As VRFocus staff get attacked by ants, Kevin E wonders what Microsoft are so worried about.
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
TG writes: If you’ve ever wanted that chaotic, large-scale modern warfare feeling from Battlefield but in full VR immersion, Forefront delivers it better than anything else currently available on Quest.
The problem is that Microsoft doesn't have user data to know if there is gamer interest on Xbox for AR/VR. Sony, Valve and Oculus spent a year or so demoing, testing and tweaking their headsets before release to journalists and gamers to gather interest. There isn't any on Xbox. Only developers have used the MR headsets.
Secondly, Microsoft is focusing on and selling an expensive mid gen upgrade that is supposed to be the only version of Xbox with the ability to play VR. With only a smaller potential user base, Microsoft can see that sales would be low for MR sales. Developers aren't going to port Windows MR games from PC to console because there wouldn't be any profit doing so.
Only choice is to wait and see how MR sales are on PC and let the game catalog grow. Then announce compatibility next year. Some say Oculus or Vive should be made compatible. It's possible. But Microsoft wouldn't make any money on the hardware or software. If Facebook and HTC/Valve are making all the money, there's no profit in allowing compatibility.
Since they backed off the term " high fidelity VR," they should push for MR support for Xbox one X **AND** Xbox one S. AR/VR games don't have to have the most amazing graphics. They just have to have the most amazing **FUN** that's interactive and immersive. Gamers might not think so, but I'm sure Xbox one S can do AR/VR. If mobile phones can do it, Xbox one S can do it.
We'll see how all this pans out next year when there's more information on partnership headsets and controller quality. Sales would be too low to release or talk about them being compatible with Xbox now.