Microsoft: Xbox One is the “Highest-Engagement Console” in the Market; Explains Strategy for Gaming

[Deleted member 6733]

Oh look, another embarrassing Xbox thread in Era!

It's good to see the brand doing well after the bad start and despite having 'lost' the generation (I mean, second place is the end of the world, regardless of numbers, right?).

If the business is in a good place it's good for the industry and gives me hope of some fresh 1P games on the horizon.

 

[Kainé]

This is some spin from Microsoft lmao

 

[Kilgore]

I don't think time spent is irrelevant. With how much gaming is micro transactions based now, there is likely a positive correlation between time spent and monetisation

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Yep there's a correlation. But I think a investor would measure the engagement on software sales and suscribers.

 

[Xando]

This thread sure is something. Mods still asleep or what happened

 

[Ethan Hutn]

It is unbelievable, how badly ERA is moderated - with actual mods in this very thread.
The CEO explains to investors, why revenue grew without substantially more hardware being sold; and the thread is full of console warriors screaming 'PR spin'.
This is embarrassing not only for those posters, but for the site as a whole.

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Yeah, most of the times it feels they just want users to tone it down but not stop with this behaviour. In the other form, people were used to literally pile on when a Microsoft person posted in a thread that it was so fucking embarrassing. I think it was albert penello trying to engage with users and people would be rude for no reason. No wonder non of the big wigs engage here and just stick to r/xboxone
There was a post earlier that said this means Microsoft milks there users the most. Are the other two not trying to do the same thing?

 

[mogster7777]

They previously talked about MAUs the amount of users. Now they are talking about something totally different.

Instead now they are talking about the hardcore players that pick up Xbox when it came out initially and these first ten million buy more games. But to be honest the first ten million on any console will buy more on it, not just a MS console lol. So I don't really see their point. What he's saying here applies to any console.

It's probably true that the 67th million person who bought a PS4 likely won't buy as many games as the 4th million person who bought one but at the end of the day they still have those initial 10 million people on ps4 too as well as the other 70 million on top.

I'm sure MS would have loved all those 80million sales too and then spun their usual PR marketing talk differently by flat out saying its the best selling console and beating Sony and has the most people who bought it etc.

I guess this is a good way to spin it even though it applies to all consoles not just Xbox lol.

 

[Soony Xbone Uhh]

It does because it completely changes the implication of your statement: "What nadella said is an explanation to investors of why income of the division increased this quarter without a dramatic increase in hardware sales". If it referred to net income then I would have to agree with you and the discussion ends there because, yes that would mean MS is very successful in what they are doing. If it's just revenue, then it goes back to everything else, that it's a meaningless metric on its own, and you're just guessing same as everyone else.

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Operating Income is income and profits from your business.
Net profit is only relevant for the overall company resutls with taxes, interests, amortisation and all that stuff.

 

[Finale Fireworker]

If you are concerned about a post in a thread, please report it. Otherwise, if you're only here to dunk on Microsoft and console war, don't post.

 

[THEVOID]

Operating Income is income and profits from your business.
Net profit is only relevant for the overall company resutls with taxes, interests, amortisation and all that stuff.

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Yes, this. It's the company as a whole. That's what matters. Obviously this is a gaming website and people want infinite details but MS isn't just a gaming company nor is it their main end-all focus. I always thought it was well known that Xbox players spend a shitload of money on Xbox because their bread and butter is the US who spends a shitload on everything.

 

[Deleted member 20297]

Stop being defensive, this is typical Ms marketing spin because they lost this gen. Your are only showing your true colors.
Man, if you read this bullshit often, it's really easy to write and replicate.

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Edit: I will address my complaints about the double standards here directly at the responsible people.

 

[Deleted member 20297]

Xbox PR, true heroes of this generation

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.

 

[Tecnniqe]

It's good to see the brand doing well after the bad start and despite having 'lost' the generation (I mean, second place is the end of the world, regardless of numbers, right?).

If the business is in a good place it's good for the industry and gives me hope of some fresh 1P games on the horizon.

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It have been fun to watch them transition from sales due to it being a lost cause and rather focus on keeping the players there invested with things like Gamepass and increasing live support for the titles people can access, and it seems to have worked out in great favor to them.

With things looking up, I'm very interested to see how State of Decay 2 and Crackdown 3 will perform, not only in the console sphere but hopefully it expands noticeably on PC as well since Microsoft is so much more than just a console manufacturer.
Windows Store should be among their top one priorities in order to get the huge potential of PC player crowd on board, by either re-designing the entire thing or just integrate the game shop to the Xbox client. Alternatively they could scrap the whole Store idea, but seeing as that does not fit their narrative at this time it's hardly something they'll go through with.

 

[Kainé]

This is some spin from Microsoft lmao

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How is that a warning? System wars???? I just think that this is some spin from Microsoft, nothing more...

I can't believe I got a warning for that.

 

[New Fang]

It's good to see the brand doing well after the bad start and despite having 'lost' the generation (I mean, second place is the end of the world, regardless of numbers, right?).

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They're in second right now, but it appears they're going to end the generation in last place, and possibly by a fair margin.

How is that a warning? System wars???? I just think that this is some spin from Microsoft, nothing more...

I can't believe I got a warning for that.

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I have to admit I was surprised by that too. I mean, it's undeniable this is spinning data to paint to rosiest picture possible.

 

[ps3ud0]

Surely MS using this kind of metric isn't surprisingly. MAU is a quantitative measure of engagement.

I presume this has to be financial engagement rather than time as MS wouldn't have that type of information from their competitors.

I can't help but agree that MS most likely has a higher percentage of 'core' gamers.

ps3ud0 8)

 

[DamSea]

How is that a warning? System wars???? I just think that this is some spin from Microsoft, nothing more...

I can't believe I got a warning for that.

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Ask yourself, why you are calling it "spin". An investor asked the MS CEO to explain the large growth in gaming revenue and received an answer. In what world is that "spin". What is he spinning? Large positive growth?

 

[doragon]

Blast Processing!

 

[Kainé]

They're in second right now, but it appears they're going to end the generation in last place, and possibly by a fair margin.


I have to admit I was surprised by that too. I mean, it's undeniable this is spinning data to paint to rosiest picture possible.

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Ask yourself, why you are calling it "spin". An investor asked the MS CEO to explain the large growth in gaming revenue and received an answer. In what world is that "spin". What is he spinning? Large positive growth?

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There is like a lot of worst post than mine in this thread...

I said spin because Nintendo and Sony are giving numbers, good numbers about their sales and other things... I just find that comment from Microsoft funny. They could have said that they have 55 active users in gold or something like that. It would make more sense than this...

 

[Deleted member 23046]

These results proves that MS doesn't need to spend millions for first-party. Having an affordable and premium game box for Ubisoft/EA games and being strongly present in the UK/US markets is financially enough.

It's also a way to preserve a closed gaming distribution they lost on Windows against Valve. As you notice quotes didn't mention hardware or the PC as a platform, everything is seen as service-driven.

 

[SuikerBrood]

This topic could have been closed after Matt's post. He made a fair point about having less casual gamers increases the average spending per capita. Not that exciting.

I do think it's in MS biggest interest to get the casual market subscribe to Gamepass. These are the consumers that don't buy 5+ games per year. The money + engagement (MaU's, etc.) progress that can be made is within that group.

 

[Killer]

How is it PR when they are talking to investors????

 

[New Fang]

I do think it's in MS biggest interest to get the casual market subscribe to Gamepass. These are the consumers that don't buy 5+ games per year. The money + engagement (MaU's, etc.) progress that can be made is within that group.

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I think the difficulty they're going to find there is that type of customer is typically interested in specific franchises. Madden, NBA2K, Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto. None of which can be found on Game pass.

How is it PR when they are talking to investors????

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While companies cannot lie to investors it is absolutely legal to spin your outlook in the most positive light possible. You can't lie about console sales, but you can definitely pull out specific metrics and say "judging by this metric here we're the best".

 

[Deleted member 6733]

They're in second right now, but it appears they're going to end the generation in last place, and possibly by a fair margin.

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My post about losing was sarcastic. I mean, wherever they finish, as long as they're making money they're golden. Being the top seller is nice but it's not the be all and end all if the cash is rolling in which, if the info in OP is to be believed, it is. Some people focus way too much on the win/lose. There are no losers, except for the Wii U, sadly.

 

[Kilgore]

There is like a lot of worst post than mine in this thread...

I said spin because Nintendo and Sony are giving numbers, good numbers about their sales and other things... I just find that comment from Microsoft funny. They could have said that they have 55 active users in gold or something like that. It would make more sense than this...

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It would have made sense explaining the revenue growth with metrics that don't tell much about the subject?

They're in second right now, but it appears they're going to end the generation in last place, and possibly by a fair margin.


I have to admit I was surprised by that too. I mean, it's undeniable this is spinning data to paint to rosiest picture possible.

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So Wii U never existed? Flopping hard was not the end of the world for nintendo, they bounced back and released another console. Why is so bad for Microsoft managing to survive this gen and waiting the right chance to start a new one?

 

[SuikerBrood]

I think the difficulty they're going to find there is that type of customer is typically interested in specific franchises. Madden, NBA2K, Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto. None of which can be found on Game pass.

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Yup. That's why PES2018 on gamepass could be more important than we think on ERA. But EA and Activision titles won't be on Gamepass.. so that'll be a problem. This is also why they need to invest in their own studios and get more casual games on Gamepass. More shooters, sport games, racing games, etc.

 

[DamSea]

There is like a lot of worst post than mine in this thread...

I said spin because Nintendo and Sony are giving numbers, good numbers about their sales and other things... I just find that comment from Microsoft funny. They could have said that they have 55 active users in gold or something like that. It would make more sense than this...

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More sense to who? What people in this thread need to accept is this was a question and answer session to investors, the ones driving MS to $700B marketing cap. Though people here may disagree, MS does NOT want to trade places with Sony or Nintendo As to why your post received a warning and not others, I agree with you 100%..

 

[Kilgore]

Yup. That's why PES2018 on gamepass could be more important than we think on ERA. But EA and Activision titles won't be on Gamepass.. so that'll be a problem. This is also why they need to invest in their own studios and get more casual games on Gamepass. More shooters, sport games, racing games, etc.

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I think the moment when EA will start a suscription model for their sport franchises, that will benefit Game Pass. Fifa will never be on GP, but being able to play some mainstream games on a suscription model will make a change of mind of a lot of people, and not all publishers can build it's own service so puttin their games on Game Pass will be the only way to try to reach the "only sub" portion of the consumers (that I think inavoidably will exist in the future).

 

[New Fang]

More sense to who? What people in this thread need to accept is this was a question and answer session to investors, the ones driving MS to $700B marketing cap. Though people here may disagree, MS does NOT want to trade places with Sony or Nintendo As to why your post received a warning and not others, I agree with you 100%..

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They absolutely, positively would 100% want to trade places with Sony or Nintendo. The fact that you believe different is exactly why Microsoft is spinning these numbers the way they are.

So Wii U never existed? Flopping hard was not the end of the world for nintendo, they bounced back and released another console. Why is so bad for Microsoft managing to survive this gen and waiting the right chance to start a new one?

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I never said anything about the end of the world for Xbox. Third place doesn't mean you need to stop making consoles. I don't know how you took that idea away from my post.

 

[SuikerBrood]

I think the moment when EA will start a suscription model for their sport franchises, that will benefit Game Pass. Fifa will never be on GP, but being able to play some mainstream games on a suscription model will make a change of mind of a lot of people, and not all publishers can build it's own service so puttin their games on Game Pass will be the only way to try to reach the "only sub" portion of the consumers (that I think inavoidably will exist in the future).

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At that point Sony will allow EA Access on PlayStation. They'd be missing out on so much.

​

 

[Deleted member 5086]

How is that a warning? System wars???? I just think that this is some spin from Microsoft, nothing more...

I can't believe I got a warning for that.

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If you have any queries or concerns about your infraction, please PM a moderator, rather than derailing the discussion here. Thank you.

 

[DamSea]

They absolutely, positively would 100% want to trade places with Sony.

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You can't be serious. Unless you referring simply to the gaming revenue, but then you would still need to take in account other factors. Gaming simply isn't as important to MS as it is to Sony and Nintendo. Nintendo only has gaming and PS4 is one of the pillars keeping Sony profitable. These two companies have to be all in on gaming. MS measures needs to measure their investment in gaming relative to other divisions, which is why Azure was mentioned. So no, I completely disagree

 

[Startropper]

If it had a popular paid online plan and more full-priced games

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We know paid online is coming, also some type of GWG.

I also think if Nintendo emulated a game pass service, they would make buckets, such a rich catalog of retro games and strong first party ips.

 

[New Fang]

You can't be serious. Unless you referring simply to the gaming revenue, but then you would still need to take in account other factors. Gaming simply isn't as important to MS as it is to Sony and Nintendo. Nintendo only has gaming and PS4 is one of the pillars keeping Sony profitable. These two companies have to be all in on gaming. MS measures needs to measure their investment in gaming relative to other divisions, which is why Azure was mentioned. So no, I completely disagree

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We're in a thread discussing Xbox gaming revenue, on a forum discussing video games, so yes, I meant Microsoft would gladly swap their gaming business with Sony or Nintendo if they could.

 

[Kainé]

If you have any queries or concerns about your infraction, please PM a moderator, rather than derailing the discussion here. Thank you.

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It's not gonna solve anything anyway because moderators cover themselves.

Just ban my account indefinitely.

 

[Kilgore]

They absolutely, positively would 100% want to trade places with Sony or Nintendo. The fact that you believe different is exactly why Microsoft is spinning these numbers the way they are.


I never said anything about the end of the world for Xbox. Third place doesn't mean you need to stop making consoles. I don't know how you took that idea away from my post.

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MS would surely trade their gaming division position with SCE position. Microsoft as a whole would never. My "end of the world" comes from the post you was answering, and they won't be last anyway. If we consider Switch the first console of the next generation they won't be third either, but we don't have a rule to mark a start of a new gen so whatever.

 

[Rocketz]

There is like a lot of worst post than mine in this thread...

I said spin because Nintendo and Sony are giving numbers, good numbers about their sales and other things... I just find that comment from Microsoft funny. They could have said that they have 55 active users in gold or something like that. It would make more sense than this...

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This was an investor Q&A. It's great that you can say we sold this many units sold and we have this many users but you can only tell very little about the business from that. How did you make that increase from last quarter, what's the biggest driver in rentention, what are we doing in the future you gain more customers while still keeping others engaged. These are the types of question that was answer here and what this article is based on. It's about growth not what they sold. Shouting out we sold 10 million units and have 50 million users last quarter is great but how did you do that? That's what this person wanted to know.

 

[RevenantAxe]

CEO is addressing investors and era members are getting worked up about it. This is how most corporation address investors.

Also MS makes more money than Sony and Nintendo combined overall. So stop getting worried about MS health and Xbox too. Xbox is crucial for MS as a brand and they will turn it around soon.

 

[RevenantAxe]

How is that a warning? System wars???? I just think that this is some spin from Microsoft, nothing more...

I can't believe I got a warning for that.

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My friend. Everyone and their kids can see that your post is nothing but a drive by post to fuel console war here.


You taking CEO Statement to investors in wrong way and try to spin to start console wars.

 

[Kenjovani]

Thread has gone pretty much as expected. Typical.

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And it goes right along with what we expected from Microsoft pr machine to say to mask their issues and losing market share :) to their investors. Every year its a new phrase whenever their sales arent up to snuff with the competition. Typical indeed. They make their pr talk and consumers read through it and interpret, that is all.

Great job all around.

 

[THEVOID]

It's not gonna solve anything anyway because moderators cover themselves.

Just ban my account indefinitely.

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If that's all you got than mods should do what you wish. You've offered zero reasoning and anyone can see but yourself it was an obvious drive-by post.

 

[D65]

This is some spin from Microsoft lmao

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It isn't spin. The warning is here so you can maybe read the OP properly before writing the first anti MS reply that comes to your head.

It isn't a ban.

...

I don't get people who complain about warnings... (although I have done it myself but my warning was outright stupid)

 

[Einbroch]

Vita had insane engagement too.

 

[Toumari]

A lot of people in this thread keep saying how Microsoft has more money than Sony/Nintendo as if all their money is available to funnel into Xbox. Xbox is just a small cog in Microsoft's wheel.

Microsoft killing off Xbox is far easier and financially realistic than it is for Sony/Nintendo. It wouldn't even make a dent for Microsoft.

 

[Deleted member 862]

It doesn't surprise me this is true or that it's what they choose to focus on as a metric for success with the Xbox, you only need to look at the type of games they've invested in over the years. With a focus on co-op, multiplayer and now gaas it seems clear they've found a way to offset the loss of console sales to those who maybe buy the odd game here and there with those playing their favourite game for hours and hours like fortnite, pubg, sot, halo etc. Those games are built to last and it's a type of game that's seen huge growth in the last few years which has kept them going.

 

[Finaj]

A lot of people in this thread keep saying how Microsoft has more money than Sony/Nintendo as if all their money is available to funnel into Xbox. Xbox is just a small cog in Microsoft's wheel.

Microsoft killing off Xbox is far easier and financially realistic than it is for Sony/Nintendo. It wouldn't even make a dent for Microsoft.

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Xbox is 11% of MS' total revenue. It's making them money and they have no reason to kill it off.

 

[2112]

Blast Processing!

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No fun allowed.

 

[Deleted member 1238]

It's very interesting to see people who claim to care about the business side of gaming not understand why engagement is a metric companies would care about. Instead we have a bunch of people claiming "spin" and what not. It's not really about the business side, is it? It's just about cheering for winners and losers.

I mean I went to school for business. I work in "business." This hardly makes me special as I'm sure plenty of other people on this forum are in the same boat. But anyone with half a brain could tell you engagement is a valuable metric. It's pretty self explanatory.

This thread is embarrassing. Not for console war reasons. I couldn't care less what platform you prefer. I own all of them and use them all. It's embarassing because it's proof that everyone here acts like the know more than they actually do. It's embarrassing to call something a PR spin when it's actually an answer to an investor's question. It's embarrassing to say that tracking and valuing metrics like engagement and active users is a "spin" when those metrics are important to a service related business. It's all especially embarrassing when you claim to be knowledgeable on the subject.

 

[khamakazee]

A lot of people in this thread keep saying how Microsoft has more money than Sony/Nintendo as if all their money is available to funnel into Xbox. Xbox is just a small cog in Microsoft's wheel.

Microsoft killing off Xbox is far easier and financially realistic than it is for Sony/Nintendo. It wouldn't even make a dent for Microsoft.

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It's also an integral part of Microsoft, just like TV's are for Sony. Sony could easily kill off their TV department too but they won't.

 

[ItsBobbyDarin]

Aka, Microsoft wants to sell gaming software and services that connect to their Cloud Platform Azure. Consumer facing and Developer facing. No matter what client platform. The number of users that are using these services, aka engagement is what they are tracking.

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So you could say, that they are pushing developers to engage in the use of the azure platform, which then will spill over growth into their cloud services, which makes Azure more competitive.

 

[VallenValiant]

It's very interesting to see people who claim to care about the business side of gaming not understand why engagement is a metric companies would care about.

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Engagement is useless by itself. Engagement as a metric is only relevant when matched with userbase size. More specifically, engagement PERCENTAGE is nearly useless. What matters is the actual number of people who are heavily engaged, not how big they are in proportion.