Nobody is buying COD for the campaign lol.

I was actually going to write that but I thought people would run in to tell me that people actually do care about COD campaign. I think COD and Battlefield could both dump their campaign and the vast majority of people won't give a shit but some always get defensive about that suggestion, Lol. But...It's true 👀

So I just stuck it there for those who want it, maybe it'd sell a couple million.

Tbh even I would play a F2P Zombies, I don't care about the rest of COD anymore but I always loved the zombies mode.

I bought cod for campaign when it was the original modern warfare 1-3 then that was it for me lol

The decision for how much funds Xbox is getting is decided by MS, not by Xbox. MS does not give Xbox carte blanche to take as much money as they want. And yes Satya is involved in the gaming division as much as any other MS division, he even set himself to receive a bonus from game pass performance a few years back (the target was missed though).

You say that it must be Phil because, and I'm paraphrasing, he was always 2 faced with you, but what you suggest (Ms did provide everything needed Phil just decided to close studios and fire resources) is not being two-faced, it's pure insanity, nobody would do so if they had the funds to keep everything.

MS reducing Xbox funds is just a more logical and simplest explanation.

That's simply not true, as also mentioned by Ryuu, Satya even provided testimony during the FTC trial.

Yes MS acted on Phil recommendation, but that does not mean they'll always do so. And let me remind you the whole industry saw crazy investment from all actors in this timeframe. That's simply because investors thought Video Game was set to grow immensely due to COVID-19 and be able to retain newfound consumers. In early 2022 you got studios being created left and right, Sony also bought a bunch. 

Now the industry is not viewed with the same prospect by investor and they reduced their investment/demand higher ROI.

Xbox lives by MS funding, wins by MS funding, but they can also lose by MS funding and if ever they die it will be by MS funding.

Phil's Being a nice guy has been echoed by Many of his acquaintances and both past and current colleagues. I have no doubt he can take hard/unpopular decisions but I don't believe he decides such on a whim without it being a necessity. Until I see otherwise, the sole necessity to do so that is logical is getting to work with reduced funding. 

I can see both sides here. Obviously I love Gamepass on a personal level, I've used the hell out of it over the 5 years or so that I've been subbed, it is the best deal in all of gaming by quite some considerable margin, over 400 games for $11 a month, and you can even avoid paying anything if you make good use of Microsoft Rewards. However, at the same time, I can also see why there are insiders and industry analysts saying that Gamepass contributed to Xbox's current issues. Fact is, day one 1st and 2nd party games and these day one 3rd party deals are costing them alot of money, obviously the 3rd party day one deals are costing them money as they have to pay those developers and publishers either a lump sum or some kind of sliding scale payment based on the number of gamepass downloads, but putting 1st and 2nd party games on there day one is obviously going to cost them alot of full priced sales in the launch period and months beyond. How many are out there buying Xbox 1st and 2nd party games since they all became day one Gamepass, and how many are buying them at full price (minus the 10% Gamepass discount)? Personally, I haven't bought a single one, I've bought some DLC like the Starfield one and some microtransaction money for Halo Infinite, but I haven't bought a single Xbox 1st or 2nd party game since 2019, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that. That is going to be alot of money lost, and while that was ok when the Gamepass sub base was growing rapidly, that growth has slowed considerably now, Gamepass has gone from growing several million subs each quarter to reportedly only growing 5m in the 18 months between January 2022 and September 2023, and Starfield reportedly didn't generate as many subs as they wanted, only increasing subs from "over 30m" in September 2023 to 34m in February 2024. 

Now that the Microsoft Gaming division is under increased scrutiny by the Microsoft board of directors, in the wake of the $70b ABK acquisition, the board is going to have the the Chief Financial Officers like Tim Stuart and Amy Hood going over Microsoft gaming's financials with a fine toothed comb, looking for ways to maximize the division's profitability and pay back that $70b asap. And all of this money lost to day one Gamepass games is going to be glaring at the CFO's like it's written in highlighter. Since Gamepass subs aren't meeting growth targets, the CFO's are very likely going to be looking at two different ways to improve the gaming division's revenue moving forward, the first being a series of Gamepass price hikes over the coming months and years (aka the Netflix strategy), the other being the ending of the day one Gamepass releases for 1st and 2nd party games, with those games instead landing on Gamepass sometime after release, be it 6 months, 9 months, a year, in the hopes that such a move results in a considerable increase in full priced sales for those 1st and 2nd party games. I don't know which path they will choose, but I highly doubt Gamepass will be the same as it is right now by the end of this year.

Ask yourselves this.

Would Xbox be having layoffs and closures this year if Game Pass didn't exist? That's a rhetorical question though because the answer is obviously YES.

Game Pass is the easy thing to blame but Xbox growth would be poor even without Game Pass, Hi-Fi Rush isn't suddenly becoming a 10m seller because it launched as a paid title. Lets also remember Starfield is the only new IP that charted last year in SALES. Game Pass is profitable but the ENTIRE INDUSTRY has slowed down, including subscription services.

But yes a price increase is likely coming to Game Pass and Game Pass will likely change but not because Game Pass is to blame for Xbox's current struggles but because THE ENTIRE INDUSTRY IS STAGNANT. All these moves were meant to avoid that, they didn't work out, but without them we'd be in an even worse position than we are now.

Even if Game Pass didn't exist, Microsoft isn't looking at Activison's profit margins and going "Well, Hi-Fi Rush sold 1m so lets keep it alive" instead of "Fallout will sell 20x the amount of Hi-Fi Rush, lets get Bethesda on that, lay off Tango and put the extra resources towards spamming out Fallout" We'd be in the exact same situation with or without Game Pass.

Activision has acquired Xbox.

Profitable is never good enough for these corps, it has to be REALLY profitable and INFINITE GROWTH and the profitability can't just be an increase of 1% YOY it has to be 200%. PlayStation has a profit margin of under 10% and they have a console which doubles the sales of Xbox, have multiple IPs which sell tens of millions, have 3rd parties selling millions, and they laid off and shutdown.

ABK has a profit margin of 30%

The money-suits are asking "Why doesn't XGS/Zenimax?" and it ain't because of Game Pass, Lol.

Don't believe in words or lists but in what you get, anyway I have been quiet in this thread but like I said a few weeks ago, I wished to been proven wrong but well I don't need to say more.


I have been play Eiyuden Chronicles

The first 5 hours felt horrible, the next 5 hours were a little better but still not good enough...After the 10 hour mark the games open and I have some enjoyement. I just collected all the heroes and I had fun but I am still kind of dissapointed.

The minigames are kind of bad, fishing sucks, beyblade game...is ugh.....their is no point of playing it till later in the game, the card game is fine but because you basically have to buy cards their is no fun with it. It isn't like Triple Triad in FF8, get better with defeating opponents but get better by unlocking the ability to buy cards.

The fortress system is something I should love but it has the kind of annoying stuff like Ni no Kuni II has, sometimes you better just wait some till some money or ingredients will make it to your fortress so you can upgrade stuff...

The fighting system is also fucked by choosing to be like Lost Odyssey, be level 50 win against a level 50 enemy you get 1000 XP, be level 51 and win you get 100 XP be level 52 and you get 1 XP..... so their is no point in grinding, also DUELS are frustrating, they feel like a game of rock/Scissors or paper kind of fight well you have to play it for yourself but I had to do one fight with marrisa 6 times.... Same opinion about the battlefield troops fights....It feels more like a gimmick...

At the end of the game I give it a 7/10, but I can see many people getting dissapointed.

Updated OP.

I’m sure this will age well. Narratives being flipped quite a bit these days.