And everything beforehand, the original Xbox was a huge flop.
360 was a blip, it was a decent console that took advantage of PS3's high price, it became THE place to play the latest FIFA and COD games for that generation and that generation alone.
See this is where I tend to break on the whole "it's a flop, it's not a flop" POV. OG Xbox didn't stand a chance of outselling PS2, but they still managed to outsell the GameCube, and had a
lot of cool games that were exclusive or first on the system, or where the only other place you could've played them was PC. Halo 1 & 2, Crimson Skies, DOA3, Outrun 2, the Otogi games, Shenmue II (Dreamcast got it but only in Japan), Gun Valkyrie, Spike Out, Ninja Gaiden, best console version of Splinter Cell, PGR 2, Rallisport Challenge, Riddick, DOOM 3, and plenty more. XBL was a huge deal at the time and easily beat whatever online infrastructure PlayStation and Nintendo had going. You could tell OG Xbox was truly focused on gaming and trying to define its own niche while still competing with PS2 & GameCube.
The pre-Kinect 360 years were similar, but luckily for MS that's also when Sony dropped the ball with PS3 and Nintendo went a different direction with the Wii. So all the work they did with OG Xbox finally started paying off for 360, similar to how PS3's recovery paid off for PS4. And those pre-Kinect 360 years were fantastic, even if PS3 was the stronger system (if you mastered the Cell) and easily had the stronger back half to that generation games-wise.
I think when you only look at systems for how many units they sell or what super-mainstream games they hosted, you lose nuance in truly appreciating what those consoles offered to the market at the time. I'm a gaming enthusiast, so talking about 360 for being the COD & FIFA machine means nothing, even if that was technically true. Dismissing OG Xbox because it "only" sold 25 million in a gen where PS2 was basically guaranteed to dominate, is ignoring all the cool, quirky & awesome exclusives that system had and how, yeah, it did in a lot of ways feel like a spiritual successor to the Dreamcast.
The acquisitions made sense. Microsoft didn't have a library of strong IPs or were able to build and grow talent, so they bought it. You can make curry at home, but if you don't know how or don't have the ingredients, you need to buy it at the store. Microsoft bought lots of curry, red, green, massaman, but they don't know how to cook it to make it sing. They put it in the microwave.
That's a good way of describing most of the XGS studio purchases, and The Initiative especially. What a clusterfuck The Initiative turned into, and quickly.
It's the same reason people can't understand why ps would release helldivers on Xbox or why ps management aren't popping champagne and swinging from the chandeliers because they've won the console war.
These are publicly listed companies invested in by people that largely don't have an6 emotional investment in what exclusives are available on what platforms or which ip ends up where. They want to see share price go up … no matter what
Well other reason SIE are doing those things is because they're compromised. And we know Sony Corp & Microsoft Corp share a lot of the same investors, which by nature prevents them from being truly competitive with each other. Those investors don't want either entity to lose money for them, so they'll influence decisions between them that (IMO) otherwise actual competitors wouldn't bother doing, especially when those investors own a lot of the majority shares.
Honestly I think that's sufficient in explaining a lot of SIE's decisions this generation. But it also means I can clearly see what direction they'll be going forward and it's not one where a future PS console is likely in my best interest to purchase.
Obsidian is doing OK. I liked Avowed and their next game looks better than its predecessor.
Not $80 better.
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