As we clearly state Microsoft and not Xbox, is there anything wrong with being a massive and most likely profitable third party publisher. Perhaps selling 40 to 60 million Xbox units is enough.

Playstation gamers aren't going to switch to Xbox, unless Microsoft wants to bleed a lot of money and make COD exclusive somewhere in the second halve of the next gen.
On PC gamers aren't going to move away from Steam. Now obviously MS could buy Valve and keep Steam the way it is and all royalties would go to MS. Effectively making them the biggest entity in non mobile gaming. However we don't know if such a buyout could even pass.

A long shot is to buy EA or R2, when you own COD and EA it's sport games or the evergreens from Rockstar, by default MS basically can set the course of the industry. Though not much would change for Xbox.

Poor MS strapped for cash eh? So let's go spend 70 billion and still not make them exclusive. lol sure MS

For years people have been basically pulling the "it's still good, it's still good" to themselves since 7th gen rolled around, but ever since then not much has changed to put Xbox at the forefront and taking the lead.

Like the moment Don was hired and started messing things up, the brand was destroyed internally, and by the reveal it was externally fucked, and yet people to this day are still trying to convince others to convince themselves that everything is fine or going as planned, even though none of it is, and it really is MS's money that is keeping the brand going. 

If there ever was such a means of time travel, one should absolutely go back in time to remove those two, like flat out remove both of them from the entire time stream, because even if they weren't hired by MS, they would be hired by someone else and eventually weed their way inside MS or a company they'd purchase, and the cycle would repeat.

I don't think currently that there is any way MS can compete, because so far it's just been "buy X company/IP out, enforce MS ecosystem and cram MT's into it or make it so you have to sub to said model". They are even trying to catch up to Valve with their own handheld now, just like Sony is trying to do, so it's become obvious that these corps don't know what to do, but only know they want someone else's pie when they start generating profits. No one knows to do their own thing and become their own leader anymore. 

Wouldn't you rather go to a fancy restaurant in that case instead of ordering food in a buffet restaurant.

It's also a matter of perception, "good enough for gamepass" is something you hear often which is the death of sales. Nobody is forcing you, but why pay $70 for an average meal if you can get the same for much less.

MS has a quality problem. Their games are not seen as highly polished finished games at launch. So you either play early on gamepass or wait for patches / game to be finished and buy it at a discount later. (And likely forget about it or get lured by a different 'shiny' in the mean time)

You indeed don't have to eat the buffet and Nintendo and Sony deliver better day 1 quality, so that's where people with limited time will dine.

Considering how much trouble it was for Microsoft to acquire Activision Blizzard there is no way them acquiring Valve would be approved by regulators as Steam is practically a monopoly on PC.

This touches on something I've been saying since long before the Activision/Blizzard deal went through; funneling more and more large games into streaming services or GP-like services will be detrimental so creative efforts in the entire space. The only sound way to implement a growing GP system would be to have a weighting system, where more costly, and more eye-catching, releases get significantly more of the income. The issue with that is that it creates a market where breakout studios and titles are more or less impossible to foster. And as turnover changes from 'consumer - developer' to 'massive publisher - developer via monthly fees that get shared in wildly different increments and amounts', less and less power and opportunity will arise for smaller studios and efforts. In effect, the biggest sharks would grown ever bigger, and all the little fish would fight for scraps or pray to get eaten.

Centralization of executive creative decisions is a bad idea, on most scales and in most instances. But this will be the result if this development continues.

MS spent $69 bn, on activision-blizzard, and another ~ $30 bn or something on other studios, in the past few years.
Thats alot of money.

Investors wont be happy, being told, this investment will only lead to loss of profits and devaluation of said studios/plublishers, over time.
(Ei. buy something, watch it devalue)

However, it wont last forever, we just need to hit 100m gamepass subs, before it "should" pay off, and we can then increase gamepass prices to cover the losses.
Gamepass subscription is currently somewhere between 20-30m (i got no idea, where on that scale).... and 100m is along way off.

How many years would it take, for to them hit 100m?

Investers will see, a protential for huge profit growth, by simply going 3rd party.
And ask, why not just cut losses on gamepass, instead of growing it as fast as possible, and then make tons of money from 3rd party sales (here and now) instead?

I think 2023, they had a net profit of like $72 bn.
I wouldn't exactly call them "strapped for cash"  or "poor" :p

However I think it was phill that said this, they don't like locking down 3rd party exclusives because of how tilted it is in playstations favor.
I think your right though, if they wanted to win the console race, they could simply outspend playstation by a massive factor, and get alot of 2nd-3rd pary exclusives.

I mean like ALOT.... enough that it drives people mad.... and eventually towards buying xbox's.
The question is, why havn't they already?

Imagine Phil gets another $100 bn.
However he gets told, sell xbox series x for 100$ and S for 50$, and use some of this money to pay for that.
Then also use some of that for 2nd and 3rd money hatting, getting timed or permanent exclusives.

Im not sure if theres anyone that'll step in and protect sony, from microsoft doing bussiness like this.
However I could see them, just b*tch slapping them with enough money, that it kills sony, or atleast seriously damages them.

The question is just, if you want to go ~20 years of loseing money, and makeing sony suffer.... until you get rid of them.
And if anyone would prevent that sort of thing.

as a consumer it would probably rock.
Cheap arse console, all the games one place (on xbox)....  the question would be what happends aftewards?
However that long a time frame, I'm not sure I'd even care, will I still be gameing when I'm that age? ect ect.
If I spent 20 years with xbox, because of it suddenly being awesome like that, would I want to change back? or care if sony went under?

However.... again... investors probably wouldn't like this sort of strategy.

Some people can't read sarcasm.

Gamepass only has relevancy on Xbox sadly.

It's never gained traction on PC as Steam has the market locked down.
Mobile iOS/Android/TV rely on streaming... Which just hasn't reached market saturation and is limited technically.
Sony and Nintendo aren't interested in it.

And that has resulted in Gamepass stalling out in signing up new subscribers.
https://gamerant.com/xbox-game-pass-growth-subscriber-count-2023-report/

Add on the fact that inflation is smashing the entire planet, some countries more than others... And people are looking to cut household costs... And one of the first things to go is subscriptions.
https://sifted.eu/articles/unsubscribe-subscriptions-recurring-revenue-brnd

Plus people are no longer stuck at home due to COVID restrictions which has helped people to make the decision to cut subscriptions.

*****

Ideally I think Microsoft is in a bit of a mess in regards to branding... The Xbox One was a failure, no exclusives and pushed TV, Kinect, inferior hardware at a higher price... And that was the generation to remain relevant so people get invested and wish to bring their libraries forward to the next generation.

Then you have the hardware itself... The Xbox Series X is a brilliant piece of hardware, but it's priced high.
The Series S is also brilliant hardware, it's priced low. - The unfortunate part about the Series S is the lack of an optical drive for backwards compatibility, Movies, TV shows, Music and physical games which has turned some gamers off.
Some of us have spent decades building extensive libraries.

Add on the fact the name is like an "extension" of the Xbox One... I.E. Xbox One S > Xbox Series S and Xbox One X > Xbox Series X, so the current generation consoles tend to be associated with the branding failure of the previous generation... Which is far from ideal, in my eyes it's no better than the WiiU branding.

Game packaging doesn't stand out either, you need to read the cover itself to ensure you got the correct version... Otherwise you may end up with Xbox One version on the Series X which will visually look last gen.


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For me Microsoft needs to fix it's branding, it's to late this generation... But next generation everything gets reset.

They also need to build an ecosystem, bring us a handheld, bring us a tablet, bring us a hybrid device using Series S equivalent hardware. (Which isn't hard these days.)
Nintendo and Sony enjoy their closed gardens and single devices, so be different, the software/OS on Xbox is extremely powerful and most importantly flexible which enables cross-device gaming rather effectively.

China, India, Brazil and other emerging markets are lucrative nations for the Xbox Series S low entry price point.... They need to roll that hardware out to more form factors to appeal to those markets more heavily.