Game-Smack Ireland: This year the holiday season for games is going to be slightly different over any other year. Now that the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 are half way through their projected 10 year cycle, both Sony and Microsoft are trying to rejuvenate their brands. This month, Sony will first take the plunge and see if they can recreate the buzz and sales Nintendo’s Wii obtained when it was released nearly 4 years ago.
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.
kinect is a circus act promising "big" things and delivering nothing but low ball titles and shame to the gaming business.
and charging around $100.00 is not going to help
As always we must wait and see, Kinect releases in what? Mid November? So I guess they still have a little time to further improve on things - Not trying to start a flame war or anything but I pick my Xbox over ps3 for multiplatform games because thats the first console i got. I'm just afraid Microsoft are going to forget the core gamer. Not only is Kinect a Step Backwards.It's a Overpriced Laggy Step Backward's - I agree and I do the same, mostly because I have two xbox 360s, one at home and one at work at the firestation. I have a PS3, but its always at home...plus, I like the 360 controller better...I mostly use my PS3 for their exclusives.
I just wish someone could take some clear steady video footage of the latest builds of these games. It seems that all we see are shaky blurry videos of people going out of their way to trip the system up. Or written articles on how it was either great or terrible with no video proof at all. Kinect is an embarrassment; as a 360 owner, and a hardcore gamer as well.
I hope it fails, mostly because I want 360 to focus back on whats most important. I am getting a PS move, and I already have a Wii (for the exclusives mostly), Kinect is like a bad dream that we as 360 fans want to wake up out of and see some new IPs in its place. I agree with both of you, I also use my 360 for every multiplatform mainly because I like XBL better than PSN, and I like the 360 controller better. Then I use my PS3 only for exclusives, and to download movies hahaha.
I could care less if Move or Kinect fails or succeeds because I really have no intentions on buying either. I will always prefer a controller over motion controls, no matter how good they arekinect is a circus act promising "big" things and delivering nothing but low ball titles and shame to the gaming business.you wanna talk about step backwards ? lets talk about how sony is a step backwards in online, how sony is a step back in the number of A,AA,AAA games in comparison to the 360, how sony is a step backwards in overall software and hardware sales in comparison to the 360.you wanna talk about step backwards? lets talk about how sony is a step backwards in online, how sony is a step back in the number of A,AA,AAA games in comparison to the 360, how sony is a step backwards in overall software and hardware sales in comparison to the 360. Now just watch the army of N4PS3fanboys are gonna approve this flaimebait article
and charging around $100.00 is not going to help. Kinect is barely a step in any direction. It's a slight evolution (but mostly an imitation) of concepts already done by Eye and EyeToy. Kinect is a step backwards and waste of MS resources. Why didn't they take that cash and buy some new first party studios to produce some new IP's?
I liked this article, very well written in my opinion.
On topic: Is Kinect a step backwards? It’s still to soon to tell. Preview articles are still all over the place as far as wether it works or not. Some are claiming that it’s almost unplayable, while others have had no problems at all and find it a refreshing changeAnd no, this isn't a Sony vs Microsoft comparison. You'd be hard-pressed to find anything coming out for Kinect (not tech demos, but actual games coming out) that hasn't already been done in some way on other camera-based games. kinect is pretty revolutionary in my opinion. what i dont understand is why noone is criticizing sony for making wii mote clones...i mean they didnt even care to change the controller much.
On topic: Is Kinect a step backwards? It’s still to soon to tell. Preview articles are still all over the place as far as wether it works or not. Some are claiming that it’s almost unplayable, while others have had no problems at all and find it a refreshing change.
As always we must wait and see, Kinect releases in what? Mid November? So I guess they still have a little time to further improve on things.
I just wish someone could take some clear steady video footage of the latest builds of these games. It seems that all we see are shaky blurry videos of people going out of their way to trip the system up. Or written articles on how it was either great or terrible with no video proof at all.
I just want to see if it works or not dammit!