And again, none of these issues are exclusive to Xbox.

I know he's formerly PR of Xbox but I don't buy his argument Tbh. Hi-Fi Rush with or without Game Pass would have underperformed, it flopped on PlayStation and Steam too, where Game Pass doesn't exist. Redfall can't be attributed to Game Pass at all. He's right that Game Pass has stagnated but Game Pass is still profitable on its own.

I think something the streaming industry is still grappling with, is how do you measure that success?

How do you measure how successful the subscription is overall?

If MS is spending $4 billion on development every year, but they make $3 billion through subscriptions and $3 billion on game sales, they're overall profitable. But is the subscription profitable? It arguably is and isn't.  The subscription is simultaneously making them more than they need it to, to be profitable, but not individually profitable. 

I'm playing Unicorn Overlord! Great game :)

Is SteamDeck 2 rumoured or anything? Any information on if it's happening? When it could happen?

How does SteamDeck compare with ASUS Ally in terms of resolution and framerate?

What are your reviews on SteamDeck and ASUS Ally?

I was never a fan of the Activision deal to be honest, not only do they not make many games I care about, but I always suspected that gigantic ass price tag would screw them over, one way or another. Seems I was right. I wish that Xbox had gone for a much cheaper publisher acquisition instead like buying WB Interactive when the owner was looking to sell, or one of the JP pubs. Instead they bought an overpriced double edged sword that seems to have screwed the whole Xbox division over by causing the bean counters like Amy Hood to start penny pinching the division.

1. "If a studio doesn't want layoffs or to shut down, they should just make good games." Her response: the quality of a game no longer matters. You can have a Hogwarts Legacy that sells gangbusters, but all Warner Bros. sees is a potential risk if it fails. Live service games can also fail, they often do, but the overall cost-benefit analysis actually makes them less risky.

2. As an addendum to 1, the biggest focus right now for most entertainment companies isn't even necessarily money, it's time. Because the more time you spend on a platform, the more you're likely to spend money, view ads, and have all your info mined and sold. A one-and-done experience is fundamentally not aligned with that goal.

3. "More studios should just go indie so they aren't beholden to these awful practices." Her response: the indie space is just as volatile and doing pretty bad right now, studios are closing all the time, they just aren't all big news like a AAA studio closing. Indies are having increasing trouble getting publishing support or just funding for projects in general, specifically because they're often more niche, less focused on monetization, and therefore more risky, even if they're generally smaller scale. But whereas a flop at a big studio might result in layoffs or maybe a closure at worst, an indie flop is probably just going to tank the whole company immediately and it might not even release if the stars don't align.

Now, there are still big games, Tears of the Kingdom, Baldur's Gate 3, Elden Ring, Cyberpunk. But she feels these will increasingly become the exception in the industry, not the rule. Companies like Fromsoft and Nintendo will become the go-to companies you go to for your single-player experiences, while 90% of the rest of the industry chases what they see as the bigger cheese, and even if 10+ more live services fail, a company is going to keep trying because the cost-benefit is still conceivably more attractive than any single player game could ever be. If that crashes a company, pull your losses and move on to the next company and hope they succeed.

Source

Another perspective from the Xbox OT in ResetEra which got some praise.

Thank god MS hasn’t bought a single JP dev, publisher. And I hope they never ever will. Look at what happened to Tango. That’s why I never cheered on SEGA deal. SEGA is better off staying independent.