Xbox | Zenimax Development Studios | Activision | Blizzard | King

[kitler53]

man, as much as people say the internet never forgets the internet sucks and trying to dig up historical events sometimes.   especially when the internet is flooded with more, newer information.


if memory serves, phil took the reigns shortly after the "TV, TV, TV" E3 with mandatory internet and forced Kinect bundling.   let me say that i have not forgotten that phil was in charge of first party games at that time and was certainly party to the decisions that Don took the fall for.


100% agree that the biggest contributor to the downfall of xbox was a lack of first party.  i don't know what constraints parent MS had on xbox at the time but the lack of investment in 1st party at the time is still baffling.    the 360 was almost entirely carried on the success of gears of war.  how the hell could they not see that exclusives drive success?!?


i think they pulled out of kinect too abruptly.  as recently as just yesterday i was at yet another museum with an exhibit powered by xbox kinect.  the tech could be amazing today had they just kept at it.  imagine the data from kinect paired with AI,.. it could be a dang could control scheme for party games which would have kept casuals attention.    ...ms just needed to make sure kinect didn't come at the expense of non-kinect games.


but i think the 100% death blow to xbox came the day they make a public commitment to day-1 PC releases on steam.     i think supporting PC was honestly a good move for MS who owns windows but it's baffling they chose to do that by conceding to steam instead of competing against steam.  MS/Sony,.. i don't understand why they both didn't make their moves to PC but bringing xbox/psn to PC itself.   they both have massive relationships with 3rd parties.   how could the not figure out a way to get 3rd party to sell both console and pc games on their store?!?  

the problem with day-1 PC releases is that MS basically made their ecosysem irrelevant.  who would buy an xbox over a PC that had free online and access to more games?!?   


gamepass was a hail mary.   i didn't work out but by then xbox was already in their death spiral.   it's taken 2 generations but MS is probably the #1 growth driver of steam.     ...and sony is following suit.    at least they haven't committed to day-1 but at this point gamers expect 100% of sony games to end up on steam eventually.   their platform is becoming irrelevant as well.

[the-pi-guy]

I think Xbox's issues are bigger than Phil Spencer. Don Mattrick was not good either.  Lots of bad back and forth with Nadella. 


I think the real crux issue is that MS hasn't had any must have games. They've had plenty of good games. Halo Infinite didn't have the staying power of Halo 1-3. Starfield should have been like a Game of the Generation tier title, but it got low-mid 80 scores and got pretty quickly forgotten. They've had a couple of great games like Forza Horizon 5, but I think these have been more niche. 

If Starfield and Halo Infinite got 95+ MC scores, and were widely beloved games, I don't think it would really matter that much that they were on PC also. 

Indiana Jones also, it didn't set the world on fire.

And I know I'm putting too much emphasis on metacritic scores - but I don't think a single Xbox game in the past two generations has really set the world on fire, the way that the original Halo trilogy did.





I don't think the Online store on PC really matters. Gamers are so stuck on Steam, even making a genuinely great store I don't think would change their luck on PC.


I think Gamepass had an uphill battle in the first place, but I think it's a lot harder when you don't have fantastic games.

[Legend]

@kinect

The new one for xbox one was too high tech and expensive. Kinect 1 was a cheap camera and a cheap light, that's it. Kinect 2 was time of flight camera, literally calculating depth using the speed of light.

Meanwhile the ps4 cam was just two cameras for stereoscopic vision, and that ended up being pretty popular thanks to streaming. Oh my, those early days were wild with people streaming astrobot "gameplay."


I think both companies failed to capitalize on that.

@starfield and indy

Starfield was fun, but incredibly average. Death by a million paper cuts. I still think it'd be possible to turn around its reputation like Cyberpunk, but who knows if modern Bethesda knows how to make a good game.

Indy was great. A solid hit, but not big enough to hold the entire console on its back. An Indy every year and xbox would be so much healthier.



But microsoft is just so so so bad at making games.

Indy
Grounded
Sea of Thieves
Forza Horizon

Is that literally it for the past two generations? Games that are still held in high regard? Games worthy of sequels/continued development, vs reinventions because the latest had mixed reception.

[Horizon]

I assume most of you come from America which is why your perspective might by myopic but Xbox has not been relevant in Asia ever really and it has become irrelevant in Europe over the past decade. Even where I am based the UK which is one of the strongest remaining Xbox markets the PS4 and PS5 has become increasingly dominant. Exclusives might have helped but they have terrible marketing and lack the nuances between European and Asian markets and that's before even getting into the submarkets and individual countries themselves. Xbox is as anglo as it comes really so it does well in the anglosphere but it has completely lacked international appeal as they haven't known what they're doing outside of anglo countries for well over a decade. 

[the-pi-guy]

I assume most of you come from America which is why your perspective might by myopic but Xbox has not been relevant in Asia ever really and it has become irrelevant in Europe over the past decade. Even where I am based the UK which is one of the strongest remaining Xbox markets the PS4 and PS5 has become increasingly dominant. Exclusives might have helped but they have terrible marketing and lack the nuances between European and Asian markets and that's before even getting into the submarkets and individual countries themselves. Xbox is as anglo as it comes really so it does well in the anglosphere but it has completely lacked international appeal as they haven't known what they're doing outside of anglo countries for well over a decade.

I'm pretty sure US and UK are similar in that regard - I'm not sure I even personally know anyone who has an Xbox. A couple of people online. 

But I feel like these problems go hand in hand.

Maybe the general problem is better stated that MS is just extremely out of touch with what gamers want. 

[kitler53]

games are "art" and "art" is made by creatives not contractors.   

nintendo knows that.   sony used to know that but seems to have become more profits driven.   ..but MS has always been a profits driven company and that environment doesn't make for amazing experiences that touch the human soul.   it makes for souless experiences that while technical competent are forgettable.   


i really think MS is just incapable of cultivating great games so long as Nadella expects games to be managed in the same way as OS/Azure development.



i've heard about all the "anglo-centric" criticism.   as an american i have no comment on that.  



kinect 2 was technically very cool though.   they never should have force bundled it but i still think they gave up on it too quickly.   kinect would be the premium way to "just dance" if it was still around for instance.   my daughter wants that for switch but even switch is kind of a dumb input for a dancing game.