Genuine question,
Do you HONESTLY believe that the Xbox brand is bigger than ever and is not failing whatsover? You truly believe that everything going on(layoffs, game cancellations/studio closures, major first party titles being put on Playstation etc.) is just bullshyt narratives from Sony stans and that the XBOX brand(XBOX, not MICROSOFT as a whole), is thriving and is even better positioned for the future?
Please answer this, again without resorting to whataboutism or mentioning Sony/Nintendo. Just from a gun to head point of view, is the XBOX brand going strong? Again, NO WHATABOUTISM.
1st off, you can't sperate Xbox from MS. The absolute biggest hurdle to Xbox's brand is that it's a Microsoft piece of hardware.
I'll give you a hint of how I stay on top of the noise, narratives and opinions.
The financials
the truth can always be found in the money trail. Not the surface level arm chair numbers used to cause FUD either.
I've been invested in MS since they were 35 bucks a share, I've followed gaming financials and the market for decades now.
On top of that I've been blessed enough (somehow) to sit in meeting after meeting for BILLION dollar companies, from acquisition, to hostile take overs, billion dollar negotiations at what looks like a table full of Illuminati members. I've had the privilege to sit and be part of meetings with the CEO's, CFO's, CIO's, CMO's, CLO's...
I've been HAD to be present for information that was highly sensitive, I've watched the listed above be mad stressed out day in and day out, because one day they have to get in front of people and tell them the truth in a open in way but still be the truth, and then turn around and do exactly what they said but not in the way they knew people would interpret it.
I'm not built for that life, but it opened my eyes to how major corporations work from the top top down, so maybe it's just a case of things that Microsoft reports seems pretty standard from where I sit.
I have no reason for concern especially when it comes to Xbox gaming, like I said I'm more confident/pleased with it from an investors side and consumer side than I have ever been and the fact that gamepass team didn't get TOUCHED at all tells me than the numbers must be in line, add to that that hardware was double downed on and gamepass still hasn't gone up in price yet this year tells me that the game pass/console ecosystem is extremely valuable to them in manners that they probably don't even really want to share with the Ops. Let them catch up, just like with "MAU's"
