Is this Phil Spencer's final test for Microsoft? Is his job on the line?

[3sexty]

Turkish said:

Phil Spencer has been a big disappointment to me: he cancelled games I was looking forward to, 1st party didn't get better, exclusives dried up, games from E3 2014 conference were either cancelled(Scalebound) or still not out(Crackdown 3). First party basically turned into firms that put out the same franchise over and over.

This is the final E3 I'm willing to trust him, if next month there are no new IPs shown then they will never come. I'm also tired of him giving the generic praise to the competition, and then he says Zeruda and Horizon lack impact and games as a service is the new thing.

VideoGameAccountant said:

First, RolStoppable's post is top notch. 10/10.

If you want to know what Microsoft will do, ask yourself, "Who is Microsoft's biggest threat." The answer is Apple.

Microsoft does not sell to customers but to other businesses. Microsoft would go to Dell and say "Hey, don't worry about that pesky operating system. We got it covered." So Microsoft would sell Windows to Dell to be used on their computers. This is why Windows sucked so much. It was for the benefit of the business, not the customer. As an aside, this is why Microsoft has struggled in every consumer business it has tried. Sony has done well because they are a consumer electronics company.

Now, Sony isn't a threat to Microsoft. There is no reason to fight for the living room and Sony as a company has been gutted to the point to where they are basically a video game company. But Apple is a threat. With mobile computing, there isn't a need to sell an OS. The OS is a part of the device. Everyone using smart phones and tablets is a huge blow to Microsoft. So everything in the company is going to be used to defend windows,

If you want another example of this, look at Zune. Microsoft pushed Zune as their media player until Apple ended the iPod. Then no more Zune. Remember the gap from Windows Vista to Windows 7. It seemed like forever. The Microsoft kept making OS back to back. Microsoft has been tuning Windows to be more smartphone friendly.

XBox's future will be to defend Windows. I expect that future XBox machines will be Window machines. Scorpio could be a start of this with its emphasis on power (first thing they unveiled about it). Anything Microsoft will do is to defend Windows. For instance, the OP mentioned, "Why would Phil release XBox games on PC." Because this draw people to Windows. The future of XBox is Windows because Windows is under assault from smartphones.

Playstation isn't even Sony's biggest business, Sony is making more profit now since over a decade, Kaz turned the company around.

Xbox' biggest threat is Playstation, don't kid yourself, Xbox is in the living room. Xbox isn't competing with Apple TV or iPhone. Microsoft lost to Apple and Google in the mobile space, they're losing to Sony in the living room. MS is big in the cloud and corporate business but they have other competitors there.

I agree about Xbox machines being Windows machines in the future, but nothing's gonna stop the decline of the PC market. Xbox games on PC doesn't draw in new people, PC gaming is already big. Windows Store isn't doing too hot compared to Steam, MS has good intentions but they ruin it with things like UWP.

Umm, actually pc is shwoing some real signs of turning around especially in the last quarter. And particularly so 2 in 1s and convertables are showing real signs of growth and these run windows. The mobile will never replace the pc (or the new forms of pc mentioned above.) In case you didnt know tablets running android and ipads are starting to show signs of decline in recent months at the expence of windows convertables and 2 in 1s. Just for good measure also, windows 10 is the fastest adopted windows O/S from what I have read recently..Android on mobile well that is a different story - that will keep growing but is really not a competitor to pc and never will be IMO. More a companionI'd say rather then direct competition.