What does Microsoft need to do to be relevant again?

Blinx 3

sales

Why is Forza Horizon 3 so much better than Forza Horizon 4?

this. Also counter sony with some polished b games. To specify due to some asshat that may not get it, obtain b game with great gameplay, polish the sequel and bam new franchise.

Bloodborne was a modest success at best but I suppose getting a FromSoft game would be an act of good faith. Not really necessary though.

More diverse map, seasons in FH4 just make everything look the same

FH1 still has the most soul though

Having exclusives, now that they don’t the next Xbox is a glorified steam machine

As usual Microsoft's gameplan will be to shackle developers to their console's API making it more difficult and require more effort to support anything else. That will be harder now that D3D12 is essentially a low-quality rip off of Mantle and everyone else is using Vulkan (effectively Mantle 2) derived APIs, though I doubt that will stop them from trying.

The question is whether Microsoft is still willing to drop billions of dollars buying games outright, millions buying timed exclusivity, and hundreds of thousands embedding their own developers at publishers to write graphics layers for them that obviously will be as difficult as possible to port to anyone else's platforms.
Microsoft has been showing some signs of wanting to back away from consumer products entirely, and launching new hardware into a Pandemic is obviously going to be difficult, but at the same time this could be their chance to lose money, drop billions of dollars buying weakened companies, in a gamble ensure their complete dominance in the consumer space for another decade even as they save money by dropping legacy game support with future Windows 10 updates.

They need Japan, since that's where all the actually good games come from. They need to pour like three billion dollars into securing many and varied Japanese development contracts.

No they don't need Japan.
Japan ranks lowest in buying video games compared to NA and Europe.

Other than an average of 4 good AA/AAA exclusives over the next five years...

Lockhart at launch, full crossplay with PC, continue game pass momentum, and expanding in countries that don't use Latin alphabet (Cyrillic countries, Middle East, and Asia[a huge reason PS wins those markets])

Snoy fucking up always helps.

Exactly what they are doing with Series X.

*glorified steam machine

You mean crippled Steam Machine. Too many people are misinformed about what Steam Machines are. Though part of that is on Valve for allowing the media to treat them as being fully launched products before their killer features were available.

Have good exclusive games

Don't do some greedy evil bullshit.

this wont happen but lockhart and possibly fromsoft.

PS bloodborne max was approx 3 mill before it going free via psn.
MS should build a competitor, see remnant from the ashes as an example. Basically they need to fund/make games for the core to keep the buzz going while other games target both core/casuals like cod/asscreed/ect...

Literally just keep doing what it's doing. They're doing mostly everything right while Sony is shitting the bed. Maybe acquire a good developer like the dying light guys and don't fucking mess with their creative process.

Yas Forums blows Bloodborne’s impact so out of proportion it’s insane. Aside from Until Dawn, it’s one of the lowest selling PS4 exclusives.

The FromSoft exclusive is to appeal to the hardcore crowd. COD for the normies. Fortnite for the kids/teens.

Yas Forums is an absolutely horrid metric to use for the general market, but a lot of people here can't figure that out, so they just assume that what they think is what everybody thinks.

The place is retarded.

Yes, but I would say one big hit particularly something somewhat fresh for next gen could put momentum on their side. Obviously much more difficult than making great hardware.

>v/ blows Bloodborne’s impact so out of proportion it’s insane.
Almost every rpgs or action rpgs tried to copy the formula, From defined this gen and they still have an exclusive to do for Sony, hell all it would take is a Sony/Japan studio/from software title teaser to bury any competition.

They copied the general Souls formula, not Bloodborne specifically.

That would be really good. I’m moving over for Game Pass, better third party game performance, and I’m not going another entire generation without a good racing game.

>Almost every rpgs or action rpgs tried to copy the formula,

From Dark Souls. the same game BB got most of its formula from. You're blowing it out of proportion again like a rube.

And Bloodborne is the perfection of that formula.

>What does Microsoft need to do to be relevant again?
Have exclusives worth playing

Yas Forums also thinks Sony is incompetent and the ps4 has no games, despite beating the opposition like a red headed stepchild for a solid decade

Sex games