This past E3 got me thinking, why is Xbox's show always so drop-dead awful? Let's discuss, because I think I know the reasons why:
-Lack of Exclusives: There's really no further talk necessary with Xbox, the buck always stops at this point. The console has literally ZERO true exclusives. Therefore, every single announcement is marred by the fact that you already know the game is available for PC, or in most cases as well, PlayStation. the excitement is always muted as a result. Until MS make games only for Xbox, this problem will never fix itself.
-First Party is always a no-show: MS's internal teams had nothing to show this past e3, except the yearly racing game as per usual. I want you to take a few seconds and think about Xbox's showcase if they didn't sandwhich it between two Bethesda games, both former also-on-Playstation multiplats they bought off of the market with the Bethesda acquisition. Without RedFall and Starfield, the show would have been unfathomable.
-3rd party partnerships that matter, and premium AAA games always show with Sony: Capcom and square-Enix both have partnerships with sony (Resident Evil, FF, etc) but it goes beyond even that. Now even Bandai-Namco, who used to show up at MS's show, are absent. Callisto Protocol is another great example, they also decided to partner with Sony, and they represent another example of AAA games either deciding PlayStation is a better partner or that the gamepass model isn't the right fit for their premium product. That brings us into our next problem, which I consider the biggest.
-The show is always an indie reel featuring the slops, the leftovers, and the low-budget games no one has ever heard of: I walk away Xbox's e3 conferences every year sometimes unable to even remember a single title they showed, that's how bad it's gotten. Maybe it's low market share affecting the deals they can sign, or maybe its something else, like Phil Spencer's poor content curation skills (or poor taste in games). There is no reason to give the spotlight to indie games for 95 minutes straight unless you're specifically promising an indie showcase. It needs to stop.
Well, that's my thoughts on the matter. Of course, there were other lows and pure filler (Fallout 76DLC, Grounded DLC, etc) but that about covers it.
tl;dr:
It's telling that both a 20 minute 3rd party-only youtube video by both Sony and Nintendo each outclassed a 95-minute showcase put together by Microsoft. And to think, Sony and Nintendo show every few weeks inbetween State-of-Play and Nintendo Directs, and they still managed to show more compelling content than Microsoft, who insists on the 'show once a year' model. Unreal.
Honestly this reality of where Microsoft is Platform wise I've talked to at Nauseum. But I will do my best to not make this a book:
Xbox has a brand and as a platform lacks the initial team and people behind its batshit startup. The Direct X team to me was equivalent to early Playstation hardware team. They all came from Graphics and what not. So it really felt like a Sega style scrappy start up.
And since Direct X guys were making PC stuff for gaming too, mainly at the time Direct X for windows they knew a lot of developers. Were friends with a lot of them so of course they courted alot of those people to xbox.
Hence Xbox's early days is entrenched in PC developers like Bungie, Like Bethesda, like Epic ect. Early days of xbox were to most where its identity lay. And I agree, there's just more going on in that era, where they had pc people making a box, that played games made specifically for it.
Issue was creative teams were fighting Enterprise people who wanted to take control of this and that meant budgets, that meant marketing ect and ultimately direction. Alot of them, saw after it launched where enterprise wanted to take this and they said "I'm out". Literally once XBox live launched to me it was the end of the direct X guys with their idea;s and passion of where to take xbox, and the start of Enterprise who only saw a way to get Windows devices into your living room. Sell you on services which grew their other sectors for hardware for servers.
J allard, Shemus Blackly are all gone and have been since early years of xbox. Phil literally came from Enterprise software, and went into PC game software and career wise didn't ruffle feathers until xbox as a brand was completely in the shitter.
And to be honest I don't think he understands xbox in-terms of its roots at all. Xbox now compared to xbox from early 360, early OG days is all but gone.
Even the branding of xbox feels super corporate compared to the sega style gamer branding they had during early XBox/360 days.
Because of all of this, we now get a xbox that was restarted with a bunch of money to allign with rest of corporate interests. Now its all about its growth sectors, the services and not the games the make or are affiliated with.
They let Bungie leave, they killed Rare, killed Lion Head studios, and killed any chance of having identity past titles like halo, gears, forza. ANd with the state of Halo even thats not great.
Though I do miss the days from Sony of mascots, I at least know that they have not abandoned their roots of being an entertainment company and make games to entertain people on their platform.
Microsoft's vision seems that the games just serve a purpose. Which is to fuel gamepass.
Until they have someone from entertainment or from original team that wants to actually bring back the oldschool xbox, I feel they are going to have continue issues on and off with in-house software development.
maybe we successed where they failed.
It's a crutch, and it's meaningless.
