@XG247: We had a chance to sit down with Robin Burrowes and a have a play around with the upcoming Kinect dashboard update heading towards Xbox’s sometime towards the release of Kinect on November 10th.
He showed us the new avatar marketplace, movies, how you can control everything from your couch and the new video chat feature which will become cross-platform with Windows Messenger on the PC in the new year. These aren’t all the features you can expect out of the update, we were informed that there will be more to be announced.
Microsoft just posted the third quarter of its 2024 fiscal financial results. The software maker made $61.9 billion in revenue and a net income of $21.9 billion during Q3. Revenue is up 17 percent, and net income has increased by 20 percent.
Xbox content + services up 62% while hardware down 31%... seems about right with the way they tout you don't need the hardware to play. People can play on their phones or smart tv or other means. I don't hardly play on my consoles directly since getting devices like the logitech g-cloud and ps portal. Which is to also say I have been playing more digital than physical because of these devices.
Too expensive hardware when others offer the same or more for less? Good work, Green Team.
"Despite some early successes for Xbox games on rival platforms, Xbox hardware is down by a massive 31 percent this quarter."
"Without Activision Blizzard, Microsoft’s overall gaming revenue would have actually declined this quarter."
"Xbox content and services would have only been up a single percent without Activision Blizzard..."
"It looks like next quarter is going to be a similar story for gaming at Microsoft, too."
That is crazy... so A/B/K is carrying the whole Xbox gaming.
Oh and Microsoft will be fine. Windows, Office and Cloud are growing with each pc purchase.
As part of its plans to cut 1,900 jobs, Microsoft has reportedly shut down operations at Bethesda France, letting go roughly 15 people
Bethesda France was made up of roughly 15 people... they couldn't of being doing much
Bethesda France mainly did publishing and marketing within the region
Bethesda France focused on publishing and marketing in the region. And 15 people lost their jobs as part of the closure.
I wonder if this is part of Microsoft's strategy to abandoned physical media or possibly gamepass advertising makes their roles redundant you don't need to market a game as hard when the majority of players get the game as part of a sub which already promoted upcoming games
Tbh Microsoft I think Bethesda being 3rd party same with Activision would probably more competitive than thus scenario imo
The recently purchased Activision French offices might take over all the licensing and marketing for Microsoft in France from now on.
Hanzla from eXputer inquires: "If Xbox can care about preserving its games and legacy, what exactly is wrong with Nintendo, trying to kill game preservation single-handedly?"
Ahh yes the good old game preservation of saving all your games to a removable hhd on the Xbox 360, taking it round your mates house, setting up multiple tvs to
Be met with “save data corrupted, please re download”
Or how about removing 360 games
From the store
, download them now or else, and, better hope to god that save data doesn’t corrupt, or it’s lost for ever
Nice one ☝️
This is just a scammy PR move to distract from the fact they are going digital only and trying to push streaming and subscriptions only.
No gaming company has pushed harder to remove ownership than Microsoft.
Without discs there is no preservation, preservation can't be done by the rights holders it can only be done by the consumers, anything else is a lie.
Nobody wants this. Sales or the lack of it in the case of XBOX is very telling. I wonder how the adorably all digital series X will fare. Adorably dismal perhaps?
Only time will tell, but for from someone like me suspecting that Xbox is trying to gracefully exit the console market, that "forward compatibility" team is trying to get Xbox games playing on Windows PCs. I mean, it's nice that they're not planning on exiting with a "enjoy your games while the hardware still works" message, so that's nice. They still have a brand to protect via Microsoft so probably feel obligated to have a better exit strategy.
This actually looks really good. If only the games were this good and Kinect wasn't so expensive.
Does this update happen if you don't have Kinect?
watching a movie might be a problem. Every time you reach for a drink or for popcorn the screen will bring up the hand and the buttons. Could be annoying. Cool concept but controller would be better.
think you can still use the controller if im not mistaken, im sure he mentioned that in the video. you wave to activate kinect
looks pretty good, might be tempted to get it when the price drops significantly
and it works sitting down
Just don't see the point of using your hands to navigate compared to the much faster controller. I get the tech, but the tech is less efficient compared to what is already there. I don't see myself paying any amount of money for this when I already have a faster method to interact with the dashboard from the controller that comes with the 360.
If there were some true enhancements--because these aren't enhancements, just duplication of current abilities using motion controllers--I might see the point. Perhaps something like using both of your hands to move, resize, and control various elements.
The auto-zoom out/in capabilities for video chat is nice. Good software implementation there. Would like to see more features like that.