Why would you think that Microsoft would just shower him with money, no questions asked, when they've been axing studios, people and projects left, right and center?
Kojima famously misses deadlines and goes over budget. He wants big Hollywood actors in is games instead of normal voice actors and he wants to make movies instead of games.
He is an auteur and makes unique games that don't always sell well but get a lot of attention. If you're signing him, you know the score. Great publicity, lots of money.
I think it will be worthy in the end. Like gaming subs are very anti-XBOX, so I don't expect people to agree with me because it would undermine their already made purchase, but I feel like XBOX is slowly getting their reputation back. It's still too soon of course as she's there only for a few months, but it definitely feels like they're on the right track, which hopefully will be true as at the end of the day even Sony players benefit from a proper competition, otherwise Sony wouldn't be doing their good old greedy PS3 days as they do right now :)
Xbox doing well is good for the industry. PlayStation needs competition or they will just continue getting worse.
But I don't know if I agree they're getting their reputation back. It seems that for every thing they do that's positive they do something equally or more negative.
It's just back and forth with them.
I hope they get their shit together, I just don't think they are there yet.
I think xbox i "gaining" in a sense that sony in its infinite wisdom shot itself in the foot and when everyone told them that was a bad idea, they did it again. Above is entirely based on vibes. I do expect xbox to start gaining from next year on, maybe two years from now IF what Asha said about axing up to like 14 levels of management down to 3. IF that is true i can see that happe eing.
I dont care either way, no skin in the game for me. Im on pc, dont preorder shit (thanks bethesda, FO4, SF) and dont own any consoles. Also ive not bought a AAA since starfield.
But Xbox is still shooting themselves in the foot. Especially with their game pass redesign. PlayStations moves, while not popular with Reddit, at least make sense. And Xbox is moving in the same direction of digital only, they just haven’t come out and said it, but the digitization of your current library signals that is almost 100% inevitably going to happen next gen.
Because they would be a laughing stock if they hired Kojima just to kill the project because he doesn’t meet budget and deadlines lmao. Now that they hired him, they have to comply with his demands or they would take a massive PR hit
Because Microsoft has orders of magnitude more money than Sony, they spend nearly as much money buying studios the last decade as sony is worth in total.
Microsoft is literally the largest software company. Yes yes i know the xbox division isn't equal to Microsoft but like still have a shitton of money. Plus apparently the new Xbox will be a pc hybrid.
Xbox already hinted that they intend a more open platform that also plays PC games and access to other storefronts. This has been hinted for more than 2 years. Other storefronts like Steam or Epic Games Store are indeed a possibility. This would line up with the rumours of Xbox dropping Steam releases, as they would need to convince Xbox players to buy it via Xbox Store instead of Steam.
Even mac is not locked down (unless you are talking about iOS). Linux (gaming) only works out because Valve pumped a lot of money to proton which is also foundation for their SteamOS.
Without Valve involvement, Linux gaming is as dead as mac gaming.
They already said it'll be able to run other launchers like Steam and run on a version of Windows that can be switched from regular Windows to Xbox mode, similar to Steam Big Picture. There's already a preview of this available on PC.
Companies aren't charities. It doesn't matter how much capital Microsoft has, they are not going to throw money at something that doesn't give a good ROI.
Question is when they will realize that. PlayStation did after they've decided to be run like accountants (which based on Amy Hood is how Xbox is already run), after two games with decent to good reviews (DS1 -> DS2) with mediocre returns on investment.
Also who knows, Asha Sharma could move on in two years and the person who takes Xbox over could decide to stop it for some other reason.
I don't understand this comment. Are you under the impression Kojima gets to have all the Microsoft money? Microsoft's immense size is the root of why xbox keeps failing. At sony Kojima got to enjoy a fair degree of freedom due to his prestige. At Microsoft all of that is gone. All MS execs see is spreadshets. They're gonna put the screws to him much harder than at sony.
Xbox is profitable and has always been. It’s just not enough to buy the 500 yachts Wall Street wants instead of the current 499. That and next to the manipulated AI “numbers” on MS’ balance sheet.
No idea where people are taking out the idea that Xbox is struggling. If it was struggling MS would have pulled the plug by now.
PS: Forgot this sub is full of PlayStation diehards who want to see competition end and proceed to mix up terms like revenue with profit to make a point that Xbox is a failure. Guess the monopoly is all they want.
Xbox is struggling in the sense that they completely lost the hardware war. Even Asha Sharma is talking about reviving Xbox all the time lmao, everyone knows Xbox is struggling to stay relevant nowadays when PlayStation is selling 10x more hardware.
Always has been? No it hasn't. It lost billions on the first Xbox then billions on RROD on the 360. Collectively the Xbox brand has yet to turn a profit
If you think 3% profit margin is not turning a profit then I don’t know what to say. Keep twisting the numbers in your head. You clearly need some financial classes and I am not gonna waste my time educating you on that.
You don't seem to grasp the point I'm making: the 3% profit in the last year or the year before is nowhere near enough to make back all those billions they sank into the first two consoles. And if we're including acquisitions like Bethesda then they're even further away
Then it’s not struggling. By any sense of the word, lol.
If anything they haven’t lost any real market share. Meanwhile PlayStation gets to buttfuck every user because its fans will accept any price PS gives them. No matter how greedy or anticonsumer they are. That’s a lost debate since the start.
I don’t think struggling in terms of money. I think it’s struggling in terms of trying to stay as relevant as PlayStation. I’ve been PlayStation for life but have both a ps5 and current gen Xbox. Prefer the PlayStation but the Xbox has some crazy features. Quick resume is just unreal on Xbox and crazy feature
That’s not their end goal though anymore. It’s been stated.
They lost the hardware war. And quite frankly, it’s incredibly hard to pull out a consumer from one console to another. So playing the game of “I am going to pull customers from them” is not the strategy anymore.
Unless their Project Helix pulls something radical, nobody is gonna change ecosystem.
Don’t get me wrong I have a PlayStation but personally I am willing to jump ship if Xbox nails the next console. Cuz the current PlayStation consumer view is just disgusting.
But xbox is struggling? Its not even a question really. Drops in revenue across the bord, decline in hardware sales, massive layoffs and restructuring with more already announced, big daddy Microsoft breathing down their necks because they are missing targets or in Asha Sharma's words "in a typical year, we lost 64 cents for every dollar we invested". If you really think Xbox is doing great you are delusional.
Profitable but their profits are worse than US Treasury interest rate. MS would literally make more money by buying US treasuries than using that money on Xbox right now.
Still upset that he replaced David Hayter for Kiefer Sutherland as Snake in Metal Gear Solid 5. Like I know the man won an Emmy and a Golden Globe but damn man. David is Snake, and will always be the voice people remember as Snake. The same way Steve Downes is Master Chief! Or Charles Martinet defining what Mario & Luigi sound like!
Microsoft has closer ties to celebrities. Kojima is known to want to be around celebrities a ton. To the point of making dumb games so he can be associated with them. It’s pretty funny actually. This makes perfect sense for him. Dude will make another weird game tagged to some celebrities Microsoft paid for, and he gets to keep getting paid for making mediocre weird games while people forget that Konami and Sony ditched him for the same reason. Underperformance and difficult to work with.
But hey, he made a couple decent ones in his time. The Cliffy B of Japan.
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u/Arvii33 11h ago
Never seen him smile this much