Did Microsoft throw the towel?

I don't understand their strategy. Sony is firing on all cylinders with VR, PS4 Pro, a plethora of games and announcements while Microsoft is quiet. They claimed biggest line up in Xbox history but it was largely lackluster with no clear direction.

While Sony's schedule is packed with announcements of new games, Xbox owners can only look forward to the Scorpio. They had that big thing about merging Xbox and Windows 10 but if nothing is coming out there will be no incentive for people to use Play Anywhere and Microsoft specific features.

I don't get it. What the hell are they doing? Are they plotting something we don't know about? While Sony is racking sales and Nintendo is preparing to launch a new console, Microsoft just sits in the dark doing nothing. Yeah Halo Wars came out but that's one big title after like 3 months of nothing.

To be fair, Microsoft too is getting ready to launch a new console, and I would argue that whatever big guns they have, such as they are, are being saved for the Scorpio debut at E3 this year.

but what's the point of a new console if you have no big titles to drive it? They have it backwards. Games sell consoles. Consoles don't sell games.

That's exactly my point- much like the barren release schedules of the Wii or Wii U in their final years on the market, it is possible that all major Microsoft titles are being saved for Scorpio's launch and demonstration.

I wouldn't say they're giving up. The reality is they only have 4 first party studios and 3 of them only work on single franchises. And independent studios like Insomniac and Kojima Productions are in bed with Sony right now and Remedy's latest game for MS was a critical and commercial failure. They also canned Scalebound which was originally meant to be an early 2017 release.

MS coasted last gen on 3rd party marketing deals and Halo/Gears both being legit system sellers with Bungie/Epic making them. Neither of those have that system selling power anymore (especially Gears which fell off a fvcking cliff in sales) and Sony gets all the 3rd party deals this time around.

@Juub1990:

I think if they have anything new it'll be announced at E3 for release at the time of Scorpio to drive sales of it.

It might work on the Xbox one but still be pushed for Scorpio.

MS is busy prepping to launch a new hardware. Scorpio is very very bid deal to microsoft. Greenberg said they will be very aggressive marketing it. Gotta funnel all the doe towards that. They need to retain multiplatform lead back especially the western games. xboxone has lost and scorpior will bring that back as they are not lighting up exclusives. Think of this as the calm before the storm. Everything will be clear after E3.

Yeah, this... all the evidence seems to be pointing on MS going big at E3.

But at the end of the day, I don't think it'll matter what MS does to most people on here. They'll still post 5 threads a day bashing whatever they do. So whatevs.

It's pretty obvious that the overall strategy has changed. It's no longer a single platform drive from Xbox. They cannot currently compete on a single platform level. That is Sony's game this generation. It looks like they are going to dabble in multiple markets. We are already seeing that with "Windows Play Anywhere" between Xbox/PC. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the junk games from tablets start making there way to Xbox since they are pushing the unified platform. We already saw Fallout Shelter get tossed on X1/W10.

I'll still buy the Scropio and use the X1 regularly as it is. Many of my friends play on there and I do prefer the X1 controller (Although Cronus Plus lets me use it on PS4 too). I think this is just the first time where you can see a completely different strategy from all three console manufactures. Its pretty interesting.

Like everyone said, wait till E3. They're marketing Scorpio. And it's not like they haven't released any games in a year or whatever. Forza Horizon 3 is one of the best games this gen, and Gears 4 ( contrary to GS review) is also awesome. And to be fair it's taken like 3 and a half years for the PS4 to release games without a drought like this.

greatest awaits... waiting.... waiting...

This E3 is huge for Phil and the boys

@ronvalencia: the greatest games are already here on the PS4. Not everyone masturbates to theoretical flops and shitty Microsoft promises bro.

Stupid fanboys at it again. They are about to release new hardware, but yep they are giving up. WTF is wrong with you fanboys! Microsoft is doing fine and Xbox is doing fine. So much unneeded hate.

Still about 8-9 months left for the system. That's a lot of sitting around doing nothing. The PS4 will just get a bigger and bigger lead and make the Scorpio irrelevant out of the gate.

Again, the Wii and Wii U underwent this same problem. If Microsoft is actually looking at positioning the Scorpio is a cross compatible Xbox One 'successor,' then I don't think they care about there being only four games planned on the Xbox One for the rest of the year.

Microsoft is moving away from a single platform exclusives. Because lets be honest, it makes no sense for them to have it like that. They want to foster the Windows Store, which is going to be the main revenue driver here.

While you don't realise, Microsoft already has the things that Sony is 'firing' all cylinders with, they already have a VR (MR) platform, they're thinking long term about their MR platform. they already have a Console coming out soon, while I agree that first party games is not MS strong point, other than that they're fine, it's just different for people.

And both times they had thrown in the towel with these consoles.

Not with the Wii, which was actively supported until a year after the Wii U's release.

More importantly, 'throwing in the tower' with one console is not indicative of throwing in the towel overall.

Until PS5 is incompatible with PS4 Pro or PS4 games which will kill their whole ecosystem due to being coded 'to the metal', it seems likely that did just that with PS4 games and PS4 Pro.

This will not happen, the entire reason Sony went with x86-64 was to maintain compatibility going forwards, unlike the Emotion Engine/Cell disasters they had to suffer.

Wii was dead in 2012 selling less than a paltry 5M units. Nintendo had effectively abandoned it. Only one big game came out for it too.

I mean, Nintendo had not 'thrown in the towel.' Thrown in the towel implies defeat. Nintendo had just started to plan a transition to the successor.

Which, I think, is the case here.

It doesn't work like that, take Intel Itanium, based on Intel's own take on 64 bit and X64. None of the software back then worked on it.

In the case of X86, if the instruction set is significantly different from the previous console, then games won't work, due to the games using that specific instruction not being there in the newer processor. It's why you see Intel dropping out functions in new chips which are found in older chips, which result in incompatibility, however you don't see this due to Windows emulating it via software with WOW64.

Like I said with my thread where I discussed this, it's clear Sony coded their games 'to the metal' meaning they targeted the lowest level of the console, however when wanting to move to newer processors or other architectural functions it'll be much harder. If you change the 'metal' you break prior games.

Microsoft is different due to their games being in a VM.

Heck why do you think Sony despite the release of Puma and other processors and GPUs, they still stuck with jaguar and Polaris and GGDR5? Yet Microsoft isn't doing this?

The language used from Mark Cerny says the opposite of what you're saying. It's clear that PS5 will be a clean start, meaning from ZERO from games, ecosystem and user base. Problem with this is that now days it's unacceptable to have all their games and applications not working on a new purchase. Imagine your PS4 Pro being ditched 3 years after it's released and not getting PS5 games or PS5 users not getting their PS4 games.

What's clear is that Sony isn't buying into this. Cerny cites incompatibility problems, even moving between x86 CPU and AMD GPU architectures. I came away with the impression that PS5 will be a clean break, an actual generational leap as we know it. I do not feel the same about Project Scorpio, where all the indications are that Microsoft attempts to build its own Steam-like library around the Xbox brand, with games moving with you from one console to the next - and eventually, maybe even to the PC.

@daniel_su123: Tell it like it is, NyaDC.

Hey I'm just explaining the logic behind what 'to the metal' means in technology. Apple experienced this with PowerPC to Intel, Microsoft is experiencing this with X86 to ARM. Sony and Microsoft had this problem with Consoles. The only difference that Sony included PS2 hardware to keep BC and MS used Emulation to do BC with XB360 games on XB1.

Not to mention that unlike the Wii and Wii U it will be getting plenty of multiplat releases(Ghost Recon, Mass Effect, Injustice 2, Prey, etc). The average Xbox consumer that doesn't care if a game is a exclusive or not will have plenty to play on it.

All the evidence points at M$ getting rid of their console. They're moving to PC and xbox as a service. With xbox as service they're looking to do something like Steam more than a console. Scorpio is a elite product according to M$ so they're going to price it high and won't sell so much, but I don't think M$ cares cause it's going to be their last console. After that you'll see they will focus on PC and their xbox service and UWP platform.

Cows say MS have given up on Xbox One..............then bash them for not investing in games for the platform they have given up on....

WTF?

Scorpio will be a new console for MS, they HAVE given up on Xbox One.

You can see with how they talk about it, news released, lack of new content news and investments.

Everything will be moved to Scorpio.

Probably not a bad move considering XB1 was their worst console, even AFTER the 180 from launch.

Its a fun console, but it still feels like it wasnt designed for games.

The problem is that Microsoft's first party is literally almost non existent at this point and they don't have the market share to create "2nd party" games.

They also lack the heavily significant japanese market that leads to tons of quality japanese games.

The best choice right now for microsoft would be to create a shit ton of first party studios and just fling shit until they find out what hits.

Its Don Mattrick's fault.

360 had a TON of Japanese games, even RPGs. Its what made me get into Japanese games.

The console itself was a failure there so they pulled back investments this gen, which is a HUGE mistake.

Japanese games are some of the most creative in the industry. Hopefully they invest heavily (or at least as much as 360) with Scorpio.

If microsoft is smart.

They will open up there windows store, and link other stores towards it. Make a deal with steam / gog and other PC platforms to tunnel there clients through 1 universal client on microsoft xbox. Also give it the opinion to enable keyboard + mouse controls on it. Launch it at a cheap price tag.

Suddently scorpio is a mid/high end pc, that has BC from anything and rake in loads of money. They no longer need to make deals with any developer really as gog / steam will do that for them.

I can see microsoft move into this direciton. It also makes PC gaming suddently a lot more attractive towards people that have absolute no clue how pc gaming works.

They will have VR support from anybody, endless amounts of mmo's and free to play games. Absolute king of indie market.

I could see microsoft pulling this off. But on a crappy level.

This also phases directly generations out.

Imagine:

World of Warcraft on there console,

League of legends

GG

Hahahaahaha what a poor lemming..

Greatness is waiting and waiting on xbox one where games perform worse,have lower score and sell less..hahaahahaha

High dynamitecop.

Sony code all its games to the metal,that has nothing to do with incompatibility,sony could emulate PS3 games on PS4 with the right CPU,that is what MS is doing and the 360 run time environment is different to the xbox one by the way.

But the Jaguar CPU on PS4 is shitty,in fact compute wise Cell does more than that Jaguar at that 1.6ghz which is the problem,so sony can't emulate Cell on PS4 because of lack of power,not because to the metal coding or some other shit,the xbox 360 CPU was a shitty wimp CPU which is why it is so easy to emulate on xbox one.

What MS is doing is the same thing PC is doing and the PS4 is doing,if sony stick with X86 nothing will stop them from running PS4 games native on PS5,unless they decide to block them.

There is more incompatibility between Intel and AMD and between Nvidia vs AMD that between AMD hardware alone,and PC games still work on all GPU and CPU's.

That bold part there is his opinion not Mark Cerny word by the way,next time post a link to your info..lol

In fact the xbox one and Scorpio use the same hardware as PS4 and Pro X86 and the only thing that changes is the OS,so if you want to use as excuse something so stupid go ahead and hide on windows rather than on X86.

@Gatygun: they can't do that because Windows Store isn't just a store front to sell and manage the games, its an ecosystem built around vm based games or UWP. The other games that 'funnel in' would need to be rcoded to work with UWP before they would go for sale in the windows store so that they are hardware agnostic. Otherwise it defeats the purpose of UWP.

That's completely untrue.

Sony wont announce sales figures for VR. When MS wont for X1 is teh bad. How is VR firing on all cylinders?

Sony is benefitting from a lot of 3rd party exclusive support from Japan. Bloodborne, Nioh, Persona 5 for instance. Cant make Japanese devs make games for Xbox. Either they don't think its worth the cost, even though some do (RE7, MGS etc) or they just don't want to support this console.

As for no direction, did you watch the Halo Wars 2 live release special? Because Spencer among others were interviewed and have a clear 2017 lined up. Spencer said, "I think Crackdown 3 will be taking much of my gametime this year". Obviously that's a 2017 release. Along with Sea of Thieves, State of Decay 2, Cup Head and he said things he wont talk about until E3.

They claimed biggest line up in Xbox history. You say its lack luster, I and others are enjoying many of the games. I loved Sunset Overdrive, Titanfall, DR3,4, Halo 5, Halo Wars 2, Ori, Rare Replay, Gears 4, Rise of the TR. Are you assessing the games by experience or your desire for them? Because Gravity rush 2, Yakuza 0, Persona 5, R&C, Disgaya, Tales of Ballbagia, and many of the PS games including VR don't interest me. Or are you going by GAmespot reviews for the games? I am my own man. I decide whether I like something or not.

But what big titles did PS4 Pro have at launch? Uncharted 4, Bloodborne were already out for a long time. Nioh came way after as do so many other titles. It still comes down to what a person likes. State of Decay 2 is a big game for me this year. I loved the first one on 360. Crackdown 3 is a game I am looking forward to. Sea of Thieves I played for 3 hours last night. It was the best 3 hours I have had gaming online this year. BY whose measure is what a "big title" is, decided?

What does it matter if they don't announce sales figure? They still provide a product in relatively untapped market with games. That's another attempt at giving value and choice to their customers.

Doesn't matter what they're benefiting from. The exclusive games are coming out in droves for the PS4. It's dry season for the Xbox One.

As for point 3 finally Cuphead is gonna release. That's not a lot but that's a start at least.

No I am saying this objectively isn't the biggest line up in Xbox history in terms of appreciation, sales and impact. Games like the original Gears of War, Halo 3, the original Crackdown, Forza 2, 3 and 4, Fable 2 and a bunch of other games I'm forgetting were a much bigger line up. Hell, Mass Effect was even an Xbox 360 exclusive for over a year before it came to PC and took 5 years to come to the PS3. They generated more critical praise, far more sales and had a longer lasting impact and legacy for the Xbox brand. I am not talking about my or your appreciation of these games, that's completely subjective and we could go hours on end about how Halo 5 is better than 3 and it would lead us nowhere. You can't honestly tell me Gears of War 4 has a bigger impact than Gears of War did or helped push the sales of the Xbox One more than Gears of War, 2 and 3 helped push the sales of the Xbox 360. Rise of the Tomb Raider also came out for PS4 and PC without being part of Play Anywhere so you can take that out of your list. The games you named spanned over 3 years. How is that the biggest line up? That's 8 games over 3 years.

@Juub1990: How is it dry season when Halo Wars 2 comes out on Tuesday? I know for purpose of SW it got a 6/10, but its a solid 81/100 on meta. Some people are liking it.

And getting 3rd party exclusive support from japan does factor in. Platinum flat out said, the X1 doesn't sell well in Japan so it doesn't make sense to support it for them with Nier even though the first one was on 360. And many other Japanese made games are on X1, like RE7 most recently. What do you expect MS to do? Go and force Japanese or western devs to make exclusives for them? It cant be helped.

Appreciation is completely subjective. You may not appreciate Halo Wars 2 but I sure am. Sales? But sales numbers don't matter, remember? You said so in regards to VR. They are still providing a product that the other is not, like a console RTS.

Impact? Why does that matter to me? As long as I feel the impact of what I buy.

This notification just came. http://www.gamespot.com/videos/xbox-one-exclusives-confirmed-for-2017/2300-6437230/

The other thing you and others are doing is taking PR advertising talk way too seriously. What do you expect MS to say? "We made games Juub liked more in the past, but we hope you folks like this line up anyway"? It hype. Its advertising talk when they claim "Biggest or best line up in Xbox history". Lighten up.

Yeah and that's one game. Last big game that came out was Gears of War in October. It's been practically 4 months with nothing of note. I don't doubt it's good. I don't take the reviews of the idiots here in account.

The point I made was that Sony was firing on all cylinders and they are. I understand why Japanese games aren't coming out for the X1 but that's simply a plus for the PS4 and a minus for the X1. Consumers couldn't care less about the reasons games aren't coming out, they just want the games and PS4 provides just that. If PS4 is releasing games in droves like that, Microsoft shouldn't just sit idly by while Sony is racking up the dough. They should provide an alternative to their customers and they aren't.

Individual appreciation is but general appreciation isn't(unless the games are so close it's a toss up). Gears of War was praised far more than Gears of War 4 and generated more sales. Can you honestly say Gears of War 4 is more appreciated than 2 or 3? It had far less sales, less influence and won less awards. Yes it sucks that reviewers are clueless but 10 years from now when people make greatest games of all time lists, Gears of War will be there probably as a top tier game. Gears of War 4 likely won't unless the perspective changes a lot. Sales don't matter in the context of VR but if you said VR is the "biggest" or "greatest" Sony product, sales would matter. Phil Spencer said Greatest or Biggest line up, can't remember exactly. Greatness implies impact, it implies magnitude, influence. To have the greatest line up you absolutely need sales, critical praise and impact none of which seem to be happening with the latest Microsoft offerings.

Not even saying they aren't good to great games. Forza Horizon 3 seems to be the best racer this gen and Sunset Overdrive legit seems to be tons of fun but they cannot be in any shape or form be considered greater than the likes of Mass Effect, Gears of War, Halo 3, Fable 2 etc.

I am not talking about you or I cainetao. I am talking about the industry and the mass market's general appreciation and adoption of these games. I honestly thought Microsoft would set the world on fire in 2016.

First off "general" appreciation is a pretty way to say POPULAR OPINION. It is still OPINION, therefore not objective.

So it must be about "BIG GAMES"? Dead Rising 4 just came out in December. Games are coming out. You may not like them, but that's fine. Don't buy Xbox then. It doesn't mean Microsoft threw in the towel. It means you don't like their offerings.

Can I say Gears 4 is more appreciated than Gears one? Well I can only speak for myself. I also believe Uncharted 2 is better than 4.

Again, sales? 360 had a way bigger install base, and the newness of Gears 1 is what sold it more. What if Gears 4 was actually the first one ever made?

And when people make that greatest games list, it will still be an opinion, not Objective.

Again, you're stuck on hyperbole by Phil Spencer. What do you expect from him? "Its an ok games line up"? Do you really expect the Circus to be the "GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH" because that was the catch phrase Ringling bros used for 60 years? I think you're being naïve.

But SO or Forza can be considered greater than Mass Effect or Gears by the people that like them better. You seem to think there is some way to prove some objectivity in subjective entertainment. Objectivity doesn't exist in this. Its impossible because humans are all individuals and are entertained by different things. Who are you or anyone to tell I_P_Daily that Mass Effect is greater than FH3? He loves racing games. And just because a majority says blank game is better, all that means is popular opinion. NOt that it is factually better.

1. Jaguar's 1.6 Ghz clock speed was Sony's decision. 1.75 Ghz version arrivals CELL.

2. X360 CPU doesn't need to patch the GPU while SPEs are needed to patch the shit RSX GPU.

3. You missed the reason on why PS4 Pro's BC with PS4 was the old school gimp BC method i.e. poorly coded games has their AI update rates based on PS4's hardware profile instead of hardware performance independent methods e.g. standard 30 hz/60 hz screen refresh timers and 'etc'. Quake 3 timedemo mode is an example when the event timers linked to hardware performance independent timing methods are disabled. With timedemo mode, game's AI will be running as fast as possible based on hardware performance i.e. Humans can't play a game at +900 hz AI refresh rates!

Note why DosBox has CPU cycle rate settings. Hint: fast CPU speeds up the game's AI refresh rates to insane levels

https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-amd64/2011-March/013744.html

Prior to AMD's Jaguar and Bulldozer, Sony used Intel Sandybridge as their reference CPU for their AVX changes for their FreeBSD OS.

I'm playing the hell out of mine every single day and loving it. I haven't touched my pc or wiiu in many months.

For myself, there is plenty of content.

The word you was looking for was "Hi" not "High" ROFLMAO! WOW!

I've never been an Xbox gamer. I've never liked any of their systems and the one time I supported Xbox with buying one when Halo 2 launched, I got so disgusted with the online community that I sold the Xbox after owning it for only one month.

That said, while X1 may seem to be on hold on favor of Scorpio's release, there is still plenty to play from multiplat titles. Hell, For Honor is probably my favorite new IP of the gen. It's an incredible game and is available on X1. My most anticipated game, Mass Effect Andromeda is also going to be on X1.

X1 gamers have plenty to play in 2017 so bashing X1 or bashing those that game on X1 or any other platform doesn't make sense unless you're just trying to be a jerk. We're all gamers guys and people playing on a different platform than you isn't a reason to be a jackass to them.

Awesome answer and isn't it awesome not to be a fanboy! There are great games to play no matter what platform you play on and it is sad some peoples only mission in life is to dog another system. I would bet money the fanboys making fun of Xbox or its games are people that have never played those games or system.

What big titles does the PS4 have that Xbox One doesn't have? Or do you mean big titles for you? I actually found HW2, sea of thieves, crackdown 3 to be big titles... Last year we had QB, Recore, and GoW4 all big titles

The XBO has been selling pretty damn well the last 6+ months so I reckon M$ is letting the One ride into the sunset (on the backs of 3rd parties), in preparation of the Scorpio.

The Wii/WiiU ..would be "throwing in the towel" my friend.

No that's not smart at all and doesn't guarantee control. What I think I find most likely is keep UWP exclusive to Windows Store. Use Windows 10 on ARM to promote UWP and Windows Store. All Win32 X86 applications are emulated, the native solution is using UWP lock it to the Windows Store. When ARM becomes the main architecture for the PC market, then third parties will ask to be giving a license for UWP games and applications. But only at the cost in promoting their store inside the Windows Store. Adobe seems to be allowed to sell UWP applications on their store.

The emulator that runs X86 on ARM, Microsoft controls how fast it runs on hardware. So it's likely that X86 applications and games on ARM will be crippled in speed, but still run at good enough rates, as ARM and UWP continues to gain better performance over time.

Also they won't support SteamVR at all. They already got their own platform Windows Holographic, which already can scale on multiple VR form factors. SteamVR is stuck to a tethered PC and wireless is still tethered to a PC, which has no future as a primary solution to VR.

It'll be the same strategy with Intel and AMD if they transition from X86-64

Pls just wait till Scorpio. It'll be super they've promised!! Just gotta wait, wait, wait and a little more wait and we'll see more games coming 2019 for Scorpio :P