This is an overly rosy view of Microsoft's moat (and acumen) IMHO.
For one, Microsoft completely missed out on the mobile revolution.
For another, look at Mixer. This was there attempt to clone Twitch. They threw a bunch of money at it and quickly gave up. To me this was insane. Streaming has shown to be great marketing for games and I never thought they'd give up so quickly and right before the new Xbox launch.
Imagine if Mixer streamers had early access to the new console and titles? And drops? Viewers absolutely love drops.
What if the Xbox Game Pass included a Mixer sub like Amazon Prime does with Twitch Prime?
To me this just showed they have absolutely no idea what they're doing.
I mean, look at how much money they've thrown at Bing.
I think "the mobile revolution" is a joke and never materialized. 95+% of mobile games are unoriginal clones with layers of mechanisms to reduce fun unless the user pays. People who enjoy games have largely abandoned mobile, save a handful of decent titles that were ported from other platforms.
Mobile-first gamers are: people (mostly kids) who are so naive about games they will accept garbage (or cant afford a better gaming system) and whales who enjoy spending large amounts of money to move up the leaderboards.
Mobile gaming C-level's loved talking about the mobile revolution for a decade, but I really think it was all optimistic nonsense in service of their fundraising.
I don't think they meant just in terms of gaming, but the mobile revolution in terms of how smartphones took over the world and Microsoft missed the boat.
Ah, that's fair. I was working on a service ancillary to the gaming industry during the big hype, so I mostly associate the term with the push toward mobile games. Definitely valid outside gaming.
(Simplistically) Business people think about money, gamers and ground level game developers think about games. The "mobile revolution" as told by C-level executives was about the former, and it's been a screaming success.
Mobile games were never going to replace more traditional games because it's a totally different market, but companies don't really care about that anyway - they might not have /understood/ that mobile games were never going to supplant traditional console and PC gaming, but they didn't need to because they made fistfuls of cash anyway.
Mobile gaming is mostly crap, sure, but it is still quite profitable. I think the parent was referring to having a successful mobile platform like Google or Apple so that Microsoft could skim their commission off all those mobile games.
I don't know about that. They gave it like four years and spent a lot of money promoting it and it was still microscopic. They could have tried other things, but if Ninja couldn't draw viewers, do you really think a bunch of obscure streamers nobody watches having drops would have made a bigger difference? At some point you have to stop throwing good money after bad.
Ninja just recently [0] talked about why he thinks Mixer failed and it was not due to its potential.
He specifically mentioned stuff like: needing a hotmail account to register, when you register you had some random name assigned to you and had to go into your profile to change it afterwards, etc. Small stuff basically, but it added up and Microsofts corporate structure prohibited quick adjustments.
Throwing money at Ninja is really an example of poor execution.
What makes Twitch successful is not any one streamer. It's an ecosystem. Raiding is huge on Twitch for streamers supporting other streamers.
You don't build a forest by planting one very large tree. A forest is everything from the tallest tree to the undergrowth.
> do you really think a bunch of obscure streamers nobody watches having drops would have made a bigger difference?
I absolutely do. You see this on Twitch whenever a popular game has drops and the viewer numbers go through the roof. Sure there are a bunch of AFK viewers just wanting the drops but this is a game of numbers. Some are real people. Some will stay.
On the streamer income side, I really don't think you can overestimate how huge of an impact Twitch Prime has on Twitch.
> Throwing money at Ninja is really an example of poor execution.
Really agree with this. They should have been trying to pull as many streamers on the verge of success on twitch as they could (newly qualifying partners mostly) rather than trying to get already established talent to come over for big money.
I do think they also tried this, I knew of some mid-tier streamers who moved over as well, but they probably could have done more. Ninja was clearly a last ditch effort to save the platform rather than a calculated plan.
It is true that on Twitch, when a popular game has drops, the viewer numbers go through the roof. But I don't think you can extrapolate that an unpopular platform could pull viewers away from Twitch by having a bunch of unpopular streamers do drops. You'd probably influence which streamers on Mixer got viewers on Mixer, but would it get people to drop Twitch? I strongly doubt it.
More to the point, no other platform has succeeded here either. Whatever that Facebook streaming thing is is a non-factor, YouTube streams exist but seem to be used primarily as a way for YouTubers to do events rather than a real Twitch competitor, etc. I'm not sure a Twitch competitor can be viable until Twitch does something to drive people away. The network effect is strong.
They tried with the failed Windows phone. I think after that they wanted to stay out and focus on their strengths. Besides this purchase gives them King - of Candy Crush fame. So now they own one of the biggest mobile game devs.
You know there are essentially only two search engines on the internet right? Google and Bing? Microsoft is doing good and cornering market and is helping users forget that DDG and Ecosia and Yahoo are just Bing.
Who is Microsoft "doing good" for? It's not Microsoft shareholders. Bing is a money pit and poorly executed.
Do you know who benefits the most from Bing? Google. Why? Because Bing's (subsidized) existence helps create this illusion that there really is more than one search engine. Google loves that Bing exists because it nicely helps them avoid having to have the monopoly talk.
Interesting. I take that Mixer example as quite the opposite: throwing money at game streamers only really makes sense if they're trying to get yet another point of integration for gamers, no?
I take your word for it that the execution was lacking - and, perhaps, they were never going to win. Perhaps that's why they keep buying other, successful companies.
But it still builds to the same picture: even if they suck as operators, they're building a pretty darn big machine.
Looking from the point of view that most people that actually want to do mobile work are using laptops or hybrid devices like Surface clones, they are doing pretty alright.
Sure they lost the mobile phones, but that market has already plateud, newer Android and iOS versions are only gimmicks for those on 2 year contract renewals to change devices.
Microsoft winning at streaming and mobile would be horizontal integration, not vertical wouldn't it? Neither of those things are part of the "supply chain" of their core gaming business.
For one, Microsoft completely missed out on the mobile revolution.
For another, look at Mixer. This was there attempt to clone Twitch. They threw a bunch of money at it and quickly gave up. To me this was insane. Streaming has shown to be great marketing for games and I never thought they'd give up so quickly and right before the new Xbox launch.
Imagine if Mixer streamers had early access to the new console and titles? And drops? Viewers absolutely love drops.
What if the Xbox Game Pass included a Mixer sub like Amazon Prime does with Twitch Prime?
To me this just showed they have absolutely no idea what they're doing.
I mean, look at how much money they've thrown at Bing.