Not sure I’d call it a return yet but it’s all promising. Go back to exclusives, have a Halo worth playing and the rest will fall into place.
TAGOMXM on
I Don’t expect anything major this year
Turbostrider27 on
Some small new details
– During the meeting with Xbox employees, “Most of the all-hands felt like a coach hyping up a sports team”
– Some additional details about Jared Palmer and Jason Ronald for those unfamiliar with them
Other stuff are all recapped info that we’ve known already like the talk about “exclusivitiy”, Xbox branding, etc
Fatal_Artist on
keep halo 2 and 3 remake exclusive to Xbox and PC, keep any future gears and forza’s on xbox. have more original good exclusives for the platform, focus on xbox like they did for the 360 era..
theverge on
Thanks for sharing this! Here’s a bit from the article:
Two weeks ago there was a buzz in the air inside Microsoft’s studio D building. Hundreds of Xbox employees gathered early on a Thursday morning, packed into the hallways and atrium, to hear from Xbox CEO Asha Sharma. The “return of Xbox” slogan was plastered all over the walls of the building, the same message Sharma first delivered to Xbox employees in February. It was time for Sharma to rally the troops, after two years of turbulence, and hint at the future of Xbox.
During the roughly 40-minute all-hands, sources tell me that Sharma laid out a four-point action plan for Xbox employees, focusing on several areas in turn: hardware, games, platform, and services. “We have to be honest about where we are. We’ve got work to do,” admitted Sharma. “Players are frustrated with us, they feel like we haven’t updated our console enough, they feel like our PC presence isn’t very strong.”
The answer to those frustrations is what many Xbox employees and fans had been hoping for, a renewed focus on fixing things for the existing audience of Xbox. “We’re going to start by restoring our core. We have to fix the fundamentals on console and PC. We have to sweat every single detail and every single part of the experience to get to fun much faster and make it simpler,” Sharma told Xbox employees.
I really want Xbox to be competitive again but it’s going to come down to the games and I don’t think they have the correct portfolio approach despite having many of the best IPs in gaming. Look at Games Workshop, they have been so successful at leveraging their IP.
For example, they have Banjo-Kazooie which may not blow people’s socks off but would have been much more successful than Kiln and Keeper. They have Fallout but it’s trapped in a prison guarded by Todd Howard when really they should be banging on Larians door asking them, as a third party, to do something with it or maybe Owlcat. They own Halo and Activision but haven’t thought maybe the Activision teams could make a great Halo game if given the chance? Also, you know Viva Piñata would be an incredible cozy game but you’ve not got any of your studios or third party studios working on it?
Xbox also doesn’t seem to understand the value of shared engines and I’m hopeful Sharma will right this. Why is Bethesda the only studio using creation? Why is the ID tech engine not shared between studios? That’s not to mention the Void engine or IW engine. Instead of using these, Xbox seems determined to shift people over to unreal which has been shown to be pretty shitty 75% of the time.
beanlikescoffee on
They need to take Halo back after the release of CE remake. No one’s going to buy Xbox hardware if they can play the same games. The only reason I spent money on a ps5 was for spiderman.
PlayBey0nd87 on
The hands off approach didn’t work.
The hands on approach and looking at bringing back some IPs exclusively to Xbox is key to the brand restoring its image as well.
Risenzealot on
I’ll tell you the first thing they can do to get a larger PC presence. Completely open it up. Yes, I know it’s no longer locked down as much as it was when it launched but it’s still more difficult to mod PC games through Gamepass than it is on Steam or any other store front.
Hell, I can’t even use Reshade on a lot of games because “I don’t have permission” to make any changes in the folders.
Eliminate all of those issues and I’d consider using you more. As it stands, I never purchase a game through Microsoft because I can’t fucking do what I want with it, when I want. I’ll play a game through Gamepass but I’m never going to actually buy it there.
Imaginary_Natural516 on
They need a new franchise that’ll blow peoples socks off.
Hairy-Summer7386 on
I’ll buy a Series S as soon as it gets cheaper
Please for the love of god make the budget option an actual budget option
Ickehub on
A new stromg Halo would be important I think
elangab on
There is no “return of Xbox”, nothing changed. It’s all the same, just with rumours, wishes and a new boot screen. Until they share a roadmap and more information about their strategy and hardware they are still staying down.
14 Comments
Not sure I’d call it a return yet but it’s all promising. Go back to exclusives, have a Halo worth playing and the rest will fall into place.
I Don’t expect anything major this year
Some small new details
– During the meeting with Xbox employees, “Most of the all-hands felt like a coach hyping up a sports team”
– Some additional details about Jared Palmer and Jason Ronald for those unfamiliar with them
Other stuff are all recapped info that we’ve known already like the talk about “exclusivitiy”, Xbox branding, etc
keep halo 2 and 3 remake exclusive to Xbox and PC, keep any future gears and forza’s on xbox. have more original good exclusives for the platform, focus on xbox like they did for the 360 era..
Thanks for sharing this! Here’s a bit from the article:
Two weeks ago there was a buzz in the air inside Microsoft’s studio D building. Hundreds of Xbox employees gathered early on a Thursday morning, packed into the hallways and atrium, to hear from Xbox CEO Asha Sharma. The “return of Xbox” slogan was plastered all over the walls of the building, the same message Sharma first delivered to Xbox employees in February. It was time for Sharma to rally the troops, after two years of turbulence, and hint at the future of Xbox.
During the roughly 40-minute all-hands, sources tell me that Sharma laid out a four-point action plan for Xbox employees, focusing on several areas in turn: hardware, games, platform, and services. “We have to be honest about where we are. We’ve got work to do,” admitted Sharma. “Players are frustrated with us, they feel like we haven’t updated our console enough, they feel like our PC presence isn’t very strong.”
The answer to those frustrations is what many Xbox employees and fans had been hoping for, a renewed focus on fixing things for the existing audience of Xbox. “We’re going to start by restoring our core. We have to fix the fundamentals on console and PC. We have to sweat every single detail and every single part of the experience to get to fun much faster and make it simpler,” Sharma told Xbox employees.
Gift link: [https://www.theverge.com/tech/925966/microsoft-return-to-xbox-town-hall-notepad?view_token=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpZCI6Ikd0NklTdmI4TUsiLCJwIjoiL3RlY2gvOTI1OTY2L21pY3Jvc29mdC1yZXR1cm4tdG8teGJveC10b3duLWhhbGwtbm90ZXBhZCIsImV4cCI6MTc3ODYwMTY5OCwiaWF0IjoxNzc4MTY5Njk4fQ.w8rV1bHh2lDbPDNEpqsJzxs3pX20kGREOeqLN6yKhTI&utm_medium=gift-link](https://www.theverge.com/tech/925966/microsoft-return-to-xbox-town-hall-notepad?view_token=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpZCI6Ikd0NklTdmI4TUsiLCJwIjoiL3RlY2gvOTI1OTY2L21pY3Jvc29mdC1yZXR1cm4tdG8teGJveC10b3duLWhhbGwtbm90ZXBhZCIsImV4cCI6MTc3ODYwMTY5OCwiaWF0IjoxNzc4MTY5Njk4fQ.w8rV1bHh2lDbPDNEpqsJzxs3pX20kGREOeqLN6yKhTI&utm_medium=gift-link)
I really want Xbox to be competitive again but it’s going to come down to the games and I don’t think they have the correct portfolio approach despite having many of the best IPs in gaming. Look at Games Workshop, they have been so successful at leveraging their IP.
For example, they have Banjo-Kazooie which may not blow people’s socks off but would have been much more successful than Kiln and Keeper. They have Fallout but it’s trapped in a prison guarded by Todd Howard when really they should be banging on Larians door asking them, as a third party, to do something with it or maybe Owlcat. They own Halo and Activision but haven’t thought maybe the Activision teams could make a great Halo game if given the chance? Also, you know Viva Piñata would be an incredible cozy game but you’ve not got any of your studios or third party studios working on it?
Xbox also doesn’t seem to understand the value of shared engines and I’m hopeful Sharma will right this. Why is Bethesda the only studio using creation? Why is the ID tech engine not shared between studios? That’s not to mention the Void engine or IW engine. Instead of using these, Xbox seems determined to shift people over to unreal which has been shown to be pretty shitty 75% of the time.
They need to take Halo back after the release of CE remake. No one’s going to buy Xbox hardware if they can play the same games. The only reason I spent money on a ps5 was for spiderman.
The hands off approach didn’t work.
The hands on approach and looking at bringing back some IPs exclusively to Xbox is key to the brand restoring its image as well.
I’ll tell you the first thing they can do to get a larger PC presence. Completely open it up. Yes, I know it’s no longer locked down as much as it was when it launched but it’s still more difficult to mod PC games through Gamepass than it is on Steam or any other store front.
Hell, I can’t even use Reshade on a lot of games because “I don’t have permission” to make any changes in the folders.
Eliminate all of those issues and I’d consider using you more. As it stands, I never purchase a game through Microsoft because I can’t fucking do what I want with it, when I want. I’ll play a game through Gamepass but I’m never going to actually buy it there.
They need a new franchise that’ll blow peoples socks off.
I’ll buy a Series S as soon as it gets cheaper
Please for the love of god make the budget option an actual budget option
A new stromg Halo would be important I think
There is no “return of Xbox”, nothing changed. It’s all the same, just with rumours, wishes and a new boot screen. Until they share a roadmap and more information about their strategy and hardware they are still staying down.
Asha ♥️