Shigeru Miyamoto: “Games Eventually Stop Running, But Films Remain Forever”
>Nintendo, Capcom stepping up efforts to bring game worlds to big screen
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<Shigeru Miyamoto, executive fellow at Nintendo and the creator of Super Mario, views such adaptations as a gateway for fans to reconnect with the company's games as part of a broader strategy to grow Nintendo into an enduring global brand.
<"Games eventually stop running when newer versions come out, but films remain forever," he said.
Next up, GDC
>GDC says companies that don’t attend ‘send a message they don’t care about developers’
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<Speaking to The Game Business, GDC’s executive director of innovation and growth, Mark DeLoura, said the companies’ absence was “noticeable” and claimed they risked alienating developers.
<“As an attendee, I was disappointed not to see Unity and Unreal on the show floor,” he said. “I worked for Sony and I started the Sony booth 25 years ago… not to see Sony on the show floor is just disappointing. I really feel like you’ve got so many developers there, you’ve got to have a front door.
<“Of course, these companies are going to have their own events, they have their own communities they need to foster, and they can talk about things that are more NDAd at their own events that they may not want to do at a public show. But you’re not going to find the independent developer who doesn’t already know somebody at your shop, unless you’re there with your door open.”
<He added: “Isn’t that the purpose of conferences? Meeting new people. You’ve decided you don’t want to meet new people, I guess. I can’t understand that. There’s more to it than that, of course. There are costs, etcetera. But developers get the vibe. If you’re not there, or appear not to be there, are they sure that you care about them? That’s what I don’t understand.
<“I would say this, because that’s why I got Sony involved in GDC in 2001. We needed to be there. We needed to be there for the developers. It’s important.”
>GDC Festival of Gaming: The industry reacts to the controversial rebrand
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<But even though the Festival Pass makes attending that bit cheaper, the event is still not cheap: a Festival Pass will set attendees back $1,199, discounted to $649 until February 20, 2026. The Game Changer Pass, meanwhile, costs $2,499, discounted to $1,699. Digital access to the GDC Vault and online networking will set you back $799, and a limited number of sub-$650 options are available to start-ups and academics.
And finishing it off is Xbox
>Xbox’s $1200 Console Leak Just Made PS6 Look Like a Steal
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<Xbox president Sarah Bond has confirmed that the next Xbox console will be a “very premium, very high-end” device. It would be the one that could reportedly cross the $1000 mark. The revelation sparked anxiety among PlayStation fans, worried that Sony might follow suit with an equally expensive PS6. But according to reliable insider KeplerL2, the opposite might be true. He predicts the PS6 could launch at $600, while the new Xbox might debut at nearly double the price, around $1200.
>Exclusive Games Are "Antiquated," Xbox President Says
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<The idea of exclusive games in 2025 is "antiquated," according to Xbox president Sarah Bond. She said in a new interview that people are beginning to "evolve way past" the idea that a game should be exclusive to one store or device.
<"The biggest games in the world are available everywhere. You look at Call of Duty, you look at Minecraft, you look at Fortnite, you look at Roblox ... that's actually what's really driving community in gaming. That's where people gather. And the idea of locking it to one store or one device is antiquated for most people," she told Mashable.
<"You want to be able to play with your friends anywhere, regardless of what they're on. And we're really leaning into that with this experience [Rog Ally X]. It just opens up another way for you to play, as does cloud, as does PC as do the consoles we all have in the living room," she added.
>Xbox releases new marketing push “That was then, this is now” taking aim at “old ways” of gaming
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<Ads are attached and scary and angering as Hell
>Microsoft Has Reportedly Pushed Xbox Studios to Deliver a 30% Profit Margin, Allegedly Leading to All Those Layoffs, Canceled Projects, Price Rises, and the End of Exclusives
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<Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier reported that Microsoft’s 30% profit margin goal had led to the gaming division’s huge layoffs, canceled projects, controversial price rises, and multiplatform push.
<...
<Bloomberg said the average profit margin in the video game industry is 17-22%. Over the past six years, Xbox has hit 10-20%. To put that 30% target into more context, Sony's PlayStation division achieved a 16% profit margin in Q1 FY25. Bloomberg said Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood enforced the new target in fall 2023 — amid Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard.
<The upshot now is, according to Bloomberg, that games that are cheap to make or considered more likely to make lots of money may take priority over riskier projects. Xbox’s “floundering” hardware division, meanwhile, may face “a significant rethinking.”
<IGN has reported on recent comments from Xbox president Sarah Bond, who said the next-gen Xbox console will be “a very premium, very high-end curated experience.” Bond has also called the idea of exclusive games “antiquated.” Nowadays, Xbox Game Studios is one of the most prolific and successful publishers on PlayStation.
<Microsoft issued Bloomberg a statement that suggested its Xbox profit margin target isn’t the same across every project.
<“We look at the business as a whole, balancing creativity, innovation, and sustainability across a diverse portfolio of offerings. As with any creative business, sometimes that means making hard decisions and stopping work on things that are no longer working for a variety of reasons, and shifting resources toward the projects that are more aligned with our direction and priorities.”