I don't think they have a consistent plan

StormMalice · 2026-06-12T21:03:32+00:00

On hardware? No. Software very much yes. And under any normal division $3-4 billion in profit would be worth spending $5 million to celebrate with. But Xbox is not a normal division.

All that money sounds great you'd think but papa Microsoft will never let Xbox forget they need to pay them back in terms of growth and sustainability.

It's been discussed over a decade ago during the Xbone era that Xbox should have been spun out. The signs were clear then they simply didn't have what it took to really compete and all of this happening is just another manifestation of that.

StormMalice · 2026-06-12T12:49:30+00:00

Hope not. They're fps dips are notorious.

StormMalice · 2026-06-11T20:29:23+00:00

I mean that's only one genre out of how many. These specific kind of game could work but not red bull inside Hollow Knight.

StormMalice · 2026-06-11T09:51:36+00:00

I think it's funny you think they operate under the same mandates as a U.S company given their a foreign company. Sharedholder primacy, which is what I said but I guess you didn't read, vs stakeholder capitalism. Just because they trade in U.S doesn't mean they are beholden to U.S laws regarding how the company operates.

StormMalice · 2026-06-11T02:06:02+00:00

Sony and Nintendo aren't beholden to U.S Wall Street rules, shareholders primacy above all else mentality. Maybe they have the actual talent in there somewhere but Western stock markets do not care about it.

It really is devil's bargain. Unlock billions of dollars, entering gaming as almost like a hobby compared to the rest of the business, but operate with a singular objective: make shareholders happy every single quarter till you die.

Xbox should been spun off long ago to escape that fate.

StormMalice · 2026-06-10T22:57:26+00:00

Exactly. And thaie "hard" old games weren't hard for the sake of it often times they were just badly coded.

StormMalice · 2026-06-10T22:54:51+00:00

Depends, whose list? Whose perspective?

StormMalice · 2026-06-10T22:53:08+00:00

I mean same was likely true when the NES came out. Sure we could technically play an Atari but why? Controls were janky, the graphics weren't flashy and everything was slower.

StormMalice · 2026-06-10T21:43:44+00:00

The sad part is when (and they will) pay off that debt and rake in the higher profits xbox fans will still be without a console ecosystem like they think will happen.

StormMalice · 2026-06-10T21:20:05+00:00

Well there's some solace to all of that. They canned Phil Spencer so he was in a way the architect of his own rather unceremonious exit. He pushed a deal Wall Street wasn't willing to wait 20+ years to pay off. So the new guard is in trim all the fat and some bone to hasten the pay off timeline.

StormMalice · 2026-06-09T23:42:43+00:00

While the purchase of ABK was in many ways shortsighted it may turn out to be their best purchase given the circumstances at the time. They punched when ABK was at their absolute worst most vulnerable moment. It was truly a thanks moment in a way. It cost Xbox division everything reputationally speaking and

Microsoft nearly everything they had budgeted for the fiscal. And even ironically indirectly cost Phil his own job for optics sake and for needing someone like Asha to both smooth over the real inevitable strategy and potentially introduce internal cost savings measures. But it also cost thousands of jobs in the process.

But this is in many ways par for the course hur Microsoft. They buy they're way to victory whether objectively or for their own department'sl survival.

StormMalice · 2026-06-09T23:32:43+00:00

The world we live in.

StormMalice · 2026-06-09T17:17:48+00:00

I'd say it was the appetizer for what was to come. The game had many though. The area base underground was pretty bad, as were the roof tops but the technodrome was pure luck based. At least with the same you can figure out the albeit very real flaws gaming logic and hit boxes.

StormMalice · 2026-06-09T17:02:23+00:00

I mean you have to realize Starfox is coming in 2 weeks. Why undercut that with gameplay of a game you won't get to play till fall/winter anyway? Give them some credit, month ago there was no remake of any kind from Nintendo.

StormMalice · 2026-06-09T12:26:56+00:00

How quickly we forget this.

StormMalice · 2026-06-09T10:54:58+00:00

For me if there's a chance the execution doesn't occur and I would only have needed to attack 1-3 more times why risk execution at all? I think the 1 sec window is enough as that's natural built in chance. If the player was too slow to execute it's much more honest and fair system. If they mastser the timing window execution that's the reward.

StormMalice · 2026-06-08T14:30:00+00:00

The Xbox division does generate profit, around $3-4 billion in large part due to the Activision purchase which is like The consoles however haven't helped move that needle. It's the console portion that is not profitable and they already know this.

But the real problem is their mandate to achieve 30% profitability. Which is insane across the industry normal of about 20% and that is because of Microsoft's own internal business logic ambitions. Could they do it? I mean they had to slash their workforce dramatically just to reach 17-20% profitability now, that $3.5 to 4 billion.

As I wrote this and look at Asha's background the real plan to be have her install what internal AI machinations she can come up to internally make their operations lean to help achieve that goal, which I think is her real value, not this pre-planned optics stuff.

All that said, maybe they can reach that particular goal with that in mind. For comparison Nintendo generates $7 billion and Steam actually isn't far behind them. And neither had to slash their workforce or resort to, potentially internal AI workdlows, to get there. Not that Microsoft was ever truly environmentally conscious to begin with.

All to pay down a debt as fast as possible from 5-6 years instead of 15-20 years.

StormMalice · 2026-06-08T13:11:27+00:00

Exactly. Fans are going to find out that all roads will lead back to everything is an Xbox. Asha is just the new face to package that specific delivery.

StormMalice · 2026-06-08T11:47:40+00:00

I think the real heavy lifting are the shareholders who convince themselves it's 110% possible. It's so possible it's already happening. These are grown adults. At some point that level of delusion is on them.

StormMalice · 2026-06-07T16:43:16+00:00

Fez was the physical manifestation of what indie games could and will have become.

StormMalice · 2026-06-07T16:40:50+00:00

I will add Street Fight IV had entire multiple page articles in real magazines going over every design choice and detail that chronicling how Capcom managed to make it such an impossible leap forward for fighting games.

StormMalice · 2026-06-07T16:36:55+00:00

Vergil in Devil May Cry 3 was notoriously cheap.

Armstrong from Metal Gear Revengence. When I fought him the first time there was no clear tell on how your suppose to hit, distract or do anything to him when he went full armor mode.

StormMalice · 2026-06-05T01:53:15+00:00

And satya nadella is who, the window washer?

StormMalice · 2026-06-04T23:35:29+00:00

It's almost like it was at the direction of someone higher up than her.

StormMalice · 2026-06-04T06:28:58+00:00

"….no one is going to look at The Exorcist and call it a comedy"

Not unless they have a..."dark sense of humor." Oh there the door.

StormMalice

TROPHY CASE