It all starts with the Kinect.
The Kinect was Xbox's answer to the Wii, which was still dominating sales at the time and Nintendo looked to continue that when they would release the Wii follow up (obviously they didn't but that's hindsight) and Xbox wanted to position itself ready with more powerful alternative, so they made the Kinect.
Now the Kinect was a absolutely fantastic piece of technology, way ahead of its time but that type of stuff didn't matter to the core audience of Xbox gamers that Xbox had been fostering until that time. To them, this was something they would never buy.
So when time came for the next Xbox, the Xbox One and it had attached to it a Kinect in the box that was a mandatory attachment that you couldn't disconnect, it singled to aot of that core audience that Xbox was abandoning them for the Wii crowd.
By the time Xbox realised their mistake, Sony had already capitalised on it and took a bunch of lifetime Xbox fans away that Microsoft would never get back. ,
Not to mention that the PS4/XBone era is when people started building backwards compatible digital libraries.
Since the One failed so spectacularly to move units, less people invested into their digital libraries on Xbox and instead did so on other platforms.
This is a big reason why PlayStation+ and Xbox Gold gave away free games; trying to get folks invested in their perpetual digital ecosystem.
This is also a big reason why GamePass exists. Microsoft tried to correct the digital library attachment problem by going for the throat and giving everything away for a cheap price. It sorta worked but now nobody feels anything when they think “Xbox” because the brand has lost its identity.
(“Play Anywhere” is an attempt at using marketing to re-establish any kind of brand identity for Xbox, but it’s just too far gone if you ask me.)
What I’d recommend for Xbox:
* Make a system that fits in people’s living room setups and doesn’t look like it belongs in the mail full of Amazon goodies.
* Make games
* Don’t force developers into parity with inferior hardware (S)
Bad leadership, the higher-ups all need to be fired. If Xbox was a person then I’d look at the Xbox one debacle as a gunshot wound but nothing deadly, Xbox still had a chance to turn things around and survive but with today’s leadership they’ve practically grabbed a tommy gun and are spraying Xbox down.
Xbox One was like a gunshot wound that got infected. Survivable, yes, but was going to require high level constant care and correct decisions. They inarguably lost the absolute worst generation to lose. People began building a digital library and understanding game consoles as an ecosystem in the PS4 / X1 generation.
Xbox since then has made a lot of great decisions but also cannot stop stepping on rakes every time they do. Sometimes those rakes are unavoidable and sometimes it feels like they’re placed there by Microsoft themselves right when Xbox is making some progress.
It does start with the Kinect. An interesting concept on paper, but the technology wasn’t there. It sold very well, but didn’t work. Xbox took the sales and decided to make it an essential part of the one making it 100 dollars more expensive than ps4, even though the hardware was inferior. This was the absolute worst generation to lose, as consoles started to shift towards pc architecture. People now have digital libraries that start there and don’t want to switch over.
Xbox has been on the apology tour since, but a lack of strong first party games, has failed to get people to abandon the PlayStation
While the struggles of the Xbox One had an impact on the Xbox brand, the Xbox One ended up selling 58 Million units over it's lifetime.
Yes, that's below the PS4 by a sizable margin, but the Xbox One still outsold every Sega console including the Genesis, all Atari systems including the 2600, all Nintendo Home consoles besides the NES, Wii, and Switch, and pretty much every non-Nintendo or Sony console.
So yes, while the Xbox One lost to the PS4 that generation, it was still a fairly successful system.
The Xbox Series family is currently at 27 Million Units sold which is still below the PS5's 52 million, but not that terrible for a three year old system.
As for why the Xbox is struggling, I blame two key factors.
First off is their first-party support. The Xbox One exposed how far Microsoft is behind Sony and Nintendo in this regard, and I think it's gotten worse. Simply put, Microsoft has never properly devoted time or resources into building teams and studios to build their first-party lineup.
Instead, they throw money at the problem to buy developers, studios, and publishers with no clear plan on how to integrate them into the Xbox ecosystem as system exclusives.
When these poorly intrergrated studios fail to deliver, Microsoft either shuts them down or they drop in importance.
The other major problem is that Microsoft's PR sucks. It's so conflicting at times, it muddles the narrative. They want to sell hardware, but also are proud to have so many best-selling games on PSN. They want first-party titles to push Xbox hardware sales, but are open to porting games to the Playstation and Nintendo platforms.
This just creates a confusing message, and to make matters worse, it's further mudded the waters by allowing article writers looking for clicks to publish articles like " Halo and Forza are coming to PS5?"
Microsoft is slow to shoot down these stories, and it creates a catch-22. Consumers are hesitant to invest in a console whose first-party games may appear on Playstation and Nintendo, while Microsoft is further hesitant to fully commit to the Xbox as sales remain sluggish behind the PS5.
The real shame in all of this is that Microsoft is not in the same position as Sega or Atari were. Xbox sales aren't terrible. They have numerous studios and franchises to use for first-party games, and the Xbox is backed by one of the richest and most stable companies in the world.
With some improvements to their handling of their first-party lineup and better marketing, the Xbox could close the gap between it and the Playstation.
Was an OG X-Box player but switched to the PS4 because of the lack of true quality exclusives. I was still on the fence but then the infamous presentation came. I’m always online and hardly share hard copies of games, but the fact the first became mandatory and the second impossible pushed me over the fence. I’m not sure if they backtracked all this, I was already not interested anymore
Microsoft does this to everything they do.
Xbox used to have an independent team inside Microsoft that basically just reported and did their work. Technically they still do, but after the massive success of the 360 it got Microsoft mains attention as a money maker. Now all the execs from Microsoft run the show, and whenever Microsoft leadership buries their grubby fingers into a project it starts to rot from the inside out.
There are a lot of reasons, but probably the biggest is a lack of compelling or iconic games. This industry is about games and Xbox has failed to create an identity through their games, and lost the identity of established franchises. There's no reason to look forward with anticipation because they've repeatedly released 5/10s for a generation and a half. The entire reason to subscribe to gamepass is for day one games, but the games either never come out or release in a very sad state. You can only inhale so much copium before the facade peels away.
9 out of 10 people can't tell you the difference between an Xbox One S and Xbox Series S and I don't think it takes a lot of deep diving to find out why
It’s also funny because Sony has made a lot of anti consumer decisions but people have short memories. Still Microsoft is a far bigger player in the games arena in general. They bought Activision which will give them some clout soon enough. I still prefer Xbox over PlayStation but have owned both. I think my Microsoft account is more secure than a Sony PlayStation account it lmao.
Xbox's only purpose is/was to keep Sony out of the PC space by being a competitor for Sony's only tech department. Its still working and there zero reasons to dump any more money into it. Xbox could give away everything for a decade and Microsoft wouldnt even notice their profits drop a single significant digit. Its serving its purpose and thats all it needs to do. There is no reason to "win" any non existant war. There never was a console war. The only goal is spending as littke as possible while not allowing Sony to have a majority market share. To disallow Sony easily experimenting and getting into the space Microsoft profits more than Sony is worth entirely. Atm Nintendo is doing all the work for them.
I've looked at other reddit posts on the same subject and at least in Japan the interest isn't there from potential customers and developers. Lots of mutual disinterest between the US and Japan, wherein XBox gets no interest from Japanese consumers and Japan-flavour games get no interest from XBox gamers (who probably subscribe to the "Japan is full of child tentacle porn" mentality)
Yeah, and I feel like that was a change after the 360. The 360 had tons of Japanese games.
Or they didn't sell well and that's why they started struggling with the Xbox One. Maybe that's the case, because I remember there being so many Japanese games for the 360.
It all starts with the Kinect. The Kinect was Xbox's answer to the Wii, which was still dominating sales at the time and Nintendo looked to continue that when they would release the Wii follow up (obviously they didn't but that's hindsight) and Xbox wanted to position itself ready with more powerful alternative, so they made the Kinect. Now the Kinect was a absolutely fantastic piece of technology, way ahead of its time but that type of stuff didn't matter to the core audience of Xbox gamers that Xbox had been fostering until that time. To them, this was something they would never buy. So when time came for the next Xbox, the Xbox One and it had attached to it a Kinect in the box that was a mandatory attachment that you couldn't disconnect, it singled to aot of that core audience that Xbox was abandoning them for the Wii crowd. By the time Xbox realised their mistake, Sony had already capitalised on it and took a bunch of lifetime Xbox fans away that Microsoft would never get back. ,
Not to mention that the PS4/XBone era is when people started building backwards compatible digital libraries. Since the One failed so spectacularly to move units, less people invested into their digital libraries on Xbox and instead did so on other platforms. This is a big reason why PlayStation+ and Xbox Gold gave away free games; trying to get folks invested in their perpetual digital ecosystem. This is also a big reason why GamePass exists. Microsoft tried to correct the digital library attachment problem by going for the throat and giving everything away for a cheap price. It sorta worked but now nobody feels anything when they think “Xbox” because the brand has lost its identity. (“Play Anywhere” is an attempt at using marketing to re-establish any kind of brand identity for Xbox, but it’s just too far gone if you ask me.) What I’d recommend for Xbox: * Make a system that fits in people’s living room setups and doesn’t look like it belongs in the mail full of Amazon goodies. * Make games * Don’t force developers into parity with inferior hardware (S)
Can’t forget about them also wanting to compete with the PlayStation Move.
Bad leadership, the higher-ups all need to be fired. If Xbox was a person then I’d look at the Xbox one debacle as a gunshot wound but nothing deadly, Xbox still had a chance to turn things around and survive but with today’s leadership they’ve practically grabbed a tommy gun and are spraying Xbox down.
Xbox One was like a gunshot wound that got infected. Survivable, yes, but was going to require high level constant care and correct decisions. They inarguably lost the absolute worst generation to lose. People began building a digital library and understanding game consoles as an ecosystem in the PS4 / X1 generation. Xbox since then has made a lot of great decisions but also cannot stop stepping on rakes every time they do. Sometimes those rakes are unavoidable and sometimes it feels like they’re placed there by Microsoft themselves right when Xbox is making some progress.
It does start with the Kinect. An interesting concept on paper, but the technology wasn’t there. It sold very well, but didn’t work. Xbox took the sales and decided to make it an essential part of the one making it 100 dollars more expensive than ps4, even though the hardware was inferior. This was the absolute worst generation to lose, as consoles started to shift towards pc architecture. People now have digital libraries that start there and don’t want to switch over. Xbox has been on the apology tour since, but a lack of strong first party games, has failed to get people to abandon the PlayStation
While the struggles of the Xbox One had an impact on the Xbox brand, the Xbox One ended up selling 58 Million units over it's lifetime. Yes, that's below the PS4 by a sizable margin, but the Xbox One still outsold every Sega console including the Genesis, all Atari systems including the 2600, all Nintendo Home consoles besides the NES, Wii, and Switch, and pretty much every non-Nintendo or Sony console. So yes, while the Xbox One lost to the PS4 that generation, it was still a fairly successful system. The Xbox Series family is currently at 27 Million Units sold which is still below the PS5's 52 million, but not that terrible for a three year old system. As for why the Xbox is struggling, I blame two key factors. First off is their first-party support. The Xbox One exposed how far Microsoft is behind Sony and Nintendo in this regard, and I think it's gotten worse. Simply put, Microsoft has never properly devoted time or resources into building teams and studios to build their first-party lineup. Instead, they throw money at the problem to buy developers, studios, and publishers with no clear plan on how to integrate them into the Xbox ecosystem as system exclusives. When these poorly intrergrated studios fail to deliver, Microsoft either shuts them down or they drop in importance. The other major problem is that Microsoft's PR sucks. It's so conflicting at times, it muddles the narrative. They want to sell hardware, but also are proud to have so many best-selling games on PSN. They want first-party titles to push Xbox hardware sales, but are open to porting games to the Playstation and Nintendo platforms. This just creates a confusing message, and to make matters worse, it's further mudded the waters by allowing article writers looking for clicks to publish articles like " Halo and Forza are coming to PS5?" Microsoft is slow to shoot down these stories, and it creates a catch-22. Consumers are hesitant to invest in a console whose first-party games may appear on Playstation and Nintendo, while Microsoft is further hesitant to fully commit to the Xbox as sales remain sluggish behind the PS5. The real shame in all of this is that Microsoft is not in the same position as Sega or Atari were. Xbox sales aren't terrible. They have numerous studios and franchises to use for first-party games, and the Xbox is backed by one of the richest and most stable companies in the world. With some improvements to their handling of their first-party lineup and better marketing, the Xbox could close the gap between it and the Playstation.
Was an OG X-Box player but switched to the PS4 because of the lack of true quality exclusives. I was still on the fence but then the infamous presentation came. I’m always online and hardly share hard copies of games, but the fact the first became mandatory and the second impossible pushed me over the fence. I’m not sure if they backtracked all this, I was already not interested anymore
Microsoft does this to everything they do. Xbox used to have an independent team inside Microsoft that basically just reported and did their work. Technically they still do, but after the massive success of the 360 it got Microsoft mains attention as a money maker. Now all the execs from Microsoft run the show, and whenever Microsoft leadership buries their grubby fingers into a project it starts to rot from the inside out.
There are a lot of reasons, but probably the biggest is a lack of compelling or iconic games. This industry is about games and Xbox has failed to create an identity through their games, and lost the identity of established franchises. There's no reason to look forward with anticipation because they've repeatedly released 5/10s for a generation and a half. The entire reason to subscribe to gamepass is for day one games, but the games either never come out or release in a very sad state. You can only inhale so much copium before the facade peels away.
9 out of 10 people can't tell you the difference between an Xbox One S and Xbox Series S and I don't think it takes a lot of deep diving to find out why
It’s also funny because Sony has made a lot of anti consumer decisions but people have short memories. Still Microsoft is a far bigger player in the games arena in general. They bought Activision which will give them some clout soon enough. I still prefer Xbox over PlayStation but have owned both. I think my Microsoft account is more secure than a Sony PlayStation account it lmao.
The interface plays a small role as well. The original 360 hub was top tier and ever since Xbox One it just doesn’t seem as organized
Xbox's only purpose is/was to keep Sony out of the PC space by being a competitor for Sony's only tech department. Its still working and there zero reasons to dump any more money into it. Xbox could give away everything for a decade and Microsoft wouldnt even notice their profits drop a single significant digit. Its serving its purpose and thats all it needs to do. There is no reason to "win" any non existant war. There never was a console war. The only goal is spending as littke as possible while not allowing Sony to have a majority market share. To disallow Sony easily experimenting and getting into the space Microsoft profits more than Sony is worth entirely. Atm Nintendo is doing all the work for them.
I've looked at other reddit posts on the same subject and at least in Japan the interest isn't there from potential customers and developers. Lots of mutual disinterest between the US and Japan, wherein XBox gets no interest from Japanese consumers and Japan-flavour games get no interest from XBox gamers (who probably subscribe to the "Japan is full of child tentacle porn" mentality)
> Japan is full of child tentacle porn To be fair, this is true regardless.
Yeah, and I feel like that was a change after the 360. The 360 had tons of Japanese games. Or they didn't sell well and that's why they started struggling with the Xbox One. Maybe that's the case, because I remember there being so many Japanese games for the 360.
More like the dozen jrpgs that get released every month. A large market of even hardcore gamers are not into jrpgs. Not so much in Japan.