[SpartanN92]

Microsoft deserves this. Not necessarily for the Xbone disaster (I think they have adequately atoned fro that) but for the pure negligence they have shown in managing the Halo franchise.

Xbox IS HALO, and Halo hasn't been good in a decade. Makes sense that Microsoft's console sales the past decade have been substantially less than their competitors.
If they had reigned in 343 earlier and made the correct changes in leadership after Halo 4/MCC then maybe they wouldn't be in such a rough spot.

 

[teezzy]

They should've given Bungie whatever they wanted instead of letting Sony grab em

Microsoft can afford it

 

[regawdless]

They need to get even more inclusive, embrace equity and diversity. A lot more work needs to be done on their part.

It's their road to success, they just need to commit more.

 

[SpartanN92]

They should've given Bungie whatever they wanted instead of letting Sony grab em

Microsoft can afford it

Bungie is going to be an engineering powerhouse for Sony. Microsoft goofed up big by letting Sony get them. Too much bad blood I guess but I agree Microsoft should have given Bungie whatever price they asked at the bare minimum to ensure Sony didn't get them.

 

[teezzy]

Bungie is going to be an engineering powerhouse for Sony. Microsoft goofed up big by letting Sony get them. Too much bad blood I guess but I agree Microsoft should have given Bungie whatever price they asked at the bare minimum to ensure Sony didn't get them.

Truthfully, I'm okay with how everything went down. Bungie to Playstation and Crash/Spyro on Xbox.

Sony needed a developer like Bungie more. They're the perfect fit for their FPS/GaaS weak spot.

Just wait until MS buys Sega

 

[Hardensoul]

Lol people were saying the ps5 wasn't gonna sell then its outselling the Xbox and switch big surprise.

I'm not sure if that's a real prediction, PS5 was always going to sell. Switch is winding down it's life cycle, Sony and it's 1st party were always more popular than Xbox.

 

[Hardensoul]

It's kind of wild how bad the ps3 did at the start. I still can't believe they went with that launch price. By the end though it was a great system and had some classic games.

That blu Ray drive was the real culprit, it took so long for people to adopt the new media. Blu ray players were really expensive too. I stay on DVD till about 2010 when I bought my Sony 3D TV which came with a free PS3!

 

[Snes nes]

I'm not sure if that's a real prediction, PS5 was always going to sell. Switch is winding down it's life cycle, Sony and it's 1st party were always more popular than Xbox.

I was making fun of the people who were saying that it wasn't gonna sell because they abandoned the japanese audience or whatever it was. The reality was they were just complaining about the toning down of fanservice in anime and saying people in japan cared if they didn't get the fanservice. Something like that at least.

 

[cryptoadam]

Keep in mind in this instance it makes sense to downplay their numbers while hyping sonys. The point is to show that Sony is kicking their ass so much that it makes no difference if MS buys every studio and has a monopoly. Lookwt poor MS being outsold by evil Sony. Let us buy every developer and publisher EU please. We promise not to be anti consumer. Double promise and cross our hearts.

 

[rofif]

I thought 2 gens ago, the wii and 360 both were leading.
So ps is not leader for past 20 years

 

[Nobody]

I thought 2 gens ago, the wii and 360 both were leading.
So ps is not leader for past 20 years

360 didn't lead anything. PS3 despite releasing later and struggling still sold more.

 

[Grinchy]

Another few generations and the Xbox might see 100M total units out there in the hands of the mentally ill who prefer Xbox.

 

[Snes nes]

Another few generations and the Xbox might see 100M total units out there in the hands of the mentally ill who prefer Xbox.

grinchy we kindly ask you to stop the xbox hate or else your account will be banned. This is the final warning. Do not resist.

 

[GreyHorace]

Microsoft messed up with their always online bullshit with the Xbone which cost them the previous generation. And while they've made up for it with incentives like Gamepass, the lack of games from their first party studios is a huge oversight. And speaking of which:

Microsoft deserves this. Not necessarily for the Xbone disaster (I think they have adequately atoned fro that) but for the pure negligence they have shown in managing the Halo franchise.

Xbox IS HALO, and Halo hasn't been good in a decade. Makes sense that Microsoft's console sales the past decade have been substantially less than their competitors.
If they had reigned in 343 earlier and made the correct changes in leadership after Halo 4/MCC then maybe they wouldn't be in such a rough spot.

I'm shaking my head as to the sheer mismanagement by Microsoft of their golden goose franchise. And it's not just the games, the HALO tv show is proof positive that whoever is overseeing the HALO brand are complete idiots.

Shit, aside from the casting of Chris Pratt as Mario, the Super Mario Bros CG film from Illumination is getting everyone hyped. You have to admire Nintendo's iron grip on their IPs, especially after the failure of the Super Mario Bros live action film.

 

[DonDonDonPata]

The Xbox brand was a defensive maneuver against Sony's Playstation. This has been known for 20 years. Microsoft was scared Playstation would move in to replace the "home computer media center" which Microsoft was banking on, so at first they partnered w SEGA to put a Windows-ish experience on the DC, then entered the market fully with Xbox.

If you accept this fact, every maneuver and scheme pulled by Xbox makes perfect sense. They didn't enter gaming because they loved gaming. Microsoft entered gaming to protect Office and Windows.

 

[Grumpy Karen]

I think these figures - or rather, what they represent - is already accepted by most grounded people who care to pay attention.

Given how established the hardware players are by now I don't think people will suddenly switch camps - we've all bought into the various eco-systems and loyalty schemes like the good sheep we are - myself included.

These little console skirmishes are nothing compared to the epic battles and tales of valor that defined the C64 vs ZX Spectrum years. Never forget.

 

[SpartanN92]

I think these figures - or rather, what they represent - is already accepted by most grounded people who care to pay attention.

Given how established the hardware players are by now I don't think people will suddenly switch camps - we've all bought into the various eco-systems and loyalty schemes like the good sheep we are - myself included.

These little console skirmishes are nothing compared to the epic battles and tales of valor that defined the C64 vs ZX Spectrum years. Never forget.

Xbox flopped on the worst console generation they possibly could have. The Xbone/PS4 gen was really the first digital gen and it was imperative they not fuck that one up (you know how that went).

So many people started buying digital games and now have this immense digital library and who wants to give that up by switching platforms the following gen?
They could not have picked a worse Gen to blow.

 

[Grinchy]

It would have been more fun if this info had come out right before the new generation "started." Lots more console war drama going on back then.

Now the pathetic course of the Xbox is official but there's no one left to really care.

 

[Nobody]

Microsoft messed up with their always online bullshit with the Xbone which cost them the previous generation. And while they've made up for it with incentives like Gamepass, the lack of games from their first party studios is a huge oversight. And speaking of which:


I'm shaking my head as to the sheer mismanagement by Microsoft of their golden goose franchise. And it's not just the games, the HALO tv show is proof positive that whoever is overseeing the HALO brand are complete idiots.

Shit, aside from the casting of Chris Pratt as Mario, the Super Mario Bros CG film from Illumination is getting everyone hyped. You have to admire Nintendo's iron grip on their IPs, especially after the failure of the Super Mario Bros live action film.

That is just a distortion of history, why would MS do that much better with Xbox One compared to what they ended up doing? The Xbox One actually started with pretty strong sales and then just couldn't keep up against PlayStation, mostly due to lack of compelling games. The Xbox One had pretty much nothing in it's favor until they came up with Gamepass in 2017.

MS has it's core audience that will always jump into their new consoles regardless but they have a hard time making people change from PlayStation to Xbox specially now that people have already built up their library of games (that's why MS wants to move things in a direction where game ownership isn't a thing). People can say that exclusives don't matter all they want but when you add all Sony exclusives (Spider-Man, God of War, Uncharted, TLoU, FFVII, GT, GoT, Horizon, etc) and compare to what the Xbox has to offer it becomes pretty obvious why Xbox never had a chance.

 

[GreyHorace]

That is just a distortion of history, why would MS do that much better with Xbox One compared to what they did? The Xbox One actually started with pretty strong sales and then just couldn't keep up against PlayStation, mostly due to lack of compelling games. MS has it core audience that will always jump into their new consoles regardless but they have a hard time making people change from PlayStation to Xbox specially now that people have already built up their library of games (that's why MS wants to move things in a direction where game ownership isn't a thing).

How is that a distortion? I remember gamers were pretty pissed off at Microsoft after they made their plans for Xbone's online-only functionality known. Preorders for the Xbone plummeted in comparison to the PS4, yet they still stubbornly stuck to their gameplan until E3. They only did an about face a day after Sony announced the PS4 would not require an online connection to play games.

Hell, Sony made an ad mocking Microsoft's policy regarding used games.

 

[Grinchy]

I wish Microsoft went ahead with at least some part of their plans with being able to have a disc tied to your account so you didn't have to actually put it in each time. That would have been a nice change.

But letting your friend or family member borrow your copy of a game and then them having to pay $15....yeah that wasn't going to work.

 

[Nobody]

How is that a distortion? I remember gamers were pretty pissed off at Microsoft after they made their plans for Xbone's online-only functionality known. Preorders for the Xbone plummeted in comparison to the PS4, yet they still stubbornly stuck to their gameplan until E3. They only did an about face a day after Sony announced the PS4 would not require an online connection to play games.

Hell, Sony made an ad mocking Microsoft's policy regarding used games.

They changed it before releasing the console and it was still the best selling Xbox up to that point, despite being more expensive and weaker than the PS4. You are coming up with a single excuse to explain it's failure when it's a combination of a lot more things including them betting on Kinect again, their lack of games, the sorry state of their internal studios, the hardware itself, Sony actually getting pretty much everything right and having a much stronger brand, etc.

This scenario where Xbox would've done great but always online got in the way is complete nonsense. Why would that have happened? Did you guys actually had 360? The second half of the 360 was weak as fuck, they went all in on Kinect and lost all the momentum they had while Sony since started getting things right and setting up the success of the PS4 many years before it's release.

The biggest mistake the Xbox division has ever done was to put Phil Spencer in charge of first party studios in 2008, it lines up perfectly with when their internal studios went to complete shit. Look at how many successful new IPs Xbox has created since then and compare to how Sony has done in the same time period. Xbox never had a chance to compete, regardless of how much money MS had to spend on it (if not for the acquisition of a lot of new studios, Bethesda and ABK MS would be out of this market), pretty much all MS attempts of changing the business model of the console market since then is them trying find a way to make up for the damage Phil Spencer has done.

 

[Bernd Lauert]

They changed it before releasing the console and it was still the best selling Xbox up to that point, despite being more expensive and weaker than the PS4. You are coming up with a single excuse to explain it's failure when it's a combination of a lot more things including them betting on Kinect again, their lack of games, the sorry state of their internal studios, the hardware itself, Sony actually getting pretty much everything right and having a much stronger brand, etc.

This scenario where Xbox would've done great but always online got in the way is complete nonsense. Why would that have happened? Did you guys actually had 360? The second half of the 360 was weak as fuck, they went all in on Kinect and lost all the momentum they had while Sony since started getting things right and setting up the success of the PS4 many years before it's release.

The biggest mistake the Xbox division has ever done was to put Phil Spencer in charge of first party studios in 2008, it lines up perfectly with when their internal studios went to complete shit. Look at how many successful new IPs Xbox has created since then and compare to how Sony has done in the same time period. Xbox never had a chance to compete, regardless of how much money MS had to spend on it (if not for the acquisition of a lot of new studios, Bethesda and ABK MS would be out of this market), pretty much all MS attempts of changing the business model of the console market since then is them trying find a way to make up for the damage Phil Spencer has done.

I'd blame Ballmer for tying Phil's hands behind his back by not taking Xbox seriously. Then Satya came and unleashed the Phil and now Xbox is thriving and well on its way to #1.

 

[GreyHorace]

They changed it before releasing the console and it was still the best selling Xbox up to that point, despite being more expensive and weaker than the PS4. You are coming up with a single excuse to explain it's failure when it's a combination of a lot more things including them betting on Kinect again, their lack of games, the sorry state of their internal studios, the hardware itself, Sony actually getting pretty much everything right and having a much stronger brand, etc.

This scenario where Xbox would've done great but always online got in the way is complete nonsense. Why would that have happened? Did you guys actually had 360? The second half of the 360 was weak as fuck, they went all in on Kinect and lost all the momentum they had while Sony since started getting things right and setting up the success of the PS4 many years before it's release.

The biggest mistake the Xbox division has ever done was to put Phil Spencer in charge of first party studios in 2008, it lines up perfectly with when their internal studios went to complete shit. Look at how many successful new IPs Xbox has created since then and compare to how Sony has done in the same time period. Xbox never had a chance to compete, regardless of how much money MS had to spend on it (if not for the acquisition of a lot of new studios, Bethesda and ABK MS would be out of this market), pretty much all MS attempts of changing the business model of the console market since then is them trying find a way to make up for the damage Phil Spencer has done.

I did have an Xbox 360. And it's one of the best gaming consoles I've owned, despite the fact that I didn't really bother much with the exclusive titles (except for Mass Effect, but that didn't last long). I was more into the 3rd party games and was pretty happy with that. So yeah, I was pretty pissed when Microsoft announced their online plans for the Xbone just like every gamer out there. I decided to switch to the PS4 and have been pretty much happy with my decision.

Maybe you're right about the other factors for Microsoft's reduced market share in gaming, but the always-online bullshit was a good reason to hate them at that point. It reeked of their hubris in thinking that they could get away with any anti-consumer horsecrap and gamers would just lap it up. And they've rightly paid for their arrogance to this day I think.

 

[Nobody]

I did have an Xbox 360. And it's one of the best gaming consoles I've owned, despite the fact that I didn't really bother much with the exclusive titles (except for Mass Effect, but that didn't last long). I was more into the 3rd party games and was pretty happy with that. So yeah, I was pretty pissed when Microsoft announced their online plans for the Xbone just like every gamer out there. I decided to switch to the PS4 and have been pretty much happy with my decision.

Maybe you're right about the other factors for Microsoft's reduced market share in gaming, but the always-online bullshit was a good reason to hate them at that point. It reeked of their hubris in thinking that they could get away with any anti-consumer horsecrap and gamers would just lap it up. And they've rightly paid for their arrogance to this day I think.

Today they are pretty much all in on gaming requiring an online connection and yet the is no shortage of praises from their fanbase even going as far as trying to pretend they are somehow pro consumer, it was never about that and there was never a shortage of reasons to hate MS.

Why should've the Xbox One been more popular than it was? I don't get it, if anything it was surprisingly popular given what was being offered.

 

[cryptoadam]

I really dont get it. 20 years in and still last place. They are spending billions to get content. I just dont understand why they are throwing all that money away.

The days of a console being the living room hub are over. Smart TVs cell phones and firesticks have displaced the console. Ya in 2001 it made sense but today you can stream your content on your phone or TV directly.

I dont even know the point of GP anymore. I cant imagine it turns a profit and clearly they dont have the instal base of sony or nintendo. The Netflix of gaming is a good idea in theory but it doesnt seem to be paying off.

Is MS going to spend the next 20 years being in 3rd place?

 

[Nobody]

I really dont get it. 20 years in and still last place. They are spending billions to get content. I just dont understand why they are throwing all that money away.

The days of a console being the living room hub are over. Smart TVs cell phones and firesticks have displaced the console. Ya in 2001 it made sense but today you can stream your content on your phone or TV directly.

I dont even know the point of GP anymore. I cant imagine it turns a profit and clearly they dont have the instal base of sony or nintendo. The Netflix of gaming is a good idea in theory but it doesnt seem to be paying off.

Is MS going to spend the next 20 years being in 3rd place?

Being the Netflix of movies doesn't even seem like a great goal anymore and the movie industry is at an all time low in term of quality as well. No bueno.

What us, more traditional gamers, have in a our favor is that MS/Xbox despite all the spending will probably just fail miserably again because they don't seem to get even the most basic things right.

 

[QuantumZebra]

The 360 had so much in it's favor:
- came out one year earlier.
- was way cheaper (and they managed to reduce it's price faster)
- was easier to develop for
- turned out to have better performance in most third party games
- at least for the first half of the generation MS actually showed up with the games to support it
- it's sales are inflated by Kinect
- 3RLD probably inflated sales as well
- they were successful establishing the paywall/payed online.

Sony was going broke, the PS3 was an obvious disaster (specially early on), the home console market in Japan already showed strong signs that it was shrinking fast, they were having a hard time reducing the price of PS3 (and pretty much never managed to do it properly even after removing a bunch of features), Sony/PSN got hacked and so on. Yet even with all that PS still ahead up slightly ahead and their internal studios actually became a lot more relevant.

Funny enough I was all Xbox till post-Sony hack when they released the slim PS3 and started rolling out the dope exclusives.

Once I played the Uncharted series, TLoU, and Demon's Souls... it was a no brainer. Now I'm Sony/Nintendo or bust.

 

[QuantumZebra]

64 million xbox over two generations.
85 million xbox in one generation.

But nahh, xbox had never been better. Just wait until [insert timescale]

Bruh just wait for the cloud bruh it's gonna be amazingh, Crackdown 2 bruh cloud gaming, Elder Scrolls 6 Xbox Eclusive u kno

 

[QuantumZebra]

Xbox just needs games. They tried to coast on the usual Gear, Forza, Halo last gen. This gen everything keeps getting delayed or comes out mediocre (FH5 is fire though).Not suprised they are that far behind. If you aren't interested in their rental service there's no reason to buy an XB. I bought one and can't remember the last time I turned it on.

I literally boot up my X1X... update it... play FH5 for an hour or so.. boot up Halo 5 (trying to finish campaign to play Infinite)... quit halfway through a mission.

Repeat after 2 months.

 

[cryptoadam]

Being the Netflix of movies doesn't even seem like a great goal anymore and the movie industry is at an all time low in term of quality as well. No bueno.

What us, more traditional gamers, have in a our favor is that MS/Xbox despite all the spending will probably just fail miserably again because they don't seem to get even the most basic things right.

Netflix is starting to falter now. Becoming the Netflix of gaming just means in a few years you will he spending billions on content and fending of multitude of competitors.

MS must really see the brainwashing....er i mean monetary value in gaming to keep going at it. Those microtransactions must be so sexy to MS

 

[Bernd Lauert]

Netflix is starting to falter now.

Someone missed the Q3 numbers. Netflix is doing better than ever.

 

[Nobody]

Netflix is starting to falter now. Becoming the Netflix of gaming just means in a few years you will he spending billions on content and fending of multitude of competitors.

MS must really see the brainwashing....er i mean monetary value in gaming to keep going at it. Those microtransactions must be so sexy to MS

I think to the average player PS+ Extra catalog and Gamepass are pretty comparable at this point already. The average person doesn't value or care about indies, obscure and floped games nearly as much as Gamepass zealots pretend they do. Their big differentiator (day one games) loses it' importance entirely when MS doesn't release anything or fail to produce truly successful games. In the last few years they've only managed that with Forza Horizon games.

PS+ Extra has stuff like Miles Morales, GoT, Demon's Souls, Returnal, that's much better and has more value than any day one stuff MS released this year. PS+ Essentials is also drastically better than Live Gold and that also helps the value of PS+ Extra.

For the next few years before the acquisition of ABK MS has one single realistic shot at a very successful game and that is Starfield. Regardless of how big it ends up being it's still just one game.

 

[Nobel 6]

I did have an Xbox 360. And it's one of the best gaming consoles I've owned, despite the fact that I didn't really bother much with the exclusive titles (except for Mass Effect, but that didn't last long). I was more into the 3rd party games and was pretty happy with that. So yeah, I was pretty pissed when Microsoft announced their online plans for the Xbone just like every gamer out there. I decided to switch to the PS4 and have been pretty much happy with my decision.

Maybe you're right about the other factors for Microsoft's reduced market share in gaming, but the always-online bullshit was a good reason to hate them at that point. It reeked of their hubris in thinking that they could get away with any anti-consumer horsecrap and gamers would just lap it up. And they've rightly paid for their arrogance to this day I think.

I was of the same opinion of the Xbox One at the beginning of last gen. I was so pissed with Xbox I decided to get a PS4 instead in protest until I decided to check out some PlayStation forum that was worse than the current Blue Snake Thunderdome and decided I didn't want anything to do with PS either and decided to just stay with my 360 ...................until the MCC was announced, and I broke down and bought a XB1 and later the X1X.

I had a PS4 for a short time also but while millions of people really love Sony games, they aren't for me, also the controller and console quality of the PS4 seemed very poor to me, so I traded that and my OG X1 in on the X1X. Loved the X1X, such a great console.

 

[Stilton Disco]

Someone missed the Q3 numbers. Netflix is doing better than ever.

Netflix added 2.5m subscribers after losing a million earlier in the year, fired about 500 employees and introduced a lower price, lower quality tier with ads for additional revenue.

They may well have another quarter or two of growth, but it's at the cost of a far worse service for their customers, and reliant on short term money grabbing methods that will quickly evaporate.

They are still not a business model we want any gaming platform holder pursuing.

 

[teezzy]

I think to the average player PS+ Extra catalog and Gamepass are pretty comparable at this point already. The average person doesn't value or care about indies, obscure and floped games nearly as much as Gamepass zealots pretend they do. Their big differentiator (day one games) loses it' importance entirely when MS doesn't release anything or fail to produce truly successful games. In the last few years they've only managed that with Forza Horizon games.

PS+ Extra has stuff like Miles Morales, GoT, Demon's Souls, Returnal, that's much better and has more value than any day one stuff MS released this year. PS+ Essentials is also drastically better than Live Gold and that also helps the value of PS+ Extra.

For the next few years before the acquisition of ABK MS has one single realistic shot at a very successful game and that is Starfield. Regardless of how big it ends up being it's still just one game.

Owning both consoles, it's interesting how well they complement one another library-wise GamePass gets way more usage from me but it's just my preferred platform and types of games. Grounded rules, waaaay more than I'd expected. Also nice GP has Madden and NHL

Hopefully,Nintendo releases a proper comparable service sooner than later and I'm not just talking about making me pay an annual fee for old roms

 

[Nobody]

Owning both consoles, it's interesting how well they complement one another library-wise GamePass gets way more usage from me but it's just my preferred platform and types of games. Grounded rules, waaaay more than I'd expected. Also nice GP has Madden and NHL

Hopefully,Nintendo releases a proper comparable service sooner than later and I'm not just talking about making me pay an annual fee for old roms

This is what I'm talking about, how can something like Grounded even be brought up as a reason to pay monthly for Gamepass? EA gave Madden away PC just the other day, this is all really low value stuff (among the sports game MLB is the exception since it's day one on Xbox). People set an extremely low bar because of their perception of paying little for it.

 

[teezzy]

This is what I'm talking about, how can something like Grounded even be brought up as a reason to pay monthly for Gamepass? EA gave Madden away PC just the other day, this is all really low value stuff (among the sports game MLB is the exception since it's day one on Xbox). People set an extremely low bar because of their perception of paying little for it.

Have you played it? It's a fantastic game. I underestimated it entirely

 

[Nobody]

Have you played it? It's a fantastic game. I underestimated it entirely

I ain't playing Grounded no matter what, it can win GoTY for all I care I'm not playing this sort of game, just like I don't play Minecraft or Rust or anything like that... People talked so much about Sea of Thieves so I gave it a shot and I couldn't stand it. Grounded could be F2P for all I care and I wouldn't touch it just like I didn't touch it when I had Gamepass for a long time and it was there.

A low budget game like this being the highlight of Gamepass in 2022 is absurd.

 

[HeresJohnny]

IMO, the real problem for Microsoft is that they have no vision or passion about this industry. They want to own it, but they can't ever really illustrate why. They are constantly running with the ideas of others, even when those ideas are stale or worse -- bad. Sony may have a retard that looks like Gordon Ramsey's illegitimate brother running the show, but at least there's passion there. Microsoft had a real shot with the 360, and even that was fucked up by that idiot Mattrick. Phil has talked a good game, but he's been in charge for years and there's been very little but words to show for it. If Microsoft really wants to be the industry leader, they need to start acting like it.