CCC Says: "While some might call this a comeback, others suggest it never left.
This outlet (as well as many others across the ole’ interwebs) reported months back that Microsoft had officially had enough of supporting it’s fledgling Games for Windows service, who subsequently pulled the plug after years of only moderate success. In its wake, Steam has continued its rise as THE dominate name on PC (bringing several former ‘Windows Live properties into the fold in the aftermath). While this was no big loss to most PC gamers (as the service was far from exemplarily) it did mark the end of Microsoft’s presence in the desktop gaming market to some degree.
However, it appears that old line about their “demise being greatly exaggerated” would be quite apropos in this case."
- Xbox Wire - Mark your calendars! The Xbox Games Showcase followed by [REDACTED] Direct airs June 9. More info inside.
For a brief moment I thought we might get a whole Direct for Gears 6 - seems like it's COD though!
Steam is changing its refund policy, but you probably won’t be affected
Should have happened a long time ago. People wanting refunds after 50 hours in game.
I'm not sure why you're getting disgrees. Whilst not all PC gamers are petty, an awful lot of them are lol
Entirely untrue. Not any more petty than console gamers. The only large difference is console gamers don't have much of a choice.
Not sure why you're getting agrees. an awful lot of console gamers are overemotional twinks ready to go to war over a plastic box, I'll take being a pc gamer then.
Speaking about overgeneralizing much.
Daily reminder that 'TheGamer' is a corporate-generated, anti-gamer, anti-consumer, clickbait web site. They are mostly A.I. generated articles that villainize gamers. They provide nothing positive and actively try to provoke and divide the community through extreme view points and politics. Do not give them any clicks.
Only scumbags? As if people don't play their games on console put in the most amount of hours and return it to GameStop and trade it in for another game. But also how many people are actually do this? And what games have been allowed to be refunded?
You can refund any game you've purchased as long as it hasn't been longer than two weeks, and you've played less than 2 hours. I wish they would change it to 3 hours because some RPG's have so much exposition that you may only get an hour total of complete gameplay. That's my only knock on it. I've refunded plenty of stuff I was just curious to try. I typically stay away from Early Access titles which are the only ones affected by this policy change.
Apparently early access doesn't count, only complete games with a play early preorder bonus.
I never liked refunding anything. Even if a film is bad, i dont want my money back. Sometimes things just aren't for me, and it's not the creator's fault necessarily.
I feel you and i have never walked out on a bad movie cause I payed my money. I also don't refund games cause I'm a gamer and I know what to buy lol. I think having a digital refund is great.
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.
you should apply in MS PR team buddy, I think you will do a great job in my humble opinion :)
MS: "Xbox services and content without AB up 1%, with AB up 62%. Hardware down 31%. In total a loss of 350 mill."
darthv72: "Seems about right."
MS: "Excuse m ..."
darthv72: "I don't hardly play on my consoles directly."
MS:
What he said was facts. How he plays games is no concern of you. Don't get too mad about it.
I can tell people like you are an absolute minority..
If service is up means their fans and fanboys accepted this model and subscribed to it. The near future you will see a big decline because the service is saturated.
to you it may seem like the minority... but your bubble is shrinking because more and more are following suit. convenience is a hell of a drug and its also why physical sales only amount to 30% of overall game sales. times are changing, you either get with them or you get left behind.
Darth
30% physical sales: yet Phil and xbox division are in a rush go give up on that 30%. they don't have any right to give up any piece of the pie since the control such a little of the pie to begin with
also, the market is clearly speaking that the model Xbox is pushing isn't working right now the keyword being right now. you are right about freedom to play anywhere so i hope they put their games on steam
But that's been ms for years. When things aren't going their way they try to change the way things are said. For instance console sales are down, they stop telling how many sold instead telling us how many hours spent in halo or headshots. So it makes sense console sales down just say people are playing on more devices then previous. What they won't say is how many xbox players jumped ship to ps5.
Hardware sales are so bad that Sony and Nintendo are blowing the sales off the water with their hardware.
If Xbox are losers, others aren’t..
Xbox already tried everything with Xbox live then subscriptions went down so much that they had to find something else. Their fans subscribed then reached saturation rather quickly.
Hardware and exclusive games is where it’s at! Keep gamers excited, announce decent software and people will support you
@shin
Well keep it simple Sony 's operating income is down 26% and Microsoft's is up 32%. No MS spin there, just facts. 😉
Cheers
MS is after diminishing consoles as a medium. They want to destroy this market because they couldnt win. MS’s vision is to dissolve console gaming.
Odd that a company that touts you dont need the hardware to play is already touting another console in the works.
They are not reliant on the HW but still want to maintain a presence (no matter how small) is a good thing. It shows commitment to the craft. It reminds me of SNK and how they made games for their own hardware (Neo Geo) while also making them for others because they knew there was a market to do so. They knew they would sell more to others but also sell to their own niche fan base.
Perfectly reasonable post down voted by insecure corporation friendly folk.... But not gamers. Real gamer want accessibility and ease of acquisition for all.... Company shills are the only ones still telling us that hardware locking people from games is good for us.
@Darth
You should stop parroting metrics like an idiot without context.
"Xbox content and services revenue grew 62% in Q3 from a year earlier, “driven by 61 points of net impact” from the purchase of the third-party video game giant, Microsoft said."
61 of the 62% was from their merger so net increase is ONLY 1%
https://www.mesaonline.org/...
@chevalier
It looks like made a great purchase. Much better then Sony buying Bungie. 😉
Cheers
In the last two years they've started exiting the consumer market altogether. All of the newest Surface products are business models only. They can't seem to work out what they want to do with it.
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.
Activision: "we gonna need a bigger rucksack/backpack please"
Microsoft: "why's that"
Activision: "to carry yo' weak ass'
Top brass have also wanted to start seeing returns on the 100 billion they have put into various Xbox related moves so seeing more multiplatform games is highly likely especially from abk
It's basically saying that PlayStation is the reason Xbox is afloat right now thinks to Ps5 versions of COD
The only growth MS will get out of the console industry is if it supports it's rivals platforms. Xbox is a pointless machine now. I can see them on a big push for live next, and they won't give up on trying to buy Steam.
Game for Windows live sucks anyway, who cares.
Games for Windows wasn't very good, but MS is one of the most successful companies out with Billions in cash reserves, so it seems lauphable when someone says this company can't multitask. More internet hyperbole...
I hated gfwl with a passion, truly one service to forget.
The fact that i needed to be online to play a single player game really p155ed me off(Dirt 3). At least with Steam/Origin you could go into offline mode and still play SP games.
I thought Games for Windows got canned for XBL. Didnt MS say they were trying to have XBL accessible on all Windows platform.
Another lame article. Let's get something straight here people, Windows is an OS and its main focus is to sell PCs and licenses for work and productivity programs and services and gaming is just a very small part of it's main focus. Just like gaming on Apple's OS is non-existence from Apple themselves.
I don't blame them as they need exclusives to sell Xboxes and releasing it on PCs will just allow more ammo for haters to say "I will just get it on PC, no need for a XB1". It is call smart business.