Sony PlayStation 'Regrettably Outspends Us', Says Xbox EMEA Marketing Boss

Ignorant me, not having sympathy for the company acquiring worlds biggest publisher for 70 billion, crying about budget issues now.

We’re not blessed with huge media budgets

Interesting, so being part of a trillion dollar corporation is actually more of curse when it comes to media budgets?

I wonder if Microsoft has any human staff running the gaming division or they just handed over duties to copilot.... can't make it out anymore 🤦‍♂️.

@WhiteRabbit

Copilot is an AI, the I in AI stands for intelligence

Without going to much into semantics, it's clear their I has some serious shortcomings....perhaps they should try Bard or Gemini from Google or as a last resort Sophy from Sony😁.

I kind of get this. MS also stopped throwing money at exclusives at some point but I believe it all has to do with the amounts Game Pass needs. As soon as Mobile & Cloud will get from the ground (+ paid off ABK for a big part), things could change, but first, Cloud needs to be on par with GeForce Now!

Either the big boys and girls at Microsoft somehow believe that they can get away with not marketing the Xbox and still have the console be successful (they cannot), or they simply don't care about the success of their gaming divisions, which is funny considering I believe I saw statistics showing that gaming was like their third most profitable division or something like that. Not going to pretend like I, some random guy, knows more about how Microsoft's business should be run than Microsoft themselves, but something doesn't quite add up here to me, as it almost feels like they are deliberately throwing away opportunities to increase profit, which is wild after you complete a $70 billion acquisition in your gaming division.

Microsoft just don’t care about the rest of the world.

Raffles mainly for the US, perks often for US only. Less advertising, less presence.

@Sol4ris being a Multi-trillion dollar company doesn't mean they should or will be throwing 'money' at something if it doesn't see 'returns/benefits' from that.

You also have to consider the Revenue stream of a Project and returns. If you can spend 100m on Advertising because you may sell another couple of million games to your 'Massive' user base that will result in a 'net' gain, that's very different from not having a '100m' budget to spend on Advertising because the 'bulk' of your audience will be playing on a Subscription Service, that spending 100m won't see a 'significant' increase in Game Sales to cover those costs.

As for Hardware, its already clear you don't 'need' to buy a Xbox Console to play Xbox games. Cloud may not have the infrastructure or 'quality' to match the Hardware experience - but it is 'cheap' and maybe good enough for the MANY casuals or budget strapped gamers. Its still better than MANY games were on an N64 or OG Xbox, more consistent and higher res. Also likely to have just as much input lag as playing on 'Old' TV's with 40ms+ input lag in 'Game Mode' - likely a LOT more Lag in 'movie' mode.

Of course compared to a Series S, its not great - but if you have a Gaming PC, even an older RTX 2080 PC, you don't need to buy an Xbox either as that can out-perform a Series S - so why buy an Xbox. If the 'majority' are either choosing to play on Cloud and/or PC, then why keep trying to push them to buy a Console? Those on 'Cloud' may well choose to buy a Console as an upgrade but may also choose a PC (inc Handhelds) instead...

That scrappy, underdog trillion dollar corporation. What a heart warming story that they get to compete at all

Maybe they should have lowered the ActiBlizz purchase price and threw a few more million towards…I dunno…advertising or making some more compelling exclusive games that might drive sales.

Maybe.

It's so bizarre. It's always felt like they've had one hand tied behind their back in Europe. They absolutely can and should be competing in traditional marketing methods with Sony, that's how you get in the general public consciousness. All of these newer forms of targeted and online marketing do not make the same type of dent in that respect.

Case and point is how many people around Europe aren't really aware of Game Pass and what it is. It's so strange to see talk of Xbox potentially getting more hands-off in Europe, as though they actually tried at any point over the last generation or two to raise their profile in meaningful ways.

What a cock up of a company Microsoft have been with the series consoles and games pass and cloud gaming.
No wonder they hardly sell much and get noticed in UK and Europe nowadays.

The more than comes out about Microsoft and gaming, I’m glad I switch a few weeks ago to PS5 as my main console and eco system.
Along with my Switch as well.

When our pets get ill and past repair we can put them down sadly. Maybe we should take this stance with Microsoft console gaming and get it over with.

@WhiteRabbit

Touché, my fellow observer and well played 👍....I don't even mind the rubber- banding 😉.

@BAMozzy

I can see merit in the points you make, but it's almost incredulous to read someone from Microsoft candidly pointing out how they have a smaller advertising budget than the competition. Especially when taking scale into consideration.

@OldGamer999

When our pets get ill and past repair we can put them down sadly. Maybe we should take this stance with Microsoft console gaming and get it over with

I see it more like Microsoft being terrible about animal welfare, rather than something being wrong with Xbox (to use your analogy).

Well, to be honest, the marketing of Microsoft is bad in general. I’m missing their ‘story’. Playstation is sports, super heroes and adult arpg’s, Nintendo is family friendly and a boat load of nostalgia. What is Microsoft selling? Just feels to me they’re making ‘corporate games’ without that bit of a soul currently. Just feels they want to get the games out the door without any shbam or hearth.

Also: What would make me buy a console when there’s an add for the firestick ‘play without a console’? And what would make me want to buy a game when it’s in development for years, being shown for years, but the final product is not marketed in the last months and does not hold any secrets anymore?

Microsoft is horrible at marketing, and i don’t see that as a budget issue only.

What a load of crock to excuse them being terrible at something. There is no world where the company that buys out publishers like a kid in a sweet ship is also the scrappy underdog who just needs a break.

This is just a pity statement to excuse there own poor decisions.

@Sol4ris
Perhaps one us should contact the RSPCA
Hopefully they can sort Microsoft out.

@OldGamer999

If only mate. And if they can't sort Microsoft out, they should just take Xbox off their hands and give it to Apple, Samsung or Google. Maybe even Amazon😁...

@BHPM Microsoft hasn't cared about xbox in a long time. They'll be perfectly happy to sit back and rake in the COD and Minecraft money. Once they turn a profit on their investment, they're out. I wouldn't be surprised if there IS no next console.

@Sol4ris Again though, their Gaming division has to be 'Profitable' too. It will have an 'operating' budget based on revenue and if they are still selling some hardware at a 'Loss' (or at least not making money), they aren't going to eat into that 'operational' budget with Marketing too.

If gaming is losing 100m every year for example, then how can they justify spending 100m on advertising. Instead of spending money on TV or billboard Adverts, they are likely spending their 'budget' on Shows (like SGS, Gamescom etc) with games like CoD now as a 'Xbox' game and will be revealed by 'Xbox', along with games like Indiana Jones, Blade and the rest of their Games

Even if you 'don't' need an Xbox, those games will be associated with Xbox and will get 'gamers' eyes on 'Xbox' shows etc. Even if CoD s coming to their PS5's, those gamers may also be 'tempted' to buy a Subscription or even a Series S to play the games not coming to their platform...

Sony's Gaming division is also run differently - they aren't giving away their games Day 1 on a Sub service and have a much larger 'console' base to sell games to. If you have 100m consoles on the market, that's 100m possible $70 sales, so 100m more on Advertising may make sense for Sony but for MS with far fewer and many of those won't be spending $70 on the game, it doesn't make sense.

It could be the difference between why Sony won't offer Day 1 - because with their Advertising budgets, its NOT sustainable. If MS have to cut back on their Advertising to ensure that their gaming division is Sustainable, then I'd rather that than get fed up pouring money into Gaming only to decide its not 'profitable' to continue losing money on...

@armondo36 Hard to say, hard to say. But for sure, it's clear that Microsoft doesn't particularly care about Xbox all that much, which is strange considering all of the major acquisitions that have happened, as well as the fact that I believe official data has shown that Xbox is quite profitable. I would think that Microsoft would care more about a division which makes them a good amount of money (in fact last I checked, gaming makes more money for MS than Windows), but here we are...

@BHPM I think it's their THIRD largest division! I don't get it either. It seems to come from Nadella, who was about to shut xbox down entirely in 2017. If it were entirely up to him, they'd walk away today.

@BAMozzy sonys marketing budget has nothing to do with what they put on a sub service.

Spending 200m on a game, then dropping it on a sub service is just not financially sustainable or viable for Sony. They haven’t got the capital. The amount of sub increases required to make that money back is not achievable.

Xbox don’t advertise and look what is happening sales dropping all over. So no advertisement is actively harming them more than the competition. Subs aren’t growing either.

What you have talked about is just made up nonsense. Proved by real world evidence.

If we objectively analyze Microsoft products, XboxSeries is much better than PS5, it has two models, one is the most powerful console and the other the cheapest, they have a smaller and more efficient design, it has Gamepass, a much superior service, the user It has been treated with more care, with proposals like PlayAnywhere, SmartDelivery... or functions like QuickResume... even recently the first party catalog is much better on Xbox.

Xbox Series X/S should really be a big problem for Playstation, it is much more competitive in many ways. However, sales do not reflect this, something has obviously been done wrong.

Apart from the cultural heritage that names like Playstation or Nintendo may have, which Xbox cannot match at the moment. The other big element we have left is marketing, something has not gone well here. Either there has not been enough budget, or it has not been invested efficiently.

But I think that in general the problem is that Microsoft leaves its consoles out of focus, this allows them to build their ecosystem without depending on the sales of a specific type of hardware. But for those of us who use an Xbox it generates lights and shadows, we have a great console that is part of a great ecosystem, with many great games and incredible service, but at the same time it feels wasted, with multiplatforms that prioritize their launch on other machines and without exclusive games that take advantage of the hardware.

All the talk about MS not 'focussing' on Consoles specifically maybe are forgetting that isn't the ONLY 'Microsoft' Platform. With Sony, they ONLY have their Playstation as their Platform and whilst PC maybe an 'Open' Platform, its still a Microsoft Platform too, just like their Cloud platform is theirs too.

PC gamers are also MS customers and probably aren't interested in selling a Console to their 'PC' Customers but Sony want PC gamers buying a Console instead of waiting for games to come to PC. If you'd rather play on Cloud or a Handheld PC, then they aren't bothered whether you buy a 'console', you are already in the 'ecosystem'.

The big difference between Sony/Nintendo and Microsoft is that for Sony/Nintendo, their platform is 'just' the Console so it is their ONLY focus, but MS have multiple Platforms where the console is just an option that might not be the 'best' option for every gamer. With Sony, the PS5 is the 'only' option if you want to play Wolverine when it launches but if you don't 'need' a Series S/X to play Indiana Jones - its an option!

@BAMozzy great it’s an option to play anywhere (yet we know from data that people just aren’t because subs etc are not growing.)

How many casuals know play anywhere is an option? How many parents who aren’t necessarily tech savvy know a fire stick can play Xbox games?

Very few will.

Guess why? Oh yes no advertisements about it. No ads for game pass etc. unless you read gaming sites you just won’t know.

Wouldn’t you know, another day, another disappointing news for Xbox fans.

Absolute garbage reply from Xbox exec after spending $70 billion dollars and many more on acquisition. Shut the frick up and beg ms for money instead of crying on the net.

So they can find $70B to buy ABK, but they can't afford some ad space during the olympics?

Maybe they should ask Copilot how to do it.

@Cikajovazmaj yeah pretty ignorant to say that it’s Microsoft “crying” over marketing budgets when it’s actually the EMEA head of marketing for Xbox making the point that Microsoft aren’t allocating sufficient funds to be competitive with Sony. This man has absolutely nothing to do with mergers and acquisitions or fund allocations and is perfectly within his rights to “cry” over marketing budgets.

If the Xbox division was being run by someone who was deliberately trying to lose the company as much money, mind share, and good will as possible, I think they'd still struggle to outperform the people currently calling the shots.

@Neither_scene you got that other way around, it's Xbox head of marketing for EMEA, aka. MS/Xbox employee overseeing the region of Europe, Asia and the Middle East. That means in public situations he is representing MS.
It is a part of this man's job to present a case for securing the funding for his region. If amount isn't sufficient it is either due to case not being persuasive enough, or MS actually not being able to fund it.
I bet you it's not the latter

What a load of horse 💩 from Microsoft. Again.

@Cikajovazmaj I’m not really understanding what you’re saying. Your initial post was:

“Ignorant me, not having sympathy for the company acquiring worlds biggest publisher for 70 billion, crying about budget issues now.”

Were you saying the Microsoft are crying over the budget issues? Or were you saying that this guy effectively made his bed in choosing to acquire ActiBlizz and therefore the budget restrictions are his fault and you can’t be sympathetic?

Either way, I’m confused.

This imo is a man heading a department that is underfunded by a company that is clearly unwilling to invest in growing Xbox outside of the US. A company, that as of now, seems completely bullish in their new approach and appears to be operating at the whims of its shareholders rather than workers.

I 100% have sympathy for anyone working within Xbox’s EMEA division right now because Microsoft are effectively handicapping them from performing their roles effectively. Especially given, as you pointed out, that they’re not short on capital.

Jim Ryan wasn't lyin' when he referred to Europe as Fortress Playstation.

3 TRILLION DOLLAR market cap company: "They’re blessed [PlayStation] with marketing funds that we’re just not able to enjoy. But that’s totally fine. We adopt what I would call a more fiscally responsible approach to media investments.

We’re not blessed with huge media budgets, so we have to be quite scrappy really, and quite tenacious to fight for funds that would probably go somewhere else,"

Yeah...Ok...right.

Its an astonishing admission. Its also a sign that they've simply given up in some territories, which is a shame..

It’s is sad really that Xbox went from those amazing xbox360 days to this, a bit of a muddled confused mess sending out all sorts of misleading and uncertain messages.

I’m no super business man at all, well not at the level of Microsoft anyway.

But I think they are actually doing what they want to do from a business perspective. I think it’s all intentional and creating confusion and uncertainty in their product is definitely deliberate.

If it’s not that then god knows what the high ups and management structure at Microsoft Xbox are doing, apart from creating a disastrous job of it all.

@OldGamer999 unfortunately I’ve mained my PS5 and Xbox has been sold. I’ve still got GP until April and game on PC. Just got Forza Horizon 4 ultimate on Xbox app for £1.50 after £7 vouchers.
“you don’t need an Xbox to enjoy Xbox.” They were right.
Sad times I’m not going to lie but won’t and can’t be putting £££ into 3rd party games into the Xbox as they are pulling out of the UK and Europe console wise 100%. It’s genuinely sad.

@NEStalgia amazing comment as always!

The only thing I'll give MS here is that, while they're quite clueless in refusing to actually market their products as though they learned nothing from WiiU, I'll grant them that Sony's got it equally wrong. They seem to spend more money marketing things than making things, and their "brand" is built more on their piles of money being used to brainwash people into blindly buying their brand than actually putting everything into their products, then making the consumer pay more to fund it. (300M for Spiderman 2 was not just money spent making the game.....the $10 price hike paid for more marketing.)

There's really got to be a happy medium between hoping "if you build it they will come" from MS and "Pay everyone to believe they have to have it now. Build it later. Then send the buyers the invoice for the marketing." of Sony. They're both opposite sides of the same coin.

@Ralizah I really don't know how people who are so clueless about their market can somehow mange to make so much money. I really don't understand how their brains process information over there.

@OldGamer999 If you haven't yet just do a deep dive on the media poopstorm around Windows Copilot Recall. It's not intentionally. They're really just this incompetent. In every division. Even their most important one. I do not understand how they're rich.

@NEStalgia Let’s be honest, most rumours have been right. MS are too slow at controlling the narrative and poor PR alongside no marketing. Xbox as a console is dead. That may be OK long term. They could be a fantastic publisher and those who just game PC probably don’t care. This whole one toe in the water and four out is killing Xbox. It’s a s*** show every month and with studio closures and lay offs it’s tedious.
I said to everyone who mocked the CMA, be careful. Who was right?
I agree with you Sony are the Trump of gaming. It’s a cult. But it’s years of investment to brainwash us all. In the UK COD and FIFA/FC ARE PlayStation.

@x3King84
Yep totally get you and that’s almost exactly what I have done.
Nos what will happen third party developers etc will be less inclined to develop for Xbox consoles as more and more of us leave Xbox consoles and call it a day and a bad experience.

@x3King84 "Let’s be honest, most rumours have been right."

I wouldn't say that — the media and general internet denizens are manufacturing rumors incessantly. Some of them have to be true.

@NEStalgia
Wow didn’t know Microsoft were that bad and in other departments as well.

They are to rich and big for their own good and obviously can afford these terrible and costly mistakes easily.

In normal company world they would all get the sack for incompetence.

@x3King84 I feel like it doesn't take much skill for the rumors to be right, if there's a way for MS to damage their brand, they'll find it. If there's not a way, they'll create one that didn't exist before.

The really sad thing is they make a good product and then don't support it, don't market it, and then don't seem to care, they just let it float out there half alive and consider it good enough while they focus on something else. MS always seems to make a great product, but then lets it wither on the vine until it's forgotten. Zune, Winphone, they always have a good platform they just let dry out.

And it's made all the worse that PS is the alternative where the popularity isn't because it's a great product, but simply because it's already popular and manages to not become a bad product.

Microsoft is good in building great quality stuff. But they are bad at the marketing, sometimes it feels like they just dont care.

Migrating from Xbox to PlayStation is like changing tacos for burritos trying to leave mexican food.

What's so frustrating is there is so much overlap this gen and as such Microsoft should have a larger mindshare than they do...but they don't. If it wasn't for purexbox I wouldn't know what was coming out on xbox, (I just assume what is coming to Playstation with the exception of anime games will show up on xbox eventually). I don't even like playstation. I can keep up with their new games more easily.

But one issue imo is time exclusives. MS has enough money to combat that on the sony side. I get why Nintendo doesn't bother and takes what it can get, but MS should really not be getting games a year or two late. That being said, the practice has trained me to not buy games new for either Playstation or Xbox until at least a year and a half later, so mission accomplished?

That being said the lack of marketing budget does make sense. MS isn’t an entertainment company. Xbox is les about games and more about spreading MS products to homes after windows.

What they need is a corporate rebranding for Xbox. My suggestion is to move the corporate headquarters of Xbox outside of the US to Canada. Vancouver or Toronto would make nice places to operate from. Then suddenly Xbox is a Canadian company. Might give the Xbox the boost it needs. London Ontario would also be a good place for a corporate headquarters.

As I said, on PushSquare, cry me a river! Nobody feels sorry for you.

theyre not wrong though most of the time you never hear about anything released on xbox till it turns up on just released on gamepass

@Utena-mobile @Pabpictu have you seen their insta ads? They are the most cringe thing you can imagine.... honestly I just think their marketing team really doesn't understand their audience

Microsoft doesn't have any excuses to have a small marketing budget in any region, imo.

@Rodimusprime13 No need to export American jobs.

@Pabpictu the xbox line isn’t objectively better. If it was it certainly would be outselling PlayStation but that isn’t the case. Estimates put it at a 3:1 ratio for this generation so far. The reason Xbox is failing is because people by a specific console for its exclusives. That is the major factor is every purchase decision. Xbox just hasn’t had any console selling exclusives since the 360 days which allowed it to coast during the XB1 era. Now consumers are realizing there isn’t a reason to buy an Xbox anymore over a PlayStation or PC because they can play all the best games on Xbox as they are 3rd party as well as having their own acclaimed exclusives. Microsoft has three options going forward. First is to focus on making excellent exclusives by figuring out what the hell is going wrong with their current run of first party games so people have to buy an Xbox. Second is go back on their word and make their newly acquired Activision titles Xbox only in order to make people buy Xboxes but this would certainly have major consequences as the FTC is still fighting the merger since this would prove them trying to be a monopoly. Third just drop out of the console space entirely and go the way of Sega by becoming only a video game developer/publisher. This last point could also be bad as unless Nintendo starts making consoles on par with PlayStation and Xbox in terms of power this would give Sony a monopoly in the console market and no monopoly is good for consumers. Best case scenario for everyone is the first option is just to make better games.

I cant believe Microsoft dont believe in marketing. Lol.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner I've lived in the US for 14 years and have never seen a single Xbox advertisement as far as I can remember. That said, I don't have cable TV and make a point of skipping or muting adverts on streaming platforms (have you seen American adverts? 🤮). PlayStation is very visible, especially when new exclusives come out, Holiday seasons begin or during things like Champions League Football broadcasts which are becoming ever more popular here like the Premier League. Xbox marketing or the lack thereof is truly baffling - everywhere.

@Utena-mobile Being 'old' I didn't even think of this but you have a good point!

@WhiteRabbit
First, they are a 3 trillion dollar company.

Second, I would rather they spend on games then on marketing. Sony has released pretty much nothing new from their first party studios this generation. All games to date have been evolutionary releases on existing game engines. They are marketing well, but they are really lacking new and truly next gen games from their biggest studios. Microsoft is not exactly lighting up the generation yet either but at least their studios are releasing new games that are on heavily updated or new engines.

@WhiteRabbit
I do agree that 60 fps or more is a great target. But this is a choice by game developers. Consoles keep getting faster and faster. Next generation 60 fps will be a given probably in every game. This generation it is still a trade off the developers make.

People act as though 30 fps is garbage. Less than 10 years ago 30 fps was pretty much all that could be done in a AAA game.

Yes, I have Returnal and I enjoyed playing through the game, very repetitive but a real great gameplay experience. Astro Bot looks like it will be cute and fun, but appears void of any great story.

Yes, there is more to games than visuals. To me, it is the whole game experience. Controls, gameplay, sound, visuals, story, etc. I have yet to play any game on any platform this generation that has combined all those elements into a near perfect game. To me, every game has come up short in one aspect or another as the generation has unfolded.