Microshit has been killing Xbox for a while now. The commercial sales jobs, if I had to guess, is because the shift to Windows and Office to SaaS means that they don’t need to try to convince businesses to buy new versions every few years. That’s people on payroll when that money could be going to pay AI debt.
Tbf they did try to not have it die by pumping billions into stupid ass acquisitions.
They could’ve done something if they made their first party games Xbox/PC exclusives and didn’t add them to Gamepass day 1.
But then they couldn’t charge a monthly subscription for it. They must seek rent, even if it is actively detrimental to their business.
did gamepass ever make money? if people are paying for game pass and playing 1 game a month that’s gotta be more money than retail purchases
They are being eliminated to pay off the debt hole left by AI.
AI Debt Hole should be the name of a political math rock band.
Most of the employees affected by today’s cuts are in Microsoft’s commercial sales business or the company’s Xbox division. In an internal memo to employees, Amy Coleman, executive vice president and Microsoft’s chief people officer, blamed the job losses on a changing technology industry and the “need to adjust resources and roles and shift how we operate” to respond to how AI is impacting companies like Microsoft. “I also want to be direct that the roles eliminated today are not being replaced by AI,” says Coleman. “At the same time, what is true is that AI is changing how work gets done.”
Microslop vibe coding is never beating the allegations
Wonder what breaks next in Win 11
Hardware prices play a huge role in this imo. The console industry is going to shit the bed just as much as the PC hardware industry is shitting the bed right now.
Consumers simply will not buy things at 100% higher prices, they will sit on their money and wait. Consumers think the prices will go back down so they’re waiting and not buying.
The hardware prices are not going back down.
Yeah, it’s a double whammy. On one side hardware prices are going up, on the other, you have people increasingly struggling to make ends meet and cutting discretionary spending.
I’m not even sure if there is going to be another generation of consoles at this point. It might be over for them.
I suspect the move to non-physical is a move of desperation by playstation to normalise it so they can transition to the hardware being just a streaming box for games delivered by datacentres instead. It’s the only way any of them can survive, the physical console is not going to sell at the new hardware prices anymore and their shareholders demand growth, they can’t allow the industry to contract to previous levels 2 or 3 decades ago.
I imagine hardware prices are going to come down eventually. For one, Chinese companies are already ramping up stuff like RAM and GPU production, so it won’t be long before we start seeing cheaper hardware from China on the market. Meanwhile, the whole AI bubble also looks to be winding down.
the bigger problem for console games might be Valve since they have a huge game library now, and are starting to make their own Steam Machine console. I suspect their model is far more appealing to developers because you can just write the game once and it’ll run on Windows, Mac, Linux, Steam Deck, and Steam Machine. So, you get by far the biggest reach for players for the game by targeting it. And now that the main differentiating factor of being able to own physical games that you can share with friends is gone, there’s little reason to get a console now.
Yeah that’s what consumers believe too. That it’s going to come back down.
Businesses in the industry don’t believe that. They have started diversifying into other products and moving away from what they were doing because they no longer believe it’s coming down. Many businesses in the industry are on the verge of closing.
Watch this 3hr30 beast for some extremely sobering interviews with company owners, the situation is bleak: https://youtu.be/zyQwAhppWj8
If the bubble doesn’t burst this year the entire industry will basically cease to exist. It will take 5-10 years to build out all the companies that are going to disappear.
I mean honestly that would be an amazing outcome because China would be the only game in town at that point. And if a collapse of the tech industry in the west really does happen, then I expect that a lot of talent will end up leaving to China because that’s where jobs are. This is basically how Silicon Valley got bootstrapped when the US imposed Plaza Accord on Japan and crashed their economy.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
I have a JDPON Don type stance on Mikkkro$lop layoffs, I hope they hurt the organisation as much as possible so alternatives can get stronger
