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Discussion Xbox - Where did it all go wrong?

smoothies said:
The PS5 will be shooting itself in the foot soon with a strong investment in GaaS games over other game development. As more people become aware of that, they will likely choose XBox over PS5. And I think we'll see that swing in momentum play out over time. Game Pass, I suppose, is still the big present motivator. I will say that Microsoft needs to be cautious about raising prices. They're still in kind of a bad spot for the present, but it looks like things will begin to swing their way.
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Fantasy.
 
BassForever said:
I hear ya, my point was at the launch of the ps4/xb1 physical was still king and how >90% of gamers got >90% of their gaming content on consoles. A decade later and physical has dropped drastically, especially on Playstation and Xbox hence why we have rumors of the extremely successful ps5 going with a new model that is digital only with an optional disc attachment thing. Then you add how many games are affectively online only experiences including titles like Diablo 4 and it's just very sad.
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yeahhhh the online only shit is a huge bummer

everything should have a solid single-or-multi-player offline mode. everything. i will yell this until I die.

I’d still say digital-only is not great but less limiting than online checks. you can at least like download some games on the Tim Hortons free wifi and scuttle back off the grid

or you can with a Switch, I imagine that’s a lot harder with a PS5 lmao
 
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smoothies said:
Mortal Kombat 1, Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, Forza Motorsport, Alan Wake 2, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, etc.

The clog in the pipeline is ending. Consistent, big games are going to be coming regularly now.
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  • MK1: on everything
  • CP2077: on PS and PC
  • FM8: point
  • AW2: on PS and PC
  • CoD: on PS and PC
the problem isn't that it doesn't have big (third party) games. it's that why should you get an Xbox over anything else? all these games are at least available on PC and aside from the one first party are on Playstation + Sony's exclusive games. this is why exclusives (particularly first party) are important: they are the delineation between samey systems. if you buy Xbox, you're just buying a Playstation with fewer titles
 
Mer.Saloon said:
What at the present makes the Xbox version better?
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Building a gaming PC can be intimidating, expensive, or just generally too much effort compared to getting a console.

Vs PS5 - Backwards compatibility: it could depend on which system's library you prefer. GamePass is still a great value. Some may prefer the Xbox controller.
 
360 Kinect era was when I jumped ship. By then it was already memed that Xbox was a Halo/Gears/Forza mill. Sprinkle in a mixed reception Fable and Rare game. The Kinect and Wii were so successful and that's what they chased and it left a pretty minimal 1st party line up as they eventually started cancelling projects and closing studios in the Xbox One era

Then 2018 they started their studio buying spree and haven't executed consistently yet. Gamepass was a major plus over PS+ but now there's PS+ Extra/Premium where the major plus for Gamepass is day 1 first party releases and that hasn't panned out in a special way yet because of their lack of execution. The gamepass catalog and gamepass streaming are advantages that are quickly dimishing in my opinion because of the lack of blockbuster exclusive content to advertise it and that streaming is still a work in progress for quality

This is more like an Nvidia/AMD situation rather than Intel/AMD. Nvidia/Sony so far aren't having missteps for AMD/Microsoft to leapfrog them and start chipping away at marketshare like Intel had missteps and AMD could chip away at them (and AMD has not eclipsed Intel in marketshare yet even after 6 years of executing well). If Microsofts 2018 purchases and Bethesda start releasing steady hits, it'll still take years to chip away at Sony's established market-share and momentum. Sony has a lot of room to react to a competitive Microsoft
 
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At this point, I will stop fielding questions as the one voice of dissent lol. My main point is that, yes, Microsoft and the XBox brand have been in the middle of a VERY PREVENTABLE low period. I see steps being made that make me optimistic that this low period is about to end or at least get much better. I haven't mentioned this point yet, but I also think they are working on strengthening their third party support (see:Atlus games on Gamepass, FF14 coming soon, etc) As a gamer who is thinking about getting either a PS5 or XBox Series X eventually, I am personally leaning towards the Series X.
 
smoothies said:
At this point, I will stop fielding questions as the one voice of dissent lol. My main point is that, yes, Microsoft and the XBox brand has been in the middle of a VERY PREVENTABLE low period. I see steps being made that make me optimistic that this low period is about to end or at least get much better. I haven't mentioned this point yet, but I also think they are working on strengthening their third party support (see:Atlus games on Gamepass, FF14 coming soon, etc) As a gamer who is thinking about getting either a PS5 or XBox Series X eventually, I am personally leaning towards the Series X.
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I def think we are coming out of the low point. No argument there. I’m super hyped for both Starfield and Forza.

Not to say they didn’t fumble the bag yet again out of the gate, but it does look like brighter skies are ahead. Idk why anyone would think otherwise.
 
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smoothies said:
Building a gaming PC can be intimidating, expensive, or just generally too much effort compared to getting a console.

Vs PS5 - Backwards compatibility: it could depend on which system's library you prefer. GamePass is still a great value. Some may prefer the Xbox controller.
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Gamepass is a great value, no doubt about it.

It baffles me that it alone hasn't elevated MS to first place, but maybe consumers see different value in games than they do movies. After all, a game is a hezvier investment than a TV show.

The problem is the same as all other streaming, a lot of losses, and while MS has been hiding the expenses behind sub growth, we've seen behind the cracks that Gamepass losses money on game sales in the long run. And sub growth has been slowing down. So how long will MS hold out before they start moving to the same tactics other streamers like Netflix and Max are going.

smoothies said:
At this point, I will stop fielding questions as the one voice of dissent lol. My main point is that, yes, Microsoft and the XBox brand have been in the middle of a VERY PREVENTABLE low period. I see steps being made that make me optimistic that this low period is about to end or at least get much better. I haven't mentioned this point yet, but I also think they are working on strengthening their third party support (see:Atlus games on Gamepass, FF14 coming soon, etc) As a gamer who is thinking about getting either a PS5 or XBox Series X eventually, I am personally leaning towards the Series X.
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I think they are getting better with offering stuff. The problem I see is that the competition isn't fumbling fast enough.

In all honesty the Series X is a really, really good offer. But I can't see how Xbox isn't blowing shit loads of money for such slow growth.
 
Oh this one I have an opinion on. Xbox went wrong halfway through the 360 gen. You'd think that was when they were on top but that was where they started to sow the seeds of underachieving. At that point they had the hardware edge, the service edge, and they had the banger titles like Mass Effect. If you were playing a game, you were playing it on a 360. On the other side, the PS3 was having to justify its existence on every exclusive that came out while also battling hardware that wasn't set up for the more multi-channel world that was appearing.

But, that midpoint is where Microsoft started to throw it away. Coming out from their studios was pretty much a rotational stream of servicing Halo, Gears and Forza. I remember many conferences where people would say afterwards how the indies saved it (Xbox was the home of the first banger indies too, Fez, Braid). This was slightly obscured by the performance on the console on third parties, "winning" Playstation exclusives like Final Fantasy, plus hardware launches where they pulled out the stops on a crop of supporting launch window titles (but then little else).

On the flip, Sony was absolutely beavering away, it was pushing exclusives. One to two biggies managed to critically land (Uncharted 2 being the first) and they had A LOT of "ok" tier titles supporting it that garnered a load of fans. Then they launched PSN+ late cycle and people started grabbing the machine for freebie exclusives they missed by going 360. Yeah, the PS3 overhauled in sales by the end of its life but the damage on third party adoption was done and "giving" away games creates good will. In fact it created a lot of good will, along with some late cycle bangers like Last Of Us.

By the time it came for the handover, Sony was looking rosy and Microsoft bodged their XB1 launch. So many decisions went against them: trying to make the machine the central media hub, going in on Kinect motion, hoping to corner the functionality market hoping that third parties would use "the cloud" which would design Sony out of a bunch of stuff. Sony simply came in with a cheap, effective machine that had the performance edge (aka, a 360). MS actually launched with a great bunch of stuff out of the traps, but that was it, there was nothing more to come. Sony took a little while to get going, but by then their mature production pipeline started delivering blockbusters, and that really got them the edge.

At this point Microsoft didn't have software, didn't have the hardware edge, and the service gap had closed a lot. At this point they took action. Step 1 - better hardware -> the XB1X came out and was the best machine on the market. Step 2 - better service -> their focus on the BC stuff didn't deliver new titles, but it delivered some of the best versions of legacy titles, something that Sony have had trouble with due to the weirdness of their architectures over the years. Step 3 - better games -> well they certainly bought the studios, but I immediately knew that this was going to be a good 7 years before that would start to get rolling, and that really has only just started to happen now. Their last "direct" was full of loads of Xbox only titles and their first attempted banger comes out this month.

MS have everything in place to do well right now. Once the motion starts rolling, it'll be like a steamroller to react to. And the portfolio is diverse from those mid-tier production level games to AAA bangers and a lot of the most successful service games (including the all timer if Activision takeover lands).

I shat on Microsoft's model consistently because it looked like they were sowing the seeds for a defeat long ago (and it was to be), but they're shaping up right now to hit it.
 
YolkFolk said:
What happened to Gears of War?

Feels like it was a massive franchise for them but it slowly just got less and less popular. They don’t do an actual good job of hyping up their own games.
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Sometimes you have to leave the past behind and do something new, Sony were quite good with that.

Uncharted - left behind for Last Of Us
Infamous - left behind for Spiderman
Killzone - left behind for Horizon
God Of War - didn't so much leave behind, but completely change

I feel that MS should have hung onto Bungie and Destiny should have been the successor to Halo.

Plus I'm also new to MS since a LONG time, and I have no real interest in jumping in at entry 5 or 6 in a series.
 
A combination of Kinect, relying too much on Halo, Gears, and Forza at the end of the 360 generation, and the Xbox One launch.
 
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Kreese said:
In some ways it can even be argued that the success of the Wii sent MS trying to diverge into chasing more mainstream audiences with Kinect coming tethered to the Xbox One... this lead to a host of problems for Mattrick era Xbox when their focus should have been on games.
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They barely made any games for Kinect and their big push at the reveal of Xbox One was around the voice controls and using it to control your media. They were also going around to ad agencies telling them how they can use Kinect to get detailed user data like sex, age, viewing habits, all sorts of shit including (as was pitched to a few friends of mine) being able to tell when somebody is menstruating. The Kinect was not a response to the Wii. The Wii was a great excuse for Microsoft to push a highly invasive product into your home.

The short answer is they forgot they needed to focus on games to sell a gaming machine. They also pushed their digital store in the 360 era harder than anybody else but they either didn’t have any BC plans or didn’t want to reveal them around launch for some reason. The One launched with no BC and they told people to just buy a 360 if they want those games or have no internet. They had the opportunity to transition people smoothly to the next system and didn’t even try. The Wii U for all its flaws had near 100% BC day one. The PS4 had none, but what the PS3 did have was market dominance in multiple regions, so if you’re looking at buying a One or a PS4, there’s no incentive to jump to a new ecosystem. No major exclusives, no back catalog, no unique experience aside from a couple Kinect games which had an awful reputation by that point.
 
smoothies said:
The PS5 will be shooting itself in the foot soon with a strong investment in GaaS games over other game development.
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Now I did think this until I suddenly thought of MS's GaaS portfolio:

Halo Infinite
Sea Of Thieves
Elder Scrolls Online
Fallout 76
(possibly) Overwatch 2
(possibly) World Of Warcraft

and that top of the list head probably has more to add to it.

That's a brutal line up. You have the all time biggest in there, a pop culture smash, two big ones that have really grown into themselves, one with a dedicated audience and one that is possibly underachieving.

And Sony have... nothing? Yeah, they absolutely need to put in a shift on that. However, the dearth of titles after 18 months off from conferences should be concerning as that echoes Microsoft who effectively skipped everything other than E3 to do a multiplat showcase. If they come to the market with some sequels and nothing else, that is alarm bell time.
 
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smoothies said:
Vs PS5 - Backwards compatibility: it could depend on which system's library you prefer. GamePass is still a great value. Some may prefer the Xbox controller.
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So, anecdotally, I chose an XSX this time despite being PS1-3. Gamepass had no competitor then and I picked it for that. I was going to have access to a huge array of titles I could not get on Switch and the lure of the PS5 exclusives didn't have enough sway, plus the amazing BC work got me picking the SX rather than the SS too. Perhaps FF7r but it sounds like that might be coming across.

On the flip, if I did go for a PS5, I wouldn't be tempted over to XB at the moment. It's got Forza Horizon for me effectively. But when it has Forza Horizon and Starfield, that's a different question, and I expect more questions to happen over the years.
 
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fourfourfun said:
Around BC, yeah, I also feel that due to the PS3 effectively canning it and that machine itself having a hostile architecture, people simply didn't expect it. The bad news had already been out and killed.
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Obviously BC wasn’t a huge selling point that gen, but I think it could have helped whoever actually had a smooth transition. Unfortunately that was nobody. Sony had no BC. Microsoft’s came late. And Nintendo’s was cumbersome and confusing to the point that I still correct people on how it worked more than 10 years later. Nintendo’s digital purchases didn’t include retail games anyways, so it’s not nearly as impactful as if Sony or Microsoft had come out the gate with it.

And I agree enthusiasts could forgive Sony for no BC cause the PS3 was a known mess. Similar to Nintendo dropping it for the Switch.
 
Mer.Saloon said:
Gamepass is a great value, no doubt about it.

It baffles me that it alone hasn't elevated MS to first place, but maybe consumers see different value in games than they do movies. After all, a game is a hezvier investment than a TV show.

The problem is the same as all other streaming, a lot of losses, and while MS has been hiding the expenses behind sub growth, we've seen behind the cracks that Gamepass losses money on game sales in the long run. And sub growth has been slowing down. So how long will MS hold out before they start moving to the same tactics other streamers like Netflix and Max are going.
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it's as you said, it has the same problem as other streaming/sub services. you can offer a billion things to watch/play, but if they're not what people want, they just don't engage with it. people are finding that they just don't really consume enough to make these subs worth it
 
fourfourfun said:
MS have everything in place to do well right now. Once the motion starts rolling, it'll be like a steamroller to react to. And the portfolio is diverse from those mid-tier production level games to AAA bangers and a lot of the most successful service games (including the all timer if Activision takeover lands).

I shat on Microsoft's model consistently because it looked like they were sowing the seeds for a defeat long ago (and it was to be), but they're shaping up right now to hit it.
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The problem i see is that the current outlook on success is reliant on Sony or Nintendo fucking things up, otherwise they'll still be in distant 3rd, but spending a lot of money to stay in 3rd.

Sony is showing cracks yeah, but whether they'll fuck things up enough for Xbox to gain ground remains to be seen.

And what happens when Nintendo shows up with their newest console and the exclusives are incredible?

No doubt MS is making good will and offering a damn solid product. (Only reason I don't have Xbox or Gamepass is that I don't game enough to justify.)
But so much just feels like hoping the competition fumbles.

fourfourfun said:
What MS did with the enhanced BC got me looking though. Never seen that sort of stuff before, the split screens of stuff like Morrowind was pretty cool, and the magic worked on the 360 version of FFXIII was also nice.
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It has to work on more people and at a faster rate than currently is.
 
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fourfourfun said:
What MS did with the enhanced BC got me looking though. Never seen that sort of stuff before, the split screens of stuff like Morrowind was pretty cool, and the magic worked on the 360 version of FFXIII was also nice.
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Same. But they had to go under new management and rebrand to get there. And we are clearly the minority. They also didn’t announce it until it was already clear they were trailing behind Sony.
 
Mattrick and Spencer took the wheel, that's what's wrong with xbox. The funniest thing is Don brought more games for xbone's launch than Spencer for Series.When you lose guys who are sincerely interested in games like Seamus Blackley or J Allard then problems start piling up. I've been with xbox since 360 and now I think series X will he the last console from them. I used gamepass, because it was so cheap it was almost free, but now after all those price increases Im done with the sub. So if I dont sub to gp what am I left with when they focus mainly on gp? Too bad they bought so many rpg studios, but I predict some people will leave and create their own companies.
 
fourfourfun said:
Sometimes you have to leave the past behind and do something new, Sony were quite good with that.

Uncharted - left behind for Last Of Us
Infamous - left behind for Spiderman
Killzone - left behind for Horizon
God Of War - didn't so much leave behind, but completely change

I feel that MS should have hung onto Bungie and Destiny should have been the successor to Halo.

Plus I'm also new to MS since a LONG time, and I have no real interest in jumping in at entry 5 or 6 in a series.
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Is that an issue with having a strong narrative focus?

For example, people could jump into BotW or TotK and not having played OoT, MM, WW etc isn’t really a problem.
 
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Branduil said:
The thing about Xbox is they've only seen any kind of significant success during a very small period of time, when Sony went crazy and tried to sell a console for 599 US dollars. And as soon as Sony sorted themselves out, they started beating Xbox again.

At no point in its 20+ year history has Xbox shown ANY ability to beat Sony when Sony was not beating themselves. There are numerous reasons for this, but the biggest one is that Xbox has always been a regional brand. It doesn't sell in Asia, it doesn't sell in most of Europe, it doesn't sell in South America, etc. It's a console for America and the UK, and that's not good enough to beat the Sony behemoth.

It also doesn't help that MS has had massive problems getting any kind of killer app for Xbox lately. That obviously was a big reason for them buying Bethesda and Activision, so we'll see if that helps, but it will take a few years for that to have a major effect.
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XBox is a well-regarded brand in South America, at least in Brazil I'm sure the X360 sold more than the PS3, and the XOne didn't lose so badly to the PS4. Series S + Game Pass is doing pretty well too.
 
Where didn't it go wrong? You could point to the red ring of death, you could point to focusing on the Kinect harming the 360's late-gen software, you could point to everything about the Xbox One launch, you could point to the software development struggles of the last decade, you could point to the lack of investment in console hardware and control features, you could point to confusing branding...

Everything has been an issue at some point over the last 15 years
 
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FeiFongWong said:
Mattrick and Spencer took the wheel, that's what's wrong with xbox. The funniest thing is Don brought more games for xbone's launch than Spencer for Series.When you lose guys who are sincerely interested in games like Seamus Blackley or J Allard then problems start piling up. I've been with xbox since 360 and now I think series X will he the last console from them. I used gamepass, because it was so cheap it was almost free, but now after all those price increases Im done with the sub. So if I dont sub to gp what am I left with when they focus mainly on gp? Too bad they bought so many rpg studios, but I predict some people will leave and create their own companies.
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Spencer has the Game Pass to be proud of, Mattrick will have no legacy at all. I see no relation between them. Even if this era has been lacking in terms of first-party games, there's a pretty big difference between MS under Mattrick and under Spencer
 
carlosfilho said:
Spencer has the Game Pass to be proud of, what was Mattrick's legacy? A tv-focused presentation? I see no relation between them. Even if this era has been lacking in terms of first-party games, there's a pretty big difference between MS under Mattrick and under Spencer
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I don't see a difference. There were almost no games then and there's almost nothing 1st party to play now.

Regarding gamepass - I can't wait to see the number of subscribers after all the conversions are disabled.
 
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The lack of good first party titles on the Xbox One killed them. A great first party title would come every couple of years (Forza Horizon and Gears of War), but they never managed to sustain momentum. Delays and cancelled projects aren't helping.
 
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You know, for what it’s worth: I’m actually pretty optimistic about Xbox’s current direction. I think Game Pass allows Xbox first party studios to make wildly interesting games. Games like Hi-Fi Rush and Pentiment feel really unique and only really possible when they don’t need to rely solely on “unit sales” as a success metric. Yeah, they need more games, but I have faith that they’re coming. As a primarily Switch-only video game enjoyer who doesn’t want to interact with a computer to play video games, the Xbox has been an excellent “secondary” console ecosystem to have in the house. Their back-compat stuff has been great, I love their controller, I love Game Pass… I dunno, a lot of what Xbox is doing lately is appealing to me. I don’t expect them to ever really escape that “third place” position and I think that’s fine. I just really like what they’re doing nowadays, and will continue to engage with their gaming ecosystem.

Very excited for Starfield and Forza this year!
 
I feel people on international (ie mostly US-centric) video game forums overestimate the success Microsoft had with systems prior to the Xbox One. They always had a hard stand in Europe. They entered the market late in the game with the OG Xbox and managed to secure a pretty weak second place in a generation where the PS2 totally dominated.

Then they managed to greatly improve on that success with the excellent 360 - the one and only generation where Microsoft truly was able to shine and compete. And even then they never managed to make more than a dent in Japan and struggled across most of Europe.

So basically Microsoft has never truly been competitive outside of the US and the UK. They messed up massively with the Xbox One and then managed to design a good system with the XSX but continued absolutely dismal first party support. Plus it seems obvious that GamePass as a one trick pony is not nearly enough to change the market conditions outside the territories they are already successful in.

Plus MS has a really bad track record with keeping up the quality and quantity of releases of all the studios they bought. It's a bit of a shame really.
 
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I was a PS2 fan who got a 360 when the PS3 was such a mess at launch. I then switched back from Xbox when they introduced Kinect and it was clear that momentum had switched from MS to Sony, who had by then solved PS3's issues.

Since then it has been a disaster for Xbox for all the reasons people have gone into in this thread, but I don't think public opinion has quite caught up to just how good the Xbox offering is right now. The Xbox Series X is a superlative piece of kit, there ARE good console exclusives on it, and Game Pass is an incredible value. And that's Xbox's unique selling point right now. For a long while it was best graphics, then best online play, then Kinect (yikes) then with the One X they tried to pivot back to graphics again. Now with game pass and the Series S it's value.

I got 3 years worth of Game Pass for $180 - granted that trick is over and you'd have to pay another 33% these days. But it's still cheap. That gets you an incredible library of games, and their big console exclusives on day 1. It will get me Starfield, which is incredible. On the other hand a single new PS release is $70. PS first party games don't come to PS+ day 1. It's a huge, huge difference. The value on Xbox is just feels insane by comparison. I've only had to buy like 2 games in 3 years.

But the public doesn't seem to care, and that surprises me. I guess value doesn't matter if the actual desire to purchase something isn't there.

The software has been a huge problem, but it's as much a problem that they aren't on trend and creating hype with marketing as that they aren't making good software.
I mean, Psychonauts 2 was amazing but filtered from the public consciousness quickly, Ori and the Will of the Wisps the same, Hi-Fi Rush the same, Pentiment the same... Grounded and Sea of Theives are really well regarded too. Yet people think there are no exclusives.

I think a huge problem is that the big hitter that people define them with is Halo. Infinite was honestly good, but received poorly (as always), which was partly due to a torturous dev cycle and terrible marketing. That series has seen it's best days, that kind of sci-fi arena shooter is just not fashionable any more, and the fans are at this point impossible to please. It's a huge issue for them, and it colours the perception of everything they do. It's a reverse Halo effect for their brand - pun entirely intended.

Flight Sim was awesome - but console owners don't really care. I guess Forza Horizon 5 feels like the only game they've really had "hit" in the past three years. So they just can't seem to hit that level of critical mass in the cultural discourse with their good stuff, but let a disaster like Redfall happen and it dominates the discourse for multiple weeks.

Sony on the other hand has generated that sense of self-sustaining hype for their first party games that Nintendo always had. Where people are 100% sure they'll be quality, so everyone waits with baited breath for each one. Yes, Spider-man sells itself, but the PS first party shine is enough to get something like Ghost of Tsushima into the mainstream on its own.

It's gonna have to be years of quality exclusive releases for Xbox to get to that point, but I do finally believe they're capable of it. I do feel like a turnaround is possible if Sony only even slightly fumbles the ball.

But I feel bad for the Xbox team right now struggling with low sales because the quality of the product is there.

Let's see what Starfield does.
 
Mainly Xbox One. That's the biggest culprit. It totally killed the great momentum Xbox 360 had.

There's also the games. They just never had the libraries that Sony and Nintendo do, and they still don't. It's gotten better recently, sadly due in part to just buying other giant companies instead of growing their own studios, but we'll have to see how all of those upcoming games pan out.
 
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Even to this day it astonishes me that Microsoft went chasing after the Wii’s market when they had made such amazing progress capturing their initial demographic - Playstation gamers. Two generations of incredible progress in terms of sales and mind share and they pissed it up the wall chasing so-called ‘casual’ gamers. Nintendo went that way out of necessity, Microsoft because they weren’t content with just a slice of the pie, they wanted/want the whole thing.

And it’s not even an either/or thing. You can have a console that’s accessible to the novice and appealing to the newcomer and has a library for long term gamers, but they promoted it almost exclusively to what they imagined Wii’s audience to be and I think a lot of potential customers haven’t really forgotten how quickly they got ditched in favour of the new hotness.
 
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TanookiTom said:
So basically Microsoft has never truly been competitive outside of the US and the UK
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Yeah, Xbox is almost a non-presence in Asia. Some game stores here don’t even stock Xbox consoles or games. Even throughout high school and college I’ve only met like five people who owned one, and only one of them was actively using it as a main console.

Derachi said:
I’m actually pretty optimistic about Xbox’s current direction
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That said, I do like how Xbox has been handling itself this generation. They’re still fumbling badly but it’s at least in a general direction I like. Also they’re getting stuff like Pentiment and HiFi Rush out, which I appreciate.

Heron said:
But the public doesn't seem to care, and that surprises me. I guess value doesn't matter if the actual desire to purchase something isn't there
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Of course. Most people don’t think about the value; they sub because they want specific content in a service. Everything else is just gravy.

Basically it all comes down to Xbox needing killer apps.
 
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Heron said:
But the public doesn't seem to care, and that surprises me. I guess value doesn't matter if the actual desire to purchase something isn't there.
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People prefer to pay for what they really want instead of getting cheap games they don't have any interest in. The interesting thing is that only a relatively small % of xbox users even cared to do the cheap conversion.

I have a hard time picturing who gamepass is really for. It's not for casuals, because they don't play enough to "get their money worth". I also can't imagine it being the best choice for hardcore, because they know what they want and don't need to be provided with a variety of games (which is not always great). I've been using GP for like 4 years, but after buying switch I finally feel free. I played too many games that didn't really interest me, but they were "free" and often well reviewed so I felt the need to finish them (achievement ocd also had a role in it)
 
I simp hard for gamepass, but I'm also someone who loves to play a variety of games and doesn't give a fuck if I finish them or get all the achievements.
 
FeiFongWong said:
People prefer to pay for what they really want instead of getting cheap games they don't have any interest in. The interesting thing is that only a relatively small % of xbox users even cared to do the cheap conversion.

I have a hard time picturing who gamepass is really for. It's not for casuals, because they don't play enough to "get their money worth". I also can't imagine it being the best choice for hardcore, because they know what they want and don't need to be provided with a variety of games (which is not always great). I've been using GP for like 4 years, but after buying switch I finally feel free. I played too many games that didn't really interest me, but they were "free" and often well reviewed so I felt the need to finish them (achievement ocd also had a role in it)
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That's exactly what stops me from getting gamepass. I just don't play modern games enough to justify the regular expense. And with games going in and out of the service, I would feel pressured to beat games.

At least with NSO the games update so slowly and don't go down I don't feel much pressure to beat stuff I'm not enjoying.
 
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It's kinda weird, maybe they're the most solid when it comes to overall services, but their brand and franchises feel less marketable than the other two nowadays. I do look forward to a new Gears game tho. They do drop some gems from time to time but maybe with not enough frequency or noise to gain more marketshare? Their acquisitions might eventually start to bear fruit tho, with Starfield by itself making some buzz
 
You know, the weird thing about Xbox's decline is that with most things in history, there is usually some debate to be had about where things went wrong. What source caused these issues. But with Xbox ... it's, really not even up for debate. It's Microsoft's focus on Kinect, or more like it's focus on just Kinect.

Frankly, I'm not going to diss Kinect or call Microsoft stupid for pursuing it or anything like that. The reality is that the Kinect was really too popular in the 360 era to make fun of, and I think it's silly how some gamers whine about it. I even think bundling the Xbox One with the Kinect was probably pretty reasonable at the time, though much like the pursuing the Wii brand further didn't work for Nintendo, it didn't work for Microsoft.

But focusing all their expansion development resources into Kinect? That's what made the Xbox brand fall. It's not even the Xbox One, because that was actually the fastest selling Xbox console for the first 3 years. It's not the Series S or X's tepid launch, because that was also the fastest selling Xbox for the first 3 years! It's the fact that Xbox didn't foster talent during the end of the 360 era, and instead focused entirely on Kinect, coasting their growth on Halo, Gears, Forza, Kinect and third parties. Coincidentally, if they had started fostering talent during the end of the 360 era, they would have probably released new games around the time Xbox One sales started to lag behind.

Now the conversation over what "fuck ups" Xbox made so that they can't beat their competitor is another topic, and really there's nothing Xbox could have done to win against Playstation.
 
I don't think I've got a more divided opinion for any game system than I do for Xbox 360 lol. That thing started out so well and ended so badly for me (whereas it was the complete opposite for PS3 for me).

In my mind Xbox One is one of the weakest consoles I've ever owned since starting gaming with a Commodore 64...on the other hand, it was a necessary jolt of pain for Microsoft to react to. Their last showing of the upcoming games all very much were exactly the sorts of games I'm looking for from them nowadays.

I'll personally always miss the amount of Japanese games we got during the OG Xbox and early 360 days, but I've made my peace with that never coming back now and accepting Bethesda, Obsidian and inXile to provide some cool RPGs to play.

Having said that, I am not in a rush to get a Series X, so am waiting until end of the year to get one, since next year looks like it's going to be Microsoft's year if all those games do release.

But that really is their biggest flaw, they overpromise on certain showcases in the past and it really bit them, badly received games like Crackdown 3, cancelling the Phantom Dust remake, Halo Infinite's "longevity" being what it is, cancelling that Platinum Games title which tbh I never thought looked any good (sorry) Scalebound, Lionhead Studios being shuttered after that Fable game got canned (which came a shock to the staff there, I remember the Eurogamer article saying they never thought they'd get shut down and assets would be used on a proposed Fable IV), the eventual death of Kinect (the end of the 360 gen was so bad lol), the Redfall messy launch and reception and so on and so forth.

The end of the 360 gen/the reveal of the Xbox One and the Xbox One generation almost entirely were a right mess to me and the slow out of the gate Series X means it's been a slow burn. It's hard to deny how much the Kinect era/Xbox One damaged the brand. You can really see the moment it was going downhill when Microsoft made those announcements around Xbox One's launch and the reveal itself, I mean, it was awful, even to casuals, even though back then forum posters were making out as if only hardcore care about always online or the other "features" it had when that was blatantly not true lol. Backwards compatibility was them trying to patch things up it always felt like, and it was great don't get me wrong, it made me actually use my Xbox One a bit then, since I hardly ever used it otherwise...

I know 1 person who owns a Series X as their primary system, one who owns a Series S (this is a tertiary system for this friend), the rest of the people I work with are either PC gamers, Switch gamers and/or PS4/PS5 gamers.
 
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The decline of Xbox is really a messy subject because there have been so many things that went wrong over the years that could all be pointed at as for why it's in the state today that it is.

Even during the Xbox 360 generation which is fondly looked back upon as the golden age of the brand, Microsoft had huge issues like the Red Rings of Death and then the push towards Kinect at the end of the generation.

I think a lot of it has to do with shifting visions and drives within Microsoft that messed with the Xbox division over the years. Also Xbox I think historically has really struggled to know their audience and listen to the fans, even though they've clearly tried to do that over time the results aren't as strong.

Like if the Mario or Zelda IP declined to the level that Halo has been going through the last decade, the fans would be calling for the heads of Nintendo's company leadership to step down. It is bizarre to see what has been Xbox's poster boy slowly become forgotten as Microsoft goes on a spending spree to buy up other more popular gaming IP to center their 1st party around.
 
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smoothies said:
Mortal Kombat 1, Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, Forza Motorsport, Alan Wake 2, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, etc.

The clog in the pipeline is ending. Consistent, big games are going to be coming regularly now.
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I've been hearing about a flood of great Xbox games for about 4 years now, and basically Flight Simulator, Forza Horizon, Hi-Fi Rush, and Pentiment are the only well-received and popular exclusives that we've seen. Starfield will make it 5 games.

Others have made the same point, but that's not enough to regain market share. GamePass and strong 3rd party support keeps them relevant and profitable, but the YoY decline in hardware is exactly what I'd expect from that release cadence of exclusives.
 
Xbox is great now, something only "went wrong" if you only care about ranking Playstation, Nintendo, and Xbox in terms of how much they sell. From a user's perspective, They are in the best spot they've ever been in, even including the high points of the 360, and it sucks that the only stuff people can talk about are their failures a decade ago.
 
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AngryAlchemist said:
You know, the weird thing about Xbox's decline is that with most things in history, there is usually some debate to be had about where things went wrong. What source caused these issues. But with Xbox ... it's, really not even up for debate. It's Microsoft's focus on Kinect, or more like it's focus on just Kinect.

Frankly, I'm not going to diss Kinect or call Microsoft stupid for pursuing it or anything like that. The reality is that the Kinect was really too popular in the 360 era to make fun of, and I think it's silly how some gamers whine about it. I even think bundling the Xbox One with the Kinect was probably pretty reasonable at the time, though much like the pursuing the Wii brand further didn't work for Nintendo, it didn't work for Microsoft.

But focusing all their expansion development resources into Kinect? That's what made the Xbox brand fall. It's not even the Xbox One, because that was actually the fastest selling Xbox console for the first 3 years. It's not the Series S or X's tepid launch, because that was also the fastest selling Xbox for the first 3 years! It's the fact that Xbox didn't foster talent during the end of the 360 era, and instead focused entirely on Kinect, coasting their growth on Halo, Gears, Forza, Kinect and third parties. Coincidentally, if they had started fostering talent during the end of the 360 era, they would have probably released new games around the time Xbox One sales started to lag behind.

Now the conversation over what "fuck ups" Xbox made so that they can't beat their competitor is another topic, and really there's nothing Xbox could have done to win against Playstation.
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I do think there’s an interesting comparison to the WiiU thread just in terms of initial reveal and marketing with the Xbox One, at least as someone that looked at it from outside the US. Because, as you say, I understand why they were heavily leaning on the idea of a Kinect pack-in in the preceding couple of years. But when they revealed the XBO, as someone in Europe, we already knew the gaming big hitters were Halo/Gears/Forza. But to then have the reveal be squarely focused on ‘tv deals for sports you don’t care about on networks you don’t have! Plus motion controls and shooters/sports/racing!’, the whole thing seemed to be a package squarely focused at a really specific idea of their customer being some young American guy sitting around in a huge living room. It was just mystifying when Sony and Nintendo’s marketing is usually pretty neutral and universal. Compared to the WiiU, that’s big issue was the marketing left you really unclear about what it was, the XBO was really, hyper specific about what it was and the customers it wanted (anyone remember ‘tier 3 countries’?), to the point of being pretty offputting, at least from across the pond.

Anyway, that’s just my memories of a launch show though, so a really specific moment in time, rather than a wider, more nuanced view that others have covered. It’s just the other thread that made me think of the comparison in terms of how reveal shows set the pace for discussion for months before the product launches.
 
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Mekanos said:
The 360 was a fluke largely capitalizing on Sony falling face first with the PS3.
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Perfect storm really. They had the market to themselves and big hitter games at a decent price for a decent length of time before Sony played their hand that wasn’t quite the immediate, auto-win the previous two generations had been.

I remember my friends had 360s and a big part of it was the online multiplayer community and friends lists were really bedding in in those crucial months, that kinda brand loyalty built around online circles that still persists today in how you have to try harder to get people to ‘jump’ platform between generations.
 
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