Zok310
Banned
It’s not about releasing on competing platforms, it’s about getting more players when you are in less platforms
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Phil Spencer Interview with Stephen Totilo - Biggest goal is to reach a larger audience for Xbox Game Studios
- Thread starter James Sawyer Ford
- Start date
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
I mean that's like saying MS is not removing the next 3 CoD games from Sony platforms even if they own Activision.
It may be a totally different situation but no first party studio has any obligation to release games on competing platforms. Hell, MLB is only coming out on other platforms because the MLB organization is forcing Sony's hand on it.
It’s not about releasing on competing platforms, it’s about getting more players when you are in less platforms
You know the entire point of buying studios and releasing exclusives is so you can have more people on your platform right ?
This discussion is borderline asinine now.
Zok310
Banned
THANK YOU!!!!!!!
Got what I wanted.
Hey Adams
, go coach Phil on how to tell the truth..
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SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
a lot cheaper than $80 billion?
$250 million for starfield is a fair price. he could buy the next 32 starfields for that price he paid for zenimax and seeing as how it takes 5-7 years for bethesda to make single player RPGs now, we are looking at 200 years of starfield being on gamepass.
Same with cod. This year's cod sold 3.4 million on all consoles in NA. $250 million is 4+ million sales for Activision. Thats 4 million copies sold on xbox alone. For $70 billion, that gets them the next 28 call of dutys.
It makes no sense to buy activision for that money unless they were planning on this being a killer blow to sony or leverage to put gamepass on Playstation. Everyone knows this but Phil doesnt want to come across as the bad guy so he simply cant admit the truth.
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adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Alright fam, take the W even thought no one's said anything otherwise anywhere lolTHANK YOU!!!!!!!
Got what I wanted.
Hey Adams
LeftThumbstick
Member
Hmmmm.
Something I’ve noticed about Neogaf and the gaming scene in general is that it seems perfectly fine when PlayStation buy times exclusivity or even outright exclusivity on games, especially 3rd party like Final Fantasy or Street Fighter and lock it to PS only because “ThAtS wHy PeOpLe WiLl BuY a Ps!” and under no circumstances will a first party game be seen on Xbox.
But when it comes to Xbox, it’s “ah but they’ll miss out on a bigger audience because no PS! Blasphemy!!!”.
Isn’t that the point though? Have higher quality exclusives and first party means more people will buy an Xbox instead or even switch from PS to Xbox? I know people are going to say “but he said he doesn’t like exclusives” and so on but that’s all PR speak. Every company and CEO will say what they need to to gain an audience, they are not our friends, they want to sell us stuff. Just like Jim Ryan’s “We believe in generations!” Until they dont.
It seems to me that people expect Xbox to play by a different set of rules or it just won’t work. They MUST share their exclusives on PS or it won’t see a bigger audience etc. No, people will buy an Xbox if they start firing out top tier games and that’s how it works, it happened with the 360 and can happen again. For example, if CoD does become exclusive, what happens when the next generation of Xbox launches day one with a new CoD but PS doesnt? You’re going to see a surge of people going Xbox and I’ll openly laugh in the face of anyone who says that wouldn’t happen.
That said, people don’t seem to care about audience size when it comes to Marvel games not being on Xbox or PC.
Something I’ve noticed about Neogaf and the gaming scene in general is that it seems perfectly fine when PlayStation buy times exclusivity or even outright exclusivity on games, especially 3rd party like Final Fantasy or Street Fighter and lock it to PS only because “ThAtS wHy PeOpLe WiLl BuY a Ps!” and under no circumstances will a first party game be seen on Xbox.
But when it comes to Xbox, it’s “ah but they’ll miss out on a bigger audience because no PS! Blasphemy!!!”.
Isn’t that the point though? Have higher quality exclusives and first party means more people will buy an Xbox instead or even switch from PS to Xbox? I know people are going to say “but he said he doesn’t like exclusives” and so on but that’s all PR speak. Every company and CEO will say what they need to to gain an audience, they are not our friends, they want to sell us stuff. Just like Jim Ryan’s “We believe in generations!” Until they dont.
It seems to me that people expect Xbox to play by a different set of rules or it just won’t work. They MUST share their exclusives on PS or it won’t see a bigger audience etc. No, people will buy an Xbox if they start firing out top tier games and that’s how it works, it happened with the 360 and can happen again. For example, if CoD does become exclusive, what happens when the next generation of Xbox launches day one with a new CoD but PS doesnt? You’re going to see a surge of people going Xbox and I’ll openly laugh in the face of anyone who says that wouldn’t happen.
That said, people don’t seem to care about audience size when it comes to Marvel games not being on Xbox or PC.
ethomaz
Banned
I have no ideia what he is trying to say because his replies doesn’t make sense at all.
Are he trying to defy logic?
Ohhhh somebody said in another thread Uncle Phil doesn’t speak English and needs translation… is that interview translated already? That makes more bit more sense.
Are he trying to defy logic?
Ohhhh somebody said in another thread Uncle Phil doesn’t speak English and needs translation… is that interview translated already? That makes more bit more sense.
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Shmunter
Member
The question is - what is the platform. Traditionally the platform has been the console as it was the only avenue into the eco system "Subscription" and sales part thereof.
MS is now potentially touting "gamepass" as being the platform. If Gamepass is not beholden to a proprietary piece of plastic then it's existence on a PlayStation would be entirely desirable for MS. The roadblock in all this is Sony who would much rather get 100% of that revenue rather than only 30%.
One could say, why would MS give 30% to Sony. Well, they and Sony do it on Steam and phones already. 70% of a big Pie is still big.
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adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Exactly, I said the same thing last page but you are right, there's definitely a different sense of approach and commentary when discussing the two companies doing the same things.
James Sawyer Ford
Member
Who is saying that?
But there’s a difference between timed exclusivity of a few games and permanent exclusivity of entire large swaths of studios permanently who used to be third party
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
The platform is game pass and xcloud. clearly Phil thanks that the current places you can play on game pass or X cloud will be sufficient to make starfield one of Todd Howard's most played games, going by the Halo and Forza numbers, I think that's very likely possible.
But again, the issue is why is there such an insistence that Microsoft absolutely need to release the game on PlayStation for it to be a success? We have absolutely no reason to believe that.
And not to beat the horse over the head again, but it's surprising that this point only gets brought up for Microsoft studio games, for example you will never hear this argument being made in the horizon or God of war threads. Why is that I wonder?
Was there a similar amount of clamor from folks demanding that the wolverine game release on Xbox as well? I don't think so.
Edit: I'm using my phone's speech to text to write this response, so apologies for any misspelling or weird words.
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Bernd Lauert
Banned
I now see where the confusion comes from. You guys are stuck talking about sales. Papa Phil is not talking about sales.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Used to. As in not anymore, you've answered your own question.
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I’d expect the opposite.
With Spartacus in the picture, you can expect an even faster race for subscribers. Making games exclusive is one way to grow Gamepass subscribers
LeftThumbstick
Member
What is the difference exactly? I hope you feel the same way about Bungie when the time comes. You know, the massive 3rd party dev that owns Destiny, that massive 3rd party IP Sony now owns.
oldergamer
Member
Its xbox +pc+ every device with a screen or browser - playstation.
Stadia failed as it has an identity problem. It targeted pc gamers that could already afford good hardware. Its too expensive for casuals and not needed by hardcore gamers.
Gamepass only offers cloud options to games that you already have access to in a traditional way. Its not "cloud only". For pc gamers if you have good hardware, download and install. You have crap hardware, stream. That right there is better then other cloud service in market.
Gamepass is targeting all screened devices (mobile, tablet, pc), Streaming sticks. Connected tv devices & Smart tvs. That is a much bigger market then playstation. Even still some games will still target playstation and switch.
Dont be short sighted and just say "mobile"
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I’m surprised your own post passed your ‘sniff test’. Because you’ve clearly misunderstood what this thread is all about. At no time did Spencer say he expects Starfield to sell more as an exclusive.
And what’s this BS about ‘one platform’? It’s coming out day and date on PC.
Well, Sony puts a lot of titles on PlayStation...
Of course I know what you meant, and MLB The Show wants to say hi.
And we are all very thankful for that.
Not you making fun of a native English speaker. C’mon, man.
He’s achieving that goal by putting it on Gamepass.
GhostOfTsu
Banned
"Microsoft Studio games" lol all these games and franchises were multiplatforms for decades until March 2021. You don't change history with a cheque.
Starfield was already deep in development for years with a PS5 version planned. You seriously don't see the difference between that and GOW? Or COD and Horizon?
People don't ask about GOW and Horizon on Xbox because they are not braindead
Dr Bass
Member
That's not an installed base.
So again ... I don't doubt there could be a game pass app on TVs in the future. But that's not the question. That idea also kind of goes against what you're saying.
Back to the question. Do you really believe XCloud is going to bring heretofore undiscovered gamer billions to the fold? All it's gonna take is an app, a (currently) 15 dollar a month subscription and a 60 dollar controller? This is seriously going to get more people into gaming than something like the Switch (think simplicity and fun here)?
I got nothing against you btw, I am not trying to pick on you here and the rest of this post is meant to the forum in general. Clearly your avatar shows you are a person of great taste.
I just don't see the logic behind a lot of this stuff and it also seems to contrary at times. I'll explain below.Again this is only directed to the Xbox-only crowd that seems to think everything MS does is brilliant. Never mind the fact that no matter WHAT you do, all choices entail trade offs. There are opportunity costs to everything, so there is no way any one company is executing in a way that satisfies their base all the time. I can come up with a ton of stuff I would rather Sony or Nintendo be doing than what they are doing. This whole idea of "perfect execution" at MS seems to exist among a small handful of posters here that jump into every one of these topics with mocking tones and thin arguments.
Ok so here goes. What actually matters for MS? Remember when Series X was revealed ... what was the narrative? The most powerful console ever made. How about we go back to the X1X? What was one of the terms they decided to use there? Does "Uncompressed pixels" ring a bell to anyone? (Source) Visual fidelity has been the name of the game, and apparently what gamers want most. Remember the bragging about how the Xbox controller was eliminating latency at the hardware level for super fast, responsive gaming, at a level we have never experienced before? (Source) Ok so we have established that MS pushes their ecosystem based on bad ass visuals, and response gaming. Remember, this is what MS and Xbox gamers are insisting consumers want for "next gen gaming" (notice no emphasis on content).
What is MS getting their die hard clan to state these days? "Streaming is the future."
How in the hell do these two ideas square up with each other? If streaming is the future, why was there a need to engineer such low levels of latency and pack in as much GPU power as possible? Why not just make them all a Series S console since a cheaper price point is more accessible, and if streaming is acceptable clearly you don't need a Series X. Has anyone tried streaming Forza, or Halo Infinite via XCloud? I have. And I have gigabit fiber internet. I've played a bunch of games that way to test it out. It doesn't even come close to looking as sharp as a native console, and even though the gameplay experience when its working well is "not bad", it's certainly not feeling like being directly plugged in. Heck, I can tell when my TV is not on "game mode" and the slight latency drives me nuts. Unfortunately with streaming there are physics involved and it will never ever beat having a console plugged into a TV. And someone is trying to sell me on the idea that this is "the future"? Things are generally meant to improve with time, when it comes to tech. Not offer me worse image quality, and a worse gameplay experience, and then have my game experience hiccups when there is the slightest problem with the network connection. I mean, you can't even stream a movie without it being noticeably worse in both video and audio than a UHD or even a Blu Ray disc sometimes. And people think games are going to be great this way?
So which is it, Xbox-only folks that insist hundreds of millions, or billions, of people are just waiting for some magical moment to jump into gaming via streaming? I thought gamers wanted the best performance on the planet? Or do they just wan't "good enough" now? I mean, we still see constant arguments on this board over PS5 and XSX performance. Once you bring streaming into the picture there, you can throw all of that out the window. The native PS5 game will win against Xbox streaming handily every single time. And why aren't these missing gamers already buying a controller and streaming their games via any one of the devices that already do it? Everyone already has these things you know. Computers, mobile devices, etc. They blanket the planet already. But we live in a world where the Switch just crossed the 100 million mark and the Xbox One consoles never got much past 50 million. Again, where and when does this tidal shift occur?
And all of this time, Sony and Nintendo are not sitting doing nothing ...
Snake29
Banned
That's not an installed base.
So again ... I don't doubt there could be a game pass app on TVs in the future. But that's not the question. That idea also kind of goes against what you're saying.
Back to the question. Do you really believe XCloud is going to bring heretofore undiscovered gamer billions to the fold? All it's gonna take is an app, a (currently) 15 dollar a month subscription and a 60 dollar controller? This is seriously going to get more people into gaming than something like the Switch (think simplicity and fun here)?
I got nothing against you btw, I am not trying to pick on you here and the rest of this post is meant to the forum in general. Clearly your avatar shows you are a person of great taste.
Again this is only directed to the Xbox-only crowd that seems to think everything MS does is brilliant. Never mind the fact that no matter WHAT you do, all choices entail trade offs. There are opportunity costs to everything, so there is no way any one company is executing in a way that satisfies their base all the time. I can come up with a ton of stuff I would rather Sony or Nintendo be doing than what they are doing. This whole idea of "perfect execution" at MS seems to exist among a small handful of posters here that jump into every one of these topics with mocking tones and thin arguments.
Ok so here goes. What actually matters for MS? Remember when Series X was revealed ... what was the narrative? The most powerful console ever made. How about we go back to the X1X? What was one of the terms they decided to use there? Does "Uncompressed pixels" ring a bell to anyone? (Source) Visual fidelity has been the name of the game, and apparently what gamers want most. Remember the bragging about how the Xbox controller was eliminating latency at the hardware level for super fast, responsive gaming, at a level we have never experienced before? (Source) Ok so we have established that MS pushes their ecosystem based on bad ass visuals, and response gaming. Remember, this is what MS and Xbox gamers are insisting consumers want for "next gen gaming" (notice no emphasis on content).
What is MS getting their die hard clan to state these days? "Streaming is the future."
How in the hell do these two ideas square up with each other? If streaming is the future, why was there a need to engineer such low levels of latency and pack in as much GPU power as possible? Why not just make them all a Series S console since a cheaper price point is more accessible, and if streaming is acceptable clearly you don't need a Series X. Has anyone tried streaming Forza, or Halo Infinite via XCloud? I have. And I have gigabit fiber internet. I've played a bunch of games that way to test it out. It doesn't even come close to looking as sharp as a native console, and even though the gameplay experience when its working well is "not bad", it's certainly not feeling like being directly plugged in. Heck, I can tell when my TV is not on "game mode" and the slight latency drives me nuts. Unfortunately with streaming there are physics involved and it will never ever beat having a console plugged into a TV. And someone is trying to sell me on the idea that this is "the future"? Things are generally meant to improve with time, when it comes to tech. Not offer me worse image quality, and a worse gameplay experience, and then have my game experience hiccups when there is the slightest problem with the network connection. I mean, you can't even stream a movie without it being noticeably worse in both video and audio than a UHD or even a Blu Ray disc sometimes. And people think games are going to be great this way?
So which is it, Xbox-only folks that insist hundreds of millions, or billions, of people are just waiting for some magical moment to jump into gaming via streaming? I thought gamers wanted the best performance on the planet? Or do they just wan't "good enough" now? I mean, we still see constant arguments on this board over PS5 and XSX performance. Once you bring streaming into the picture there, you can throw all of that out the window. The native PS5 game will win against Xbox streaming handily every single time. And why aren't these missing gamers already buying a controller and streaming their games via any one of the devices that already do it? Everyone already has these things you know. Computers, mobile devices, etc. They blanket the planet already. But we live in a world where the Switch just crossed the 100 million mark and the Xbox One consoles never got much past 50 million. Again, where and when does this tidal shift occur?
And all of this time, Sony and Nintendo are not sitting doing nothing ...
In 1,5 year time. They changed narrative from “most powerful console” to completely something else. Well they’ve even changed the narrative several times already.
DenchDeckard
Moderated wildly
Yeah I can clearly see where the confusion is here. There’s a large group that still just think in pure sales numbers…like how do you sell more when you lose a platform….and then there’s microsoft that are purely thinking gamepass and where can gamepass be accessible…low end laptops, tablets, iPads, pcs TVs all Xbox’s including one etc.
I don’t think it’s 2022 that that this will take off, but yeah in 5 to 10 years I get it.
its going to take years for MS to build the marketing to average Jeff that his android tablet can play Starfield with a controller…or their TV.
I don’t think it’s 2022 that that this will take off, but yeah in 5 to 10 years I get it.
its going to take years for MS to build the marketing to average Jeff that his android tablet can play Starfield with a controller…or their TV.
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vaibhavpisal
Member
Phil is smart, he will take game off a platform, then put it on gamepass.
This move will help Starfield reach beyond Skyrim numbers.
This move will help Starfield reach beyond Skyrim numbers.
SSfox
Member
RoyalLaFlame
Banned
Ok, let's see if you understand. It's really easy to understand what Phil actually means, but it requires people to think outside of console hardware sales, which is a metric that fanboys love to use when it comes to their preferred platform.
Phil: "We want to have more players playing these games in 5 years time. This is our main goal right now."
Neogaf: "But how can you achieve that if you just took the games from Playstation?"
Phil: "Phones, Smart Tvs, Tablets"
Neogaf: "but bu bunu bu what ABOUT MY PLAYSTATION?"
Phil: "Your 150 million Playstation sold is nothing compared to the mobile market. Streaming will be the future for most people, but we will still deliver games locally to be played on your platform of choice, wether is Xbox or PC. But most people will be playing on their phones, tablets and smart tvs."
Neogaf: "But what about Playstation and Nintendo gamers?"
Phil : "If those platforms allow us to serve Gamepass to their user bases, then we will have an even bigger number of players. Our service will have exclusive experiences, that won't be anywhere else. If you want to play them, Game Pass is your answer."
Neogaf: "Bu bububu but you guys can't do that, it's illegal!!."
Phil:"Kid, we're Microsoft. The fuck you mean?"
Riky
$MSFT
He's obviously talking about player engagement and not sales, if you've instantly got 30 million people subscribed to your service then chances are a large portion of those will play Starfield, add on Steam/PC users and Xbox owners not on Gamepass and the figures make a lot of sense.
Since it's next gen only Switch and PS4 owners are an irrelevance so the only market missing is PS5 owners who the vast majority of not all will own a device capable of playing the game anyway, either PC or Xcloud.
Otherwise they can pick up a Series S, it's great value.
Everyone is a winner.
Since it's next gen only Switch and PS4 owners are an irrelevance so the only market missing is PS5 owners who the vast majority of not all will own a device capable of playing the game anyway, either PC or Xcloud.
Otherwise they can pick up a Series S, it's great value.
Everyone is a winner.
GHG
Gold Member
And Sony didn't need to buy Bungie, Nixxess, Ready at Dawn, Insomniac, Bend etc etc .
They bought them because they wanted to make their platform a more attractive proposition. There's no shame in saying that it's for selfish reasons when you buy something in business. You're either buying something because it will make you more money or because it will make you competition's lives more difficult, bonus points if you can achieve both in a single purchase.
With the exception of Bungie they didn't buy those studios and then come out with some "hey we took this for ourselves but this is for everyone" bullshit. Nobody would have a problem if Phil simply came out and said he has a business to run and part of that is about making the Xbox brand/ecosystem as attractive and popular as possible, even if that means making moves at the expense of other gaming ecosystems.
The reality is that he can't and won't come out and say it how it is due to a combination of factors:
- They have their bullshit "gaming for everyone" marketing/PR that they've been running for a couple of years now ("accessible," accessibility", "inclusive", "inclusivity", "nobody left behind", "were a gaming charity, not a business", "you get cheap gamepass, you get cheap gamepass, everyone gets cheap gamepass") so this lexicon continues to feed in to that in order to appeal to the resetera/twitter type softies.
- He knows Lina Khan is lying in wait watching his every move preparing to pounce and put the Activision Blizzard deal in jeopardy.
Lupin25
Member
Streaming movies/songs is nowhere near the an equal experience for gaming, though.
Another question: “how long will it actually be before the average user retains the optimal amount of bandwidth to feasibly stream games?”
PS Now had been doing this from the get-go, but obviously copying/transferring data is a much more viable option still.
The_Mike
I cry about SonyGaf from my chair in Redmond, WA
Given how many are living in an echo chamber in here, I truly do believe they think the PlayStation community indeed more bigger than pc, because they are much more louder than any other platform.
PC has a bigger install base than PlayStation.
And with xcloud numbers it can get higher than any of the platforms currently.
I doubt the last one, but it will surely increase as well.
Shmunter
Member
Too true.
At some point more focus will shine on how Sony purchased one of the biggest shooters out there and they aren’t punishing millions of gamers on competing systems. Phil won’t look as rosy when he starts hurting gamers just because they game elsewhere.
Saint Phil will come to a crashing end.
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Bernd Lauert
Banned
People stuck on software sales when even on Playstation, software sales are only a quarter of the entire revenue.
Thirty7ven
Banned
They gotta do what they gotta do be numero uno, it’s up to other companies like Sony and Nintendo to keep up offering their players what they want.
Lupin25
Member
Why would this be said as if Bungie hasn’t already declared their future releases remaining “multi platform”.
Sony is doing the opposite from that standpoint.
We can’t have the same debate between Xbox & PlayStation because they’re in two entirely different realms of success currently.
Comparisons/Analogues can’t make sense if their goals differ. Why would Sony, sitting on an 120+ mil. userbase, copy Xbox’s strategy in any way now, even when it comes to acquisitions…
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ChuckeRearmed
Member
Considering that PS5 games will still continue to release on PS4 he probably uses 100m PS4 usebase as argument
I am pretty sure that in early 2000s, that gamers (PS2 mainly) were arguing that nobody plays online games on consoles. And see how it worked out eventually lol
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kingfey
Banned
Tell me how many ps5 are out there? And how many steam users are out there?It’s not about releasing on competing platforms, it’s about getting more players when you are in less platforms
Swift_Star
Banned
You sound like the sale is really hurting you.
LeftThumbstick
Member
Because things said in the present don’t always match up with what happens in the future. PlayStation said they believed in generations and yet, they are making cross-gen games… funny that. They also said PlayStation games will be exclusive to console, but now they are on PC.
You see what I mean? They lie and change their mind when it suits them so I take the Bungie acquisition with a grain of salt.
Let me ask you, do you think we’ll ever see another Insomniac title on Xbox? I doubt it. Do you think we will see Spider-Man or any marvel game on Xbox outside of Avengers? Doubt it.
Move the goal posts all you want, it’s all the same. Sony tried to bury the Xbox last generation with 3rd party exclusives and shady deals with 3rd party publishers so they can just take it on the chin.
Or better yet, you can buy an Xbox if you feel like you will miss out.
kingfey
Banned
12m ve 17m. It will happen in 4 years from now, if it keeps that trajectory.
LeftThumbstick
Member
They said the same before the Xbox 360 launched and ate crow when it beat the PS3 for the entire generation.
Before anyone says “But the PS3 sold more!!!” Yes, only around 3 years after the PS4 was already out.
I'm really hoping this post here is a joke and is mocking someone.
IDKFA
I am Become Bilbo Baggins
I agree with this. I have no problem if Starfield or ESVI are Xbox exclusive as I'll have an X buy that time. However, Skyrim was a huge hit on Xbox, PC, Switch and PlayStation over multiple generations.
How then can Starfield or ESVI reach more of an audience than Skyrim if you cut out millions of players from Nintendo and PlayStation platforms?
kingfey
Banned
As long as xss exist, MS can close the gap fast.
Sony had 2x wafer, yet the gap is 5m, instead of 8-9m.
Apollo Helios
Member
Oh how the tables have turned, Phil preaches Jim practices...
It makes me wonder what reality some of these guys live in. I mean look at the nonsense below. These armchair business owners are hilarious.