The Future Of The Xbox Brand

[peter42O]

Bloodborne was arguably last gens best exclusive.
It being apart of that lineup was a mega win.

I liked and like Killer Instinct.
I say liked and like because the launch game design and roster was better than the latter.
Original team was better basically. But overall good game.
Titanfall was good as well but didn't have long legs.

I liked Xbox Ones early games better until Bloodborne and it's been downhill since for Xbox IMO.

I wasn't really a fan of Dead Rising 3 but really enjoyed Ryse: Son of Rome and is the Xbox equivalent of The Order 1886. All visuals with a solid story but mediocre gameplay and combat. 2016 was actually pretty good with Quantum Break, Forza Horizon 3 and Gears of War 4. After that, excluding Gears 5, it was downhill for Xbox until 2021 in my opinion. I know a lot of people didn't like their 2021 lineup but regardless, it was their best year since 2016.

We'll see if 2023 ends being worse, as good or better.

 

[PlacidusaX]

I wasn't really a fan of Dead Rising 3 but really enjoyed Ryse: Son of Rome and is the Xbox equivalent of The Order 1886. All visuals with a solid story but mediocre gameplay and combat. 2016 was actually pretty good with Quantum Break, Forza Horizon 3 and Gears of War 4. After that, excluding Gears 5, it was downhill for Xbox until 2021 in my opinion. I know a lot of people didn't like their 2021 lineup but regardless, it was their best year since 2016.

We'll see if 2023 ends being worse, as good or better.

Played Ryse on XBO and PC... mega dud that was rated accordingly.
I like The Order more but it wasn't without flaws.
DR3 wasn't for me either.
I have QB but bought it with hopes they would enhance it but that never happened....
Forza Horizon's are basically the same games. I stopped at 4 after trying out 5.
I do love the Gears games. Probably the main reason I still buy a Xbox even though I have so many issues with the brand.

 

[peter42O]

Played Ryse on XBO and PC... mega dud that was rated accordingly.
I like The Order more but it wasn't without flaws.
DR3 wasn't for me either.
I have QB but bought it with hopes they would enhance it but that never happened....
Forza Horizon's are basically the same games. I stopped at 4 after trying out 5.
I do love the Gears games. Probably the main reason I still buy a Xbox even though I have so many issues with the brand.

Agreed. With Gears 6, I just want them to finish the Kate story line trilogy and then move on to a new Gears trilogy with the cast from Hivebusters. Let them have their own "play style" and skills but other wise, pure Gears with more linear sections. I liked the Ice chapter in Gears 5 but disliked the Desert chapter. I also didn't like the filler in those two chapters due to it being more open. Also, with Gears after 6, I would like to see them evolve the combat/gameplay by allowing more guns in the game. I used the same assault rifle in Gears 5 that I did in Gears 1. Give me melee weapons like Gears 5 but more varied and that don't break at all. Also, I want a weapon wheel instead of using the directional pad to select weapons and instead of selecting grenades to use them, they should be assigned automatically to the RB button. They should add varied grenades like ice, flame, explosive, etc. I liked Gears 5 more than Gears 4 but prefer Hivebusters over both because it's closer to being old school Gears. I want the linear setup to stay as I want it to be action packed but with a few adjustments to the gameplay/combat.

I also would love a Gears survival horror game with Gabe Diaz as the lead from Gears Tactics where it's literally just him fully solo (with NPC's you meet but your entire journey is as a lone wolf) that takes place shortly after Gears Tactics. This I believe would be perfect for Gears because they have the dark tone and atmosphere as well as all the enemies and bosses already. If not this or a new Gears trilogy with the cast of Hivebusters, then I would like to see a new IP but still want it to be a third person cover based shooter.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

I don't give any credit to Spencer pre-2018 but I also don't blame him either because he was never the main guy in charge. He always had multiple people above him that simply didn't care about Xbox and wanted to shut it down. Spencer gets credit for keeping Xbox alive, Game Pass which is one of the best innovative ideas in gaming history because he was going against traditional and all this other old, outdated and obsolete shit. Most of all, he gets credit for finally convincing Nadella and their shareholders to invest into Xbox which obviously, they've done by far.

Okay, honest question....what do you think is so innovative about GamePass? Because I don't see it. Is it a good service for the value? Yes. But "innovative"? There's nothing really innovative about its business model IMO; it's mostly benefited by general technological advances that were not around in the '90s.

Because if you want to talk about innovations in game delivery, both the Sega Channel and Satellaview did what GamePass is doing, decades earlier, with (IMO) more clever technological workarounds considering limitations of the time. And things that MS have since been credited with like cross-buy and game streaming, Sony were doing before them even during the PS3 generation.

Ori and Cuphead were great. Quantum Break was good but not great. Scalebound was fucking trash and should have been cancelled sooner in my opinion. Crackdown 3 went through development hell via multiple studios and to be honest, it should have been cancelled alongside Scalebound. Phantom Dust didn't work out so he cancelled it. If something isn't working, you cancel it and you move on. You don't keep trying to fix it.

Very hard to say Scalebound was trash considering no one got a chance to play it outside of Platinum and maybe some MS people .

I disagree 100% with you thinking that if Mattrick would have stayed, Xbox would be better. No freaking way. Mattrick WAS the reason (along with Myerson) that Spencer had to convince Nadella to keep Xbox alive. If Mattrick was any good, Spencer wouldn't have been in that position to begin with. Spencer literally resurrected Xbox by convincing Nadella to go all in with gaming.

Mattrick did what he had to do; he was required to push TV TV TV by the whole of Microsoft, that wasn't his choice. Microsoft wanted to utilize Xbox & Kinect for the wider company. Mattrick still landed exclusive content for Xbox during the launch window and helped set up things that would bear fruit when Myerson and even later still Spencer took over.

IMO you should probably be saving most of your animosity for Mattrick and shift that to Myerson.

Even if Bleeding Edge was good, it simply didn't hit or find an audience. If anything, it should have been delayed to the Series X/S launch which is something I would agree with you on. I simply see it as an Overwatch clone that was never doing to do anything especially on an almost dead platform in Xbox One.

Yeah, holding it back for a cross-gen release on Series S & X with obvious next-gen features for those systems would've done a lot for the game IMO.

Exclusive content matters but it's not the end all be all and at launch, it rarely matters. Look at every console that's ever launched. How many can you say launched with an exclusive that was worthing buying the console for day one? Because from my history, I have that listed as 4 consoles all time, 3 of which are Nintendo. SNES/N64/Xbox/Switch. That's literally it. PS5 can't be included because the most popular game Miles was cross-gen and outside of Ray Tracing, what are you really missing? Not much if anything.

Well, there's also the Saturn (in Japan) with Virtua Fighter (sold essentially 1:1 with the console launch there), and for a lot of people the PS1 was worth it for Ridge Racer. But I'm not necessarily jus talking on launch day here, I'm also referring to the launch window which is maybe some 3-6 months post launch-day, typically.

I simply believe that when it comes to launching a console, exclusives are highly overrated because the hardcore fans are going to buy the console day one regardless of what exclusive games are there or not. Exclusives only matter from the halfway point to the end because that's when you'll gain in all the casuals who didn't buy the console day one because they're not the hardcore fans.

There might be some truth to that. However for Xbox Series in particular, I think some strong launch exclusives would have been particularly helpful. This new gen is supposed to be them absolving themselves of the XBO's errors. One of its biggest errors was lack of compelling exclusives. What better way to SHOW that's being changed than having at least one new big 1P launch game at launch, or a 3P AAA exclusive for the launch or launch window?

My point with XBO was that despite it having good launch exclusives and the better first two plus years of the generation compared to PS4 which only truly had Bloodborne and that's it, it didn't matter did it? If exclusives are so important, consumers/gamers wouldn't have cared about Microsoft's missteps because the games were better.

Exclusives are obviously very important if your system has the lacking 3P titles in terms of performance or features, which was the case with XBO last gen and, eerily, is kind of repeating itself (though less so; it's more trading blows or a back-and-forth now) this generation as well. That's when the role of exclusives increase, because they have to make up for the lacking performance in 3P games or lacking features thereof.

That's what Sony more or less had to do with the PS3, for example, and that played a big part in them being able to edge out 360 in global sales even after a very rough start.

SNES had SMW but it also had an amazing first year which is arguably still the best ever. PS had some great games but that's not why PS dominated. They dominated because Nintendo was a year later and sticking with cartridges while Sega had so much in house fighting and launched a rushed out Saturn at $400. Sony dominated more because both of their competitors fucked up.

Nah; Nintendo & Sega screwed up, for sure, but that was not the main reason PlayStation took off. Otherwise, every non-Nintendo or Sega console of that period would have done extremely well, but only PlayStation became a success.

Sony benefited from Sega being arrogant and messy, and Nintendo being arrogant & late, but ultimately it was Sony being able to provide a solution the larger customer market deemed superior in pricing value, game library, quality, and marketing, and doing so consistently, why they were able to succeed. They still had to put in the work, and that constituted the majority of the foundation for their success.

 

[peter42O]

Okay, honest question....what do you think is so innovative about GamePass? Because I don't see it. Is it a good service for the value? Yes. But "innovative"? There's nothing really innovative about its business model IMO; it's mostly benefited by general technological advances that were not around in the '90s.

Because if you want to talk about innovations in game delivery, both the Sega Channel and Satellaview did what GamePass is doing, decades earlier, with (IMO) more clever technological workarounds considering limitations of the time. And things that MS have since been credited with like cross-buy and game streaming, Sony were doing before them even during the PS3 generation.

It's not Game Pass itself that I see as innovative. It's that Microsoft/Spencer decided to go away from only having the traditional business model of selling games to focusing first and foremost on a subscription service which while done before Microsoft, they have taken to a whole new level for gaming. It also takes balls to completely change up your business model and go away from the old traditional model that's been around for decades. Also, because the old traditional business model wasn't working for Microsoft, they had to change instead of just repeating what they did previously so that's why I see it as innovative, not perhaps in general but more so for the Xbox brand and trying to turn it around after the horrible Xbox One generation. You could argue that perhaps innovative isn't the correct word to use but I don't really know how else to describe how I see it.

Very hard to say Scalebound was trash considering no one got a chance to play it outside of Platinum and maybe some MS people .

It looked like trash and ran like trash in that last showing at E3. It was bad. Either way, it's dead and I hope it stays dead along with Crackdown to be honest.

Mattrick did what he had to do; he was required to push TV TV TV by the whole of Microsoft, that wasn't his choice. Microsoft wanted to utilize Xbox & Kinect for the wider company. Mattrick still landed exclusive content for Xbox during the launch window and helped set up things that would bear fruit when Myerson and even later still Spencer took over.

IMO you should probably be saving most of your animosity for Mattrick and shift that to Myerson.

Mattrick did get a lot of exclusive content but he was the primarily person behind Kinect. It was his thing and he wanted to push it. Along with TV TV TV within Microsoft and it was a disaster. I know Microsoft wanted to utilize Kinect and that HaloLens stuff for gaming but one had a short stint and the other is used for military or something. Not really sure.

Myerson was horrible for cutting funding and whatnot for Xbox but it was still Mattrick that that took all the hotness from Xbox 360 and completely turned it all to ice. Either way, I would still choose Spencer over Mattrick for one simple reason - he is a gamer, been at Microsoft since 1988 if I remember correctly and I do believe that he wants to leave Xbox in an excellent state when he retires because I do believe that he cares about it all where as Mattrick was just the business man similar to Jim Ryan for Sony now.

Yeah, holding it back for a cross-gen release on Series S & X with obvious next-gen features for those systems would've done a lot for the game IMO.

Agreed.

Well, there's also the Saturn (in Japan) with Virtua Fighter (sold essentially 1:1 with the console launch there), and for a lot of people the PS1 was worth it for Ridge Racer. But I'm not necessarily jus talking on launch day here, I'm also referring to the launch window which is maybe some 3-6 months post launch-day, typically.

Fair enough but even if you say a year, I only see Super Nintendo, Nintendo Switch and borderline PlayStation 5 as being great in this regard. Vast majority of consoles just never really get going until the halfway or so point.

Also, for the current generation, having other exclusives besides Gears Tactics wasn't going to help matters anyway because it was all based on how many consoles could be manufactured and available for purchase. Perhaps in any other generation, Microsoft's near empty launch may have mattered more but this generation, I just don't see it because of all the circumstances surrounding it.

There might be some truth to that. However for Xbox Series in particular, I think some strong launch exclusives would have been particularly helpful. This new gen is supposed to be them absolving themselves of the XBO's errors. One of its biggest errors was lack of compelling exclusives. What better way to SHOW that's being changed than having at least one new big 1P launch game at launch, or a 3P AAA exclusive for the launch or launch window?

While I can agree with what you're saying, first and as I said above, due to the consoles being limited and whatnot, I don't think having exclusives would have changed anything because they were always going to be limited no matter what. Second, you can always look over the third party games that released in November/December 2020 and there wasn't anything there that Microsoft could have paid for especially in those last few months before launch. Like 2022, I just don't believe that there was anything Microsoft could have done as it was simply just too late.

Exclusives are obviously very important if your system has the lacking 3P titles in terms of performance or features, which was the case with XBO last gen and, eerily, is kind of repeating itself (though less so; it's more trading blows or a back-and-forth now) this generation as well. That's when the role of exclusives increase, because they have to make up for the lacking performance in 3P games or lacking features thereof.

That's what Sony more or less had to do with the PS3, for example, and that played a big part in them being able to edge out 360 in global sales even after a very rough start.

Yeah, true. Exclusives are important but at the same time, won't mean as much if they're not any good which is why I prefer to see Microsoft delays games if needed. Thus far, this generation, if 2023 ends up being great for Xbox, then they would have been great for two years and mediocre/disappointing for two years.

Nah; Nintendo & Sega screwed up, for sure, but that was not the main reason PlayStation took off. Otherwise, every non-Nintendo or Sega console of that period would have done extremely well, but only PlayStation became a success.

Sony benefited from Sega being arrogant and messy, and Nintendo being arrogant & late, but ultimately it was Sony being able to provide a solution the larger customer market deemed superior in pricing value, game library, quality, and marketing, and doing so consistently, why they were able to succeed. They still had to put in the work, and that constituted the majority of the foundation for their success.

Sony put in a lot of work but their job became so much easier due to Nintendo being a year later and Sega being a shit show and rushing out an inferior console for $100 more than the competition.