if Xbox had stick with the 360/early XOne model of exclusives and console focus, would they be in the situation they are today?

[Etifilio]

if they actually doubled down on the early Xbox One strategy of great exclusive games Only On Xbox and timed exclusivity deals with third party publishers like Square for Tomb Raider, or EA for Titanfall or Capcom for Deadrising, never even considered GamePass as an option and continued to double down on the traditional model of selling games and developing great AAA titles, how would Xbox be today? how dominant would their storefront be today? and most importantly, would they be in the situation they are today, having to become a third party publisher on all devices and in 3rd place overall?

we know they had big partnerships during the 360 generation and early XOne generation, we also know they've been burning money on gamepass since 2017, money that could be used to make dozens of AAA games and sign timed exclusivity deals with third party publishers

 

[Nhomnhom]

If they had someone other than Phil Spencer as their head and had just follow a traditional platform holder path and had focused on producing quality games and building their own platform identity they would be a in a much better place.

 

[Etifilio]

If they had someone other than Phil Spencer as their head and had just follow a traditional platform holder path and had focused on producing quality games and building their own platform identity they would be a in a much better place.

i think they had the potential to sell 100M consoles if they invested all the money they did on GamePass in AAA Games and Marketing

 

[quest4441]

The problem with Lbox and Phil Spencer are they don't take take risks when it comes to games, they always get in after a game is successful. The square enix -tomb raider rise shitshow would not have happened if they just locked it down from the first game of the trilogy not on the 2nd game. Also they have a moron in the 3rd party deals division who can't identify good games to save his worthless life. Plus Phil Pope Spencer is said to not like any game that has any amount of fan service hence the absence of mihoyo games

 

[Etifilio]

The problem with Lbox and Phil Spencer are they don't take take risks when it comes to games, they always get in after a game is successful. The square enix -tomb raider rise shitshow would not have happened if they just locked it down from the first game of the trilogy not on the 2nd game. Also they have a moron in the 3rd party deals division who can't identify good games to save his worthless life. Plus Phil Pope Spencer is said to not like any game that has any amount of fan service hence the absence of mihoyo games

yep, but if they had decent people on charge, people like Peter Moore who had the vision and focused on exclusive AAA games + third party exclusives + big marketing push, how would they be today? that's the point of the thread

 

[JAHGamer]

yep, but if they had decent people on charge, people like Peter Moore who had the vision and focused on exclusive AAA games + third party exclusives + big marketing push, how would they be today? that's the point of the thread

They would be doing way better, obviously. All they had to do was continue doing what they were doing during the height of the 360 era, but acquire more first party studios since they only had a few, lock up more 3rd party exclusives, stop releasing 8 different console skus per gen, and they'd easily have 100m+ install base. If I was in charge, I'd easily have 200m+ Xbox's sold.

But the problem is Microsoft leadership are ignorant, greedy, and arrogant and actually believe they can go "beyond the box", and that there's an imaginary 2 billion gamers waiting for them on PC and Cloud Chasing those ghosts on PC/Cloud has only hurt them but they'll continue to chase until they eventually have to concede and go full 3rd party, which is happening within the next 2-3 years. That's what happens when you have beancounters who hate gaming in charge and not people who actually understand and appreciate the industry. They refuse to invest in quality content, just create the cheapest product possible and try to sell it to as many people as possible. And no, spending $70 billion on ABK does not equal investing in quality content.

 

[Neversummer]

If they had someone other than Phil Spencer as their head and had just follow a traditional platform holder path and had focused on producing quality games and building their own platform identity they would be a in a much better place.

To this day I still see Xbox fan & “neutral” journalists bring Don Matrick name as if he was reason Xbox fumble & was never able to recover.

If you look at it now Don vision was ahead 10+ years now Xbox, PS & Nintendo are focus & expanding in media Netflix, MAX & Disney+ is massive. All 3 console requires some sort of online authentication (sure to this day I believe Xbox is the only one that fully requires internet at all time) but Don Matrick messaging might’ve been shaky even if he was being honest had they stick w his vision thoe pulled back a little due to the bad pr & don kept leading Xbox they’d likely pull out the Xbox one & series s/c console better then under the leadership of phill.

Atleast don focus on the console & exclusive games only played on that console. Titan fall 1 to this day is still exclusive which is crazy it wasn’t even a timed but a full on exclusive excluding PS pretty aggressive.

Phill leadership has done nothing other than completely burring the Xbox platform, the Xbox storefront & its consumer behavior. Xbox behavior now is not purchasing games but renting or viewing games less then premium product which will be hard for Xbox to reverse. You’d had to take a massive PR hit & completely get rid of gamepass which I don’t see happening because then it would be MS/Xbox confirming there platform, storefront, Xbox consumer & strategy have completely imploded & they don’t know wtf to do in gaming.

At this point it’s probably MS focus to convert Xbox gamers to PC/window gamers & leeching of Steam/Epic, Apple, PS & Nintendo

 

[Etifilio]

They would be doing way better, obviously. All they had to do was continue doing what they were doing during the height of the 360 era, but acquire more first party studios since they only had a few, lock up more 3rd party exclusives, stop releasing 8 different console skus per gen, and they'd easily have 100m+ install base. If I was in charge, I'd easily have 200m+ Xbox's sold.

But the problem is Microsoft leadership are ignorant, greedy, and arrogant and actually believe they can go "beyond the box", and that there's an imaginary 2 billion gamers waiting for them on PC and Cloud Chasing those ghosts on PC/Cloud has only hurt them but they'll continue to chase until they eventually have to concede and go full 3rd party, which is happening within the next 2-3 years. That's what happens when you have beancounters who hate gaming in charge and not people who actually understand and appreciate the industry. They refuse to invest in quality content, just create the cheapest product possible and try to sell it to as many people as possible. And no, spending $70 billion on ABK does not equal investing in quality content.

i absolutely agree, as part of a company as large as MS, i believe they were the ones with the money to push consoles to the 200/300M mark, all they had to do was continue with the 360 vision and triple down on that, imagine investing 100B dollars on new AAA IPs, marketing and partnerships? such a shame a big company like that is so tasteless

 

[Etifilio]

To this day I still see Xbox fan & “neutral” journalists bring Don Matrick name as if he was reason Xbox fumble & was never able to recover.

If you look at it now Don vision was ahead 10+ years now Xbox, PS & Nintendo are focus & expanding in media Netflix, MAX & Disney+ is massive. All 3 console requires some sort of online authentication (sure to this day I believe Xbox is the only one that fully requires internet at all time) but Don Matrick messaging might’ve been shaky even if he was being honest had they stick w his vision thoe pulled back a little due to the bad pr & don kept leading Xbox they’d likely pull out the Xbox one & series s/c console better then under the leadership of phill.

Atleast don focus on the console & exclusive games only played on that console. Titan fall 1 to this day is still exclusive which is crazy it wasn’t even a timed but a full on exclusive excluding PS pretty aggressive.

Phill leadership has done nothing other than completely burring the Xbox platform, the Xbox storefront & its consumer behavior. Xbox behavior now is not purchasing games but renting or viewing games less then premium product which will be hard for Xbox to reverse. You’d had to take a massive PR hit & completely get rid of gamepass which I don’t see happening because then it would be MS/Xbox confirming there platform, storefront, Xbox consumer & strategy have completely imploded & they don’t know wtf to do in gaming.

At this point it’s probably MS focus to convert Xbox gamers to PC/window gamers & leeching of Steam/Epic, Apple, PS & Nintendo

it was too soon, but Don’s vision was right, TV adaptations and movies for videogames became huge, just look at Fallout Tv Show, TLOU Tv Show and the Mario movie (over 1B in gross) Alexa devices became very important (Kinect) and he was doing it internally, Xbox would have their own media subscription englobed with Live Gold, he was trying to push MS to sell 300 million consoles but the problem is in 2013 people were not ready for it, Xbox One launch had the best launch lineup of any Xbox console in history, so the games were there, the main problem was the messaging of entertainment in that reveal event, they should’ve done an entertainment event separated from the games

 

[JAHGamer]

imagine investing 100B dollars on new AAA IPs, marketing and partnerships? such a shame a big company like that is so tasteless

Instead they spent 100b dollars just to do even worse than last gen.

And some people here think it's smart to move away from the console and Sony is making the right move by doing so pure stupidity.

 

[Etifilio]

Instead they spent 100b dollars just to do even worse than last gen.

And some people here think it's smart to move away from the console and Sony is making the right move by doing so pure stupidity.

it’s the dumbest idea, investing in PC and Cloud it’s been proven to dilute the console audience, even MS now knows it, they’re relying on the traditional model to sell games on PlayStation and Nintendo, if Cloud Gaming and Subscription Services were the future they would never do that, they know the audience for games is different than the audience for Movies/Music

 

[JAHGamer]

To this day I still see Xbox fan & “neutral” journalists bring Don Matrick name as if he was reason Xbox fumble & was never able to recover.

If you look at it now Don vision was ahead 10+ years now Xbox, PS & Nintendo are focus & expanding in media Netflix, MAX & Disney+ is massive. All 3 console requires some sort of online authentication (sure to this day I believe Xbox is the only one that fully requires internet at all time) but Don Matrick messaging might’ve been shaky even if he was being honest had they stick w his vision thoe pulled back a little due to the bad pr & don kept leading Xbox they’d likely pull out the Xbox one & series s/c console better then under the leadership of phill.

Atleast don focus on the console & exclusive games only played on that console. Titan fall 1 to this day is still exclusive which is crazy it wasn’t even a timed but a full on exclusive excluding PS pretty aggressive.

Phill leadership has done nothing other than completely burring the Xbox platform, the Xbox storefront & its consumer behavior. Xbox behavior now is not purchasing games but renting or viewing games less then premium product which will be hard for Xbox to reverse. You’d had to take a massive PR hit & completely get rid of gamepass which I don’t see happening because then it would be MS/Xbox confirming there platform, storefront, Xbox consumer & strategy have completely imploded & they don’t know wtf to do in gaming.

At this point it’s probably MS focus to convert Xbox gamers to PC/window gamers & leeching of Steam/Epic, Apple, PS & Nintendo

it was too soon, but Don’s vision was right, TV adaptations and movies for videogames became huge, just look at Fallout Tv Show, TLOU Tv Show and the Mario movie (over 1B in gross) Alexa devices became very important (Kinect) and he was doing it internally, Xbox would have their own media subscription englobed with Live Gold, he was trying to push MS to sell 300 million consoles but the problem is in 2013 people were not ready for it, Xbox One launch had the best launch lineup of any Xbox console in history, so the games were there, the main problem was the messaging of entertainment in that reveal event, they should’ve done an entertainment event separated from the games

Yep, Don wasn't perfect but he was 100x better than Phil. I don't even think the forced online connectivity was his idea, but the upper management, and maybe Phil. But he was still fired after only one mistake. Meanwhile Phil gets to fail constantly for over a decade and keeps getting promoted and praised

 

[Petekilla]

They would be doing way better, obviously. All they had to do was continue doing what they were doing during the height of the 360 era, but acquire more first party studios since they only had a few, lock up more 3rd party exclusives, stop releasing 8 different console skus per gen, and they'd easily have 100m+ install base. If I was in charge, I'd easily have 200m+ Xbox's sold.

But the problem is Microsoft leadership are ignorant, greedy, and arrogant and actually believe they can go "beyond the box", and that there's an imaginary 2 billion gamers waiting for them on PC and Cloud Chasing those ghosts on PC/Cloud has only hurt them but they'll continue to chase until they eventually have to concede and go full 3rd party, which is happening within the next 2-3 years. That's what happens when you have beancounters who hate gaming in charge and not people who actually understand and appreciate the industry. They refuse to invest in quality content, just create the cheapest product possible and try to sell it to as many people as possible. And no, spending $70 billion on ABK does not equal investing in quality content.

200M? Now you’re just talking sh**t. If Sony and Nintendo, who have much bigger global and iconic brands couldn’t sell 200M consoles. What makes you think you could’ve made Xbox do it? Lol

 

[JAHGamer]

200M? Now you’re just talking sh**t. If Sony and Nintendo, who have much bigger global and iconic brands couldn’t sell 200M consoles. What makes you think you could’ve made Xbox do it? Lol

Lol, what are you on about? 200m isn't some crazy goal, it's easily achievable with the right leadership, someone like me. The PS2 sold 160m when gaming wasn't even half as big as it is today. And no most people didn't buy it because it was a DVD player....

The PS5 could've done 200m easily this gen if they still had real exclusives and didn't waste countless time/resources on competing hardware. But instead they threw that away to make pennies on PC. Last gen they made PS4 the best place to play, this gen, they made PC the best place to play. They missed their goal last FY, and they'll miss their goal again this FY. Console sales are declining 30% every month in every region. Now they'll be lucky to sell 100m consoles this gen

The Switch came off of the awful Wii U generation and had supply issues, so it got off to a very slow start. It still managed to do 140m+, possibly 150m by the end of its life cycle. The Switch 2 will easily do 200m wait and see

 

[Nhomnhom]

To this day I still see Xbox fan & “neutral” journalists bring Don Matrick name as if he was reason Xbox fumble & was never able to recover.

If you look at it now Don vision was ahead 10+ years now Xbox, PS & Nintendo are focus & expanding in media Netflix, MAX & Disney+ is massive. All 3 console requires some sort of online authentication (sure to this day I believe Xbox is the only one that fully requires internet at all time) but Don Matrick messaging might’ve been shaky even if he was being honest had they stick w his vision thoe pulled back a little due to the bad pr & don kept leading Xbox they’d likely pull out the Xbox one & series s/c console better then under the leadership of phill.

Atleast don focus on the console & exclusive games only played on that console. Titan fall 1 to this day is still exclusive which is crazy it wasn’t even a timed but a full on exclusive excluding PS pretty aggressive.

Phill leadership has done nothing other than completely burring the Xbox platform, the Xbox storefront & its consumer behavior. Xbox behavior now is not purchasing games but renting or viewing games less then premium product which will be hard for Xbox to reverse. You’d had to take a massive PR hit & completely get rid of gamepass which I don’t see happening because then it would be MS/Xbox confirming there platform, storefront, Xbox consumer & strategy have completely imploded & they don’t know wtf to do in gaming.

At this point it’s probably MS focus to convert Xbox gamers to PC/window gamers & leeching of Steam/Epic, Apple, PS & Nintendo

Don Mattrick sucked but Phil Spencer sucks even more. Phil was also a higher up during Don Mattrick's days and was actually responsible for ruining their internal studios.

 

[voke]

Lol, what are you on about? 200m isn't some crazy goal, it's easily achievable with the right leadership, someone like me. The PS2 sold 160m when gaming wasn't even half as big as it is today. And no most people didn't buy it because it was a DVD player....

The PS5 could've done 200m easily this gen if they still had real exclusives and didn't waste countless time/resources on competing hardware. But instead they threw that away to make pennies on PC. Last gen they made PS4 the best place to play, this gen, they made PC the best place to play. They missed their goal last FY, and they'll miss their goal again this FY. Console sales are declining 30% every month in every region. Now they'll be lucky to sell 100m consoles this gen

The Switch came off of the awful Wii U generation and had supply issues, so it got off to a very slow start. It still managed to do 140m+, possibly 150m by the end of its life cycle. The Switch 2 will easily do 200m wait and see

I don’t think you have an understanding of how large 200 million is

Xbox hasn’t sold that number even if you add every single generation. You think 20% of a billion people are down for consoles because of exclusive games?

 

[Dabaus]

Probably. The Xbox 360s success was a fluke and once bungie left , cliff blizisankis contract ran out for gears, and Peter Moore left the division became part of Microsoft corporate.

 

[AllBizness]

i think they had the potential to sell 100M consoles if they invested all the money they did on GamePass in AAA Games and Marketing

No way, they'd need to sell alot more in EU and Japan for that. The 360 didn't even hit 100 mil but sold over 40mil in the U.S. Xbox would need to sell around 60 million in North America to hit 100 mil worldwide lol. Will never happen.

 

[Zzero]

Realistically speaking, they were very good at picking projects to invest in (Dead Rising, Gears, Lost Planet, etc.) and PS had some very bad luck. It was never going to last forever but they really doubled down on pain when they went all in on Kinnect and destroyed most of their first party output.

 

[Etifilio]

Yep, Don wasn't perfect but he was 100x better than Phil. I don't even think the forced online connectivity was his idea, but the upper management, and maybe Phil. But he was still fired after only one mistake. Meanwhile Phil gets to fail constantly for over a decade and keeps getting promoted and praised

Phil Spencer said himself he was on the board table on the day they took the decision to implement DRM even on physical games to increase game sales and he agreed to it, and publishers wanted it too