I don't care about first party and don't care about 10:1 or 20:1 ratio either. All I care about is games skipping specifically Xbox to not be a thing anymore.

This! We need a solid install base. If it gets worse every gen, why would publishers even make games for Xbox?

Sometimes it feels like people think that game development is a charity.

Eh, unless future Xbox consoles pull a Wii U or PS Vita in terms of console sales. I don't see why any major publisher (Capcom, Square, Take Two, EA, etc...) would ever not make their games available on Xbox.

Gotcha. I mean, I agree with you to a certain extent, but I think Xbox is on a good path. You just said it yourself " Xbox still has time to build great first party pipeline and earn trust and reputation before next gen start".

I feel like they are doing exactly that, and if they get lucky and Sony continues slacking like they did this year, they have a golden chance there.

That said, I do think Xbox should be trying to increase console sales. Not be content with 50-60 million console sales, even if Xbox isn't their only priority it should still be one of their biggest ones.

For Square even 50m is not enough it seems. This is odd one out of this list for sure

I also agree that they are on a good path in preparation for next gen Xbox. They just need not to fuck it up as usual. And never have such situations like 2022 ever again which Phil himself called a catastrophe.

Now with Sarah Bond promoted to oversee hardware as well, there is a big hope that the approach will change.

Yeah, a force of habit typing Square.

Imo. You can still offer a compelling product at a reasonable price whilst at the same time accepting that you lost the console war, PlayStation has won and you will never take the #1 spot from PlayStation. That's why I'm mostly fine with Xbox price matching PlayStation and focusing on profitability because doing massive price cuts just for the purpose of "beating" PS at this stage is dumb. What I'm not fine with is Xbox Series S in Brazil price matching the PS5 because that is a complete rip off as the Series S is far weaker than the PS5. You can accept your 3rd place position whilst still offering a compelling product without ripping your customers off.

They can and will continue to compete but can accept they've lost the console wars. Nintendo turned things around massively from Wii U by offering a very unique product with Switch that more sits alongside Xbox and PS. If Nintendo just did a console like Xbox/PS then I think the sales would be a lot different. Nintendo realise they shouldn't try to compete with Xbox/PS by doing what they do and instead do something completely different and that's why Nintendo hardware is always unique. Nintendo has combined the traditional console with a handheld in Switch alongside the strongest 1st party in the industry to achieve their success.

Xbox and PS will never offer unique hardware like Nintendo does (Imo). It will always be the same old "same type of hardware except more powerful" and that makes Xbox/PS closer competitors (but does not make Nintendo not a competitor). Regardless, it means a lot of people will go with either Xbox + Switch or PS + Switch but far fewer with Xbox + PS and then you add PC to that as well, PS + PC will get you your Xbox fix.

I'm not disagreeing that they shouldn't be competing, I'm just saying they've accepted 3rd place and aren't taking massive profitability hits in the foolish endeavour of beating PS. Their goals are now more wider and don't only rely on Console to be a success. But all these acquisitions will naturally generate a lot of exclusives which will end up providing competition against PS but from the hardware standpoint, I doubt we'll see much in the way of taking massive price cuts. Xbox isn't aiming to be #1 in hardware, they are trying to be #1 in revenue though.

Honestly I think Phil was spot on in that interview and some recent events have backed some statements up, it's a tough pill to swallow but they were absolutely pounded in the worst possible generation to lose in, when users were taking their digital libraries seriously and starting to seriously build them up, when publishers really tripled down on GAAS. People are attached to their digital ecosystems, especially in games like COD, Fortnite, GTA, etc. They are attached to their friend groups. They will be heavily influenced by what console their friends have, the network effect was far bigger in the Xbox One/PS4 era and swapping consoles means losing your digital libraries and friends. Reason why Xbox went so heavily on trying to push cross-play all of a sudden and why Sony was heavily against it initially because a key factor in console buying is where your friends are, if you can't play with them on Xbox then you're going to get a PlayStation.

He was also proven correct that Starfield wouldn't suddenly cause consoles to fly off the shelves, there was a modest bump in America but a mediocre one in UK and a decrease in Europe and the stock excuse doesn't fly anymore because this is YOY and the stock situation is way better now than it was in 2022 but the YOY increase doesn't reflect that. In their financials Xbox hardware is down as well. They do project an increase this FQ but I'm assuming Black Friday will do a lot of the heavy lifting. It's going to take dozens upon dozens of high quality exclusives to turn Xbox's hardware fortunes around and even then, releasing day-on-date with PC will hurt Xbox hardware too. Take Starfield for example, as a Bethesda title which heavily skews towards PC.

I think 50-70m (max) would be fine for Xbox Series and it's more than enough for the vast majority of developers to support it, it is more than enough for every single major publisher to support it, it matters more how many people are still actively using the console than how many LT sales it has. You mention Square Enix not supporting Xbox One but they're bringing FFXIV to a userbase of 23m so hardware sales are not the only factor as to why a publisher refuses to support a platform. Xbox Japanese support has been consistently improving as well despite PS pounding Xbox in sales.

You say if they tried in Europe they could achieve 70m LT sales, I think I could agree with that if they pulled out all the stops, but I still believe PS would be at 100m+ versus Xbox's hypothetical 70m. The average sales of PS across all systems is 116m vs Xbox's average of 55m. The best selling PS console is 158m vs Xbox's 85m. The only chance Xbox ever had of even matching (and still in the end, losing) to PlayStation in sales required Sony to shoot themselves in the foot multiple times, Microsoft firing on all cylinders, taking large losses and releasing a fad to give them an end of life boost, they got lucky with the Kinect, Imo.

We even had multiple recent surveys which suggests that even COD as an exclusive wouldn't cause Xbox to beat PlayStation. PS fanbase is as strong as Apple's, Imo. They can practically cruise control PS5 to 100m+ sales and likely future consoles too. In order for Xbox to catch them it would take Xbox throwing absolutely everything at the wall, no matter the costs, and PlayStation fucking up enough to cause public anger against them. That's unlikely to happen but Xbox One proved it can happen, Lol.

To sum it up, they have zero chance of beating PS or even levelling with them, it's fine to accept that. I think from now on, PS will consistently average around 30m+ more than Xbox in sales but I think Xbox can sell well enough regardless to both gain support for their platform (Especially as porting costs decrease and Xbox continues gobbling up studios, Lol) and be a profitable company whilst accepting 3rd place. They can still compete whilst accepting 3rd place, they will compete even if they didn't even try just on the basis of all the studios they own now. But I don't think we will see them doing massive price cuts to hardware to compete, only a focus on software. But I will say once again, the Brazil move is dumb as shit and a complete rip off.

Going to use Klob's graphics for the new thread because I cba anymore to make my own and he's far better.