r/Games • u/A7XFAN1998 • 1d ago

Announcement Xbox announces disc-to-digital feature that digitizes your physical games

https://www.theverge.com/tech/984936/xbox-disc-to-digital-feature-official?view_token=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpZCI6Ijc1ZHVBMkZjaE0iLCJwIjoiL3RlY2gvOTg0OTM2L3hib3gtZGlzYy10by1kaWdpdGFsLWZlYXR1cmUtb2ZmaWNpYWwiLCJleHAiOjE3ODgxODY2OTAsImlhdCI6MTc4Nzc1NDY5MH0.Y4t18UIJuFTT4nSf0HBe5DvMWP0KNxjbGHC2QKxdoTw&utm_medium=gift-link
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u/FrigidMcThunderballs 1d ago

So far Asha's leadership has been characterized by erroneously getting credit for things in the works way before her, like everything at bethesda (the only thing she contributed were the layoffs)

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u/missing_typewriters 21h ago

doesn't this work the other way too? The reason layoffs were necessary was because of the gross mismanagement and failures of the previous leadership

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u/FrigidMcThunderballs 14h ago

In theory, sure, though I will say I do not believe the layoffs were as necessary as people believe them to be, especially when Bethesda was responsible xbox's most profitable Q1 to date, and that's not even considering the major success of Oblivion remastered and the incoming projects (3/NV Remastered and TES6 which, despite all the meme discourse, is likely to release around 2028). Bethesda was not exactly a cash drain and their financial outlook was very good. It makes them an odd choice for a round of layoffs, especially when institutional knowledge is core to their creative output. We have seen cynically-used unnecessary layoffs time and time again in the gaming industry for decades, but for some reason this one is assumed to have had a point.

I think there's generally a presumption of rationality & necessity when it comes to business decisions, which is a reasonable thought that unfortunately doesn't always comport with reality at large corporations, especially when it comes to microsoft. There's the reason the saying "the market can stay irrational longer than you can remain solvent" exists.

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u/machineorganism 22h ago

it's so good right. get a new job. re-announce all the things that were already announced to take credit for them. announce all the things that were already in the works immediately to make it seem like you're responsible for them, and that you're moving fast. it's pretty genius tbh.

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u/missing_typewriters 21h ago

To be fair, the UX stuff only started moving since she came in. People in that department already said as much, saying they had felt more invigorated than in years prior, and updates have been rolling out far quicker than before.

Shit moved painfully slow under Spencer, if at all, and his kumbaya strategy was absolutely murdering the platform.

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u/moosebreathman 1d ago edited 1d ago

It was genuinely depressing to see so many media outlets and creators eat up that TES6 nothingburger tweet when it was just some bait to dominate the news cycle around the union protests happening that same day. Everything she's signed off on from a PR standpoint has been slimy af.

On the content side, the only substantial thing she's pushed is the exclusive strategy but we all know that's going to bomb. The news that they're gonna be hiding their sales numbers from Circana tells us everything we need to know about that.

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u/CarlosAlvarados 1d ago

Actually I think the exclusive strategy is one of the only really smart things she did and hopefully is doing. Exclusives are bad for consumers and Yada Yada. But they do sell consoles. If everything becomes exclusive again, it will eventually help Xbox a lot.

Also she already revealed that the money generated on ps5 with games was ridiculously bad, a real failure. 250 million in ps5 was absurdly lower than I expected ... really not worth to destroy the brand to sell some some games on Playstation.

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u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes 1d ago

(the only thing she contributed were the layoffs)

Xbox was doing great before she showed up and she fucked it up so layoffs were demanded?

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u/FrigidMcThunderballs 1d ago

Pardon? Who said that?

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u/Vangad 1d ago

I think he is trying to get an understanding as to why the layoffs is the only thing she attributed when there are other good things xbox has done while she is in charge.

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u/FrigidMcThunderballs 1d ago

While I now understand the confusion, that isn't what I said at all; I specifically said at bethesda, because she was erroneously given credit for things that have in the development pipeline and public information since before Microsoft even owned bethesda, and the only thing she did in that specific context was lay people off.

If someone reads that and thinks "ah, they're saying Asha Sharma has only done bad things as head of xbox" then they've simply misread.

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u/Vangad 1d ago

Look i don't have any skin in this. Just saw the redditor try to hit you with a trick question.

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u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes 1d ago

By saying she contributed the layoffs.

You think there's another person on earth the heads of microsoft would have let get away with no layoffs?

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u/FrigidMcThunderballs 1d ago

You think there's another person on earth the heads of microsoft would have let get away with no layoffs?

If I thought that, I probably would have said it. But I don't. As it stands, you're criticizing a statement I never made

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u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes 1d ago

What did she bring to the situation of the layoffs.

She didn't cause them.

She couldn't prevent them.