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[Markio128]

Why couldn’t Xbox be happy with just carving out their own niche? Why do they always feel the need to have the most powerful console, or the most amount of studios? That craving to be the best has really come to bite them on the arse.

I look fondly back at the original Xbox. It was a big and ugly fucking thing, and even came in a garish see-through green, and I loved it to bits. Now we have the Series X and it’s too embarrassed to look like a console, so masquerades as a PC. Where’s the fun in that?

I just wish that MS had continued with that same mindset. And I wouldn’t have cared less if it had sold less than PS or Nintendo, as long as it was a fun place to be.

It’s like the upper management are devoid of imagination. Just look at the names chosen for subsequent consoles - absolutely dreadful in retrospect.

After the Xbox, they should have gone with X’something else’. Even a fluorescent yellow ‘XBanana’ would have been better than Xbox One. At least it would have been fun. Fuck, I really want a fluorescent yellow banana shaped console. That’s the future the original Xbox promised.

And as far as games are concerned, I’d take one more Project Gotham Racing over several Forza Horizons. Hell, I’d take another Rallisport Challenge over another fucking Forza game.

Rant over.

 

[feynoob]

Xbox in nutshell

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Microsoft has always been a company that only thinks of external threats, that's been true since the 1990's. That's their corporate culture, it's pointless to say they should change their corporate culture, it's what has made them the world's most valuable company by market cap. They should just fuck off from gaming, it intersects with exactly zero things they are competent in and is little different than their failed attempts to dominate mobile phones in the early 2000's.

 

[Gaiff]

We didn’t want to name our console the Xbox 2 because it sounded less advanced than the Playstation 3.

*Name next console Xbox One to compete with the PS4*

 

[64bitmodels]

It's always the big competitors claiming to be better that end up failing in the end. Atari, Sega, now Xbox.

You either carve out your own niche and make something new and interesting or you die. Nobody *truly* wanted 2 powerful consoles with big expensive AAA games (at this point it's questionable if people even want one seeing the growth of PC) and no way was Xbox going to outdo Sony at their own game. especially when they're so absurdly boneheaded and terrible, they shut down one of their most promising studios who produced one of their best games for.... Literally no reason at all.

The sad part is, I think this is the end of any new competitors entering the console space. The industry is rapidly shifting and Sony and Nintendo are moreover holdovers than anything. Everybody who wants to enter gaming now has their own different system (Meta/Facebook, Valve) or are being lazy and going the cloud route (Google, Amazon). Sony and Nintendo are probably gonna be the last physical game supporting console manufacturers for a long time at this point

 

[VideoGameEnjoyer]

Infinite money, massive ego, executives laughably out of touch with their core consumer base.

Not a great combo!

 

[LordCBH]

Microsoft has been a company hell bent on removing any and all competition since their inception.

 

[Bernoulli]

spencer is a sony agent

 

[lem0n]

And as far as games are concerned, I’d take one more Project Gotham Racing over several Forza Horizons. Hell, I’d take another Rallisport Challenge over another fucking Forza game.

My man. I've been saying the same thing for years. Lifelong Xbox guy that's basically all but moved on as they have abandoned basically everything that made the Xbox worth choosing over a Playstation or whatever else.

 

[Killjoy-NL]

Infinite money, massive ego, executives laughably out of touch with their core consumer base.

Not a great combo!

Makes me wonder, where are all those Xbox fans that kept bragging about MS' deep pockets?

 

[Banjo64]

Why couldn’t Xbox be happy with just carving out their own niche? Why do they always feel the need to have the most powerful console, or the most amount of studios? That craving to be the best has really come to bite them on the arse.

I look fondly back at the original Xbox. It was a big and ugly fucking thing, and even came in a garish see-through green, and I loved it to bits. Now we have the Series X and it’s too embarrassed to look like a console, so masquerades as a PC. Where’s the fun in that?

I just wish that MS had continued with that same mindset. And I wouldn’t have cared less if it had sold less than PS or Nintendo, as long as it was a fun place to be.

It’s like the upper management are devoid of imagination. Just look at the names chosen for subsequent consoles - absolutely dreadful in retrospect.

After the Xbox, they should have gone with X’something else’. Even a fluorescent yellow ‘XBanana’ would have been better than Xbox One. At least it would have been fun. Fuck, I really want a fluorescent yellow banana shaped console. That’s the future the original Xbox promised.

And as far as games are concerned, I’d take one more Project Gotham Racing over several Forza Horizons. Hell, I’d take another Rallisport Challenge over another fucking Forza game.

Rant over.

To answer your question seriously: Xbox only existed in the first place because Microsoft and Gates were scared of Sony having control of the living room space. That is Xbox’s birth and DNA.

Microsoft are not happy to merely exist in the console space making a tidy profit. Believe them when they tell you who they are. They want to spend Sony out of business. They want to buy (and ruin) Nintendo and Valve if they can.

 

[Mr Moose]

We didn’t want to name our console the Xbox 2 because it sounded less advanced than the Playstation 3.

*Name next console Xbox One to compete with the PS4*

"We didn't want to name our console Xbox 720 because people would make fun of it by adding p at the end, instead we called it XBONE."

 

[digoutyoursoul]

Said it in another thread, in my opinion for last generation all they should or done was take what worked with 360 , improved on that in terms of look, user interface , controller and kept a steady flow of games , basically minimised any dramatic changes.

Keep it simple and made sure the hardware was far more reliable and I reckon they would have fared better against the PS4.

 

[VideoGameEnjoyer]

Has 'Make quality exclusive games' even been in the top 10 of their priorities since the 360 era? We keep trying to do a complicated autopsy on the corpse of this brand. But it really isn't complicated.

Taking way too long to make mid ass games, that they don't put their full weight behind.

 

[Pelta88]

I disagree with op. XB has not been interested in competing with any platform. Leadership’s entire focus has been complete and utterly meaningless PR sound bites. Nothing less or more.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Xbox has always felt like an absolute mess lacking long term stability and vision

Xbox to…Xbox 360…to Xbox One and Xbox One X….to Xbox Series S and series X

Consumers are like WTF is this shit?

 

[Oppoi]

Microsoft had every opportunity to charm their existing user base and build upon that but chose to shun PC and delcare platform wars in foreign territories. Absolute fucking morons.

 

[begotten]

Xbox was only in comeptition with PS in the minds of 40 year old American astroturfers on X.

 

[64bitmodels]

Has 'Make quality exclusive games' even been in the top 10 of their priorities since the 360 era?

The complicated part comes from finding out why specifically it's hard for them to do when 80% of the other companies in the industry, platform holder or not, manage to put out great games almost consistently. They're a special case.

 

[XXL]

No.

Xbox fanboys were so intent on beating Playstation fanboys, they allowed Xbox to manipulate them along the way to their end goal.

Xbox probably started planning this, when they were deciding if the should shut down after the Xbox One reveal (that they admitted).

And sent in Phil Spencer.

Why do you think him and Greenburg still have jobs?

They literally convinced an entire fanbase (and the industry at large) that software or hardware sales didn't matter by wearing nostalgic t-shirts and playing the nice guys routine.

That's what happened.

Their end goal was probably always just getting to Call of Duty, Skyrim, Playstation and Nintendo, etc.

 

[VideoGameEnjoyer]

The complicated part comes from finding out why specifically it's hard for them to do when 80% of the other companies in the industry, platform holder or not, manage to put out great games almost consistently. They're a special case.

True, the fascinating thing is just how it got THIS bad.

I never thought the Gamepass model would work. But I also never imagined it would get this bad this fast. Xbox is on like a 50+ L streak without a single W. How is that even possible?

 

[digital_ghost]

Has 'Make quality exclusive games' even been in the top 10 of their priorities since the 360 era? We keep trying to do a complicated autopsy on the corpse of this brand. But it really isn't complicated.

Taking way too long to make mid ass games, that they don't put their full weight behind.

I see commentary, that if you just build great games everything would turn around. It’s just not true that if we go off and build great games, all of the sudden you’re going to see console shares shift in some dramatic way - Phil Spencer

Why were Nintendo Switch and ps2 as successful as they are then? Its because they had great games. Imagine if there was a library of nothing but shitty games. Does phil think those consoles would still reach those sales with shitty games?

Clueless spencer.

 

[semiconscious]

We didn’t want to name our console the Xbox 2 because it sounded less advanced than the Playstation 3.

*Name next console Xbox One to compete with the PS4*

it's called 'ms logic'...

op's mostly correct. 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...

 

[digoutyoursoul]

I see commentary, that if you just build great games everything would turn around. It’s just not true that if we go off and build great games, all of the sudden you’re going to see console shares shift in some dramatic way - Phil Spencer

Why were Nintendo Switch and ps2 as successful as they are then? Its because they had great games. Imagine if there was a library of nothing but shitty games. Does phil think those consoles would still reach those sales with shitty games?

Clueless spencer.

That’s the head of gaming saying that. Unbelievable isn’t it. Why do the likes of Nintendo and Sony have such a large following and legacy? It’s not for the smell of the game cases is it.

Maybe I’m wrong , misinterpreting, it feels like he is inadvertently saying they are incapable of doing what is required.

What would Xbox of been without something like Halo?

 

[Meicyn]

I see commentary, that if you just build great games everything would turn around. It’s just not true that if we go off and build great games, all of the sudden you’re going to see console shares shift in some dramatic way - Phil Spencer

Why were Nintendo Switch and ps2 as successful as they are then? Its because they had great games. Imagine if there was a library of nothing but shitty games. Does phil think those consoles would still reach those sales with shitty games?

Clueless spencer.

 

[Kerotan]

We didn’t want to name our console the Xbox 2 because it sounded less advanced than the Playstation 3.

*Name next console Xbox One to compete with the PS4*

Xbox deserved to lose for the naming alone. Xbox 2, 3, 4 would have been fine.

 

[user friendly]

That’s the head of gaming saying that. Unbelievable isn’t it. Why do the likes of Nintendo and Sony have such a large following and legacy? It’s not for the smell of the game cases is it.

Maybe I’m wrong , misinterpreting, it feels like he is inadvertently saying they are incapable of doing what is required.

What would Xbox of been without something like Halo?

As soon as I saw that clip I knew they don’t get it. Phil saying out loud that a few 11/10 games would not turn it around was so stupid. Imagine developing games for them and hearing that shit? Or being a fan and hearing that shit? Fuck that, give me all the 11/10 games you can. You for sure could turn it around with 11/10 games, that’s pretty much the way to do it, it just takes a little time.

 

[TintoConCasera]

Xbox has always felt like an absolute mess lacking long term stability and vision

Xbox to…Xbox 360…to Xbox One and Xbox One X….to Xbox Series S and series X

Consumers are like WTF is this shit?

Imagine how many kids asked their parents for the "new Xbox", and how confusing it must have been for some of those parents.

Reminds me of the Wii U. I remember some friends of mine thinking it was a peripheral for the Wii instead of a new console.

Shit's straight out "bad marketing 101".

 

[cash_longfellow]

Full scale monopoly on the gaming industry was destined to fail…I’m glad it did, because Microsoft would have destroyed the whole industry within 10 years. I can’t wait for the day they leave the console space and just leave it for Sony and Nintendo. Software is cool, but they don’t seem to be very good at that anymore either.

 

[ToadMan]

There is the problem of market size too.

TLDR : MS has to dominate because the economics of AAA platform holding doesn't work when the market size is constrained.

A great console sells order of 100 million units worldwide, and that number has been fairly stagnant (or decreasing) for a while.

You start by making good exclusives to gain buyers and these days those customers buy third party stuff through your walled off garden so the whole show starts making money. But then, if you get outpaced by the competition in terms of install base, and/or take a wrong turn like xbone and kinect, what do you do? At this point a lot of companies would drop out altogether because the losses become excessive.

But MS has cash, so they do over (a Sega moment) and try to grab back the market share and perhaps out of desperation put first party exclusives day one on Gamepass for $1 in the belief no one would turn down such a deal/steal.

That was supposed to lead to Sony and Nintendo losing customers in droves to xbox, so they'd have to abandon or sell up.... or so Xbox calculated, and to nail the whole deal on they bought up Zenimax and a host of previously third party content because the existing Xbox game studios had atrophied during xbone.

Spend Sony out of business...

Except people didnt fall for GP, didn't care about xbox hardware and the games Xbox started to turn out for GP weren't particularly good... ABK looked like a good get when this gen kicked off but it took a long time and a ton of cash to get them, and the deal closed just as thw wheels came off of xbox - starfield being released to a largely mild response while PS and Nintendo continued to release desirable content and make good revenues through their storefronts to large install bases.

Now it is instead MS who have seemingly failed to stay the course and are abandoning the platform holder role altogether. Or are they? It's difficult to tell with them. We may yet get a final Sega moment from them but right now walking dead is more like it.

Given that AAA production costs are high now, the risk of failure so great, I think there probably is only room for 2 platform holders and Sony + Nintendo are currently complimentary rather than directly competing.

MS seems to be the one left standing when the music ends. But look on the bright side, with MS as a 3rd party publisher going forward, Sony and Nintendo should be safe enough for at least the next gen now.

And then there is concern about competition but in my opinion there is a massive amount of competition for where, and what to game.

Between the bullish PC market, mobile, the rise of indies that can be played on potato hardware, AAA third parties, sub services, free to plsy, cloud and smart TVs, and of course consoles, there is more competition than ever for gaming dollars and time. It's one of the reasons the console market isn't growing - people have many more ways to game than previously.

So even the loss of MS as a platform holder hardly seems like Sony and/or Nintendo to take their foot off the gas.

And with MS owning ABK they should be able to weather the transition to third party status while the recognised franchises they control can be put out across many platforms. In fact I think MS working with Sony and Nintendo to get content out rather than competing, is quite an exciting prospect.

In this scenario MS may not become the dominant platform holder in consoles but they're well placed to be the dominant third party publisher. But they have to do it now while Tencent and the other major publishers don't have time to react.

I'm not optimistic though - MS have an opportunity to make money through collaboration with Sony and Nintendo among others (the Sega addendum), but it's just not their M.O. I suspect they'll screw it all up and continue staggering from one disaster to another until all the gaming properties are worthless.

 

[AJUMP23]

Remember that Balmer laughed at the iPhone compared to the windows phone. Did not see it as a threat.

MS does know Sony is a threat as they are a leader in market share. They did not learn why they won the 360 era price, timing, and content. They are missing content this gen. I am satisfied with their stuff that I have played. But the real amazing games from them have not been tentpoles. Sony will always trickle out a tentpole reliably. But it took them a while to get there.

 

[jroc74]

Seeing this on the first page back to back is wild:

Kinda puts things in perspective. MS really bailed Sony out of the HD2 PSN drama...there is a ton of negative Xbox, MS news out right now.

 

[Tal Shiar Agent]

Microsoft has always been a company that only thinks of external threats, that's been true since the 1990's. That's their corporate culture, it's pointless to say they should change their corporate culture, it's what has made them the world's most valuable company by market cap. They should just fuck off from gaming, it intersects with exactly zero things they are competent in and is little different than their failed attempts to dominate mobile phones in the early 2000's.

Phones, MP3 players too... their tablets only hang in there due to combo licensing deals with business for Surfaces + Office.

Microsoft is a software and service company, they've never done well at hardware.

 

[Skifi28]

"We didn't want to name our console Xbox 720 because people would make fun of it by adding p at the end, instead we called it XBONE."

 

[digital_ghost]

Imagine how many kids asked their parents for the "new Xbox", and how confusing it must have been for some of those parents.

Reminds me of the Wii U. I remember some friends of mine thinking it was a peripheral for the Wii instead of a new console.

Shit's straight out "bad marketing 101".

Its confusing to alot of people. Looking on ebay and offer up. People are selling the xbox one s, but labeling it as an xbox series s.

I don't know if they are confused or just scam artists.

 

[poppabk]

There has to be someway to make that title have "beating themselves off" in it.

 

[Kurimao]

Feh... MS and their impossible dream, they should have been more realistic and take on Sega... oh wait next Wednesday.

 

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

I knew when MS shut down their BC program and with the way they destroyed Halo, back in 2021, they we were fucked.

Once Gamepass became their focus, all the promises made about the Series X got abandoned. Series X was actually in a great position in 2020 to be a great console. This was when Halo Infinite was supposed to be a launch title, when the Series X was looking better on paper than PS5 (and Series X is a nice piece of hardware still), and when MS was doing great work with backwards compatibility.

Remember when MS got together with Digital Foundry to show off the BC capabilities and FPS boost? This could've been the generation where a console brought backwards compatibility up near the level of a PC. This console could do FPS boost, auto hdr, and it had the power to patch games for 4k resolution. However, MS only took a half step and then shut down the program.

Remember now, everyone now owns 4k tvs, so the demand is there to patch games so they don't look and feel like shit on those 4k tvs. We wound up with a bunch of FPS boosted games but MS didn't ever really update the resolution of these games.

The reason I cite the BC program as being such a big deal is because this was one area MS had made some strides and promises with, but because that was only ever really LIP Service, they set their sites on things that could potentially make them BIG $$ instead of the "little things" that would've made a great platform and made gamers want to invest in Xbox!

Imagine how good GP would've been had MS patched every game on there for 4k/60 fps ...for MS it's only about the $$ which is why you see them shutting down studios that make smaller but good and interesting games. Series X has been a failure of a console and there's no reason it should've been.

 

[Artistic]

I currently own no gaming consoles.

But as a Xbox loyalist, this has been a rough few months from the company and brand standpoint for sure.

 

[Hero of Spielberg]

There's nothing wrong with beating yourself

 

[MayauMiao]

Nintendo sitting quietly in the background, watching these 2 fight each other while Switch is close to breaking PS2 console sales.

 

[ShirAhava]

Anybody who thinks xbox has been trying to 'beat ps' this generation isn't paying attention at all

xbox has its head up his own ass

playstation made the best xbox ever with the PS5

and nintendo is doing its own thing

 

[Giallo Corsa]

Remember PGR ?
Remember DOA3 ?
Remember DOA Ultimate ?
Remember Ninja Gaiden ?
Remember Panzer Dragoon Orta ?
Remember Halo 1 and 2 ?
Remember Sega GT ?
Remember Shenmue 2 ?
Remember Otogi 1 and 2 ?
Remember Metal wolf chaos ?
Remember Crimson skies ?
Remember KOTOR ?
Remember the Blinx games ?
Remember the Splinter cell games ?
Remember Kingdom under fire 1 and 2 ?

Remember the X360 which sold gangbusters due to Halo 3, PGR 3 and 4, The Gears trilogy , an EXCLUSIVE Ace combat 6 and FF13 which set the internet on fire ?

I do.

Shame that MS forgot about them.

The Xbox one and series consoles were/are literally gaming boxes with no games - the old "Xbox has no games" of yore meme has finally (and unfortunately) come true, there's literally zero reasons to have one, shit, got an XSX on day1 and after 2+ years I was still waiting on all those promised games, couple that with the infinite PR bullshit and I had to jump ship again.

They did this to themselves, they have no one else to blame.

 

[LavitzSlambert]

To answer your question seriously: Xbox only existed in the first place because Microsoft and Gates were scared of Sony having control of the living room space. That is Xbox’s birth and DNA.

Microsoft are not happy to merely exist in the console space making a tidy profit. Believe them when they tell you who they are. They want to spend Sony out of business. They want to buy (and ruin) Nintendo and Valve if they can.

Microsoft has no passion and no taste. Steve Jobs was spot on.

 

[Shadowstar39]

As soon as I saw that clip I knew they don’t get it. Phil saying out loud that a few 11/10 games would not turn it around was so stupid. Imagine developing games for them and hearing that shit? Or being a fan and hearing that shit? Fuck that, give me all the 11/10 games you can. You for sure could turn it around with 11/10 games, that’s pretty much the way to do it, it just takes a little time.

Problem is he is partially right, if you are trying to court younger gamers ans chasing fortnite gold. The type who only play gaas and cod, and buy weed and minaj/snoop skins. Those types of people don't buy games like people who grew up playing single player games.

And it seems as only Nintendo and sometimes Sony are after the nostalgia crowd and older gamers with money to spend.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

why do you think that.... is it because what they have said?

that is PR.

their actions have shown they were never committed with the medium or the industy. they wanted to win with the less effort possible. that's not how you win against play station.

 

[Three]

Maybe I’m wrong , misinterpreting, it feels like he is inadvertently saying they are incapable of doing what is required.

What would Xbox of been without something like Halo?

Maybe he meant "if we go and buy great games on the other hand..."?

 

[onQ123]

They fought over the living room & lost the house to Alexa & Google .

Crazy part is Microsoft was so close with Kinect but got punked out of reaching their original goal.

 

[diffusionx]

I don't think MS has been chasing PlayStation for a long time. The center of their strategy wasn't Xbox console, it was GamePass. The problem for Xbox shills was that they were expecting MS to make their own God of War, or Spiderman, or Last of Us, and it just didn't happen because that wasn't the route they were trying to go down. Yet Xbox shills just got increasingly frustrated and ended up pretending to like Starfield just to say that Xbox had something.

 

[joshwaan]

Yeah I love Xbox 360 days but God darn what happen MS ?? It's making it harder and harder to try support xbox which I love.

Just take risks fuck it. You got the money there to burn. Every person saying where's the games. Well you had some top games there. But let's see some first party. Let studio's cook. Get some people oversee stuff a bit better so shit does not go south. Let's make it about the games again.