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Xbox Xbox is failing so horribly, its kind of unbelievable

Johna X said:
I'm turning 21 in 2 weeks if it makes feel better maybe like I'm not literally a child, I'm aware the forum culture leans older but I don't know felt like joining here and I've been to Bulbagarden (maybe doesn't lean as old idk)
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I know it’s just funny to realize how old you are talking about video games

I’m turning… an old age myself in two weeks also. May babies gotta stick together
 
Armoured_Bear said:
You Dualsense haters, what's wrong with you?
Do you have 7 fingers on each hand or something?
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I find it big and clunky, personally. Different controller sizes (as opposed to one uniform size everyone's expected to use) would be great. I still prefer the DualShock 4, in some ways.
 
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Armoured_Bear said:
You Dualsense haters, what's wrong with you?
Do you have 7 fingers on each hand or something?
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It's the best controller Sony have ever released, but I really dislike the symmetrical analog stick placement and the very poor battery life.
 
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big lantern ghost said:
Here is a maybe not comprehensive but still fairly complete listing of what everyone under Microsoft Game Studios has going on:
  • Arkane — just released Redfall, next project unknown
  • Bethesda — finishing up Starfield and probably there is a napkin in their office with a daedra drawn on it for Elder Scrolls VI
  • The Coalition — current project unknown, rumoured to be a new IP
  • Compulsion Games — finished We Happy Few + DLC pass, current project unannounced
  • Double Fine — released Psychonauts 2 in 2021, current project unannounced
  • The Initiative — developing Perfect Dark with Crystal Dynamics
  • id Software —shipped Doom Eternal in 2020, finished Season Pass, current project unannounced
  • inXile — shipped Wasteland 3 in 2020, currently working on Project Cobalt, a first-person RPG with a Victorian steampunk setting
  • Machine Games — currently making an Indiana Jones game, with perhaps a new Wolfenstein after that (though I hope it’s Quake)
  • Mojang — released Minecraft Legends just last month
  • Ninja Theory — Hellblade II announced at Game Awards 2019, still in development
  • Obsidian — Grounded still being supported, recently released Pentiment, Avowed in development , also Outer Worlds 2
  • Playground Games — released Forza Horizon 5 in 2021, Fable in development
  • Rare — ongoing support for Sea of Thieves, working on Everwild
  • Tango Gameworks — released Hi-Fi Rush in January, next project unannounced
  • Turn 10 — making a new Forza Motorsport, ‘natch
  • Undead Labs — after a CG trailer years ago, still working on State of Decay 3
  • World’s Edge — bringing Age of Empires IV to Xbox this year
  • ZeniMax Online — Elder Scrolls online all day, baby
Even though this list does point out Microsoft's problem with getting content out the door with any regularity, I can't help but feel a little bit hopeful that at least a couple of these could very well show up at their stream next month!

EDIT: Holy crap I forgot to put id in there. Shameful
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Thanks for the list.
Quite a depressing list for me, Arkane can be great, I really like Obsidian and Tango Gameworks can be good. I'm interested in Bethesda games as I like Fallout and enjoyed Elder Scrolls but their lack of progress is annoying.
Otherwise, most of the list doesn't appeal, I was so keen on Psychonauts 2 and loved the visuals but it bored me to death, was abandoned, Doom and similar FPS games don't do much for me, Forza likewise, Rare - who knows these days?

I bought all 3 consoles as I want to be able to play all the best games to my taste but I need to be honest with myself, the vast majority of my favourite games are Japanese (or Nintendo and Sony's Western studios), Xbox probably just isn't meant for me.
I'll stick with it for the Bethesda, Obsidian stuff at least though.
 
Armoured_Bear said:
You Dualsense haters, what's wrong with you?
Do you have 7 fingers on each hand or something?
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I'll be honest: This is the first gen Sony has dethroned Nintendo with their controller for me. I have a few complaints about the Dualsense - mainly battery life, and that it isn't as ergonomic as the Switch procon, something with the grips is off - but overall i'm surprisingly happy with it, and the fact that there are natively compatible PC games only increases my satisfaction further.

I'm even thinking of buying one to use with my Switch and the 8bitdo adapter.
 
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Armoured_Bear said:
You Dualsense haters, what's wrong with you?
Do you have 7 fingers on each hand or something?
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Not a hater but mine started drifting faster than my switch controllers and before that the X button was already getting mushy. Quality of controllers this gen sucks but the design and features of the dualsense are great otherwise.
 
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Man, seeing people post stuff like “well people should feel that they could lose their job” makes my skin crawl. At the end of the day, I know some people have a very narrowminded view on how the world works, but in general people intrinsically want to be good at their job. The key in all of this, is how to keep them happy and motivated. That’s how you treat people.

Not entering the office in some wardens costume, asking people if they can get better at their job or else….

In the case of Microsoft, I’ve seen the thread several times this week and we all have our own ideas on why MS can’t seem to break the mold; one of the opinions I support and have as well is because MS’s message of their strategy is never the same. It seems to change course very often.

However, looking at the hardware, the image, the brand, the offerings; in its current form, it just doesn’t bring anything to the table to entice the market to buy into the Xbox environment. Might sound harsh, but when I look at Europe, it’s the message currently sent.

Well, anecdotal evidence for the Netherlands, which is a speck in the global market. But when people talk about videogames, it’s either Sony or Nintendo. I think Sony has a small advantage over Nintendo, but the mindset with Switch marked a huge change, so still a big victory. But you never hear people say “yeah I play on my Xbox”. Better yet, shelf space will not matter that much in the future as the digital future become a reality with each passing day. But it’s currently very sad what stores have reserved for Xbox related products. They’re so completely invisible right now, it’s almost fascinating.

That could change, but it’s going to be one hell of a journey until we reach that point.
 
Sadist said:
Man, seeing people post stuff like “well people should feel that they could lose their job” makes my skin crawl. At the end of the day, I know some people have a very narrowminded view on how the world works, but in general people intrinsically want to be good at their job. The key in all of this, is how to keep them happy and motivated. That’s how you treat people.

Not entering the office in some wardens costume, asking people if they can get better at their job or else….

In the case of Microsoft, I’ve seen the thread several times this week and we all have our own ideas on why MS can’t seem to break the mold; one of the opinions I support and have as well is because MS’s message of their strategy is never the same. It seems to change course very often.

However, looking at the hardware, the image, the brand, the offerings; in its current form, it just doesn’t bring anything to the table to entice the market to buy into the Xbox environment. Might sound harsh, but when I look at Europe, it’s the message currently sent.

Well, anecdotal evidence for the Netherlands, which is a speck in the global market. But when people talk about videogames, it’s either Sony or Nintendo. I think Sony has a small advantage over Nintendo, but the mindset with Switch marked a huge change, so still a big victory. But you never hear people say “yeah I play on my Xbox”. Better yet, shelf space will not matter that much in the future as the digital future become a reality with each passing day. But it’s currently very sad what stores have reserved for Xbox related products. They’re so completely invisible right now, it’s almost fascinating.

That could change, but it’s going to be one hell of a journey until we reach that point.
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Even in the US, shelf space for Xbox games vs Switch/PS4/5 is either limited, or padded out by yearly stuff and shovelware
 
FeiFongWong said:
That's not exclusive to game devs. People are generally lazy and would slack off if given opportunity. After working 3 years in IT I learned the hard way and from other more experienced devs that the only prize for finishing tasks fast is more work. That's why Im taking everything slow now and log more hours. Seeing how hands off is MS I smell something familiar 🤷‍♂️
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I wouldn't call that lazy. I mean there's a limit to how many times you bother putting in extra effort into something, if there is zero reward for it.

You could do your best every day and get zero bonus or raise, or you could not give a shit and probably not get fired. And make exactly the same every month.

I would blame the company not having proper incentives rather than the workers.
 
I'm sure Microsoft knows Phil's words weren't well received, so this "chaos" might be a good thing and they'll try to fix it in their June event. We might get sneek peaks of the games being made by their own studios, and a better explanation of what is actually coming to the system this year (meaning real gameplay instead of in-engine footage, and a better representation of the games instead of just a vertical slice)

I think this was necessary, and I appreciate Phil's effort to explain the situation. Starfield might not sell as much as Fallout 4 and obviously is not going to be even close to Skyrim, mostly because skipping PS5 and gamepass will hurt sales a lot, but it should be Xbox flagship and help the brand a lot.
 
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There’s a ton of reasons I’ve seen people mention about why Microsoft is still have trouble but I think the fundamental issue of it all is culture. They just don’t have a good culture for creating games. That’s hard to build, and just buying studios isn’t the solution.
 
I think that apology tour last week would have gone down better if it didn't feel 5% like making amends and 95% like Microsoft insisting that they suck for the sake of the acquisition

Talk is cheap for Xbox at this point, anyway! I'm sure a lot of people are very busy trying to make that showcase next month as good as possible, and I hope it pans out.
 
Moltres006 said:
Who can solve this problem?? Reggie, Shawn Layden.....or maybe bringing back Don Mattrick.
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They should ask Shawn. There's definitely animosity between him and Sony and he knows how to run successful division. I think Phil is on his last legs. He mentioned twice being fired during that interview.
 
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Moltres006 said:
Who can solve this problem?? Reggie, Shawn Layden.....or maybe bringing back Don Mattrick.
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It’s not a single person. They need to shift as an entire organization to provide quality content across all their studios. It takes years. Sony only became super good at first party mid PS4 generation lol.
 
Fuck outta here with that "people should feel like they could get fired if they slack off" talk. Oh boohoo, companies can't squeeze every last inch of life out of their employees, what a tragedy. Because that's definitely how you improve product quality, through fear... The devs did their jobs, they launched a game - a small miracle in and of itself. The quality of said game is completely unrelated to how hard they worked, and the insinuation is disgusting.

Anyway, Phil being as self deprecating as he was in that interview rubbed me the wrong way. As an individual I guess I appreciate his humility and honesty, and there were some really interesting/important insights into the business side, but if I were one of the Arkane employees, I would kinda feel like he threw me under the bus and shat all over my work. And if I were one of his bosses, I don't even know lol. Dude basically admitted he was overpaid and doing a bad job
 
without the internet idk if i'd be feeling they were doing that poorly. 3 great games in the last few months with grounded, pentiment and hifi rush, i guess they aren't triple a but that's not really what i am looking for anyway.

just excited to see avowed and fable hopefully in that space.

obsidian is really holding their output together now that i think about it.
 
Lord Azrael said:
Fuck outta here with that "people should feel like they could get fired if they slack off" talk. Oh boohoo, companies can't squeeze every last inch of life out of their employees, what a tragedy. Because that's definitely how you improve product quality, through fear... The devs did their jobs, they launched a game - a small miracle in and of itself. The quality of said game is completely unrelated to how hard they worked, and the insinuation is disgusting.

Anyway, Phil being as self deprecating as he was in that interview rubbed me the wrong way. As an individual I guess I appreciate his humility and honesty, and there were some really interesting/important insights into the business side, but if I were one of the Arkane employees, I would kinda feel like he threw me under the bus and shat all over my work. And if I were one of his bosses, I don't even know lol. Dude basically admitted he was overpaid and doing a bad job
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I think that Phil knows that no one at Arkane is happy about how Redfall turned out so he doesn't mind saying it was disappointed.

Xbox just needs to go back to the drawing board on how they manage their studios. Given how we have heard stories in the past about they meddling to much (Scalebound) and now they being too hands off (Redfall), I guess they need to find the sweet spot between business and creativity. He's been CEO of XGS for about a year, that's barely any time to completely reorganize a huge company like Xbox and subsidiaries.

Anyway, I think in the end Phil isn't too phased about releasing a dud or two because ultimately Xbox goal is for its services to be available on everyone's microwave. Yesterday I was looking at TVs at a store and noticed a Samsung one that had a Xbox controller attached to it and it had marketing materials about it being 'a gaming ready TV' explicitly mentioning Xbox GamePass. So I guess the logic follows that if you're looking for a TV and want to give gaming a go, why not pick the one that already lets you play out of the box.
 
NarohDethan said:
I think that Phil knows that no one at Arkane is happy about how Redfall turned out so he doesn't mind saying it was disappointed.

Xbox just needs to go back to the drawing board on how they manage their studios. Given how we have heard stories in the past about they meddling to much (Scalebound) and now they being too hands off (Redfall), I guess they need to find the sweet spot between business and creativity. He's been CEO of XGS for about a year, that's barely any time to completely reorganize a huge company like Xbox and subsidiaries.

Anyway, I think in the end Phil isn't too phased about releasing a dud or two because ultimately Xbox goal is for its services to be available on everyone's microwave. Yesterday I was looking at TVs at a store and noticed a Samsung one that had a Xbox controller attached to it and it had marketing materials about it being 'a gaming ready TV' explicitly mentioning Xbox GamePass. So I guess the logic follows that if you're looking for a TV and want to give gaming a go, why not pick the one that already lets you play out of the box.
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Yeah I mean if everyone at Arkane was disappointed with the game too then it would be fine. Devs do always say that they know when a game they're working on is gonna be bad, but by that point it's too late to right the ship. Doesn't really jive with Phil saying the mock reviews were double digits higher though, so there's definitely still a failure of process there, but who knows what's really going on

My issue is that the whole interview felt like Phil was putting on an image to appease gamers. Being super apologetic, affirming the "outrage", putting down Microsoft's own work, etc. Phil talks a lot, and says the "right" things, but it all feels very curated to make him look like the cool business guy that's totally one of us y'all. But he's the head of a company, with workers under him (whose morale probably isn't great right now)... defend your workers man. Stick up for what they're doing, find a way to say it that feels less like a blatant way to garner favor with the chuds

But I do agree with you that a dud or two has no impact on Microsoft's direction. It's a drop in the bucket in the big picture, but also like you're saying - we've all speculated it for a while, but he basically spells it out here that the console marketspace isn't the endgame for Xbox, it's their ecosystem/services.
 
Lord Azrael said:
My issue is that the whole interview felt like Phil was putting on an image to appease gamers. Being super apologetic, affirming the "outrage", putting down Microsoft's own work, etc. Phil talks a lot, and says the "right" things, but it all feels very curated to make him look like the cool business guy that's totally one of us y'all. But he's the head of a company, with workers under him (whose morale probably isn't great right now)... defend your workers man. Stick up for what they're doing, find a way to say it that feels less like a blatant way to garner favor with the chuds
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I agree with that. People already hate you, no need to appease them hah. So yeah, why not use the chance to publicly address his employees that 'everything will turn out okay'.
 
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tender said:
without the internet idk if i'd be feeling they were doing that poorly. 3 great games in the last few months with grounded, pentiment and hifi rush, i guess they aren't triple a but that's not really what i am looking for anyway.

just excited to see avowed and fable hopefully in that space.

obsidian is really holding their output together now that i think about it.
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The problem is they didn't release three great games in the last "few" months. They released three great games in the last nine months (September to now). This emphasizes their problem. They aren't releasing big great games fast enough. A game the scale of pentiment or hifi rush works as a monthly release, not the only worth while games over the span of seven months (nov to now)
 
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tender said:
without the internet idk if i'd be feeling they were doing that poorly. 3 great games in the last few months with grounded, pentiment and hifi rush, i guess they aren't triple a but that's not really what i am looking for anyway.

just excited to see avowed and fable hopefully in that space.

obsidian is really holding their output together now that i think about it.
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Those are great games, but the problem is no one even talks about those games or Xbox in the broader gaming market. The forums we browse and gaming websites we follow are relatively niche compared to the rest of the gaming audience. They don’t have games that have a cultural impact, they don’t have a Fortnite, Last of Us, Mario, Zelda, God of War etc. Halo SHOULD be that but they’ve fumbled that a ton. They need a culture reset.

To me it’s like saying the last few months haven’t been bad if Sony only had games like Returnal come out in a 9 month window. I love Returnal but no one knows what that is apart from gaming enthusiast.
 
Haziqonfire said:
Those are great games, but the problem is no one even talks about those games or Xbox in the broader gaming market. The forums we browse and gaming websites we follow are relatively niche compared to the rest of the gaming audience. They don’t have games that have a cultural impact, they don’t have a Fortnite, Last of Us, Mario, Zelda, God of War etc. Halo SHOULD be that but they’ve fumbled that a ton. They need a culture reset.

To me it’s like saying the last few months haven’t been bad if Sony only had games like Returnal come out in a 9 month window. I love Returnal but no one knows what that is apart from gaming enthusiast.
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yeah no argument here. i know i'm not the broader audience, just saying without context i'd been thinking it's fine.
 
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My biggest problem with Xbox besides just absolutely refusing to do much of anything with their extensive IP and also being an arm of Microsoft hellbent on toxic industry M&A, is that they also just don't release enough titles I'm interested in during the year to justify really investing in Game Pass or a Series X. My PC isn't amazing, but it'll run most things decently and it's easier for me to buy those titles on deep discount shortly after release than be there Day One. I honestly don't think Game Pass even really makes sense unless Xbox is your primary or ONLY ecosystem you engage with. If you're consistently playing Sony or Nintendo stuff, or even just have amassed a decent library of older titles, Game Pass doesn't have the same allure.

And just they seem to be obsessed with this hands off model that has been nothing but disappointment for me for like 10 years as projects have fallen apart, completely changed, released in horrific states, or been completely unable to maintain any post launch momentum in a support way that is needed. Sea of Thieves did alright, Psychonauts 2 turned out well, and I do like Pentiment and Hi Fi Rush as smaller titles, but outside of Playground Games holding up the Xbox brand with Forza Horizon I haven't really seen a lot to impress me out of Xbox or keep me coming back. And even Forza I just see as the fun racing game I'll buy when the title gets delisted since it goes on deep sale and they've released so many at this point I might as well wait.
 
EricTheGamerman said:
My biggest problem with Xbox besides just absolutely refusing to do much of anything with their extensive IP and also being an arm of Microsoft hellbent on toxic industry M&A, is that they also just don't release enough titles I'm interested in during the year to justify really investing in Game Pass or a Series X. My PC isn't amazing, but it'll run most things decently and it's easier for me to buy those titles on deep discount shortly after release than be there Day One. I honestly don't think Game Pass even really makes sense unless Xbox is your primary or ONLY ecosystem you engage with. If you're consistently playing Sony or Nintendo stuff, or even just have amassed a decent library of older titles, Game Pass doesn't have the same allure.

And just they seem to be obsessed with this hands off model that has been nothing but disappointment for me for like 10 years as projects have fallen apart, completely changed, released in horrific states, or been completely unable to maintain any post launch momentum in a support way that is needed. Sea of Thieves did alright, Psychonauts 2 turned out well, and I do like Pentiment and Hi Fi Rush as smaller titles, but outside of Playground Games holding up the Xbox brand with Forza Horizon I haven't really seen a lot to impress me out of Xbox or keep me coming back. And even Forza I just see as the fun racing game I'll buy when the title gets delisted since it goes on deep sale and they've released so many at this point I might as well wait.
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One of the things that really baffles me is that Halo is Microsoft's biggest internally developed IP, and they completely mismanaged the studio they created specifically to develop it. And now with all of the layoffs and leadership departures, it's hard to say if 343 will really do anything other than IP management going forward.
 
Johna X said:
I'm turning 21 in 2 weeks if it makes feel better maybe like I'm not literally a child, I'm aware the forum culture leans older but I don't know felt like joining here and I've been to Bulbagarden (maybe doesn't lean as old idk)

In terms of statement just anecdotal, everyone here seems to agree 360 was big time for the company anyway I guess I'm just arguing the momentum of that carried for enough to make me feel the name Xbox isn't worth sacrificing but I'm maybe biased due to aformentioned point in life making it feel more influential, I don't think I dealt with any of the "nintendo for babies" stuff GCN era is associated with I def felt my school district was always xbox biased perhaps even beyond just not nintendo like even more xbox then sony it felt despite sales data during PS4 Xbone
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If anything I actually think people your age generally underestimate how big the 360 was for its era in North America. If you were a core console gamer between the ages of like 13 and 35 the 360 was the platform everyone defaulted to, especially earlier in the generation before the PS3 had its turnaround.
 
Xbox's main problem is that its two of its three biggest IP, Halo and Gears are very much a product of their time. The AAA landscape has shifted significantly since the mid-2000s and those games are more or less outdated. Arena shooters are dead and Halo being a quasi-arena shooter will have a limited appeal outside those that grew up with the series. Sony also had these style of series before such as Resistance, Infamous and Killzone, but instead of tripling down on them, their developers moved onto new IPs more in line with modern AAA tastes and led to Spiderman, Ghost of Tsushima and Horizon.

So in some ways, Xbox's huge success in the 360 era ended up being a curse that shackled them to that era. It was easier for Sony to move on from Resistance, Infamous, Killzone, etc because they were never as big as Halo and Gears.
 
Hailinel said:
One of the things that really baffles me is that Halo is Microsoft's biggest internally developed IP, and they completely mismanaged the studio they created specifically to develop it. And now with all of the layoffs and leadership departures, it's hard to say if 343 will really do anything other than IP management going forward.
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Halo isn't even Microsoft's biggest internally developed IP at this point I feel like. 10 years of 343 doing everything in their power to run the franchise into the ground and botching Infinite so badly that I don't think they can legit recover on this project indicates to me Halo is just ending up another IP to them rather than the flagship it once was. There was the briefest of windows between Halo MCC on Steam and Halo Infinite being developed that it looked like they MIGHT finally turn the ship around, only to face plant completely arguably harder than they ever did with other releases.

It feels like the definition of throwing a bunch of talent at the wall with no plan, no direction, and a massive anxiety that COD came into the FPS space and dethroned their homemade title (that was still selling incredibly well, it just couldn't put up COD numbers once COD reached its mass market saturation) that they kept doing nonsense thing after nonsense thing. They chased industry trends, didn't really even seem to understand the IP they were in charge of or the fans of it (and hey I get Halo fans are tough to please, but also, like you cannot expect good will indefinitely when you treat them like shit too as a company), and have never once seemed like they had management who knew how to run projects.

I almost wonder if a big reason Xbox got so gung-ho on acquisitions is that trying to build up The Coalition and 343 as replacement studios from the ground up just proved a million difficulties and generally that money+talent is not a guarantee of a successful studio or title, so they just went with Option B being that Microsoft had massive stacks of cash that could uproot the gaming industry as a whole.

Like I can't even necessarily blame Microsoft for wanting COD on some level when they went from dominating the FPS space on console with Halo to what it is now and just deciding to try and buy the successful FPS juggernaut outright because lord knows they couldn't build a studio nor nurture an IP to compete with it anymore. Not that Halo should have been competing for that space necessarily (COD and Halo co-existed just fine on 360 at their respective peaks).

Though having watched 343 and Rare over the past decade makes me really really wonder what fantasy land people get into about Microsoft owning this company or this IP and that being seen as a good thing for its future or for old revivals. If Microsoft wouldn't even bother to intervene for their CONSOLE DEFINING IN HOUSE IP across a 10 year developmental failure, why would we expect Microsoft to fix the issues at any studio or deal with the problems of who they're acquiring on any real level?

Xbox needs a fundamental set of changes it feels like and I kind of think it won't happen either because Game Pass is what they're all in on and the nature of that as a service means there's even less willingness to go address issues when the catalogue is what you're hell bent on selling to people.
 
I feel like they don’t do a good job of making their big releases feel like ‘events’. Like that feeling in the gaming world around the release of Tears of the Kingdom right now. Even something like Gears of War now feels like ‘just another Gears’.
 
they have been telling everybody for years that their thing is to be the netflix of video games, so dont expect them to push anything thats not gamepass/attached very hard. Now, something seems to be wrong with their pipeline, but when you buy so many studios in so little time things are bound to go chaotic for a while. Even worse if/when the activision thing passes

Money cant buy you everything, it can buy you a whole lot but eventually you gotta know what to do with the resources you have in a and streamline them into a manageable way.
 
tender said:
without the internet idk if i'd be feeling they were doing that poorly. 3 great games in the last few months with grounded, pentiment and hifi rush, i guess they aren't triple a but that's not really what i am looking for anyway.

just excited to see avowed and fable hopefully in that space.

obsidian is really holding their output together now that i think about it.
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Right. Grounded + Pentiment + Hi-Fi Rush in September, November, January was great. They weren’t quite able to keep that going and Redfall was a huge miss but those months were serious progress compared to, like, all the rest of 2022, and I think we’ll get to the point where we see a cadence more like that from them going forward, and with some AAA games in there too.

If they can execute on, say, Starfield in September, Forza in November, Hellblade in Q1, Avowed in Q2, with some smaller/partner titles like their game with Stoic peppered in there too, that’s a really strong cadence and not really behind what, like, Sony does. Despite what some people seem to think, Sony doesn’t have a AAA banger every quarter; it’s looking increasingly like their big thing in the whole back half of the year is Spider-man 2, and their big game this quarter is a third-party title they made a timed exclusivity deal with.

Neither Microsoft nor Sony are likely to be like Nintendo, where they release like 12+ games a year and essentially can carry their entire platform on their own, but a willingness to make smaller games like Grounded/Pentiment/Hi-Fi Rush (all creative new IP!) means I wouldn’t be surprised if, in a few years, Microsoft was actually closer to that cadence than Sony was. Sony seems to want to release one or two mega-budget AAAA cinematic experiences a year, MLB The Show, and very little else.
 
Chaos Theory said:
They used to be the best at it.
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Part of the problem is that if only a small part of the market is on Xbox, it’s a lot harder to make an Xbox game feel like an event.

I think we’ll see the Starfield launch feel like an event, though. That BGS pedigree + BGS games always being really big on the PC anyway will help.
 
Dcubed said:
Ironically, they invented the idea of a video game release being a blockbuster marketing event!

Don Mattrick really did completely gut the company.
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Haha good old Don. Let’s say goodbye to Bungie; close Ensemble after a reasonably successful Halo Wars game; put two of our three remaining competent studios—Lionhead and Rare—on Kinect; exhibit an absolute disasterclass in studio management of 343i, Black Tusk and Victoria; and oversee what is quite possibly the worst console launch in the industry.

The problem was that Xbox fans fought tooth and nail to defend him the entire way.
 
HockeyBird said:
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I really dislike this tweet if only because it completely ignores what a treat games like Hi Fi Rush and Pentiment were for Xbox fans.

HFR is a legit GotY contender at this stage: it's unique, polished and full of charm.

If you're a games journo with a big follow, you could use your platform to actually highlight what a good game HFR is. Or you could just keep going "Le sigh, I guess we'll just have to wait until Starfield for a truly great Xbox game" which is just... Why ignore good games that are already out there to start huffing about how good an unreleased game is in your mind?
 
I skipped the xbox one since xbox360 hardware was so terrible. I have both Xbox series x and series s this gen (+pc, ps5 and switch)

So they are doing better, imo
 
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Chaos Theory said:
Haha good old Don. Let’s say goodbye to Bungie; close Ensemble after a reasonably successful Halo Wars game; put two of our three remaining competent studios—Lionhead and Rare—on Kinect; exhibit an absolute disasterclass in studio management of 343i, Black Tusk and Victoria; and oversee what is quite possibly the worst console launch in the industry.

The problem was that Xbox fans fought tooth and nail to defend him the entire way.
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I agree with your post but also wanted to thank you personally for your correct usage of semicolons in a list

That is all, carry on
 
Gay Bowser said:
Right. Grounded + Pentiment + Hi-Fi Rush in September, November, January was great. They weren’t quite able to keep that going and Redfall was a huge miss but those months were serious progress compared to, like, all the rest of 2022, and I think we’ll get to the point where we see a cadence more like that from them going forward, and with some AAA games in there too.

If they can execute on, say, Starfield in September, Forza in November, Hellblade in Q1, Avowed in Q2, with some smaller/partner titles like their game with Stoic peppered in there too, that’s a really strong cadence and not really behind what, like, Sony does. Despite what some people seem to think, Sony doesn’t have a AAA banger every quarter; it’s looking increasingly like their big thing in the whole back half of the year is Spider-man 2, and their big game this quarter is a third-party title they made a timed exclusivity deal with.

Neither Microsoft nor Sony are likely to be like Nintendo, where they release like 12+ games a year and essentially can carry their entire platform on their own, but a willingness to make smaller games like Grounded/Pentiment/Hi-Fi Rush (all creative new IP!) means I wouldn’t be surprised if, in a few years, Microsoft was actually closer to that cadence than Sony was. Sony seems to want to release one or two mega-budget AAAA cinematic experiences a year, MLB The Show, and very little else.
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My Xbox hope and dream is that they emulate Nintendo in this.

Would be the shift that turns around their fortunes and shows the industry that Xbox is here for real.
 
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