What Microsoft should do to stay competitive.

[trunkswd]

Pemalite said:

Gamepass only has relevancy on Xbox sadly.

It's never gained traction on PC as Steam has the market locked down.
Mobile iOS/Android/TV rely on streaming... Which just hasn't reached market saturation and is limited technically.
Sony and Nintendo aren't interested in it.

And that has resulted in Gamepass stalling out in signing up new subscribers.
https://gamerant.com/xbox-game-pass-growth-subscriber-count-2023-report/

Add on the fact that inflation is smashing the entire planet, some countries more than others... And people are looking to cut household costs... And one of the first things to go is subscriptions.
https://sifted.eu/articles/unsubscribe-subscriptions-recurring-revenue-brnd

Plus people are no longer stuck at home due to COVID restrictions which has helped people to make the decision to cut subscriptions.

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Ideally I think Microsoft is in a bit of a mess in regards to branding... The Xbox One was a failure, no exclusives and pushed TV, Kinect, inferior hardware at a higher price... And that was the generation to remain relevant so people get invested and wish to bring their libraries forward to the next generation.

Then you have the hardware itself... The Xbox Series X is a brilliant piece of hardware, but it's priced high.
The Series S is also brilliant hardware, it's priced low. - The unfortunate part about the Series S is the lack of an optical drive for backwards compatibility, Movies, TV shows, Music and physical games which has turned some gamers off.
Some of us have spent decades building extensive libraries.

Add on the fact the name is like an "extension" of the Xbox One... I.E. Xbox One S > Xbox Series S and Xbox One X > Xbox Series X, so the current generation consoles tend to be associated with the branding failure of the previous generation... Which is far from ideal, in my eyes it's no better than the WiiU branding.

Game packaging doesn't stand out either, you need to read the cover itself to ensure you got the correct version... Otherwise you may end up with Xbox One version on the Series X which will visually look last gen.


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For me Microsoft needs to fix it's branding, it's to late this generation... But next generation everything gets reset.

They also need to build an ecosystem, bring us a handheld, bring us a tablet, bring us a hybrid device using Series S equivalent hardware. (Which isn't hard these days.)
Nintendo and Sony enjoy their closed gardens and single devices, so be different, the software/OS on Xbox is extremely powerful and most importantly flexible which enables cross-device gaming rather effectively.

China, India, Brazil and other emerging markets are lucrative nations for the Xbox Series S low entry price point.... They need to roll that hardware out to more form factors to appeal to those markets more heavily.

Gabe Newell has in the past said he is willing for Microsoft to release Game Pass on Steam. That would help the service gain traction on PC. Though, it would probably be limited to first-party Xbox titles and/or Valve would want a decent cut of the revenue of Steam users that would use the service.

https://www.vgchartz.com/article/452705/valve-willing-to-add-xbox-game-pass-to-steam/