"Fucking ray tracing!" 🤣 youtu.be/OBZf3v1U83I?si=ZKC5…

New York Knicks Fans have taken over the STREETS #NBAFinals

Congratulations to the New York Knicks and all fans on your first championship win in 53 years! 🏆 Thrilled y'all pulled it off. Celebrations are going to be WILD, but try to keep it in check lol.

Exposing the Grift: The Manufactured Hatred of God of War: Laufey youtu.be/p0jhELgfEWE?si=0fyO… via @YouTube

Turns out concerns on #Xbox business model sustainability had validity, contrary to fanboy challenges and PR, as Satya Nadella himself admits: "We've invested a lot. No one can accuse Microsoft of not having invested for the last 25 years. And now we have to turn this into a sustainable business, that delivers what is fundamentally one of the best sources of entertainment. The challenge we have is, we've not been monetizing that entertainment. In fact, if anything we've been subsidizing that entertainment. In-fact there's more monetisation of Xbox games happening on YouTube than at Microsoft." So Satya confirms they've been subsidising things, that they have to turn it into a sustainable business, and that he believes they need far greater monetisation. Asha Sharma admitted a few days ago that Xbox's accountability margin is just 3% now, but keep in mind that does not include hardware losses and other costs, so in reality the actual operating income is either lower, or Xbox is operating at a LOSS. So we can say with confidence now, the strategies Xbox pushed over the last decade or more, that countless fanboys glazed, ultimately failed and were not enough to compensate for a lack of more compelling exclusives relative to the competition. Everything from Kinect, entertainment focus, PC day and date and play anywhere, Game Pass, XCloud, exclusivity de-emphasing, specific acquisitions, console split SKU etc. One major thing the "Game Pass is profitable" crowd consistently failed to understand, is that the true cost of GP wasn't just the licensing costs for games on the service, or even development costs as well, instead it was always the immense sales cannibalisation it causes too, which directly offsets revenue gained. That's why Call of Duty had to be removed, because the massive cannibalisation of its traditional sales was not offset by subscription revenue growth, hence a net negative. It's also why despite releasing games on PC day and date AND making ~$5bn per annum on Game Pass, over the course of the first 4 years of the new gen, Xbox revenue growth was STILL near flat sans ABK, while competitors saw huge revenue growth in the same timeframe with more traditional business models. Deduct Zenimax revenue, and Xbox likely saw revenue DECLINE. FY2021 - $15.37bn FY2022 - $16.23bn FY2023 - $15.47bn Y2024 - $15.75bn And now Asha has admitted they've seen a further ~$500m revenue decline with ABK included. It's a similar thing with "Game Pass helps game sales" PR. That was only ever true when GP was in its infancy. As I'd always said, it would inevitably lead to greater cannibalisation of sales the more popular the service got, and that's exactly what happened and what MS themselves admitted. In any case, as a general rule I think Xbox and PC/Xbox fans should just stop debating others with a much keener grasp of the industry, data and business, on matters of gaming business strategy. Because no fandom has a worse track record. Y'all have continually misread and been wrong on practically everything on matters related to business strategy (esp console side), many for the better part of a decade or more. All because your views are guided by platform preference tribalism and PR, not astute analysis, data, facts, financials or critical thinking.

The media? Lol. Asha Sharma and Matt Booty released a blog post just days after their Showcase detailing things like Xbox being down $500m in revenue, 8 months of Game Pass decline, massively lower margins, a worse hardware position than competitors, up to 5x higher upcoming component prices, changes some fans will find "frustrating" etc. Asha Sharma also did an interview in which she stated the business wasn't "particularly healthy" and that "as the business is healthy, we will look to try and do more" exclusives. In that same timeframe Matt Ball also did an interview in which he mentioned the use of ad integration to make things more affordable. Again, all of this just days after the Xbox Showcase. And you want to blame....media? Lol. The blame is on #Xbox. They could've waited to put this stuff out, instead they decided to to it days after their Showcase and cloud themselves in negativity. And if restructuring, layoffs etc are being planned in the background adjacent to this publicly revealed "reset", it's not surprising it might get picked up on. Clearly there's a lot going on in both the foreground and background at Xbox, and a lot of it is erring on the negative.

Some of these God of War Laufey edits are PEAK 🔥 This TikTok one alone has 8.2m views, 1.8m likes! WAY more than ANY other edit they've done. 👀 The most liked comments excited & the hyped masses eclipsing or mocking the weirdo haters. #GodOfWarLaufey tiktok.com/@bwdeditzz/video/…

Tom Henderson states he's heard Gears of War E-Day has a development budget "of upwards of 400 million dollars" 👀 While I'm skeptical about the number, Tom's historically been very reliable. If true it makes things even more precarious, especially as a console exclusive that will also be on Game Pass day one, hence face huge traditional sales cannibalisation. Tom also shares his thoughts on strategies, as well as why the current piecemeal exclusivity strategy won't move the needle (which I've said myself previously). Here's the budgets we have for other recent tentpole games based on info. Gears of War E-Day $400m (Tom Henderson) SAROS $76m (game director) Ghost of Yotei ~$60m (game director) Marathon $200m (Paul Tassi) Call of Duty Black Ops 7 $1bn (analyst estimate) Grand Theft Auto 6 $1-$1.5bn (est) Expedition 33 $10m (CEO) Marvel's Wolverine $305m (internal Insomniac projection) #GearsOfWarEDay Link to full podcast: youtube.com/live/ROr_KIM-0nE…

As I said in a podcast yesterday, the two games they picked as guinea pig tests for how viable exclusivity still is on #Xbox, make perfect sense. 1 AAA tentpole IP staple (Gears) 1 AAA attractive new IP (Clockwork) Tests whether both a flagship IP and big new IP can sell well.

The amusing thing is they're so sad they literally have to lie or use completely inaccurate data. All the dislike logging sites and plug-ins I've used show God of War Laufey has 36.5k dislikes vs 430k likes, for a like ratio of 92.17%. So it really is an extreme vocal minority hating on it. Ironically I think the misogynists, tourists, snowflakes and incels may actually be HELPING the game in terms of marketing exposure. Ordinary socially well adjusted people hear about the controversy or reactions and get intrigued, watch the trailer and simply think, "WTF were these women hating weirdos talking about? This looks incredible!". Lol. #GodOfWarLaufey

A report from The Information and also covered by Reuters, claims "Microsoft is getting ready to overhaul its struggling #Xbox gaming unit." And that "it hasn't ruled out spinning out or restructuring the unit as a wholly-owned subsidiary, which could make it easier to sell, or creating a joint venture with other partners, according to three people with direct knowledge of the discussions." The article reiterates "Nadella and Hood haven't ruled out restructuring Xbox's relationship to Microsoft at some point in the future if doing so would make Xbox a more successful business, the people said. Options on the table could include making Xbox a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft, a joint venture or spinning out Xbox entirely, the people said. Microsoft operates LinkedIn and GitHub as wholly owned subsidiaries, which could serve as one potential blueprint for Xbox, one of the people said." They also state "Xbox will move faster on developing new games from beloved franchises it owns, including Halo, Fallout and Elder Scrolls" And that "Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood have approved of Sharma's plan to spend more on top-tier games in the coming fiscal year beginning in July, although the budget is not yet locked in and could change." "Microsoft doesn't have any imminent restructuring plans, but those options are on the table, the people said." Keep in mind this is the same outlet that reported Activision Blizzard King had netted disappointing results for Xbox, and failed to grow their Game Pass subscriber count and revenue to anticipated targets. Droves of fanboys attacked the outlet and its sources as fake news, but now Xbox themselves have admitted they had 8 months of Game Pass subscriber decline despite ABK, ~$500m revenue decline and other losses on top, as well as removing Call of Duty from Game Pass. So in the end The Information was accurate on said points. Paid article. theinformation.com/articles/… Reuters link. reuters.com/business/microso… ResetEra summary. resetera.com/threads/the-inf…

Think #Fable looks beautiful & has a lot of interesting aspects showcased But its facial animations & lip syncing are AWFUL lol. HUGE juxtaposition from its great visuals & a gen behind competition. Starfield all over. Still time to improve. Video comparison to HFW, KCD2 & BG3

At least compare more similar scenes. #Wolverine #GearsOfWarEDay

One of the most impressive surprises of Summer Game Fest for me was Blood Message. Gameplay structure perhaps too tried and tested, but animations, animation blending and dynamism of combat is incredibly impressive. Naughty Dog level stuff. Love how scrappy and realistic fights are. Extended gameplay. youtu.be/5U6jHWhmgK4?is=VzPX… #BloodMessage