[–] RigorsOfTime 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago (edited ago)
I'm not a fan of Microsoft whatsoever in the gaming space. They did a great job of popularizing online gaming and lead the way on things like including an HD in a console. They also made it vogue to charge people to play games online.
I think it's painfully clear they have no idea how to manage studios and this likely stems from corporate and not the gaming division itself. The amount of studios they have closed internally is mind boggling and they seem to piss of third party partners. I'm not saying that Sony is perfect, but the relationship they have with devs seems to be infinitely healthier. I think Microsoft's last shot is with Scorpio. I get the feeling that the company on the whole wouldn't mind getting out of gaming.
[–] Schopenhauer4ever [S] ago
Microsoft always was obsessed with The Set Top Box. Remember WebTV?
Gates and crew always wanted the living room, seeing it as the logical outgrowth of the PC. That's where Xbox came from.
Nonetheless, the division had top talent that pushed technological innovation at the beginning: the OG Xbox literally predicted the modern console, for good and ill.
It introduced the programmablr shader GPU -- which is still the graphic standard, 15 years and change later -- hard drives, high speed online, headsets, digital downloads and the Western takeover of consoles through software.
In many ways, they were good for the industry.
They provided two powerhouse consoles with the best GPUs in the world at their respective launches.
But today they are a husk. Boring first party stuff, an underpowered console and a software list devoid of Japanese games or anything at all beyond PC.
And it's clear from the Phantom Dust, Scalebound and Lionheart debacles that they have little interest in anything other than limited, western blockbusters.
Spencer talks about games, but in truth he is only there to downsize the division while telling the fan base what they want to hear.
The Mattrick era had more interesting software. We saw that in the first couple of years; those were Mattrick releases.
Now, under Spencer, there is less software. You can bet that's because the big TV integratelation outlook fell apart; ironically it stole the division's budget for games with it.
If MS can't produce big, interesting games, there's little reason to buy their console. Nadella wants the division as a service, most likely.