anything you see happening right now has been underway for at least a year, Micro$lop is not an agile company. Asha's stamp will show up in a year or two, anything she says is just corporate gibberish. I'd bet that her stamp will be Ai everywhere with zero regard for how badly it works. She says she's not that soulless corporate worm, the other side of her mouth would say the opposite depending on whom she was addressing.

 

[DukenukemX]

Propaganda.

They want you to think there's anyone making decisions at Microsoft that is thinking of the consumer.

The consumer is the cow, and this "I'm fighting the big bad guys to make it about games " is just sweetening the grain.

They can do what they want, but nobody cares about Xbox anymore. Nothing short of a miracle can save Xbox.

 

[zandor]

They can do what they want, but nobody cares about Xbox anymore. Nothing short of a miracle can save Xbox.

I don't think XBox should be saved. I think it should be reinvented as a spec. An XBox is basically a PC. So is a PS5 really from a hardware perspective. The basic idea here is that pre-builts can be certified as XBox Level X and games can be certified as XBox Level X if they can run on the specified hardware at 60fps on a 4k TV, presumably with upscaling. Maybe add a couple more (plus/pro/ultra/whatever) for more FPS. MS would publish guidance for DIY PC builders, but if you know enough to build a PC you're not supposed to need help with game graphics settings. The idea here is to take the "can I run that?" guesswork out of lower end PC gaming so that clueless noobs can buy a machine with a specified XBox level and know they could run any game certified for that level or less properly, thus converting console gamers into PC gamers. Then MS releases another XBox "console" or two before letting 3rd parties take over the hardware side. Then we get Asus Prime XBox Level 6, Gigabyte Aorus XBox Level 6 Plus, etc. "consoles", but they're just PCs with a certified hardware spec good enough to work ok on a 4k TV so noobs don't have to think. Or they can buy an XBox certified pre-built desktop or laptop.

 

[DukenukemX]

I don't think XBox should be saved. I think it should be reinvented as a spec. An XBox is basically a PC. So is a PS5 really from a hardware perspective. The basic idea here is that pre-builts can be certified as XBox Level X and games can be certified as XBox Level X if they can run on the specified hardware at 60fps on a 4k TV, presumably with upscaling. Maybe add a couple more (plus/pro/ultra/whatever) for more FPS. MS would publish guidance for DIY PC builders, but if you know enough to build a PC you're not supposed to need help with game graphics settings. The idea here is to take the "can I run that?" guesswork out of lower end PC gaming so that clueless noobs can buy a machine with a specified XBox level and know they could run any game certified for that level or less properly, thus converting console gamers into PC gamers. Then MS releases another XBox "console" or two before letting 3rd parties take over the hardware side. Then we get Asus Prime XBox Level 6, Gigabyte Aorus XBox Level 6 Plus, etc. "consoles", but they're just PCs with a certified hardware spec good enough to work ok on a 4k TV so noobs don't have to think. Or they can buy an XBox certified pre-built desktop or laptop.

That's sounds like a whole lot of work just to run Xbox games. I'm not sure what Xbox games haven't been ported to PC, but I can't imagine it being a lot or even worthwhile games to even bother. Especially when emulators can do what all that certification can't, because lets be real in that there are companies who don't want their Xbox games running on PC. Look at the 2013 Deadpool video game where it was delisted because of Activision’s licensing agreement with Marvel.

The reality is that PC gaming is more convenient than console gaming. This may come as a shock to some here, but PC gaming has a lot of plus's with very little minus's.

• Very old PC games still work on modern PC's.
• Very old console games can work on modern PC's through emulators.
• Any controller can work on PC. Even Genesis and SNES controllers can work on PC.
• Most games are available on PC.
• Some games are only available on PC like World of Warcraft and League of Legends.
• Online gaming is mostly free.
• You can play your games on any PC, so long as it can run it.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is trying to enshitify Xbox gaming, in order to charge you money to unshitify. All that Xbox certification for PC is just another method of enshitification. The reality is that Microsoft needs a miracle for any of this to work, like Gabe Newell dying and Steam being sold to Microsoft. The best thing Microsoft could do at this point is embrace PC gaming FULLY. No half measures and certifications. Just turn Xbox into a customized Windows PC. At the same time just allow Xbox games to run on Windows. No certification crap. You don't need Microsoft to hold your hand to see if a game will run. Listing System Requirements does the job just fine. What's the worst thing that happens? Someone has to upgrade their PC?

 

[zandor]

You don't need Microsoft to hold your hand to see if a game will run. Listing System Requirements does the job just fine. What's the worst thing that happens? Someone has to upgrade their PC?

You think too highly of the unwashed masses. WE, meaning you, I, and most of the rest of [H] don't need that kind of help. Lots of console gamers do if you want to convert them to PC. I also know more than a couple people who game on pre-builts and have no idea what they're doing.

 

[DukenukemX]

You think too highly of the unwashed masses. WE, meaning you, I, and most of the rest of [H] don't need that kind of help. Lots of console gamers do if you want to convert them to PC. I also know more than a couple people who game on pre-builts and have no idea what they're doing.

What's the difference if you know you can't run the game vs trying and then finding out? You'll end up buying a new PC anyway. Also, there are many situations where I ran games on hardware that has no business doing so and it was fine. I don't mean I pulled out my tool kit either, which I do have many methods to get demanding games running on weak hardware. In most games it will automatically lower settings to make it run just fine. Cyberpunk2077 automatically allows it to run on a graphics card with 1GB of VRAM and does achieve under 30fps while doing so.

The problem with your suggestion is that Microsoft could prevent you from running a game if your hardware doesn't mean it's requirements. Which as we know Microsoft is pretty good at doing with Windows 11 and TPM2.0. My Radeon 6700 XT is considered old and may not get updated drivers anymore, which could mean that Microsoft would prevent me from running certain games just for that reason. Despite that my graphics card is more than capable of playing any modern title, but Microsoft may not agree. While, this could be convenient to someone who wants a console like experience, but for most people this is just annoying and artificially limiting what games you can run. Consider that Valve said their Steam Machine is faster than 70% of what people are using to play games, then something like what you're suggesting Microsoft to do would be problematic. This would likely just push more people towards Steam.


View: https://youtu.be/H6uX-PI95ok?si=i6FThBKoVmkeovYw

 

[philb2]

I wonder how long before there is a big showdown at a Board of Directors meeting. Not trolling this.

 

[vegeta535]

They should just scrap the hardware and focus on services like game pass. No one is going to buy Helix if the rumors are true about the price. People crying about $500 consoles now. What do you think people will do when thr Xbox is $1200. Power is irrelevant. For the masses graphics are good enough. Most don't care about 4k or 240 fps. Both the PS6 and Helix are going to be flop hard if there is no killer exclusives on release. Even with killer apps the high price will run people off from both consoles. Cross Gen has really killed momentum for this Gen. I know several people that still game on PS4 because they don't see a reason to get a PS5 while their PS4 still works.

 

[Aurelius]

They should just scrap the hardware and focus on services like game pass. No one is going to buy Helix if the rumors are true about the price. People crying about $500 consoles now. What do you think people will do when thr Xbox is $1200. Power is irrelevant. For the masses graphics are good enough. Most don't care about 4k or 240 fps. Both the PS6 and Helix are going to be flop hard if there is no killer exclusives on release. Even with killer apps the high price will run people off from both consoles. Cross Gen has really killed momentum for this Gen. I know several people that still game on PS4 because they don't see a reason to get a PS5 while their PS4 still works.

If I were Sharma I'd draw a line in the sand: either the next Xbox is more directly competitive with Sony ($500-600) or cut bait and focus on software and services. If Helix is too expensive ($1K+) it would be unviable for console gamers and offer little incentive to PC gamers. Even if Elder Scrolls VI was amazing and only available on Helix (i.e. not Windows), it probably wouldn't sell systems.

If the Xbox unit has to scale back, I won't fault Sharma for it at this stage. She inherited over a decade of bad decision making that she can't clean up overnight.

 

[DukenukemX]

They should just scrap the hardware and focus on services like game pass. No one is going to buy Helix if the rumors are true about the price. People crying about $500 consoles now. What do you think people will do when thr Xbox is $1200. Power is irrelevant. For the masses graphics are good enough. Most don't care about 4k or 240 fps. Both the PS6 and Helix are going to be flop hard if there is no killer exclusives on release. Even with killer apps the high price will run people off from both consoles. Cross Gen has really killed momentum for this Gen. I know several people that still game on PS4 because they don't see a reason to get a PS5 while their PS4 still works.

Graphics doesn't matter anymore because we've peaked a while ago. We're still trying to see if Ray-Tracing makes a difference in modern games, besides tanking performance. We're at a point where we're trying to gain more visuals by making visuals worse. Yes, I know what I wrote and that's exactly how modern gaming works. The only reason Microsoft and Sony are going for more powerful console hardware is because they're trying to fight PC gaming, which they believe is all about performance. Not realizing that most people play games on potato PCs and doing so because of low cost. It doesn't make sense to spend over $500 on a gaming console that requires a monthly subscription to play online, when a $800 PC can do it and still print documents. $800 before the ram price insanity.

 

[LukeTbk]

Microsoft came to Xbox with an insane and somewhat unprecedented aspiration: Xbox, the gaming company, would now chase a 30% profit margin target. A target that no other gaming platform in history has even come close to consistently.

Except for Steam (50-60%+), Nintendo, Apple-Google play, Tencent and many others.... with how big Xbox game studio-publishing side (vast majority of their business with how high the acquisition were) should be by that point, 30% is quite modest. 90%+ of their revenues will be games and those you want over 40-45% (90%+ on third party you sale on your store which is near pure profit, less for your own)... 30% margin would just be normal target.

It depend how they see amortizing laws for those assets they bough in that 30%, but it could be quite reasonable.

 

[LukeTbk]

The only reason Microsoft and Sony are going for more powerful console hardware is because they're trying to fight PC gaming, which they believe is all about performance. Not realizing that most people play games on potato PCs and doing so because of low cost.

From XboxS to a push to handheld, of course they do not believe it is all about performance (there is a reason sony-microsoft have been so obsessed with hitting $500 target MSRP and low watts for an elegant under the TV box at the cost of having 40%/half the performance of the top of the line 900watt -$2000 alternative they could make otherwise... because they do not think it is all about performance at all).

Same reason they have yet to update those consoles of newer and faster tech, even 6 years in, because they do not believe it is all about performance, pricing and developper experience/relationship are massive part of the story.

Less than before but graphic still matter, lot of games are IPs doing very similar things than the previous title, a refresh of the technical side, scope, physic/graphic can help justify a new entry and more performance/memory help to do that.

 

[Armenius]

Consoles are dead. Who cares? The software focus is better for the PC gaming market.

Microsoft came to Xbox with an insane and somewhat unprecedented aspiration: Xbox, the gaming company, would now chase a 30% profit margin target. A target that no other gaming platform in history has even come close to consistently.

Except for Steam (50-60%+), Nintendo, Apple-Google play, Tencent and many others.... with how big Xbox game studio-publishing side (vast majority of their business with how high the acquisition were) should be by that point, 30% is quite modest. 90%+ of their revenues will be games and those you want over 40-45% (90%+ on third party you sale on your store which is near pure profit, less for your own)... 30% margin would just be normal target.

It depend how they see amortizing laws for those assets they bough in that 30%, but it could be quite reasonable.

That is their gross margin. What is their net margin? Nintendo's was 24% last year, 0% last quarter.

 

[LukeTbk]

Consoles are dead. Who cares? The software focus is better for the PC gaming market.

That is their gross margin. What is their net margin? Nintendo's was 24% last year, 0% last quarter.

gross would be much higher (50-60%, sometime 90%):
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/NTDOY/nintendo/gross-margin

operating margin are not really net margin, tax and some other factor are not included, nintendo got an average of 53% (non weighted ) of operating margin since 2010 according to this :
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/NTDOY/nintendo/operating-margin

It depends how they handle amortisation of those 100 billions ish game studio acquisition of course, to know how ambitious it is, I doubt they have internal target using GAAP accounting here, just 30% operating marging excluding it, which is not that aggressive at all and the lowest we can imagine target to set here.

By no one I feel one mean Playstation-Xbox..... which is a bit limiting (and looking at terrible bad business historically only, you have steam aggressively printing record profit all along, Nintendo doing very well, etc...)

 

[DukenukemX]

From XboxS to a push to handheld, of course they do not believe it is all about performance (there is a reason sony-microsoft have been so obsessed with hitting $500 target MSRP and low watts for an elegant under the TV box at the cost of having 40%/half the performance of the top of the line 900watt -$2000 alternative they could make otherwise... because they do not think it is all about performance at all).

Is that why Sony and Microsoft make pro versions of their consoles? Which is stupid because the pro version of these consoles requires games to get updates, which doesn't always happen. Yes the Xbox doesn't have a pro version, unless you think of the X version as pro. Some people consider the Switch 2 as the Switch Pro.

Same reason they have yet to update those consoles of newer and faster tech, even 6 years in, because they do not believe it is all about performance, pricing and developper experience/relationship are massive part of the story.

The problem here is that modern game consoles are dying, because nobody wants to innovate. I don't mean graphics performance either, but how to make the user experience better. It's not like a Sega Genesis or Playstation 2 where you just pop the game in and play it. We also don't need Blu-Ray discs anymore, because USB thumb drives are cheap. Why hasn't Sony and Microsoft migrated over to USB drives to store games? Nobody wants to turn on their game console to sign in. Nobody wants to download game patches for a single player game. If you're going to do all that then they'll get a PC. Consoles are just not as convenient as they should be.

I would have standardized game modding on consoles to match that on PC. Remove the subscription fee to play games online. Microsoft could have easily made it so Windows users could play Xbox games, and vice versa. If Apple made a game console, they would have done that.

 

[vegeta535]

Is that why Sony and Microsoft make pro versions of their consoles? Which is stupid because the pro version of these consoles requires games to get updates, which doesn't always happen. Yes the Xbox doesn't have a pro version, unless you think of the X version as pro. Some people consider the Switch 2 as the Switch Pro.

The problem here is that modern game consoles are dying, because nobody wants to innovate. I don't mean graphics performance either, but how to make the user experience better. It's not like a Sega Genesis or Playstation 2 where you just pop the game in and play it. We also don't need Blu-Ray discs anymore, because USB thumb drives are cheap. Why hasn't Sony and Microsoft migrated over to USB drives to store games? Nobody wants to turn on their game console to sign in. Nobody wants to download game patches for a single player game. If you're going to do all that then they'll get a PC. Consoles are just not as convenient as they should be.

I would have standardized game modding on consoles to match that on PC. Remove the subscription fee to play games online. Microsoft could have easily made it so Windows users could play Xbox games, and vice versa. If Apple made a game console, they would have done that.

Cost is the reason. The S2 basicly is a very high speed usb drives for their games. The 64gb carts of the S2 adds like $10 to the vost of making the game. Why you think 3rd party devs are opting for game key cards and Nintendo starting to charge $80 for their games. Sony, MS and Nintendo all want to go all digital. I believe the next Xbox will be all digital and the PS6 might still have a optional disc drive.

 

[M76]

Cost is the reason. The S2 basicly isws very high speed usb drives for their games. The 64gb carts of the S2 adds like $10 to the vost of making the game. Why you think 3rd party devs are opting for game key cards and Nintendo starting to charge $80 for their games. Sony, MS and Nintendo all want to go all digital. I believe the next Xbox will be all digital and the PS6 might still have a optional disc drive.

There is a much simpler reason: You can't resell digital games tied to your account. That's why they are pushing for digital, even though physical makes much more sense and is more convenient for consoles.

 

[LukeTbk]

Margin then to be so much higher specially when it mean cutting the best buy middle men with your own digital store than even without the resale factor they would push it.

I do not believe people mind game updates on a console, fast unlimited Internet + automated background updates make that a non issue for a large %.

PS5 look like could reach 100 millions units before PS 6 launch, if we compare with discrete GPU sales used for gaming of the 2020s probably similar to switch-Xbox-ps5 sales combined, dying is relative.

 

[DukenukemX]

Cost is the reason. The S2 basicly is a very high speed usb drives for their games. The 64gb carts of the S2 adds like $10 to the vost of making the game. Why you think 3rd party devs are opting for game key cards and Nintendo starting to charge $80 for their games. Sony, MS and Nintendo all want to go all digital. I believe the next Xbox will be all digital and the PS6 might still have a optional disc drive.

Sure, but how much were game cartridges back in the 80's and 90's? I know people want to point out $70 Super Nintendo games, but those cartridges have CPU's in them, because the SNES CPU was too weak. We have Nintendo fainting over the idea of charging anything less than $80 for Donkey Kong Bananza cartridge which takes up 8.5GB of storage.

It's just pure greed at this point. Putting games on 128GB USB drives would not only give people a reason to stay on console, but a better gaming experience. Who enjoys downloading 100GB games and waiting hours to have them installed? Where a USB 3.0 thumb drive is plenty fast enough to start the game, and while you're playing it could be partially installed onto your SSD. Do we really need to charge a premium for this?

I'm not saying the GabeCube is going to sell in the 10's of millions, but it's just part of the reason why consoles are dying. Modern game consoles are just shitty gaming PCs. Nobody, not even Nintendo is trying to make the gaming experience easier. Sony wants you to verify to play games. Microsoft wants to push for cloud gaming. Nintendo wants extra money to play Switch 1 games with enhanced Switch 2 performance. Console industry deserve to die.

 

[TeeJayHoward]

Games are cheap today. SMB3, adjusted for inflation, would be something like $125. Final Fantasy 3? $155. The NES w/SMB & Duck Hunt was $150 and later dropped to $100 ($420 & $280 adjusted).

Consoles cost about $500. That's what history has ingrained into the collective consciousness. If MS can't make a profit sellin' 'em at $500, they just won't sell them. I'm honestly a little surprised that they're not offsetting console losses with increased licensing fees.

 

[LukeTbk]

Who enjoys downloading 100GB games and waiting hours to have them installed?

for a lot of people internet is faster than Switch card read speed and much faster than going to and back from a store for a fast USB 3.0 alternative, it is less than 15 minutes download with your standard 1GB connexion. If you look at cheap regular usb 3.0 flash drive and it is not faster than 1GB Internet now, usually slower.

Sony verify to play games, people will never know they do, background task of a console happening as long your internet did work once this month, like people never know their computer with Ubi-EA-etc.. game do the same

 

[vegeta535]

You are not getting 1GB speeds from any of the consoles. PS5 caps out around 750mb. The serise X was around 500mb. Switch is proabaly the slwoest of the 3 no doubt.

 

[LukeTbk]

You are not getting 1GB speeds from any of the consoles. PS5 caps out around 750mb. The serise X was around 500mb. Switch is proabaly the slwoest of the 3 no doubt.

hard drive-cpu decompression limitation causing could all be there with a thumbdrive has well. And we are talking PS6/next Xbox which would not necessarily be the case, you need the store to be quite close to beat an Internet download these days.

 

[Aurelius]

Sure, but how much were game cartridges back in the 80's and 90's? I know people want to point out $70 Super Nintendo games, but those cartridges have CPU's in them, because the SNES CPU was too weak. We have Nintendo fainting over the idea of charging anything less than $80 for Donkey Kong Bananza cartridge which takes up 8.5GB of storage.

It's just pure greed at this point. Putting games on 128GB USB drives would not only give people a reason to stay on console, but a better gaming experience. Who enjoys downloading 100GB games and waiting hours to have them installed? Where a USB 3.0 thumb drive is plenty fast enough to start the game, and while you're playing it could be partially installed onto your SSD. Do we really need to charge a premium for this?

I'm not saying the GabeCube is going to sell in the 10's of millions, but it's just part of the reason why consoles are dying. Modern game consoles are just shitty gaming PCs. Nobody, not even Nintendo is trying to make the gaming experience easier. Sony wants you to verify to play games. Microsoft wants to push for cloud gaming. Nintendo wants extra money to play Switch 1 games with enhanced Switch 2 performance. Console industry deserve to die.

There are a few problems with "just put it on a thumb drive."

Modern games tend to include early or even day-one patches. There's not much point to saving a bit of.time with the initial install when you might end up downloading a 20GB update. And at least in North America and Europe, a good internet connection on an SSD-equipped system doesn't take "hours" to download and install a game that large.

Consoles aren't dying. They took an obvious hit from tariffs and component shortages, but so did PCs. Do you really think someone is going to balk at a price-hiked $600 PS5 and decide that the best solution is a price-hiked $2,000 PC? That and you've bought into some misinformation, such as the claim Sony is going to require online verification (this was a classic "tech support rep says X, reality is Y" mismatch).

 

[LukeTbk]

such as the claim Sony is going to require online verification

The claim is that they will become like steam right ?
https://www.techradar.com/gaming/so...layers-wont-experience-any-issues-beyond-that

One time verification, unlimited life token gained ? Not that there is a large amount of people buying digital game and have frequent 30 consecutive days of no Internet access to ever know that it was going on if they went the Ubisoft/EA computer way.

 

[Aurelius]

The claim is that they will become like steam right ?
https://www.techradar.com/gaming/so...layers-wont-experience-any-issues-beyond-that

One time verification, unlimited life token gained ? Not that there is a large amount of people buying digital game and have frequent 30 consecutive days of no Internet access to ever know that it was going on if they went the Ubisoft/EA computer way.

And a single check isn't exactly controversial, since you're buying the game online regardless. The myth is that games will have to "phone home" just to keep working.

 

[LukeTbk]

And a single check isn't exactly controversial, since you're buying the game online regardless. The myth is that games will have to "phone home" just to keep working.

and even phone home can be misunderstood, those token have long expiration dates usually and on a console OS they can easily update themselve everyday the console has current and working internet (even if you do not touch it), meaning you need 14 days in a row without Internet (or 30) for you to ever know they exist... a console would be way more robust at it.

GamePass require this to exist (with game leaving access from time to time), and seem to work without problem, a console OS can do that when the console is in rest mode all the time.

 

[DukenukemX]

Games are cheap today. SMB3, adjusted for inflation, would be something like $125. Final Fantasy 3? $155. The NES w/SMB & Duck Hunt was $150 and later dropped to $100 ($420 & $280 adjusted).

Inflation isn't universal. You can't take inflation for houses and apply it to gaming. Some things haven't really gone up like clothing, but then there are things that have gone down like televisions. The reason is because televisions don't just make money from hardware sales, but mostly from smart TV services. Consoles have been doing this as well, but pretend like if they don't raise prices then their CEO's will go hungry. Not only do modern games don't even sell on physical media anymore, but the amount of games sold is a magnitude more than ever before. While Duck Hunt did sell over 28 million copies, but WiiSports sold over 80 million copies.

Consoles cost about $500. That's what history has ingrained into the collective consciousness. If MS can't make a profit sellin' 'em at $500, they just won't sell them. I'm honestly a little surprised that they're not offsetting console losses with increased licensing fees.

You're suppose to make it up through game sales, but Microsoft hasn't made a good game for a while. Consoles live and die by good first party titles. If Halo bombs in sales, then don't expect too many people to go buy an Xbox. This is actually what killed the Sega Saturn, and not it's complicated hardware. Can anyone think of a game on the Saturn that was a must play even today?

 

[Prince Valiant]

Inflation isn't universal. You can't take inflation for houses and apply it to gaming. Some things haven't really gone up like clothing, but then there are things that have gone down like televisions. The reason is because televisions don't just make money from hardware sales, but mostly from smart TV services. Consoles have been doing this as well, but pretend like if they don't raise prices then their CEO's will go hungry. Not only do modern games don't even sell on physical media anymore, but the amount of games sold is a magnitude more than ever before. While Duck Hunt did sell over 28 million copies, but WiiSports sold over 80 million copies.

You're suppose to make it up through game sales, but Microsoft hasn't made a good game for a while. Consoles live and die by good first party titles. If Halo bombs in sales, then don't expect too many people to go buy an Xbox. This is actually what killed the Sega Saturn, and not it's complicated hardware. Can anyone think of a game on the Saturn that was a must play even today?

Agreed on the general point about consoles needing good titles.

The HW design of the Saturn surely didn't help matters. I wouldn't say anything is "must play" without knowing what someone likes. I enjoyed Burning Rangers, Dragon Force, House of the Dead, Nights, and Virtua Cop to name a few; I would've played more had I not watched my brother play through them.

 

[DukenukemX]

Agreed on the general point about consoles needing good titles.

The HW design of the Saturn surely didn't help matters. I wouldn't say anything is "must play" without knowing what someone likes. I enjoyed Burning Rangers, Dragon Force, House of the Dead, Nights, and Virtua Cop to name a few; I would've played more had I not watched my brother play through them.

In the grand scheme of things, the Saturn wasn't the worst console in terms of complicated hardware. Probably the worst thing done was going with Quads, since the industry had moved towards Polygons, including the 32X. Besides Quads, the Saturn had parallel processors and poor documentation. Meanwhile, the PS2 and PS3 was even worse since they had specialized processors that took a lot of effort to understand. Still remember developers complaining about the PS3 SPE's and how accessing ram would kill performance, which nobody knew because of poor documentation. But, the PS2 and PS3 had good games. I personally liked Nights, but mostly for the music. The gameplay was arcade like, which is what most of the games were like on the Saturn. Burning Rangers was so late into the Saturn life that it didn't even register for most people. Unlike N64's Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, 007, and etc.

Making it easier to bring games over to Xbox won't do jack for Xbox. Xbox needs good games. I don't mean games like Doom the Dark Ages good. It has to be GTAVI good. It has to be Breath of the Wild good. It has to be Dark Souls good. It has to be Half Life 3 good. Not games like Starfield and Sea of Thieves.

 

[SeymourGore]

Can anyone think of a game on the Saturn that was a must play even today?

Panzer Dragoon Saga and Shining Force 3 were pretty decent. I'm still not sure what the hold up is with Sega to release those games on modern platforms (even better would be to translate and release all the parts for Shining Force 3).

Oh, and the Saturn played a mean game of Quake (which was the only system a young Seymour had that could play it - his 486 couldn't handle the title).

 

[vegeta535]

Panzer Dragoon Saga and Shining Force 3 were pretty decent. I'm still not sure what the hold up is with Sega to release those games on modern platforms (even better would be to translate and release all the parts for Shining Force 3).

Oh, and the Saturn played a mean game of Quake (which was the only system a young Seymour had that could play it - his 486 couldn't handle the title).

JRPG were huge for me during the 16-bit day and for some reason I never played the Phantasy Star games. I wish Sega would remake them. Even as a HD2D game is fine with modern features.

 

[Armenius]

There is a much simpler reason: You can't resell digital games tied to your account. That's why they are pushing for digital, even though physical makes much more sense and is more convenient for consoles.

That was the original plan for the Xbox One, but people excoriated Microsoft for the always online requirement that would have needed.

for a lot of people internet is faster than Switch card read speed and much faster than going to and back from a store for a fast USB 3.0 alternative, it is less than 15 minutes download with your standard 1GB connexion. If you look at cheap regular usb 3.0 flash drive and it is not faster than 1GB Internet now, usually slower.

Sony verify to play games, people will never know they do, background task of a console happening as long your internet did work once this month, like people never know their computer with Ubi-EA-etc.. game do the same

1GB is not standard.

JRPG were huge for me during the 16-bit day and for some reason I never played the Phantasy Star games. I wish Sega would remake them. Even as a HD2D game is fine with modern features.

They did remake the Phantasy Star games, at least the first two.


View: https://youtube.com/watch?v=COANrJRDy0U

View: https://youtube.com/watch?v=uDOQhoTcbtw

 

[Prince Valiant]

Panzer Dragoon Saga and Shining Force 3 were pretty decent. I'm still not sure what the hold up is with Sega to release those games on modern platforms (even better would be to translate and release all the parts for Shining Force 3).

Oh, and the Saturn played a mean game of Quake (which was the only system a young Seymour had that could play it - his 486 couldn't handle the title).

There's a fan translation of SF3, if you're unaware: http://sf3trans.shiningforcecentral.com/progress/

 

[LukeTbk]

1GB is not standard.

in some part of the world it is for people that do not want to wait on game download, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Internet_connection_speeds

close enough in speed to not make the shipping or the trip to get the drive faster is common, speedtest runner are probably faster than the actual median, but probably representative of gamers for who an overnight download would be an issue, the 100/400mbs is quite standard and will challenge car ride back and forth to a store + install time from a drive quite well.

And the store need to be open, when the game launch/the moment you want it right now without the patience for a download.

 

[Armenius]

in some part of the world it is for people that do not want to wait on game download, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Internet_connection_speeds

close enough in speed to not make the shipping or the trip to get the drive faster is common, speedtest runner are probably faster than the actual median, but probably representative of gamers for who an overnight download would be an issue, the 100/400mbs is quite standard and will challenge car ride back and forth to a store + install time from a drive quite well.

And the store need to be open, when the game launch/the moment you want it right now without the patience for a download.

#1 median speed is 400 Mbps, and this is from speed test, so it's not an accurate picture of the country as a whole. It's as useful as Steam data to know the PC specs of gamers.