| ConservagameR said: If a company like XB, through MS, can drop billions and not care, then they aren't scared, because it's not a risk to them, since that's just a drop in the bucket for them. Someone like MS doesn't, go to church, because there's no reason to be scared themselves, as well as they're people of science no doubt. A lack of fear is also unhealthy and dangrous. Sony Pictures bought Cruchyroll I believe, and it was going to be used to boost streaming. Since that didn't really work out, Sony has taken a new approach since. Which is just another example of why I'm skeptical about Game Passes future and it's value to XB owners. Phil Spencer is or was pretty big on backwards compatibility, and that was a big deal for XB owners was it not, so isn't the past important, or do those old games and consoles not matter? Does MS make Kinect anymore? I thought that was a big deal that they poured a ton of money into after being somewhat successful on the 360? Phil changes his mind all the time. Backwards compatibility was a future direction for XB under Phil, until it wasn't, and stopped. He was all about power, moving on from XB One with XB One X, only to launch the Series S. That piece of plastic is the hardware that XB owners use to play their games. If they don't care about it, I don't understand the fuss about XB One X and XB Series X, being the most powerful hardware ever. It sure seems to be important and mean a lot to XB owners. |
Nobody said that MS dropped a billion and did not care, instead I stated they are willing to take risk because they are willing to reap rewards. Business is about managing risk. A billion dollars to one company can be back breaking but to a company like MS, Apple, Google not so much. This is why your framing of this does not make sense. Are you applying the same amount of risk from one company to another but not understanding their business. So if you are in business you have to take risk if you want to rise above the pack, you either believe in your product or you don't. The difference between success or failure is the willingness to do whatever it takes to make your product a success.
Kinect is a add on and it was part of another head of Xbox direction which was the first thing that was dropped by the new head of Xbox because guess what? He decided that the direction of the Xbox system needs to concentrate on what sells the system which is the main console. Actually, I believe that Phil was the first to understand taking Kinect out of the sell of the main system and going back to selling it as an add on was the right move. Next was to build a true next gen console which was the Xbox one X.
Interesting that you mention Kinect but miss another comparison which is the Move controller and camera from Sony and motion controls from Nintendo. The whole industry pretty much moved away from motion gaming probably because the tech isn't ready. Now Sony big bet is VR, MS is also in this space with AR and VR but they are not going consumer probably because they are not at the same level to be competitive which is a smart move. Concentrate on what you are good on first.
The Xbox is a great case in point. MS spent a lot of money to enter the market. Xbox was a very good console. The 360 had it faults with the red ring, but they stuck with it. Xbox one cost MS a lot because the direction and focus was off, Xbox one X righted the ship, Xbox series X continued that approach. Every moment and push throughout the lifecycle of the Xbox was risk. Some paid off, some did not but what has not changed is that MS still believe in the product.
So my point still stands, if you are scared, go work for someone else instead of running a business.
You did not get the point on Crunchyroll. Meaning, Sony is a business that can do multiple things in the entertainment industry, but they are not all going to benefit the gaming division. So, making statements that MS doing things that does not promote Xbox all the time misses the point that MS is a company that does multiple things outside of just gaming. Some will be direct advantage which is actually GP. Its a service that has direct advantage to Xbox gamers and also direct advantage to MS as a business because it crosses over to their PC, mobile including their subscriptions, cloud services and Azure servers.
Your point on backwards compatibility is incorrect. MS has not stopped backwards compatibility, they stated they have reached the end of backwards compatibility compared to what they can do due to licensing older games from Xbox, 360 and Xbox one. As we have seen they have made Bethesda games back compat and I am sure they will do the same with Blizz/Acti games as well if the deal goes through. You might want to review this point more in detail because it appears you are missing a lot of data on the subject.
Let me ask you want drives the sale of these pieces of hardware, is it the games or the hardware. Do you purchase the hardware with no intention of playing games. Is it just a media device to watch Netflix or is it a vehicle for playing the games you want. If you could play all PS, Nintendo and MS games on a PC would you purchase a PC or the console. When I hear about people talking about exclusives all the time, I would say its the games that sell the hardware.
