Gaming

Its like they think we don't see all of this. Why would we trust Microsoft at all? I'm saying this as a long-time Xbox fanboy, I was on board, I have shirts, I bought all the Xboxes, I defended them during the xbone era, and they still burned me. Your list is exactly right.

• They are incapable of making quality games internally.
• they refuse to let writers do what they do best and instead meddle and water down stories
• they set wildy unrealistic expectations on games and studios and then like you said if it's not literally the best game ever made of all time (on the shoestring budget and timeline they set) they blame the studio and close them

Why would I ever trust anything they made?

My spouse is playing Outer Worlds 2. They enjoyed the first, so playing the second. It is a fun game. It's not amazing or groundbreaking, but fun. A solid sequel. Not everyone will like it but there's a good following. How did Microsoft respond? They raised the price before it released to 80 fucking dollars (for what is solidly a 40 dollar game), they then backtracked to 60, still people refused to buy it at that price, they blamed the studio (obsidian) for lack of sales, and now told them they won't make a third one because they just don't see the demand.

They need to actually be really careful with that - Gamepass is I think one of the main things keeping gamers on Windows. Fuck up gamepass during the Gabecube's release and people may start seriously wondering why they put up with Windows.

So glad I never got involved in that shitshow.

lol. More subscriptions and paid for DLC>less users>less revenue>more expensive subscriptions and paid for DLC and the cycle continues.

People think that these are smart people. Some people do anyway.

Based on everything I've read, Redfall was pretty much entirely on Arkane, just like, at EA, Anthem was on Bioware's internal leadership, not publisher meddling. On the contrary, more publisher meddling would have likely made these disasters less likely.

AI probably told them to do it, and they did spend billions on it…lol.

I think the Gabecube is going to be a big problem for them, too. It'll bring the full PC ecosystem of cheap games to a console-like format.

SteamOS/CachyOS outperform Windows on Windows games, too, so the only way Microslop can compete in the Console-like-PC gaming form factor is either rebuilding Windows from the ground up to be an actual efficient OS (with vibe coding? lol, good luck) or by switching Windows to a Linux distro (not /s, to be clear.)

Like, who's going to buy an Xbox 5? A Gabecube will do everything it can do, but better, and the PS6 will probably have all the good non-Nintendo console exclusives.