Epic Games Store is contributing to PC digital sales decline across all platforms (including Steam), according to NPD Analyst Mat Piscatella.
"While the 20 year anniversary edition of Nordic Game, NG24 Spring's homepage on 21-24 May in Malmö, Sweden, is getting closer, the organizers announced that more than 150 speakers are now lined up for the show." - Nordic Game.
Under his leadership, many have lost their jobs and fewer games have made it out the door.
people should call for his resignation, he has literally flushed xbox down the toilet.
another 3 studios closed today, thats it now, get out
Well purple101 you'd have to convince Observer and the other Xbox faithful that these studio closures and the fallout from the acquisitions is a bad thing and a sign of what's to come, and I don't think you're going to do that.
Nobody has managed that feat.
Obscure and Zeref have been summoned to the floor to give their account of these proceedings.
I 100% blame 'nice guy Phil' for the death of Xbox. The thing to realise is the Xbox Series S & X are performing WORST in console sales and game sales than the much criticised Xbox One - how can this be?
His two big mistakes were 1-not developing enough exclusives and 2 - always trying to beat PlayStation. If he made more exclusives over his decade reign and not tried to 'win' then classic Xbox would still be here in a profitable third place. Instead he tried a series of different projects to win and he ended up ultimately destroying Xbox by changing its relationship with its most loyal customers. What did he do?
* Phil spent a decade only release new iterations of Halo, Forza and Gears and not investing in creating new first party studios and IP. He mishandled Scalebound and shutdown Lionhead Studios.
* Phil tried Mixer, a streaming channel that could be used to promote Xbox dominance with free giveaways...
* Phil tried to create a streaming service that he regarded as too superior to consider PlayStation and Nintendo as competitors! But would instead compete with Netflix and Google...
* But his worst mistake was Xbox Game Pass - a multi billion dollar investment that could only work if completely dominated the worldwide gaming market - but it didn't. Instead it changed the culture of Xbox gamers so they resented spending on third party games as they were now trained to expect everything for free. Now all the games Microsoft had invested so much in were not only NOT making money from other platforms, as ever, but they were now NOT EVEN making money from Xbox customers.
If Phil Spencer had just concentrated on making new games and not non-stop gimmicks to beat PlayStation, I genuinely believe the Xbox would be an attractive platform with regular exclusives like Halo but with others too that would give it its distinct identity and maintain a profitable existence. Phil's been in charge for over a decade, the blame lays at his feet.
Nah idiots like those 2 are lost causes. Just look at the idiotic floundering comments already being posted.
Last MS financial results for FY24 Q2 which is the company's sales data through Dec. 31, 2023. According to the earnings, gaming revenue is up 49% year-over-year.
That doesn't sound like he flushing it down the toilet and that also makes very unlikely he loses his job any time soon.
Revenue up due to acquisition... Spending 10s of billions for new companies of course revenue is up. They don't tell us profits but they wouldn't be shutting down these divisions if they were in the black. Pretty sure they're shifting so radically because their current state has been an abject failure
This is 100% due to Activision Blizzard. If that deal had not gone through, Xbox revenue would be flat, which means a game like Starfield failed to move the needle.
@crazyCoconuts
While I agree that Phil and team have gone back on their word. Especially the last six years of promises.
But I disagree on your logic about the revenue.
They bought the companies to boost their gaming division revenue. In that regard they were very successful. They are owned by MS so your point is moot.
They made all that money and still doing studio shutdowns...
It's bottomless pit of money MS wants. There's no amount of money MS can make to save their own studios. They're doing it out greed and general incompetence. Calling Phil's head won't mean anything or do anything for MS. They'll still destroy regardless.
Damn idiots don't know how to read revenue reports. Revenue was due to folding in Activision Blizzard Revenue. They were up 61% due to Activision Blizzard with 62% increase. So they only went up 1% over last year. But idiots going to be idiots thinking Spencer is helping Xbox right now. Lol
It is funny that it was him finally touching Bethesda that was the straw that finally broke the camels back. They should have been calling for this years ago.
Phil needs to go. His time is over. When you oversee layoff after layoff after studio closure after studio closure, it's impossible to keep going forward and have people - employees and fans alike - trust you in any way.
Especially after HiFi Rush hit their metrics. I guess we know what to expect for Ninja Theory next once Hellblade is out, and Machine Games once Indiana's out & Todd Howard focuses back on ES6.
Ninja Theory won't last after HB2. Because it won't hit some impossible metric in order to be a success at MS.
Expect NT to be gone in a years time also. Where the hells the advertising for Hellblade 2? Another MS issue they do to themselves bunch of clowns.
Their first-announced Series game going out like this. Their marketing so far has just been a daily tweet or two the last week.
And now this will overshadow everything up till and through its release. Maybe Ninja Theory will get the same dignity as Tango and bow out with a better PS5 port.
Just watch Outer World's 2 also be dead on arrival without Playstation and Nintendo gamers buying that game you can expect Gamepass to kill that IP too. Ditto for making that contract to exclude Playstation gamers from getting Indiana Jones too. Remember how Tomb Raider sales were on Playstation after the 1 year exclusivity? Expect even worse for Indiana Jones too
It's not just Phil (Phil is just the dumb kid taking the money) and Kotaku is NOT the voice to listen to as shi7 sites like Kotaku helped contribute to modern gaming toxicity and disinformation. Kotaku staff = Much like Phil, and yes need to go.
MS has been posting record profits, you think they give a crap about games and gamers? Think again.
What a prat.
People gave him and Matt Booty the benefit of the doubt for a few years due to the mess they inherited but a decade on and all they've done is ruin gaming for everyone.
The only success they've had is MS Flight Simulator which was developed by a third party anyway - and Forza Horizon which by pure coincidence went downhill in quality the second Playground were acquired (imo) and that's all I can think of. Everything else they've touched has been ruined.
It's genuinely staggering how either of these two guys are still there.
Phil didnt even inherit a mess, he was equally responsible for it because he sat on the executive so the kinect and XBONE roadmap vision was also on him. Mattrick was the convenient public scapegoat back then but now theres no one to place the blame on.
If they're to keep anyone, I'd hope it would be Sarah Bond. She's at least consistent, constantly doing quick tweets with green emojis where she can, repping the brand, saying the next hardware will be the biggest leap ever (whatever that means).
Phil Spencer openly minimizes Xbox by going out of his way to congratulate competitors and talking about how great playing non-Xbox devices are; if only Xbox had someone that could even pretend to like Xbox for being Xbox.
This is the point I always found frustrating, the whitewashing of Spencers reputation when he got promoted. He was involved in the slide into mediocrity of the 360 generation!
The worse is yet to come and their fanbase don't know it yet, someone at MS posted and deleted a tweet saying all their main ''exclusives'' Halo, Forza, Gears etc will be heading to PS soon so grab a front seat ticket and some popcorn and enjoy the show;) The crying will be hilarious.
Yeah he is absolutely responsible for the abysmal state of Xbox. I can't tell Mattrick and Spencer apart at this point. Both have been horrible executives for the Xbox brand.
Phil's responsible for this generations mess. Phil was the one following orders under Steve Balmer and Don Mattrick.
Don even admitted he messed up on camera with the Xbox documentary
Let's keep the facts straight. Everything currently now is Phil's fault.
Glad to see it return. QuakeCon is back once again with the BYOC (Bring-Your-Own-Computer) gathering at the Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center in Grapevine, Texas, kicking off August 8 and culminating on Sunday, August 11.
I hope we get info and game play on what ID Software is working on for the last 3 years at QUAKECON 24 .
That would be nice. Likey going to get some reveals at the June showcases with a deeper look or hands-on at Quakecon.
its a little ridiculous to say out loud but i do feel the same way lol
I used to buy games on Steam all the time. Got a real good gaming PC too, but once Epic started buying off a bunch of games i wanted to play (Control, Heavy Rain, Shenmue, etc) i started to get really annoyed and started playing console more, and i definitely havent bought as much as i used to on PC. Got Control for PS4 but it was unplayable on there... torrented it, but that has the same issues as buying on EGS in the sense that you dont get all the Steam features. Never actually finished it even though i love Remedy
Its just annoying lol i do hope EGS dies soon
I think that at least for me personally, there are a few things that kinda negatively impacted the PC gaming marketplace.
1) Epic Game's aggressive timed-exclusive deals. Not much needs to be said as this has been talked to death already, but Epic taking all these 3rd-party games as a timed exclusive really hurt the chances of picking some of the games up. I was really interested in a few games, but unfortunately took the Epic year exclusive route and I lost interest in it either because I didn't care for it anymore or that the Epic deal rubbed me the wrong way.
2) Alot of ports released on PC this year ran like dogsh*t, some that come to mind immediately are Red Dead Redemption 2 and Monster Hunter World Iceborne. These games had easily 8+ months to be worked on for PC to make sure it runs smoothly. When they released, it was downright unplayable and broken for majority of people. There is absolute no excuse for that.
3) Publishers getting greedy and making poor decisions. Bethesda is a huge offender here, as several of their games released in 2019 had microtransactions in a single-player game such as RAGE 2 and Wolfenstein Youngblood. Not to mention they are charging a $100 year 1 pass for Fallout 76. It's is utterly stupid and that needs to go away. Other offenders include the Epic Games Store timed exclusivity (which I already mentioned).
4) Delays. Some games were delayed from 2019 to 2020 but that is to be expected.
I'm certainly not speaking for everyone here, only for myself. Some of these things did impact my spending on PC and I actually decided to go back to some older games instead. I'm hoping 2020 will be a better year.
I think this is why i preferred the late 90's and early 2000's of PC gaming, we had Game Spy and Wireplay, both with simple interfaces that allowed you to chat in lobbies and go in servers of games you own easily, and no restrictions with who you can play with.
That and games that had multiplayer would have their own MP interface, like Worms 2 had a lobby where you could create your own room & game and stuff.
Now we are starting to have different places to buy our stuff meaning multiple services running at the same time. I wonder if that means it introduces cross play issues?
Well, it sure helped me save a couple of bucks as I didn't bought any of the games that they got the exclusive rights to.
Capitalism. Steam needs to compete to affect the market in another direction