Integrate Windows Mobile and ....nah wouldn't work.

"a breeding groung for sony fanatics"? Whats that about? Its a breeding ground of core gamers and when they see Microsoft announce nothing much bar Kinect titles ahead of E3 (like last year) its hardly going to stir anything but negative emotions in core gamers; core gamers who like me used to own a 360 (3 in fact) but got fed up with Microsofts new direction. If they started this gen pumping out casual software that would have been cool, but alienating a ton of your original fanbase half way through the cycle is not. THAT is the reason I respect Sony and will support them through and through. They never and hopefully never will abandon the interests of gamers like me. If you can't admit Microsoft 'bailed' on the core market then YOU are the fanboy.

'core gamers who like me used to own a 360 (3 in fact) but got fed up with Microsofts new direction. If they started this gen pumping out casual software that would have been cool, but alienating a ton of your original fanbase half way through the cycle is not.'

This is the most laughable argument that has come out since Kinect arrived. I'm a TRUE core 360 gamer, I own well over a 100 360 ganes alone and have been an Xbox fan since the launch of the original.

It is literally an internet ducktale to pretend that the the arrival of Kinect stopped ONE core game.

In fact, if you look at the truth, the year Kinect arrived and the year after, Micrsoft has released EVERY SINGLE one of it's biggest CORE franchises.

Not only that EVERY almost EVERY major multiplat that bgan as a 360 exclusive and were made popular originally by the core 360 gamers ALSO were released in the last two years.

Kinect is literally an optional device. My friends list on the 360 is filled with core 360 gamers who are obsessed woth achievements and their gamer score, obsessed with prestiging first on COD, obsessed with their Halo stats, obsessed with finishing every nook and cranny of Skyrim and some of those same guys own Kinect. The rest would NEVER give up YEARS and YEARS of all the aquired gaming on Live just because Micrsoft is doing EXACTLY the same thing Sony and Nintendo are doing.

So how is it again that Micrsoft abandoned core gamers again? What games for Kinect were released that makes Micrsoft abandon core?

Nothing has changed ..All 3 consoles release their biggest franchises, some of those franchises appeal to wider audeinces some appeal more to a certain demographic..nothing more nothing less

Evil

@asmith2306

Ignorance is bliss right?

Kinect has so far proven to be a lot of fun and is downplayed on this site as gimicky. Devs are supporting kinect and i bet Sony will do something similar next gen (and scrap move...) and then the Sony variant will be the next best thing since sliced bread for Sony loyalist's...

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

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

Yeah with FSR 5 they should be able to offer a much cheaper version of Helix.

Series S is what has killed Xbox Series so... Will they dare?

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".