“This cannot continue”: Xbox leaders lay out “hard truths” behind sagging brand

“这种情况不能再继续下去了”：Xbox 高管揭示品牌衰落背后的“残酷真相”

Just 100 days ago, when new Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma replaced long-serving executive Phil Spencer, she said she’d work to “understand what makes [Xbox] work and protect it.” Now, Sharma and Xbox Studios chief Matt Booty have laid out the many things that are not working for the Xbox brand in a brutal self-assessment that they say necessitates a wholesale “Xbox reset.” 就在 100 天前，当微软游戏业务新任首席执行官 Asha Sharma 接替长期担任该职位的 Phil Spencer 时，她曾表示将致力于“了解 Xbox 的成功之道并保护它”。如今，Sharma 与 Xbox 工作室负责人 Matt Booty 在一份残酷的自我评估中，列举了 Xbox 品牌目前存在的诸多问题，并表示这使得全面的“Xbox 重启”势在必行。

The message sent to Xbox employees and shared publicly via Xbox Wire last night paints a grim picture for practically every facet of the Xbox division. That portion of Microsoft is currently only seeing a “3 percent accountability margin” (read: profit margin), down year over year and well below both the game industry average and the lofty 30 percent margins that Microsoft is reportedly seeking across the board. 昨晚通过 Xbox Wire 公开发布给员工的信息，为 Xbox 部门的几乎每一个层面描绘了一幅严峻的图景。目前，微软该部门的“责任利润率”（即利润率）仅为 3%，同比下降，远低于游戏行业平均水平，也远低于据传微软在全公司范围内追求的 30% 的高利润目标。

It’s an underperformance, they write, born out of being “overextended” by moves like the $69 billion acquisition of Activision. That mega-merger came on top of $20 billion in spending on other acquisitions, platform investments, and hardware subsidies over the last five years, the executives write. But despite the spending spree, Microsoft’s overall gaming revenues are down nearly $500 million compared to five years ago. 高管们写道，这种业绩不佳源于“过度扩张”，例如斥资 690 亿美元收购动视暴雪。他们指出，除了这次巨额并购外，过去五年里，公司还在其他收购、平台投资和硬件补贴上花费了 200 亿美元。然而，尽管挥金如土，微软整体游戏收入却比五年前减少了近 5 亿美元。

While Microsoft has overinvested in acquisitions and platform spending, Sharma and Booty also admit that Xbox has “not adequately funded” the company’s “industry-defining franchises.” That has been somewhat apparent to anyone paying attention to the steady stream of studio-level layoffs and game cancellations coming out of Redmond, Washington, in recent years. And the company acknowledges that a “reliable pipeline of first- and third-party exclusives” is “critical to our success,” a notable change from the multi-platform strategy it pursued with gusto just a couple of years ago. 虽然微软在收购和平台支出上投入过多，但 Sharma 和 Booty 也承认，Xbox 对公司“定义行业的特许经营权”投入不足。对于近年来密切关注华盛顿州雷德蒙德总部不断传出的工作室裁员和游戏取消消息的人来说，这一点已显而易见。公司也承认，“可靠的第一方和第三方独占游戏阵容”对于“我们的成功至关重要”，这与两年前大力推行的多平台战略相比，是一个显著的转变。

Hardware is hard

硬件之路艰难

On the hardware side, Microsoft is facing the same surge in storage and RAM pricing as the rest of the industry. But the Microsoft executives also say they “believe we have been impacted more greatly than many of our peers due to the choices we made over the last half decade,” a vague but worrying statement about Microsoft’s specific console supply chain issues. While Xbox hardware sales had started cratering long before these cost increases came to pass, Microsoft says it’s now facing the somewhat opposite problem of being “currently unable to make as many consoles as players want to buy.” Taken as a whole, it all likely means that we’ll see a reprise of last year’s multiple Xbox price increases before too long. 在硬件方面，微软正面临与整个行业相同的存储和内存价格飙升问题。但微软高管也表示，他们“认为由于过去五年所做的选择，我们受到的影响比许多同行更大”，这番关于微软特定主机供应链问题的表态虽然模糊，却令人担忧。尽管 Xbox 硬件销量在这些成本上涨发生前就已经开始暴跌，但微软表示，目前正面临一个截然相反的问题，即“无法生产出满足玩家购买需求的主机数量”。总而言之，这意味着我们很可能在不久之后再次看到去年那种 Xbox 多次涨价的情况。

The dire hardware component situation means Microsoft now says it will pursue a new “business model and partnerships for hardware” for Helix, the recently announced project that will play both Xbox and PC games. The mention of “partnerships for hardware” is particularly interesting, given that Microsoft recently lent the Xbox brand to Asus for the Windows-powered ROG Xbox Ally. Maybe Project Helix will resemble Valve’s decade-old Steam Machines effort, with outside manufacturers releasing their own hardware running Microsoft’s OS and gaming platform at various price points and power levels. 严峻的硬件组件形势意味着，微软现在表示将为最近宣布的“Helix”项目寻求新的“硬件商业模式和合作伙伴关系”，该项目将支持 Xbox 和 PC 游戏。考虑到微软最近将 Xbox 品牌授权给华硕，用于搭载 Windows 系统的 ROG Xbox Ally，关于“硬件合作伙伴关系”的提法尤为引人关注。也许“Helix 项目”会类似于 Valve 十年前的 Steam Machines 尝试，即由外部制造商发布运行微软操作系统和游戏平台的硬件，并提供不同的价格和性能档次。

As a whole, the “Xbox reset” memo paints a picture of a gaming brand that has endured years of scattered decision-making and meandering strategies. The document barely addresses the company’s cloud-centric strategy of the early 2020s, which led to overinvestment in a game streaming service that’s still a relatively small slice of overall Xbox usage. And while Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass subscription once seemed like a ray of hope for the division, that service has recently been shedding millions of subscribers after massive subscription price increases last year, suggesting it had mainly succeeded by underpricing access to Microsoft’s own first-party games. 总的来说，“Xbox 重启”备忘录描绘了一个游戏品牌的形象，它多年来一直饱受决策分散和战略摇摆的困扰。该文件几乎没有提及公司 2020 年代初以云为中心的战略，该战略导致对游戏流媒体服务的过度投资，而该服务在 Xbox 的整体使用率中占比依然较小。虽然微软的 Xbox Game Pass 订阅服务曾一度被视为该部门的希望之光，但在去年大幅涨价后，该服务最近流失了数百万订阅用户，这表明其成功主要归功于对微软自身第一方游戏的低价策略。

In the wake of Microsoft’s recent management shake-up, it seems that rank-and-file Xbox employees will once again bear the brunt of these and other bad strategic decisions. Bloomberg reports Sharma is planning an unknown number of layoffs across the Xbox division shortly after the June 30 end of the fiscal year, alongside “significant” cuts to marketing and other departmental budgets. Who knows, maybe having a gaming division with even less money and manpower will finally turn things around for Xbox. 在微软最近的管理层改组之后，普通的 Xbox 员工似乎将再次为这些及其他糟糕的战略决策买单。据彭博社报道，Sharma 计划在 6 月 30 日财年结束后不久，在 Xbox 部门进行规模未知的裁员，同时还将“大幅”削减营销和其他部门的预算。谁知道呢，也许拥有一个资金和人力更少的游戏部门，最终反而能让 Xbox 扭转乾坤。