You're in charge of Xbox division. What would be your battle plan for Xbox Series X?

[Mr Puggsly]

derpysquirtle64 said:

Mr Puggsly said:

I'm not exactly sure what you're saying.

It seems pretty evident consoles aren't popular in Russia, therefore MS putting their games on PC means more people there have access to their games. With that logic I feel MS caters to markets that primarily do PC gaming more than competitors like Sony and Nintendo.

I am not sure what Steam 1st party has to do with anything.

The main business for all the big three is not selling their own games, but selling other publishers games. That's why they make their hardware and services in the first place. So, what I'm saying is that not matter how much more popular PC is than Xbox in certain market, abandoning their own services there is a huge mistake, because all the revenue made from the big Steam audience through sales of first party games won't offset the overall revenue got through sales of Xbox games even if Xbox userbase is way smaller in that region. It means that Microsoft is shrinking their market presence instead of expanding it. Which contradicts what Phil Spencer said in terms of what they are planning to do. And also, I think you won't argue with this one - the current MS strategy is to sell as more GamePass subscriptions as possible. If until 2019 you could do it directly without a hassle from a console and now you can't do it anymore without going to retailer and buying a code, it means that MS took a step back with this one.

At this point I feel like the main business on Playstation and Xbox is selling subscriptions. Selling 1st party, 3rd party and subscriptions are all revenue streams though.

For Nintendo, they likely get big money selling hardware at a profit and their 1st party games sell best. I assume their subscription service is doing well.

Steam in comparison is basically just in the business of software sales. Their hardware efforts failed, SteamOS failed and major PC releases are often skipping Steam. The market has changed.

MS losing their market share in Russia isnt a big deal if it was a small market. How many units did they sell there? I would be surprised if its even a 100K. Resources are better spent trying to grow in the west via more/better software and discounts.

I know what Phil said about expanding in other markets, but I feel its also a waste of resources. Russia likes PC gaming so Xbox games on PC may attract them. They can even subscribe to Gamepass.

If people in Russia have to go to a retailer to get MS subscriptions, well that sucks. But I dont know much about that market and why that is.