Microsoft Demands 30% Profit Margins from Struggling Xbox Division (bloomberg.com)
- Reference: 0179856460
- News link: https://games.slashdot.org/story/25/10/23/122257/microsoft-demands-30-profit-margins-from-struggling-xbox-division
- Source link: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-10-23/microsoft-pushes-xbox-studios-to-hit-higher-profit-margins
The division has responded by canceling several projects that had been in development for more than seven years, including Everwild, Perfect Dark and Project Blackbird. It has also eliminated thousands of jobs and raised prices. In 2024, Xbox began releasing most of its games on rival Nintendo and Sony platforms. The heightened scrutiny comes as Microsoft prioritizes investment in generative AI while overseeing a gaming division that has struggled despite spending $76.5 billion on acquisitions.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-10-23/microsoft-pushes-xbox-studios-to-hit-higher-profit-margins
Is that why (Score:2)
Is that why they are putting prices up on everything across the board? I don't think that will work out to well.
Re: (Score:2)
it works for Apple.
Re: Is that why (Score:2)
Other companies do sell hardware with everything soldered, but they also sell hardware which is not like that, like apple USED to do. Claiming they are the same is nonsense.
Re: (Score:2)
When I got my newest Thinkpad, I immediately took it apart and swapped out the 16GB RAM and 250GB drive it shipped with and replaced them with 96GB RAM and a pair of 4TB drives, which cost me a total of around $600 over the ~$1700 I spent on the laptop. Apple wants US$7200 to get a laptop with 128GB RAM and 8TB of internal storage.
I'll take Lenovo's construction, input devices and global support every day of the week over what Apple offers. I've certainly never had to argue with Lenovo over how I'd prefer t
Re: (Score:2)
That's kind of scary when you think about it. Corporations are abandoning the general consumer in favor of the top 10% or so.
Even for something as simple as entertainment it's becoming unobtainable. TVs are still cheap but I can't imagine that'll last forever.
There was a guy who runs casinos in Las Vegas commenting on why Las Vegas seemed so empty and he said that it didn't matter because he can make more off of one high roller dropping $2 million dollars on a gambling spree then all the middle clas
AInflation (Score:2)
Big tech has decreed: their pet robots must be fed.
And some one has to pay for that. Hah, of course that's you.
Power is most obvious, but they will extract the cost of the robots from their customers whether they use them or not. (But please use them. Did you know they get horny now?)
And their customers need to pay that bill. And you may as well use that horny robot you're paying for... No, I meant fire your CS and make your customers talk to it.
So now you get to pay more in order to have a frustrati
it goes without saying that Microsoft is hardly... (Score:2)
making it. they need a lot more zeros in their bank accounts. Man they're failing left and right. why don't they just arbitrarily say everyone in every department has to make 100% profits? I guess they're not really committed to maximizing revenue streams? I mean are they really committed to dynamic manipulative algorithmic driven capitalism? I have my doubts! obviously they need to stop doing more good things for the user and do a lot more bad things that make money in the short term.
Re: (Score:2)
> China is gonna eat America's lunch.
100% correct. The country is too busy worrying about a trans person using the bathroom. I'll leave you with a quote from Lyndon Johnson.
“If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.”
Re: or conversely (Score:2)
"Bill Clinton at least got the family leave act passed."
He also signed the TCA which brought us the dominance of Fox and Sinclair. And also the welfare reform act that brought us the work requirement for SNAP. Fuck that fucking fuck.
Re: (Score:2)
And Democrats have clung to that advance and double and tripled down on that exact race baiting strategy in every election and political era since.
A good example of why they should never be tolerated in polite company.
Re: (Score:2)
is already doing that
for USA, profits above all, even if it cost quality or market share
for China, build a stable market is above all (ie: can run without or low profits for long time, as long as it growing or have constant demand, profits can come later when there is less competition), cheap low quality was the beginning, they slowly are getting higher quality and getting more market
unless the company goal returns to be happy customers, leaving behind the goal of happy shareholders and stock market, USA wi
Re: (Score:1)
When you financialize your entire economy, you end up with piles of money but no actual economy.
China was heading that way but Xi jailed a few oligarchs and reduced the power of the financial mafia. That can't happen in America because the oligarchs own all the politicians.
It's time. (Score:3)
Don't pay them to enshittify your time. Put away the game.
Read a book.
Go outside.
Talk to your significant other.
Cook a meal.
Live!
Re: (Score:1)
Love your sig line -- somehow appropriate for this topic & thread.
The comment was good too. :)
Singular Response (Score:2)
There's but one response to a 50% profit increase demand: Enshitify your app. Coming soon to your XBox.
Prepare to be monetized! (Score:2)
Gachas and loot chests and cosmetics, oh my!
More blood for the Blood God (Score:1)
It's never enough for any of these people.
this is from the OKR book (Score:2)
One more recent text in the big tech religion is Measure What Matters by John Doerr.
One thing the book tells you to do is set goals high enough that getting 70% of the way there is still success. So.. if xbox is already has a 21% profit margin, the OKR methodology of the book would tell you to set your goal at 30%.
They can demand all they want (Score:2)
Customers will respond appropriately
Why not 100% (Score:1)
Capitalism demands infinite growth
The CEO of Microsoft (Score:2)
Has been trying to kill the gaming division since he got on.
Gaming is a high risk high reward division. The razor blade model where you sell the console with a huge loss to make it back up in platform fees means that if you get your clock cleaned for a generation you lose billions.
The holy Grail is of course what steam has where you don't have to sell the hardware at a loss but you still get the 30%.
Steam though goes out of its way to promote games and not just a big ones that grease their pocket
not pd... (Score:1)
they canceled perfect dark???? i will never buy another xbox product again in my life i wish nintendo had never sold rare can you imagine if nintendo still had rare how many incredible games could have been made????? instead of slop like viva pinata and the kinect games...
Don't tariffs cause all price inreases? (Score:2)
Didn't slashdot commenters tell me all gaming console price increases were tariff-caused, given the history of the industry?
Are prices much more influenced by noisy management decisions and noisy government policies than simple supply and demand, as mainstream economists would have you believe?
Re: (Score:3)
I work for a small electronics company and every day we're adjusting customer prices due to tariffs as they shift like the wind. Hell it affects me on the hobbyist level if I buy components for my projects. Once in a while at the grocery store I would buy a chocolate bar from a local chocolate company. This past Sunday I saw the price had risen to $5.99 for one bar! Last year they were $2.99. That's going to kill a small business.
Re: (Score:2)
That is the point. Long term de-globalization has to change the mix of products on the shelf. Maybe the answer is they should start selling 'white-chocolate' or some other candy flavored with some form of domestic produce (creating domestic jobs down the line) instead of insisting on selling expensive imports!
If champagne grapes don't grow in your region, switching to sparkling apple cider, is kinda the point here. Being recalcitrant and "saying see see muh chocolate bar costs more this isn't working," is
Re: Don't tariffs cause all price inreases? (Score:2)
Why would you drink cider if you want sparkling wine? If your criteria is that you want a yellow drink with bubbles, fine, but that also doesnâ(TM)t sound like your average champagne drinker either.
Itâ(TM)s like expecting somebody who wants a BMW will be happy with a Ford instead. Theyâ(TM)re more likely to just delay the purchase of the Beamer until they can afford it, and also have less money to spend in the local economy.
Re: (Score:2)
> If champagne grapes don't grow in your region, switching to sparkling apple cider, is kinda the point here. Being recalcitrant and "saying see see muh chocolate bar costs more this isn't working," is rather missing the point entirely.
[pedantic] Champagne is not a type of grape, it is a very specific region of France. Champagne as you're thinking of, is a sparkling wine only made in the aforementioned region, typically made with pinot noir, pinot meunier, and chardonnay grapes as the primary grape and various yeasts giving it its specific bubbles. So if a sparkling wine comes from anywhere other than Champagne, France, it is not champagne, merely sparkling wine. [/pendantic]
Re: (Score:1)
Good Sir,
I must take quill to paper in protest of this new enthusiasm for walls, duties, and the narrowing of our markets under the noble banner of "domestic virtue." Shall we, who once tossed tea into the harbor rather than pay a petty tax upon it, now chain our own merchants to the dock and call it patriotism?
Commerce, like Liberty herself, thrives upon the free winds. To bind her with tariffs and decrees is to suffocate the very enterprise that made our Republic flourish. What folly to think that prosper
Right now yeah they do (Score:2)
The majority of tariff costs have not been passed on the consumers, companies have been eating them. American companies not foreign companies.
There's two reasons for this. First Trump's national sales tax was anticipated and companies bought up supply in advance. They have run out of that supply and Christmas is going to be very very expensive. Not just toys but everything. Because Trump put a sales tax on all the things you buy and all the things that companies you do business with by.
Now that the
Re: (Score:2)
> Currently all of the inflation above 2% is caused by Trump's tariffs though. And if it wasn't for Trump we would be in for a solid economy for the next 4 years.
Yes a solid economy the provides the aggressively short sighted like yourself with bread and circus while American wealth continues to outflow to foreign shores along with the last remnants of the means of production that build that wealth in the first place.
The rich with continue to get richer while the former middle class waits in line for their state-sponsored medical exchange and block of government cheese.
Re: (Score:2)
I can't read the paywalled article, but the summary doesn't say anything about raising prices. What it does talk about is reducing costs by cutting languishing projects. For games to be in development for 7+ years is no way to run a business.
Re: (Score:2)
"It has also eliminated thousands of jobs and raised prices."
From the summary. And from the enormous counter-reaction to all the raised prices, of games, consoles and gamepasses.
One of the best selling games in recent history, which has made its developers very, very, rich, was first announced six years ago, meaning development had already been ongoing at that point. Hollow Knight Silksong. Evidently, making excellent games is a great way to run a business, even if it takes seven years.