They really shot themselves in the foot with forcing Kinect with the Xbox one and the initial (later walked back) decision to be always online required. The Kinect made the Xbox $100 more at launch vs PlayStation which was a big impact.
The issue with losing that round of the “console wars” was this was when a lot of people started buying games digitally, this meant people aren’t as willing to switch consoles later since you can’t sell your digital collection. So that loss snowballs since it took a while for cross play to become a thing.
If they had made really good console exclusives after that they made have had a chance to comeback but so many were mid (gears of war) or bombed (halo). It’s just been a slow spiral from there.
I moved to PC after the Xbox one and am really happy I did.
That’s a good point about the digital collection thing. I always knew the Xbox One pre-release debacle was the fatal mistake for Xbox, but that helped further solidify it for me.
It’s a shame since I like the Xboxs and their exclusives, and like you think the seeds were there for a potential comeback if done right, especially with all those major acquisitions a few years back. But with Gears now on Playstation, all I need to see is Halo do the same to know that they well and truly are on the way out of the hardware biz ala Sega.
Yeah I liked their games on the 360 so it sucked when they fumbled so bad. It looked like they were on the right track when they were investing in studios but I can’t really think of a decent exclusive that came out of that. Although that was around the time I stopped gaming for a while so may have missed something.
It’s interesting what will happen if Xbox leaves hardware. PlayStation probably gets more free reign to raise prices since Nintendo is a pretty different niche of the market and is pretty anti consumer too and a chunk of the market just won’t ever move to PC due to personal preferences.
Seems obvious to me that console gaming is a sinking ship and leaving it is the right move by Microsoft. Nobody wants to pay gaming PC prices for a shitty PC. The only exception to this is devices like the Steam Deck that you can actually use like a PC and do whatever you want, but no major console manufacturer will ever allow that.
I think they might just be moving to being a service and offloading the hardware to some kind of ‘second-party’ arrangement where MS won’t manufacture an ‘xbox’ again, but ASUS or Razer or something will make various tiers of standardised ‘xbox’ devices and handhelds
I reckon they’ll keep the studios and even still have some timed and some full exclusives, which will keep game pass chugging. But maybe the days of the actual xbox console are over?
surely the have to keep making the controller though, it’s the highest quality one with direct PC support (and therefore support for any new device strategy). if they kill off the controller, it’s joever
I bought an 8bitdo controller since it had hall-effect sticks and USB-C cabling, and was like $20; the shape isn’t quite as nice as the Xbox controller but it seems well made. There’s some weirdness in my super-corner-case scenario though. (GoG release Breath of Fire IV through Proton doesn’t map the controls correctly)
It’s surprising that premium controllers have sort of stagnated. Outside of fightsticks, most third party controllers still carry the baggage of MadCatz and $10 throwaways that say “P4” or “Xobx” on the box.
Keyboards and mice have gone from $10 packins to near-Veblen goods with $100+ choices, surely some manufacturers want that for controllers too.
8bitdo’s Ultimate controller line is probably the best I’ve ever used, and it slays me that those have Hall effect sticks when the ones sold by the multibillion dollar console manufacturers at twice the price don’t
Wow….what
I haven’t kept up with gaming, I guess. Have the chicken finally come home to roost for Microshit?
They really shot themselves in the foot with forcing Kinect with the Xbox one and the initial (later walked back) decision to be always online required. The Kinect made the Xbox $100 more at launch vs PlayStation which was a big impact.
The issue with losing that round of the “console wars” was this was when a lot of people started buying games digitally, this meant people aren’t as willing to switch consoles later since you can’t sell your digital collection. So that loss snowballs since it took a while for cross play to become a thing.
If they had made really good console exclusives after that they made have had a chance to comeback but so many were mid (gears of war) or bombed (halo). It’s just been a slow spiral from there.
I moved to PC after the Xbox one and am really happy I did.
That’s a good point about the digital collection thing. I always knew the Xbox One pre-release debacle was the fatal mistake for Xbox, but that helped further solidify it for me.
It’s a shame since I like the Xboxs and their exclusives, and like you think the seeds were there for a potential comeback if done right, especially with all those major acquisitions a few years back. But with Gears now on Playstation, all I need to see is Halo do the same to know that they well and truly are on the way out of the hardware biz ala Sega.
Yeah I liked their games on the 360 so it sucked when they fumbled so bad. It looked like they were on the right track when they were investing in studios but I can’t really think of a decent exclusive that came out of that. Although that was around the time I stopped gaming for a while so may have missed something.
It’s interesting what will happen if Xbox leaves hardware. PlayStation probably gets more free reign to raise prices since Nintendo is a pretty different niche of the market and is pretty anti consumer too and a chunk of the market just won’t ever move to PC due to personal preferences.
Microsoft really can’t compete with valve and the PC handheld market either. Idk what that means for Sony tho.
Seems obvious to me that console gaming is a sinking ship and leaving it is the right move by Microsoft. Nobody wants to pay gaming PC prices for a shitty PC. The only exception to this is devices like the Steam Deck that you can actually use like a PC and do whatever you want, but no major console manufacturer will ever allow that.
I think they might just be moving to being a service and offloading the hardware to some kind of ‘second-party’ arrangement where MS won’t manufacture an ‘xbox’ again, but ASUS or Razer or something will make various tiers of standardised ‘xbox’ devices and handhelds
I reckon they’ll keep the studios and even still have some timed and some full exclusives, which will keep game pass chugging. But maybe the days of the actual xbox console are over?
surely the have to keep making the controller though, it’s the highest quality one with direct PC support (and therefore support for any new device strategy). if they kill off the controller, it’s joever
I bought an 8bitdo controller since it had hall-effect sticks and USB-C cabling, and was like $20; the shape isn’t quite as nice as the Xbox controller but it seems well made. There’s some weirdness in my super-corner-case scenario though. (GoG release Breath of Fire IV through Proton doesn’t map the controls correctly)
It’s surprising that premium controllers have sort of stagnated. Outside of fightsticks, most third party controllers still carry the baggage of MadCatz and $10 throwaways that say “P4” or “Xobx” on the box.
Keyboards and mice have gone from $10 packins to near-Veblen goods with $100+ choices, surely some manufacturers want that for controllers too.
8bitdo’s Ultimate controller line is probably the best I’ve ever used, and it slays me that those have Hall effect sticks when the ones sold by the multibillion dollar console manufacturers at twice the price don’t
Yep, compatibility layers can be real pains. Count yourself lucky all that’s broken is controller mapping.