Bloomberg: Xbox profit margin just 3%, Major Layoffs next month.

[Cerebralbore101]

ConciousMan said:

Sogreblute said:

It didn't backfire. Xbox makes a lot of money off PC. Playstation made some money off PC. You think Playstation sold 90+ million consoles because of their exclusives? I think the reason Playstation stopped doing PC ports for their single player games is because they're embarrassed that PC gamers didn't care about them. I guarantee you if Playstation put their games day one on PC it would not affect their console sales at all.

Sony will not release the exclusives on the PC for some time, since Helix and Steam Machine can play Sony games on Steam. It would be a financial disaster if their best games are available on the competing platforms too. It is not about weak sales of those games released on Steam.

That is also a very good reason why. 

numberwang said:

Those were the best times and we didn't even know it 

IMO the best times for Xbox were 2001-2011. After 2011 the 360 exclusives really slowed down and then we had the disaster of the XBONE reveal. It's been a steady downhill after that. Phil Spencer became Microsoft Studios' General manager sometime around 2009. And the lack of good exclusives is IMO a serious factor in killing Xbox. 

But I do agree with you in a way. Spencer is like Bush Jr. This new CEO is like Trump. 

twintail said:

Cerebralbore101 said:

It backfired by slowing down console sales. Consoles make their money by getting people invested in the ecosystem and then getting 20% of every 3rd party game sold. Fewer console numbers = less revenue in the future. 

PS5 console sales are more or less aligned with PS4, with cost being the biggest factor stopping it from doing better. PS5 gen is also very easily their most profitable. So if revenue is the end goal of the argument that moving games to PC backfired, then I believe you're categorically incorrect. 

As for XB, I'm pretty sure the decisions they made regarding gamepass and pc releases were done to help them with revenue, but whether that was the best long-term decision is questionable. Nonetheless, they're still doing PC releases for all their games so they haven't gone back on it.

PS5 sales would have done even better if Sony had just stuck to keeping their games exclusive. IMO PS5 would be a little more ahead of PS4 aligned sales if they had never bothered with PC ports.