In a sign of the times, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella snubbed Windows and Surface in his annual address to shareholders, dominated by commentary on AI and the security issues that plagued Microsoft at the start of 2024.
As Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's pay hits an astronomical new milestone, here's everything he said to shareholders today on AI, Xbox gaming, and Mi... : Read more
I see that you don't really like this Nadella, me either because he lacks style in his communication
. But it is mainly aimed at partners. And inevitably he tends to oversimplify the strategy, without going into detail. At the same time, when we see the small size of the paragraph concerning gaming, it is difficult to develop.
That's basically the strategy in broad terms, you shouldn't extrapolate everything he says either!
When he says:
"Finally, we brought four of our fan-favorite titles to Nintendo Switch and Sony PlayStation for the first time, as we continue to extend our content to new platforms." he repeats almost word for word what he said at the time of the release almost a year ago of the 4 first party games on other platforms.
But when it comes to going into detail it's not so simple, Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond made it clear that this was not a sign that everything was going to be released on other platforms. Besides, there are 4 old service games, for 5 and 8 years old, and 2 small games (pentiment and hifi rush), not enough to make a fuss about.
And as proof, all the games that were released subsequently were either exclusive or were already historically multiplatform. Indy is a special case because it is a Disney license.
What's funny is that we've never had so many exclusive games on Xbox. Even recently during the Xbox partner preview: 4 Xbox exclusives (xbox console and PC): Blindfire, Subnautica 2, Mistfall Hunter, The Legend of Baboo. And 5 games day one on gamepass: Wuchang, Subnautica 2, Eternal Strands, Wheel World, FBC: Firebreak. And I'm not talking about stalker 2 or ark 2, dungeons of hinterberg, and others. In fact if you count correctly, some games are less well known but there are more exclusive games on Xbox than on PS5, it's a fact!
Why continue to sign exclusive game contracts with third-party publishers if exclusives are not important to the Xbox ecosystem ?
That's what I'm saying, Nadella draws the broad outlines, but the devil is in the details, Xbox strategy is much more subtle than that and not as crude. Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond are responsible for the subtleties.
The Xbox strategy has always been based on the long term, this was repeated by Phil Spencer many times, and they know very well that it is important to keep large exclusive licenses on Xbox to keep the ecosystem attractive. .
We should not have the presumption to believe that we know better than a company valued at several billions.
Those who say that Xbox's strategy is to send all their games to other platforms have understood nothing. It's a short-termist logic to think that, what would be good in the short term, will not be good in the long term, but I'm knocking open doors by saying that.
Xbox will never go in this direction, not for fear of disappointing fans, but simply because it's not good for business in the long run. I've been noticing this for a year, and it's been verified, the number of exclusive games on Xbox has only increased, it's easily verifiable. And I'm willing to bet that this will continue to be the case because I'm not basing this on rumors or beliefs, but simply on the facts. That doesn't mean that we won't see some games on other platforms from time to time, but nothing major. Just with the historically multiplatform games, there is plenty to do.
In fact, there has been more fake news than reality since then. Fake news about halo, gears, starfield, forza, etc. on other platforms never happened.
And there, you can be sure that we will be treated to even more false rumors. The media system is like this!
And you will notice that this is often when there are big announcements on the Xbox side. I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist, but these coincidences are quite astonishing, from saying that certain influencers or launchers of fake news are paid by the competition, there is only one step! But no need to go that far!
This is the big gap between the treatment of certain clickbait media (which want to please the trolls) and the reality of the facts.
This media deviance is used by the launchers of fake news. They enjoy it when they see that their inventions are making the rounds on the web. And many media are too naive or also take advantage of the system, to relay information that they know is false. But as long as it clicks, we don't care about the facts! A good false rumor is worth more than the facts.
I think you're lacking a bit of perspective
@Jez Corden regarding all of this.