We all know Xbox 360 has played the foil to the PS3 this generation, and the competition has pushed both platforms to exceed gamers expectations. And with the next generation Xbox and PlayStation launches imminent I feel as though I’m the only one concerned about the next Xbox and how Microsoft will make it rival the next PlayStation. And I’m not saying the next Xbox won’t be a smash hit just concerned it may lose the race this time do to Microsoft’s lack of foresight.
Microsoft announced its financial results for Q3 of fiscal year 2026, including an update on its gaming Xbox business and more.
Not looking good. Hopefully Asha Sharma is able to turn Phil’s disaster around.
To me it's still quite remarkable how they can cash-in 5.3bn in revenue in a single quarter, since their hardware is basically dead.
The stock mark is what makes Microsoft remarkable, They have convinced every institutional and retail investor to just keep piling money into them. Like many big tech giants they are just a big growing pyramid scheme. As long as people keep dropping money into ETF's that cover the market Microsoft will always be liquid. At the same time it is completely stifling innovation and competition. People need to start being more discreet in how they invest their money as it's killing the system.
Riiiiight because people will just flock back to them for one or two games per year.
15+ years of bad performance is what they call irreparable in business. It is time for them to sell off the assets and get out of entertainment.
These declines are on the back of extra revenue received from releasing games like Forza horizon 5 on PlayStation. So I’m being sarcastic here when I said they should go back to exclusives. Killing off a revenue stream from Ps5 sales will only make things worse
Xbox boss Asha Sharma has discussed how component shortages will impact the company's plans for Project Helix.
When does this end? Its killing everyone. Consoles and PC. And for what? AI? The benefits of AI are completely outweighed by the negatives. And the government should have never allowed one company to buy up all the RAM.
This kind of proves this is an after thought product, most products like this are in r&d 5 years before they start mass producing. So they typically have the cost of components and things worked out long before assembly starts.
This is an assumption still, but I wouldn’t be surprised if project helix is similar to Scalebound,perfect dark and sod3. They had an idea but no actual execution other than concept stage. Being impacted by the ram shortage likely would also put this device 3-4 years out.
I’m not even sure MS has that endurance with Xbox yet
I mean.... what?
We're at a point that Samsung wont even provide their own phone department ram because they can sell it at higher prices to 3rd parties (AI). Its more profitable to sell the ram than make their own devices with it.
You think because R&D starts 5 years ago the 3rd party component manufacturers will honour that price? They'll sell it to whomever is paying the most today, not some gentlemens agreement they made years ago. AI farms will buy more volume at higher prices than any console manufacturer will. It'll be the same for Playstation.
Contractual agreements are not the same as “gentlemen” agreements. If you think that they work with their distributors a month before production then their entire business model is trash. They work with companies like nvidia constantly for building the graphics cards they need. They work with companies that build motherboards years in advance. This is what proper business planning does.
They are not buying components on a whim like a consumer. So again, considering the ram isn’t a singular module and is integrated into the motherboard I highly doubt they wouldn’t have a final schematic that they are supposed to be building around.
If they are delaying production another 3 years then it’s obvious again this is an after though project and is just trying to be responsive to their bad execution they had the last 14 years.
It also isn’t far fetched to use their failure to produce first party titles the last 7 years including the highly anticipated games I mentioned all being cancelled. That they would continue to you know… lie
Helix is going to be stupidly expensive
Instead of leaning into smarter upscaling techniques they're brute forcing hardware that will cost them dearly and it remains to be seen if it's genuinely going to provide a meaningful differential
I know in the oc.doace people like to brag about not using frame gen or dlss to get to high on a game but for the majority of players they happily use those technologies without a second thought
That's going to be ps6 vs Helix
While this does seem to be the case, I am encouraged by the statement from Microsoft about wanting to provide affordable options. If this means a Series S style Helix, at least there will be something affordable being offered.
It's called systematic inflationary. Yes we get it Microsoft, keep raising in the name ofall kinds of stuffs
Honestly if there was thing I learned from this generation is that new consoles arnt day one anymore.
I can wait 1-3 years.
Another important lesson from this generation: while Nintendo showed us that prices don't necessarily need to ever drop, we've now learned that waiting 1-3 years does carry some risk that prices increase. This generation is just bizarre in all the wrong ways.
The factors are largely external. Covid and Russia-Ukraine war causing inflation led to the first price increase in 2022.
Then we get Trump's tariffs increasing hardware prices, AI boom causing a RAM crisis, war on Iran causing a worldwide fuel crisis which impacts the cost of everything.
Gaming doesn't exist in a vacuum. The last few years have been a shitshow and lot of it was definitely avoidable.
LucasRuinedChildhood,
For sure. No disagreement on the external factors doing a lot of this. Where I have to gently push back however is on two fronts:
1. The pandemic definitely caused some issues: asynchronous development was a big issue and really complicated timelines and affected game quality. At the same time, when it comes to price hikes, it's really difficult to know what was genuine necessity and what was taking consumers for a ride. The pandemic brought about "stag-flation" which was increasing prices and stagnant wages, which was a problem caused by supply chain constraints. There was also "Greed-flation", where companies that were slightly affected or had no issues took advantage of the situation and squeezed everyone citing supply chain issues when there were none.
2. It's definitely true that the tariffs, AI boom, and RAM crisis were all things enabled by tech broligarchs throwing money at this caricature of a world leader, one of them being Satya Nadella. I don't think Sony and Nintendo have contributed much to this problem if at all, but Microsoft's Nadella I feel was instrumental in causing every one of those issues. Microsoft as a company contributed to both candidates (though they gave Harris 4x as much if I recall), but Nadella was all in on letting AI run wild. He paid for unregulated AI, and got a war that's not a war (even though Trump called it that at least five times on television) that screwed up helium access. So for me, I feel that one of the players in the gaming industry is a key architect of these issues, and for that reason I struggle a bit to think of it as "external".
In an exclusive interview with Game File, new(ish) Xbox boss Asha Sharma and Xbox chief content officer Matt Booty explain their vision for Microsoft’s gaming division
A good start would be to release games to go with the console. My Xbox Series X has gathered dust virtually from launch. My advice would be to ditch a next console and release games on PC, PlayStation and Switch. Another idea would be a hybrid console based on Xbox Series X tech and go the same route as Nintendo. Another idea would be to pull out of gaming altogether. Plenty of options there.
Why would they pull out? They have the momentum. Sony has been getting nothing but bad news lately.
I went into the article expecting a terribly biased and poorly written piece, since the site is called Sony-gamer.com after all. However the writer gives informative and well-thought out constructive criticisms that you rarely see when people write about the less-than-shiny aspects of a console/manufacturer.
Main points for those who can't be bothered to click through:-
1. Justification of XBL fees if PSN has equal features (x-game chat etc).
2. First Party studios, not enough studio power to create new IPs for a new generation in order to differentiate the new Xbox from competitors.
3. May no longer be the 'easy to develop for' system and the advantage of multi-platform developer preference will no longer exist.
Personally I would add to that:-
4. Unlikely to have a 1+ year head start.
5. Too close an integration with windows 8 could lead to easy piracy unless, as Gabe Newell predicted, MS close the platform up around us. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/t...
Hey guys, this article is just some ps3 fanboy talking about microsoft's lack of vision compared to that of sony (because Move didn't copy the wii, and Kinect never happened)and how Nextbox is going to be hard pushed to give ps4 compotition.... its a bs opinion piece... no need to reed...
I'm not really concerned Microsoft will lose, in fact I'm concerned they'll win.
They got Kinect 2.0 so that already guarantees it to be a hit with little kids. Microsoft will have a hard time convincing hardcore gamers though. Why buy an Xbox Next when the next-gen Call of Duties and Battlefields will also be on the PS4, and on top of that PS4 will have that amazing 1st party content.
@Balcrist
XBox 360 gets hacked too. In fact its super easy to mod it and pirate games on it. If anyone is laughing here, its Sony and Microsoft.
If you were referring to PSN, then here's the thing: It only got hacked ONCE. That's it. It's old news. It doesn't "keep getting hacked".
I personaly dont see MS turn away from the revenue
generate by Xbl, in fact i see them add more feature
that will make it worth the price no matter what thier rivials do
.also dont see them going full tilt in first party delvelopers
,they will work with the ones they have but maybe create a release
schudale so the game do turn profit & continue thier 3rd party partnerships.as the rest it was an intredting read.
I love my Xbox and cant wait for the new Gear of War and the New Halo game to come out. But with that said, after experiencing the PSN+ and what it have to offer i have to say that the Xbox Live subscription is no longer an attractive thing. I can be paying almost the same amount on the PSN+ and get free games every month when compare to Live the best part it is not mandatory. I just think it sucks that I have to pay for xbox live to get access to my Netflix and hulu account which i also have to pay for. I think if Xbox want really win the console war they need to remove the mandotory xbox live subscription fee.