Microslop is making a number of baffling choices that were influenced by huffing the farts of Satya and other AI fools. Asha Sharma is in no way capable of running Xbox anywhere but into the ground (not like she’ll have to do much, given the state of Xbox). Phil Spencer retiring from Microslop is probably a move he made knowing they are going to continue their downward spiral. Sarah Bond resigning from her position is a curious one. I wonder if Microslop execs talked future plans for Xbox with her, and felt so stunned by their incompetence, Sarah decided to abandon the Xbox division. There are other factors likely involved, but, I doubt we’ll be privy to those details just yet. When the postmortem of Xbox is released…The people involved might talk about, at least I hope so.
As I don’t feel Xbox as a console has a future, my current plan is to abandon Xbox as a platform. It will take time because right now buying an upgraded Gaming PC will be difficult, due to the insanity of hardware prices. For now, I’ll have to simply save my money and bide my time.
I don’t doubt Sarah was being brought up as Phils replacement, but Satya wanted an AI puppet at the helm, so Asha got inserted. Being passed over for her ascent, Sarah had no real choice than to leave.
XBox will still get development as long as Microsoft wants gaming on PC on a way it can somewhat control. Part of the reason why the XBox got made was because Microsoft already developed the software required to make a console.
I quit Xbox after 3 Xbox 360s got the red ring of death just after the warranty expired. I’ll never go back even though I want clockwork revolution and a couple other exclusives.
Yeah, ‘overmuch’ is a very useful word, great for shortening sentences! As an avid reader, I do see plenty of words…Rarely, do I use them because following KISS is for the best!
Good. Phil Spencer may have been a better lead for Xbox during the OG and 360 years, but the XB1 was a joke and the Series X, while pretty good, could have been better. And doubling the price of GamePass Ultimate made it a non-starter for a lot of people. Half the price of a game every month and I don’t get to keep any of them? Huh? At $15 it was a no-brainer; at $30, it’s a non-starter. And they sold the Series S on GamePass.
Sarah Bond always annoyed me. Seemed like she was always badly trying to put out a fire. I don’t know where she was before, I’m sure she earned her spot somehow, but she always seemed like the “bad cop” in most situations.
As for PlayStation, they’re run by bankers and lawyers, not gamers. I liked the first two PlayStations. PS3 was definitely better than XB1 (even though XB1’s contemporary was the PS4… PS3 was still better). I haven’t had a PlayStation since PS3, but I don’t like how Sony does business. That said, they’re Japanese, and they make/own a lot of the anime and music I listen to (I listen to a lot of Japanese music). But, that’s like saying Samsung phones are good because their refrigerators are. It’s a fallacy at best, but it’s mostly bullshit. PlayStation is very much its own thing at Sony. And I don’t agree with most of their decisions.
Steam looks like the least crappy option right now, with the Switch 2 being fully last-generation and costing like $500… and the games being $80 each… Screw that. (Switch 1 is still cool for what it is, the 2.5D Zelda games, and Animal Crossing. If you’re into cosy/chill games.) I kinda want a Steam Machine but I won’t pay $1000 for one. I think people thinking it will be $500-600 are huffing some serious hopium. $700 feels like a compromise between what gamers want it to be ($500) and what it probably will be ($1000). They want Valve to take a loss on each unit because they kiss up to Valve on social media, but Valve has already said they are not going to sell it at a loss. So all I’m saying is… get ready for a four-digit price tag. Especially if it’s gonna run modern games at good framerates and resolutions. The one thing I can say for the “it’ll be $500” guys is, the M4 Mac mini is $500 and that can run Cyberpunk. And it’s a whole Mac, so you know it’s a good computer. Thing is, most game devs aren’t friendly to people who actually put their money where their mouth is and actually kick Microslop to the curb. They’ll support Linux hoping you’ll just go back to Windows on the same machine, but you buy a computer that (AFAIK, until Windows for ARM comes out) can’t run Windows… then it’s FU in particular. (And honestly, no one really buys a Mac for gaming. They’re just cool computers that aren’t PCs.)
After Mattrick, they probably shouldn’t have promoted internally from the executive class that went along with the pivot of internal studios to kinect and home theater media center. They needed leadership that knew how to deliver quality games on time. Saw Sony hit its stride mid-PS3 era with the advent of the AAA narrative action adventure game and could never adjust to that. I know American company, but maybe they should have looked to Sega, Capcom, Koei Tecmo to lead Xbox game studios and someone else to lead hardware and services. Xbox was at its best when it was paying for timed exclusives in the 360 era from third parties and funding 2nd party exclusives. Their internal studio production has been weak for like 20 years. Halo, Gears, Forza Motorsport, Fable has fallen to all of them in the doldrums and Forza Horizon being their only high tier Xbox associated IP now. I’d take someone from Square Enix today to lead Xbox studios today. The last decade they’ve churned out games even though mostly not AAA, they’re mostly solid games and satisfy a lot of niches like Dragon Quest Monsters. Square Enix games are oddly experimental and creative for such a large publisher. Something Xbox sorely lacks. Master Chief is barely surviving as a console mascot and that’s practically all they have at this point. Conker and Banjo are irrelevant with how they’ve handled those IPs
I’ll not sure Spencer had been doing a great job, but this feels incredibly abrupt and makes me wonder if Xbox’s next generation hardware plans are cancelled in favor of a software and AI approach. The new CEO being an AI suit makes me think they want to take shit it a very different direction.
A simultaneous retirement/resignation says to me that the two of them were asked to do something very stupid or very unethical. And they’ve stomached a lot of unethical lately.
I wonder how much of this is the big bet that they placed on buying up Activision Blizzard (plus other studios) and not being able to show enough growth on Gamepass?
And now of course, with skyrocketing hardware costs, and the ripple effects of tariffs before that, even putting MS’s preoccupation with cloud services and AI to one side, the console business probably isn’t the money spinner it once was.
Phil was probably the last thing keep Xbox from fully imploding. You could tell he was an actual gamer that cared about the Xbox as a games console and not whatever Frankenstein they are going to turn it into.
It’s sad but Xbox had a really good run. Xbox won’t exist beyond the next console generation, it may not even make it that far before it just becomes gamepass.
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His name was Ozymandias, King of Kings.
Spencer leaving Microsoft: Yay!
Spencer being replaced by a Marketing Exec who leads an AI division: FUUUUUUCK
How sad for Obsidian Entertainment to go the same way as Black Isle Studios… but they probably will when the Xbox division completely fails.
Microslop is making a number of baffling choices that were influenced by huffing the farts of Satya and other AI fools. Asha Sharma is in no way capable of running Xbox anywhere but into the ground (not like she’ll have to do much, given the state of Xbox). Phil Spencer retiring from Microslop is probably a move he made knowing they are going to continue their downward spiral. Sarah Bond resigning from her position is a curious one. I wonder if Microslop execs talked future plans for Xbox with her, and felt so stunned by their incompetence, Sarah decided to abandon the Xbox division. There are other factors likely involved, but, I doubt we’ll be privy to those details just yet. When the postmortem of Xbox is released…The people involved might talk about, at least I hope so.
As I don’t feel Xbox as a console has a future, my current plan is to abandon Xbox as a platform. It will take time because right now buying an upgraded Gaming PC will be difficult, due to the insanity of hardware prices. For now, I’ll have to simply save my money and bide my time.
I don’t doubt Sarah was being brought up as Phils replacement, but Satya wanted an AI puppet at the helm, so Asha got inserted. Being passed over for her ascent, Sarah had no real choice than to leave.
XBox will still get development as long as Microsoft wants gaming on PC on a way it can somewhat control. Part of the reason why the XBox got made was because Microsoft already developed the software required to make a console.
I quit Xbox after 3 Xbox 360s got the red ring of death just after the warranty expired. I’ll never go back even though I want clockwork revolution and a couple other exclusives.
What the fuck is “overmuch”?
I edited that to: “not like she’ll have to do much, given the state of Xbox”. I was typing faster than my brain could think…It’s been a day.
Haha gotcha. I actually searched it up and overmuch is a word. Hadn’t heard that one before.
Yeah, ‘overmuch’ is a very useful word, great for shortening sentences! As an avid reader, I do see plenty of words…Rarely, do I use them because following KISS is for the best!
Good. Phil Spencer may have been a better lead for Xbox during the OG and 360 years, but the XB1 was a joke and the Series X, while pretty good, could have been better. And doubling the price of GamePass Ultimate made it a non-starter for a lot of people. Half the price of a game every month and I don’t get to keep any of them? Huh? At $15 it was a no-brainer; at $30, it’s a non-starter. And they sold the Series S on GamePass.
Sarah Bond always annoyed me. Seemed like she was always badly trying to put out a fire. I don’t know where she was before, I’m sure she earned her spot somehow, but she always seemed like the “bad cop” in most situations.
As for PlayStation, they’re run by bankers and lawyers, not gamers. I liked the first two PlayStations. PS3 was definitely better than XB1 (even though XB1’s contemporary was the PS4… PS3 was still better). I haven’t had a PlayStation since PS3, but I don’t like how Sony does business. That said, they’re Japanese, and they make/own a lot of the anime and music I listen to (I listen to a lot of Japanese music). But, that’s like saying Samsung phones are good because their refrigerators are. It’s a fallacy at best, but it’s mostly bullshit. PlayStation is very much its own thing at Sony. And I don’t agree with most of their decisions.
Steam looks like the least crappy option right now, with the Switch 2 being fully last-generation and costing like $500… and the games being $80 each… Screw that. (Switch 1 is still cool for what it is, the 2.5D Zelda games, and Animal Crossing. If you’re into cosy/chill games.) I kinda want a Steam Machine but I won’t pay $1000 for one. I think people thinking it will be $500-600 are huffing some serious hopium. $700 feels like a compromise between what gamers want it to be ($500) and what it probably will be ($1000). They want Valve to take a loss on each unit because they kiss up to Valve on social media, but Valve has already said they are not going to sell it at a loss. So all I’m saying is… get ready for a four-digit price tag. Especially if it’s gonna run modern games at good framerates and resolutions. The one thing I can say for the “it’ll be $500” guys is, the M4 Mac mini is $500 and that can run Cyberpunk. And it’s a whole Mac, so you know it’s a good computer. Thing is, most game devs aren’t friendly to people who actually put their money where their mouth is and actually kick Microslop to the curb. They’ll support Linux hoping you’ll just go back to Windows on the same machine, but you buy a computer that (AFAIK, until Windows for ARM comes out) can’t run Windows… then it’s FU in particular. (And honestly, no one really buys a Mac for gaming. They’re just cool computers that aren’t PCs.)
After Mattrick, they probably shouldn’t have promoted internally from the executive class that went along with the pivot of internal studios to kinect and home theater media center. They needed leadership that knew how to deliver quality games on time. Saw Sony hit its stride mid-PS3 era with the advent of the AAA narrative action adventure game and could never adjust to that. I know American company, but maybe they should have looked to Sega, Capcom, Koei Tecmo to lead Xbox game studios and someone else to lead hardware and services. Xbox was at its best when it was paying for timed exclusives in the 360 era from third parties and funding 2nd party exclusives. Their internal studio production has been weak for like 20 years. Halo, Gears, Forza Motorsport, Fable has fallen to all of them in the doldrums and Forza Horizon being their only high tier Xbox associated IP now. I’d take someone from Square Enix today to lead Xbox studios today. The last decade they’ve churned out games even though mostly not AAA, they’re mostly solid games and satisfy a lot of niches like Dragon Quest Monsters. Square Enix games are oddly experimental and creative for such a large publisher. Something Xbox sorely lacks. Master Chief is barely surviving as a console mascot and that’s practically all they have at this point. Conker and Banjo are irrelevant with how they’ve handled those IPs
If Spencer couldn’t keep the Xbox machine alive, an outsider who’s not a gamer is gonna ruin it more so than it is
So…is Xbox done?
Microsoft needs to have a sit down with Sega on how to become a decent 3rd party developer.
I’ll not sure Spencer had been doing a great job, but this feels incredibly abrupt and makes me wonder if Xbox’s next generation hardware plans are cancelled in favor of a software and AI approach. The new CEO being an AI suit makes me think they want to take shit it a very different direction.
I would leave a flaming wreck too.
A simultaneous retirement/resignation says to me that the two of them were asked to do something very stupid or very unethical. And they’ve stomached a lot of unethical lately.
Microslop definitely
askedtold him to use AI.I wonder how much of this is the big bet that they placed on buying up Activision Blizzard (plus other studios) and not being able to show enough growth on Gamepass?
And now of course, with skyrocketing hardware costs, and the ripple effects of tariffs before that, even putting MS’s preoccupation with cloud services and AI to one side, the console business probably isn’t the money spinner it once was.
This could be good for gaming if it’s the death knell of subscription ‘ownership’.
Phil was probably the last thing keep Xbox from fully imploding. You could tell he was an actual gamer that cared about the Xbox as a games console and not whatever Frankenstein they are going to turn it into.
It’s sad but Xbox had a really good run. Xbox won’t exist beyond the next console generation, it may not even make it that far before it just becomes gamepass.
Yeah, I’m glad I’m not alone in having that vibe about Phil.
Chief