this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2026
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Gaming

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Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on Xbox: ‘We have to turn this into a sustainable business’ (www.geekwire.com)
submitted 2 days ago by alyaza@beehaw.org to c/gaming@beehaw.org
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Microsoft has spent years subsidizing Xbox rather than profiting from it, CEO Satya Nadella acknowledged this week, as he addressed the gaming division’s need for a new approach.

His comments came during a Wednesday evening taping of The New York Times’ “Hard Fork” podcast, released Friday. Hosts Kevin Roose and Casey Newton pressed Nadella on the future of Xbox a few hours after the division’s leadership signaled an upcoming reset.

“No one can accuse Microsoft of not having invested for the last 25 years,” Nadella said of the Xbox and games business. “And now we have to turn this into a sustainable business.”

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[–] rockSlayer@lemmy.blahaj.zone 48 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Fuck off. Microsoft's entire gaming business model is:

  • buy a profitable studio close to a new release
  • round of layoffs
  • brag about profits from the new release
  • another round of layoffs
  • force increasingly lower quality games to be released with more player exploitation
  • allow a high quality game to be released
  • celebrate profits
  • layoff and close the studio
[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 6 points 1 day ago

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.

[–] superglue@lemmy.dbzer0.com 24 points 2 days ago

I think Gamepass is just a problematic business model. A lot of people including myself had it when it was cheap and new. But gamers quickly realized, they don't have time to play all these games. Its not like Netflix where you can binge all day for most gamers. It takes effort. It has to be very cheap for gamers to keep its and they can't do that either, because games are expensive to make. I just don't see it working long term.

[–] Trebuchet@europe.pub 38 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Says the company which spunked billions on AI

[–] Darleys_Brew@lemmy.ml 10 points 2 days ago

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

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 38 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Enshittification incoming, GamePass enjoyers.

[–] TheFeatureCreature@lemmy.ca 23 points 2 days ago (2 children)

So glad I never got involved in that shitshow.

[–] DdCno1@beehaw.org 2 points 1 day ago

It was kind of neat in the beginning, at least in theory - and not just from a consumer perspective: Indies in particular benefited from it, since it raised awareness on their titles in addition to the big bucks from Microsoft coming in:

https://tech4gamers.com/game-pass-helping-indie-studios/

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 26 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Like all "streaming" services it's just a big fuck you to artists/developers and just money in the pocket of executives.

Spotify isn't the only one that underpays the artists in their catalog.

[–] savvywolf@pawb.social 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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.

[–] DdCno1@beehaw.org 1 points 1 day ago

Eh, both the Steam Deck and the Gabecube are far too niche and unknown for that. I've used the Steam Deck on public transportation and pretty much everyone assumed that it was a Nintendo Switch at first - and I had to go to great length to explain what it was.

One notable exception (out of a small handful) was a mother who recognized it as something different and asked me a ton of questions about it, because she wanted to reward her studious son (who sat next to us wide-eyed, with increasing levels of giddiness) for his great marks with it.

[–] Darleys_Brew@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 days ago

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.

[–] Nioxic@lemmy.dbzer0.com 28 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Have they tried making good games?

Something slightly better than redfall

[–] DdCno1@beehaw.org 0 points 1 day ago

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.

[–] tamlyn@lemmy.zip 8 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Satya Nadella has no clue about consumer products. He is maybe able to do much money with business software, for some reason. But not getting that something like a console is an emotional thing. People feel bad about a brand with big layoffs, with big rises in price for something like gamepass. With bad advertising like with the xbox one. They on the way of lossing more and more brand reputation. It's hard to find something they really excel in, currently. Sure phil spancer had a plan to make gamepass big and for a short amount of time, some people were praising gamepass. But now trusting gamepass is lost as well with such huge prices. I don't see Xbox being as big as with Xbox 360 anytime soon. They will try a reset, but their brand is already quite damaged, people will remember that for sure.

I don't think the competition is even that strong. Sony makes a lot money with playstation, but got a lot complains. Still, compared to Xbox they a lot more healthy. Asha Sharma has kind of a impossible task to make Xbox big again. Even more with such a stupid CEO, that want to make 30% profit value out of Xbox, something nobody does on gaming. The title say Xbox should be a sustainable business, but it is making even profit, but not enough for Nadella, so he pushes more and more stupid decisions to the Xbox Team.

[–] definitemaybe@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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.

[–] DdCno1@beehaw.org 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Look at sales of the Steam Deck compared to consoles and your prediction falls flat on its face. Sure, it would be nice in theory, but both the Deck and the Gabecube are very niche devices.

[–] definitemaybe@lemmy.ca 1 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

I think you misunderstood my comment; if the XBox 5 is no longer a console (because Microsoft can't compete with the PS6) and is instead a Windows gaming PC, then it no longer has any purpose in the market: the PS6 will have exclusives, and the Gabecube will be a better gaming PC (since SteamOS outperforms Windows 11... and Steam is better than Windows Store, for that matter.)

[–] DdCno1@beehaw.org 1 points 3 hours ago

Sure, I don't think the Xbox 5 will be a success, but it's highly likely it'll still ship far more units than the Gabecube, simply because Microsoft is able to shift more units as a larger organization with more presence everywhere (including in the retail space and online stores other than their own).

The difference is that for an organization the size and bloat of Microsoft, numbers that would make Gabe happy would be disastrous for them.

No consumer actually cares about minute differences in performance (or other aspects) between different operating systems and platforms. People buy the platform that has the games and meaningful features they seek, like for example portability, Nintendo's second-strongest pull after their IPs. Microsoft is hastily trying to claw back their exclusives after a disastrous abandonment of this strategy, which sent margins down the drain. Yes, this will mean that they'll continue serving the PC, so you can play most of their games on Valve's devices or any other gaming PC as well, but once more: Normal people buy what's on the front page on Amazon or on the most illuminated shelf at their local store.

The overwhelming majority don't even configure their task bar, for crying out loud. Seeing an unmodified one with the big useless search box, spam widget, applications they are never using is one of the quickest reliable indicators that someone is not a tech person.