One IGN editor's semi-realistic proposal to re-energize the Xbox portfolio.
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
Today, Koei Tecmo announced its financial results for the full fiscal year 2025, related to the period between April 2025 and March 2026.
For those who don't want to read the article.
1. Fable Reboot, have Rare develop it.
2. Make First-Person ShadowRun RPG.
3. Bring back Crimson Skies.
4. Alan Wake 2.
5. Make Ninja Gaiden spiritual successor exclusive to Xbox.
6. SplinterCell Chaos 2... timed exclusive..
7. Bring back Xbox Live arcade.
All great ideas, especially the Fable reboot.
My ideas:
1. Scalebound needs to come back.
2. Rare needs to make another full fledged AAA Conker game.
3. Split up 343 and The Coalition to make new side project IP's that are exclusively single player for the first game. The second game can have MP.
4. Bring back Fable, but DONT make it a service based game. Make it a hardcore, mature RPG game.
5. Have Insomniac make JetSetRadio Future 2.
1. Give all first party studios creative freedom.
-Allow 343i's B team to work on non-Halo titles
-A Perfect Dark reboot maybe a good title for this studio, if it were 1st Person.
-Enlarge The Coalition, and have a second team work on non-Gears games.
-HaveTurn 10 not do Forza Motorsport, over-and-over again. Maybe another vehicle-based game instead.
2. Establish one or two new studios. Maybe have these new studios work on "the classic IPs " that Spencer likes to tease.
3. Stop releasing Forza games annually. Forza Horizon 3 is still selling well, a new Forza game will just cannibalize its sales. Eventually you will burnout the franchise, and a new release will crash.
4. Bring back Fable under a new MS studio, or outsourced would be good for PR.
5. Rather than paying indie studios for timed console launch exclusives, outsource MS owned IPs to AAA studios.
6. Make more long term 2nd party partnerships.
7. Don't make every game Windows10/XB1.
Microsoft's problem is themselves and lack of investment in the console area. So, the only way to fix it is to bring back figures like Fries or Bach who actually did something for Xbox by getting games for the platform. That's by creating studios.
Seriously, we know they're capable of creating games like we used to see on PC. But what have they really brought to the table LATELY on consoles?
They didn't create Halo. They bought it. They didn't create Gears. They bought it. They didn't create Minecraft. They bought it. They didn't create Conker. They bought it.
They borrowed games like Splinter Cell from Ubisoft, Ninja Gaiden from Tecmo, Alan Wake and Quantum Break from Remedy and pushed many third party games through promotion as their exclusive titles. Now most of these games aren't made or developers have gone multiplatform because of Microsoft. And they are borrowing Cuphead and Ori as if it's their own.
They bought Lionhead and had Fable. Then killed it. They borrowed Scale Bound from Platinum Games. Then killed it. And they let past games like Brute Force, Flight Simulator, Crimson Skies, Mech Assault, etc just sit around doing nothing for them.
The only title that Microsoft has is Forza and it's spin off. That's why you see so much of it. Which is only created to compete with Sony's flagship title Gran Turismo. Which is Sony's biggest franchise. Difference is, Sony doesn't rely on GT. And the companies they bought create new IPs every generation and don't sit on just one. Look at Sony's studios and you will see that they didn't buy franchises. They bought studios or created them. And those studios created new IPs.
Want to fix Microsoft's problem? They should create more studios that produce more games. They want to be the market leader but don't put in the work. So they don't deserve it.
How is it that Microsoft reported in May 2013 that they invested $1 billion on exclusive Xbox One games, yet more than four years later they still come up short in that department?
Minds and talent at a studio makes games not studio's name. The Rare of old is dead & the talent scarttered. Attaching a big name franchise to the present Rare with the hope they produce the magic of Rare of old may well be mistake.
Leave Rare alone, let them do what the current talent are comfortable with, just like their doing right now. Please don't burden them with someone else's dream.