You have 10 seconds to explain Microsoft's video games strategy

You have 10 seconds to explain Microsoft's video games strategy.

Just fuck my shit up

...

step 1: remove the only reasons to own consoles over PC, exclusives and local multiplayer
step 2: ????
step 3: leave the console industry

...

embrace
extend
extinguish

you see the problem here is, people don't fully realize what microsoft is.

nintendo? they're a video game company. their lifeblood is producing and selling videogames. their consoles are a means to an end to provide the games they want to sell, with minimal cuts and restraints from 2nd parties.

sony? they're a hardware company. video games were never a big thing for them, it's all about the console. Produce high quality hardware, get it into millions of households, and you've just provided a very profitable service platform. companies make games for your platform, you get a cut. decent quality 1st and 2nd party titles are essential to draw in the consumers and make the playstation an attractive platform.

microsoft? what does microsoft sell? they aren't a video game company, and they very much aren't a hardware company. They're a software company. the xbox provides them with a platform to fund and develop new software and related infrastructures. Most notably for their xbox brand their online and social infrastructures which led them to pioneer console internet connectivity via xbox live. For microsoft, it was never about the games; all of their first party content was poached from other companies. consoles merely provide them a good test bed to develop their infrastructure projects, and nothing more.

1. Desperately try to get the normie audience back.

>long lifecycle, large userbase, increased spending

So they want to become the next Valve/Steam? Never thought i'd i see the day the xbox brand is more doomed than nintendo has been the past 28 years

Microsoft is always about control. The creation of and shady tactics related to IE was about controlling your access to the web and the standards used on it. Their backing of HD-DVD was about controlling the software on the next generation media format. Their attempts with xbox and the various successes/blunders have been about controlling what they saw as an upcoming focus point for media and commerce.

They want to control the standards used for all applications. They want to control your access to Things. They want to leverage their control to lock out competetors or, at worst, make them dutiful dependants unable to conduct business without paying the microsoft tax.

Many of their schemes have fallen out from under them lately because of big fuckups(like losing control of mobile operation systems), but this is their strategy for pretty much everything they do.

Microsoft's end game is always about making you, him, that company, and this government, their bitch.

>ahmad
>Zhu geliang

>So they want to become the next Valve/Steam?
With a dash of Apple.

>They want their games to be services like Minecraft

That's great and all for indies and 3rd party devs but when you're a console manufacturer you can't just have a few games that you hope last forever, you need a number of different games of different types every single year

these certainly took you more than 10 seconds to say

So basically they're exiting the industry?
No shit, everyone can see the writing on the wall, consoles are on their way out.

Pretty much sums it up. Really makes the membranes vibrate.

It made sense for Microsoft to support HDDVD though. They wanted it to work out of the box on PC while bluray was riddled with DRM and needed special drivers and hardware support. And look at that, they were right and bluray never caught on with PC. Now look at 4k bluray and streaming. The DRM and hardware restrictions are even worse. The movie and TV industries are fucking evil, Sony gave in after they killed DAT, and Microsoft won with CDs but lost with HDDVD so they gave up too.

There aren't enough seconds in history to do that.

I like halo too much to care

they should just kill the xbox division off once and for all instead of just bashing its head open over and over again and leaving it on life support

>you need a number of different games of different types every single year

Fuck, this.

I love my PS4 precisely because of the variety.

As someone who was pure, hard Nintendo up until GC (and still is to an extent), I legitimately feel like Sony's the only 1st party hardware company that's still concerned about customer loyalty and retaining their core.

Microsoft just does whatever they think can make them the most dollar. They're not interested in making games so much as in making short-term profits.

And Nintendo took the Wii's success for granted and tried (failed) to coast on its waves, at the same time remaining completely entrenched in the same three or four franchises and killing their goodwill with longtime fans by ignoring all their other IPs, making terrible distribution and localization decisions, completely spurning all fanwork, etc..

Sony has their problems, but they have enough variety in their 1st and 2nd party work that I'm at least convinced that they're *trying*.

MS are basically an organized crime syndicate, they managed buy up many legitimate companies to transform themselves into a somewhat more legitimate business. But they never changed their core mentality their first reaction to any situation is is to try and screw everyone over as much as possible, successful and profitable products are always a low priority, everything is always approached as a scheme to force users to use some product they dislike, the leverage to force users to do things is valued the most.

Typically once they have found a way to force everyone onto their product and cripple any competitors prices are increased and investment in new features is slashed.

Thankfully they have failed at almost everything the last decade.

It generates money

This, pretty much.

You can see this kinda stuff from how strict they are about the games they release: they're often checklists of stuff that appeal to the widest demographics, even if the core idea of the game doesn't need the additions (see Scalebound and it's multiplayer stuff)

That kind of attitude isn't always a bad thing, and despite all this shit I believe Microsoft still has it in them to host some great series, but what happened with Scalebound is the consequences of shit hitting the fan.

...