Thrown Under the Bus: XBox Consoles
Two weeks ago: It Looks Like Microsoft is Really Abandoning XBox (the Brand "XBox" Means Just an Online "Games Store" or Streaming)
Instead of talking about XBox sales now they talk about streaming ("cloud"):
Correct! It also says: "It's been a rocky year all round for the company. In July, amid layoffs that swept through Xbox, the founder of Microsoft-owned Arkane Studios hit out at Game Pass, calling the subscription model “unsustainable.” Raphael Colantonio, who founded the Dishonored and Prey developer and served as its president before leaving in 2017 to start Weird West maker WolfEye Studios, took to social media to ask: “Why is no-one talking about the elephant in the room? Cough cough (Gamepass).”
"The cost of being an Xbox fan has also been a hot topic this year. After announcing a jump to $80 for its games due out this holiday, Microsoft backtracked to stick with $70 for the likes of The Outer Worlds 2. It also raised the price of Xbox consoles in the U.S. not once but twice, blaming "changes in the macroeconomic environment." Microsoft similarly raised eyebrows when it confirmed a $999.99 price tag for the ROG Xbox Ally X handheld, and $599.99 for the ROG Xbox Ally."
It is a very slow weekend for news, owning to (for the most part) US holidays. News in English is scarce and has been hard to find since Wednesday or thereabouts. We've begun putting up decorations for Christmas, seeing it would be a good way to pass time.
Companies like HP and Apple used the holiday calm to 'offload' news about mass layoffs and Microsoft put out there some "dirty laundry". It spoke of Gamepass 'Cloud Hours', but hidden in the details... information about actual XBox performance. See, XBox as a console business seems dead, prices have gone up (50% price hike isn't "due to inflation", it's an order of magnitude higher than already-high inflation rates), and we can expect many more layoffs, probably in January before the "results" in late January. █