Machiavellian said:
shikamaru317 said:
So basically Phil started the decline of Xbox with same day PC releases, and Sarah continued it by adding on Playstation and Switch and the dumb "This Is An Xbox" ad campaign. No wonder they're both out, clearly their vision is not working out the way they wanted it to, the extra sales from more platforms aren't helping enough to counter the meteoric decline in hardware sales, nor enough to pay down the Activision acquisition debt as fast as Microsoft wanted.
As much as I'd like to see them do a full reversal and copy Sony with day one Xbox only, PC port about a year later, and other platforms even later on a case by case basis, I doubt they'll do a full 180. Hopefully they at least go back to Xbox and PC releases only, with ports to other consoles much later and even then only on the games that really need the extra sales.
At the very least it's too late to do much of anything this gen, they already killed Xbox Series sales and I can't see them recovering even if they brought back exclusives. Better to slowly start weaning people off of day one multiplat releases through the rest of this gen, slowly back towards Xbox and PC only at launch, and then when next gen starts it's just Xbox and PC at launch for all games, coupled with amazing new hardware and a strong advertising push, and maybe even selling the hardware at a loss to try and eek back some lost marketshare.
|
What you are saying isn't going to happen and believing things are going to change MS direction with the new CEO just because she said some pretty things shows some delusion. If anything, MS would drop all hardware under the new CEO than anything else. As a traditional console OEM, that ship has passed and it was pretty much going after the Xbox one. Best to hope for some really good games from the teams MS have not and settle on whatever PC hardware they produce because the current direction isn't changing.
|
I'm just summing up all of the info we have so far. We know from Greg Miller's source that Phil "retired" earlier than he planned on, and it seemed like Sarah was completely surprised by being replaced considering she was posting normal things like 3 hours before the press release dropped, which indicates both were essentially given the option of stepping down instead of being publicly fired. We found out today from Tom Warren's internal Microsoft sources (and he always had very good Microsoft sources) that Sarah's "This Is An Xbox" marketing campaign and multiplatform push was seen as a failure by Microsoft leadership and that it was unpopular among many of the employees under Sarah, and that Phil directed her from above to abandon marketing Xbox hardware and push playing Xbox games on other platforms. Tom Warren said he got the impression from his sources that Microsoft wants a direction turnaround for Xbox and that they want to save Xbox hardware because it is one of their few successful consumer products at this point. And we found out that many of the same Xbox employees that didn't like Sarah are relieved she is gone and feel hopeful that Asha is going to try and save Xbox hardware instead of being brought in to kill it.
It would be crazy for Satya and Asha to keep heading the Xbox division down the same path expecting a different outcome, that is the definition of insanity. If the "This Is An Xbox" multiplatform push was seen as a failure, as Tom Warren's sources indicated today, why would they continue it, at least to the same degree that they have been? I feel like at the very least they will walk back the decision to put core Xbox franchises like Halo, Gears, Forza etc. on other platforms, while others like CoD and TES will probably be multiplatform since they were to start with.
Last edited by shikamaru317 - on 23 February 2026
