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[Mossybrew]

Good article summing up what we mostly all realize at this point. I mean, I bought the OG XBox day one and had a great time with that huge brick of a console. The 360 glory days are well documented and that was a great time to be a gamer, a great time to be on XBox Live. And yeah, that was the last Microsoft console I owned. They never gave me a reason to get another one.

 

[Team Andromeda]

Eurogamer showing its true colours. Us old UK resistance fighters called it right all along LOL

 

[SlimySnake]

Wildly successful was what Microsoft was after. A pitch for Fable 4 was rejected. "It was like, you've reached your cap of players for RPG on Xbox and you need to find a way to double that, and you're not going to do it with RPG," Fable's art director John McCormack told Eurogamer at the time. "I thought, yes we can. I said, look, just give us four years, proper finance, give us the chance Mass Effect has, Skyrim has, the games at the time. They're getting four years and a lot of budget. Give us that, and we'll give you something that'll get you your players. Nah, you've had three shots and you've only tripled the money. It's not good enough. Fuck off. That's what I was annoyed about." (Worth noting: Skyrim went on to sell 63m copies, as of June 2023, The Witcher 3 over 50m.)

Phil was head of Xbox first party back then.

This clown has always been a moron and Microsoft's decision to promote him and stick with him has cost us a decade of amazing games from accomplished studios.

 

[nush]

ow something so obvious as NO GAMES can be so hard to see, it's so simple.

According to Microsoft *checks notes* games are coming... still waiting.

 

[FunkMiller]

It can't ship a big, successful video game because it does not prioritise making one.

Beginning, middle and end of the entire argument.

In the video games industry, to be successful, you have to make games.

The fact Phil Spencer has never realised this is why the console is so fucked.

 

[Shake Your Rump]

I clicked the thread expecting a fluff piece and me typing a comment about how Xbox is all about investor growth and not about games. It turns out the article ancurrately addresses this!

The point of Xbox is to achieve, apparently, growth on a massive scale. It is to make more money than it did the year before

 

[FalconPunch]

Great article. One that's rare to come across nowadays. If you look at why Xbox exists even from Microsoft's documentary, it was to prevent Sony from taking over the living room space. The theory was that Sony could leverage their consoles to replace windows as a trojan horse computer in every home. It was always a stupid reason for entering the console business and decades later, their thinking is still backwards. As it stands, Xbox is just a console designed to deliver the bare minimum while extracting as much money as possible from the consumer. It's why every time they "innovate", it's about increasing profit. Forcing developers to charge for DLC, forcing people to pay for online, etc. It's never about the passion for the hobby, just a money grubbing company who mismanage their assets.

 

[bender]

Just like we saw this generation, good-guy Microsoft is here to keep Sony from raising their game prices and to make sure their console hardware comes down in price over time.

 

[FalconPunch]

If you have a gaming PC, having an Xbox is pointless.

If you don't have a gaming PC, then there is a point.

No there isn't as Microsoft games are going to other consoles. So why would you buy an Xbox over another console which has the same games and more? There's no point to the existence of Xbox.

 

[Meicyn]

Phil was head of Xbox first party back then.

This clown has always been a moron and Microsoft's decision to promote him and stick with him has cost us a decade of amazing games from accomplished studios.

It’s infuriating watching people continue to run defense for these suits, all based on empty promises. Straight up cult of personality.

 

[CosmicComet]

The point is if it was just sony, games would be $99, gotta have competition

The thing about competition, is you gotta be able to compete. If not, you get forced out of the industry in question.

You can blame Microsoft's ineptitude for a lot of the damage done to the games industry, and more damage to come.

 

[Bitmap Frogs]

It’s infuriating watching people continue to run defense for these suits, all based on empty promises. Straight up cult of personality.

Phil Spencer has achieved nothing as head of Xbox.

edited thank to M Meicyn spotting my mistake

 

[FunkMiller]

The principles that say expertise, creativity and talent are less valuable than the cost to let them flourish.

The philosophy of a great video game platform holder is that it makes money in order to make more consoles and more games. The philosophy of Microsoft - and by dint of that, Xbox - is evidently that it only makes consoles and games in order to make money.

 

[Tal Shiar Agent]

It is the cube that acquires all other companies.

Embrace, extend, extinguish.

Except this time instead of extinguishing the competition they are extinguishing themselves.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

To be hated on and to have other people say:
"Why you hating on Xbox, I feel attacked too"

 

[Madflavor]

I'm starting to think that the only useful thing Xbox can do at this point is to just die and go away. That way it can serve as a cautionary tale.

Ultimately I think competition is healthy, but this week's news has left me feeling totally cold towards Xbox. I think if Nintendo and Sony ain't your bag, you should just save for a PC (if you don't already have one) and just leave Xbox in the rain. It's just a toxic console at this point. And I'm not mad at the console, I'm mad at the suits. You know that saying, there are no bad kids only bad parents? Xbox One and Xbox Series S/X could've been good boys, but they had bad parents.

 

[Little Chicken]

Reactionary click bait trash, I will not be reading garbage written by something with two chins.

 

[Meicyn]

Phil Harrison has achieved nothing as head of Xbox.

Spencer, but yes.

 

[adamsapple]

Someone's still salty about CMA's results.

 

[Insane Metal]

 

[SlimySnake]

Fable and Scalebound were doomed as they were forced to produce GaaS trash or add multiplayer elements into their single player games.

Forced into making a game in a genre it knew nothing about, Lionhead bled staff, including McCormack, Peter Molyneux, and the entirety of its senior leadership team. It struggled with development, specifically the unfamiliar concepts like monetisation or multiplayer balance. At the same time, it was being used by Microsoft as poster child for its various initiatives of the day, from being a Windows 10 game ("We didn't know about Windows 10 when we started developing Fable Legends," one source told Eurogamer in 2016) to showing the new graphical potential of DirectX 12. All while the free-to-play model of the time relied on development itself being relatively cheap.

A year after the debacle with Lionhead, hotly-anticipated exclusive Scalebound was cancelled in similar circumstances. A third-person action RPG, which Bayonetta developer Platinum's all about - only one that was for some reason lumbered with a requirement for online co-op - the team again struggled with unfamiliar multiplayer elements. As director Hideki Kamiya put it, the studio "lacked the necessary know-how to build a game based on online features," which ultimately contributed to its cancellation - again, the same year as its scheduled launch.

I still remember Phil seeing the back to back successes of Horizon and BOTW, and saying something about how GaaS is the future instead of single player games. He and him alone is the problem. I remember everyone on gaf going in on him back then but his ardent supporters on forums and especially at MS leadership stuck with him and this is where we are today. They put a delusional moron in charge.

Sony also followed those same GaaS delusions but at least they had the common sense to cancel some of their GaaS games and let their studios make the games they are good at making.

 

[elhav]

I think any major company entering into the console gaming market would be insane. It would require a major loss-leading type philosophy that no one wants to take right now. Honestly, the only route is to go full based Gigachad, and no one has the balls to do it.

Naturally. It would only make sense if Microsoft pulls out of the race, and if the new console has enough money behind it, and a better attitude and patience towards funding of small and medium size developers, and actually listening to what costumers really want

 

[buenoblue]

Xbox really needs to to change their core beliefs and strategies. A real revolution of thinking and brand awareness.

Maybe a circular console????

 

[March Climber]

*article referencing Xbox 360 and saying 10 years ago*

We are closer to 360 being 20 years old at this point.

There are people still hanging on to the 360's run as the example to point back to. There are 2 newer generations of people who don't know about Xbox 360 and don't care. Those people want to know 'why should I care about Xbox today' and they're being told '...well, you see, back when the Xbox 360...'

That's already a failure.

 

[SEGAvangelist]

Naturally. It would only make sense if Microsoft pulls out of the race, and if the new console has enough money behind it, and a better attitude and patience towards funding of small and medium size developers, and actually listening to what costumers really want

That sounds possible until you factor in existing libraries. I actually think that's the biggest hurdle for any competitor. We're in the Steam type territory now where people won't play games if it's not on their preferred store.

 

[SlimySnake]

This point about how there is no safety net with these studios is the biggest issue with Xbox. The whole point of being first party is having that safety net and having the budget you otherwise wouldnt have if you were going game to game where one game might sink you. It's why I was ok with MS buying out these smaller studios like Ninja Theory and Obsidian. Buying into first party was supposed to be different. You had the stability. You had the freedom to aim higher. Hire more. Expand your ambitions. Take that risk because the deep pockets of MS would take care of any failures.

Come back to the purpose of a platform-holder: making games and the means to play them, providing happiness, sparking joy, however else you might want to put it. Okay - how is that done? As a platform-holder specifically it's different to other publishers. It's about offering developers, the people actually taking the creative risks, the stability they can't find elsewhere. It's hiring, retaining, and providing the freedom to talented developers and then giving them the room to try things and, from time to time, allowing those things to fail.

By contrast, the culture that's developed at Xbox is seemingly one-and-done. One strike and you're out. Redfall didn't work? Forget the talent involved in Dishonored and Prey, forget, crucially, the invaluable lessons that team will have learned from its struggles with Redfall. You're gone. Hi-Fi Rush, exactly the kind of game the platform needs, didn't drive enough subscribers? See ya. (Despite its nature as "a break out hit for us and our players in all key measurements and expectations", as Aaron Greenberg, VP of Xbox marketing put it at the time.) When Lionhead was closed in 2016, some developers had been there since the studio was founded in 1997.

But nope, Redfall failed and boom you are done. Even though you knew it would fail from lionhead and scalebound misadventures. Hifi Rush failed because you put it on fucking gamepass without any marketing to make a retarded fucking social experiment. Ok, you are done too.

Shutting down Evolution Studios after DriveClub never sit right with me, and this is exactly the same. Only, they have done it several times over. What an awful excuse for a first party. No one will ever go work for these idiots again. It was already the case with pretty much all talent leaving from 343 and initiative a year or two after getting hired, but now the brand is toxic. They are no different from EA. They WILL shut you down after one bad game or one good game that didnt sell.

And I thought Sony laying off ND, Insomniac, and GG was retarded. These companies are more profitable than ever before, and have absolutely no desire to push this industry forward. It's time to check out. Fuck these assholes.

 

[bender]

Someone's still salty about CMA's results.

Is it Phil?

 

[West Texas CEO]

The Xbox was a Trojan Horse to begin with.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

As a games publisher? I figure it's to release games in as many places as possible, with as many big IP as possible, to get as much revenue & profit as possible to recoup the roughly $85+ billion they've spent on acquiring big pubs & studios over the last six years.

How does that change how ABK operated? It’s like the whole idea of Microsoft to buy them was simply to continue what they were doing adding to their bottom line. We all know public companies do it to artificially inflate their growth numbers.

 

[nani17]

my reaction when reading this

 

[Gaelyon]

Well, if you're on a tight budget but have some spare time to play, I guess buying a X-box S and a Gamepass sub could be ok as your only console, even though a digital PS5 and PS plus is a good option.

But as the main point of buying xbox, it's not very glorious for the huge MS to be reduced to a spare budget console + sub.

Wait ! also buying xbox help benevolent and working class preserver Microsoft to keep evil arrogant Sony to ... err.. winning I guess.

 

[ToadMan]

It's here

It's basically a second chance for ms to counter Playstation sales, otherwise, like the 6th gen Sony will turn into complete monopoly and they aren't entirely wrong judging by the numbers, 160m,90m,117m,50m.

Sony won't be a monopoly even if they are the last custom hardware console maker.

Those days are gone - competition for gaming dollars and time has never been so fierce, and consoles are not dominant in the current overall gaming context.

Sony have next to no gaming presence outside of their consoles, unlike for example MS.

 

[Neff]

Brutal but, sadly, fair. Article nailed it.

 

[acidagfc]

The same thing that is killing movies\tv - producing content, instead of making art.

When you are hell bent on pushing as much content (I fucking despise what this word came to represent) as possible to keep audience engaged (another word turned into something it should not be), you do not care about quality, about art, about people working for you. Just push more of that grey goo called content, so we can sell the subscription to more people.

The point of Gamepass is that it is good for business of producing content sludge. Creators and their art are irrelevant.

 

[Valt7786]

They'd have a point in existing if they RELEASED SOME FUCKING GAMES (especially ones that don't suck).

 

[Chechack]

Bill Trinen is definately a master in licking

 

[Elbereth]

 

[64bitmodels]

Xbox really needs to to change their core beliefs and strategies. A real revolution of thinking and brand awareness.

Maybe a circular console????

Maybe they should call it Xbox 3.14

 

[Kurotri]

All this recent stuff really makes me wonder why they bother with hardware in general. They went out of their way to already announce the next-gen Xbox, with rumors indicating a 2026 launch. With all this stuff going on why not scrap that idea and go full software? There IS no point of owning an Xbox. Especially now that their games are starting to get ported over to PS. I'd still ideally want them to leave gaming but especially after the Activison purchase that is never gonna happen. It's an unncessary expense for them. How many more console gens do they want to fail? It's hilarious to me that they also have handheld plans. Now they want to lose against Steamdeck too.

 

[TGO]

The point is if it was just sony, games would be $99, gotta have competition

People keep saying this but when Sony Dominated two generations with no competition because they was so far ahead games was the cheapest they ever been.

 

[Oppoi]

Reactionary click bait trash, I will not be reading garbage written by something with two chins.

*Baaawk, bawk-bawk-bawk!*

 

[elhav]

That sounds possible until you factor in existing libraries. I actually think that's the biggest hurdle for any competitor. We're in the Steam type territory now where people won't play games if it's not on their preferred store.

Got a point. Guess PC gaming is gonna replace consoles. Maybe except Nintendo

 

[DryvBy]

Embrace, expand and extinguish.

The RTS based on their strategy

 

[DragonNCM]

I can not understand how company with so many game studios & virtually infinite money cant produce quality games, NOT SINGLE GOOD GAME last 9 years.
They have one of most talented developers in gaming industry & they manage to pull off some half arsed games again & again.
Clearly it is not developer or talent problem, they need to clear out incompetent management & executives starting from top to bottom.

 

[DenchDeckard]

The point is to be the laughing stock of the industry and I guess to show everyone else how NOT to do it.

It's embarrassing to even say your a fan of Xbox now. You can only be naive for so long.

I honestly think Xbox as a platform will die like many have said and they are just going to turn into a harsh profit chasing publisher.

It's a shame because there's some skilled individuals there making some great hardware and features like quick resume...hopefully they add that stuff to windows or something.

 

[semiconscious]

What is the point of Xbox? Go back through the last 10 years or so, to the end of the 360's golden age and the origins of the Xbox One, and it starts to become clear. The point of Xbox is to achieve, apparently, growth on a massive scale. It is to make more money than it did the year before.

This will seem like ancient history now, but bear with me - the mistakes Xbox made in 2013 are, as we'll see, worryingly relevant to the struggles it faces right now. We need to start with the infamous "TV, TV, TV" presentation on stage at E3 2013, where Don Mattrick, Xbox's boss at the time, unveiled plans for the Xbox One. It would be an all-in-one home entertainment device, which was actually quite a nice, interesting, forward-thinking idea (aside from the compulsory bundling-in of the expensive and wildly unpopular Kinect), but the perceived emphasis on non-gaming applications, next to PlayStation's laser targeting of traditional, blockbuster video games and more graphically powerful console, gave the impression Xbox hadn't prioritised its core audience...

from another thread:

I believe ms is incapable of 'competing', in the traditional sense. they insist on dominating, & so they opted to create new 'paradigms' (kinect/tv, game pass) in which they were instantly in first place. but their paradigms've failed. however: it has all ended up resulting in them becoming probably the largest video game publisher, which, while leaving the Xbox itself dead in the water, is absolutely something...

 

[TheTony316]

They'll be more than fine as a publisher but the console brand is pretty much dead.

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

Eurogamer are rich as fuck printing an article like this when they've been cheerleading for MS's empty promises and consistent mediocrity for literal decades.

 

[Thief1987]

If even Eurogamer writing this, then things are really dire for xbox.

 

[Orbital2060]

Apologies if this is old news. I searched the forum and couldn't find a dedicated thread to this.




A pretty long read. I just dug out a few parts.

What is the point of Xbox?

Xbox has repeated the same terrible mistakes for over a decade. The reason is simple: its priorities are back-to-front.

www.eurogamer.net