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[mili2110]

If MS never released Gamepass on PC/Cloud there would be a reason to own an Xbox. With all Activision/Blizzard/Bethesda being „free“ on Xbox you would save a lot of money.

Xbox:
120$/yr for Gamepass with 500+ free games and free COD yearly

PlayStation:
one Full price title 70$ + 50$ PS+ for Multiplayer

Result:
Many casual brogamers would buy an xbox only for COD.

But with cloud and many gamers already owning a PC, theres no need to own an XBOX anymore.

What are your theories?

Edit:
i forgot to mention in my Post:
All xbox games are still multi Plattform with only gamepass being exclusive to console and the „killer feature“
So the only change from reality being = no gamepass on PC and cloud.
I think that would have been the only option from xbox being obsolete.

 

[PeteBull]

Tons of high quality exclusives, worked well for switch that is almost at 150m consoles sold and it has power of 1/3rd of xbox one, in docked mode.
Nothing else makes consoles succesful.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

- Don’t rush the design of your second console resulting in half of them dying of RROD after a year

- Work to globalise your brand, Sony made the original PlayStation feel British for example, focus on Japan as a key market (throughout most of gaming’s history they’ve made the best games)

- Secure relationship with Bungie to continue developing Halo

- Secure relationship with Epic to continue developing Gears

- Launch Kinect, but don’t lose focus on your key audience

- Realise that cable TV is about to die in favour of streaming, focus on making 3rd gen Xbox a great gaming system

- Don’t release all your games on PC on day one, it reduces the need to buy your console resulting in potential customers knowing more PS4 owners than Xbone owners (a lot of people buy what their friends have)

- Don’t cheapen the main purpose of your product (games) by launching a Netflix style service

How they stayed in the market having made several huge back to back errors is beyond me. They fucked up way more than Sega and it’s only due to repeated investment (at a colossal financial loss) by papa Microsoft that they stayed in the business as long as they did.

Sony and Nintendo, on the other hand, have made very few errors, hence why they own the console industry.

 

[baphomet]

You don't remember that's how it started?

 

[PauloRoberto]

There's a problem in this what if scenario. If gamepass never existed... Actiblizz would be bought? Because IMHO, Call of DUty was THE gamepass hail mary.

 

[DryvBy]

Tons of high quality exclusives, worked well for switch that is almost at 150m consoles sold and it has power of 1/3rd of xbox one, in docked mode.
Nothing else makes consoles succesful.

Exclusives matter. I have almost 50 games and they're all first and 3rd party exclusives. I don't even have multi party games on my Switch, but I have two Switches.

Edit: word

 

[Skifi28]

If MS never released Gamepass on PC/Cloud there would be a reason to own an Xbox. With all Activision/Blizzard/Bethesda being „free“ on Xbox you would save a lot of money.

Xbox:
120$/yr for Gamepass with 500+ free games and free COD yearly

PlayStation:
one Full price title 70$ + 50$ PS+ for Multiplayer

Result:
Many casual brogamers would buy an xbox only for COD.



But with cloud and many gamers already owning a PC, theres no need to own an XBOX anymore.


What are your theories?

You're describing what already happened. Spending 90 billion on publishers and keeping everything exclusive would have never worked. They'd be deep in the red while waiting for gamers to very slowly migrade to xbox and Nadella would have pulled the plug yet again.

 

[Generic]

Make the next Xbox a PC/console hybrid.

Tons of high quality exclusives, worked well for switch that is almost at 150m consoles sold and it has power of 1/3rd of xbox one, in docked mode.
Nothing else makes consoles succesful.

Different audiences, Switch owners buy a 14 years old Wii game for $60.

 

[cireza]

It is easy to find ways for Xbox as a hardware to survive. Tons of examples out there of hardware being successful.

Microsoft simply did not make this choice. They want more money, they don't care about selling hardware.

 

[Rawbutt Jellybean]

Most GP subs are on console.

RRoD, botched X1 launch, not prioritizing exclusives from the end of the 360 throughout the X1 gen is what killed them. If they were buying studios back then and didn't launch $100 above the PS4, they'd be in a better position today. Mattrick really fucked them.

 

[SJRB]

Found Phil Spencer's GAF account

 

[Rawbutt Jellybean]

Different audiences, Switch owners buy a 14 years old Wii game for $60.

You could say this about every platform.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

I think Microsoft’s wealth was a big part of the problem

Whenever the Xbox team failed, Microsoft basically said “don’t worry about it” and bailed them out every time.

They never learned from mistakes, they never feared failure, and as a result they were sloppy throughout the 25 years they were in the console war and just kept fucking up

 

[nordique]

At its core, it’s simple.

Exclusives.

Literally just go back to 360 drawing board.

 

[T4keD0wN]

What are your theories?

My theory is that Xbox has a much larger market cap as a publisher than a platform.
Xbox is a company, not a console. You think of the company and their product as if they were the same thing.

Attempt to "save" or support the console (a product) would equal to Xbox (the company) losing money and going bankrupt

Saving Xbox can only be done by abandoning an undesireable product (console) and making tons money by publishing. Ironically the one thing that help them the most is their competitors.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

My theory is that Xbox has a much larger market cap as a publisher than a platform.
Xbox is a company, not a console.

Attempt to "save" or support the console (a product) would equal to Xbox (the company) losing money and going bankrupt

Saving Xbox can only be done by abandoning an undesireable product (console) and making tons money by publishing.

People really underestimate the size of customer-base you need to make big profits in this business.

Sony and Nintendo have continuously released systems that got more than 100 million customers, resulting in huge profits on software sales.

Microsoft’s best was 80 odd million 360s.

 

[onQ123]

If MS never released Gamepass on PC/Cloud there would be a reason to own an Xbox. With all Activision/Blizzard/Bethesda being „free“ on Xbox you would save a lot of money.

Xbox:
120$/yr for Gamepass with 500+ free games and free COD yearly

PlayStation:
one Full price title 70$ + 50$ PS+ for Multiplayer

Result:
Many casual brogamers would buy an xbox only for COD.

But with cloud and many gamers already owning a PC, theres no need to own an XBOX anymore.

What are your theories?

Edit:
i forgot to mention in my Post:
All xbox games are still multi Plattform with only gamepass being exclusive to console and the „killer feature“
So the only change from reality being = no gamepass on PC and cloud.
I think that would have been the only option from xbox being obsolete.

Xbox was already losing too much money with Series X/S & you want them to lose more?

 

[Radical_3d]

Take a time machine back to 2014. Slap Spencer’s face until he drops GamePass and builds up new studios with new talent and make original games. No spending 80 billion on the most abhorrent western developers ever. Suffer through the One generation. Have a healthy Series X generation with a 1:1 sales ratio against PlayStation.

Side effect: Sony can’t go all in for GaaS since they have competition now. And if they do this generation would have been worse than the PS3 one sales wise. A landslide from Xbox publishing games.

You’re welcome.

But today? After being overgrown and with a tiny install base and, more importantly, no credit after the many promises of Spencer in the One generation (remember Scalebound)? It’s impossible. They decided to be the Netflix of video games (that can’t be done, but that’s for another thread) and that way only lead to one possible result: today.

 

[RAIDEN1]

....And then there were only 2 (Sony and Nintendo..) it's like back to the early 90s again! There could have been a partnership between Nintendo and Sony, but they went their separate ways, and in the end it just comes down to these 2...can't see anyone competing once Xbox is well and truly out of it on the hardware front..

 

[jroc74]

There's a problem in this what if scenario. If gamepass never existed... Actiblizz would be bought? Because IMHO, Call of DUty was THE gamepass hail mary.

Right.

There are alot of hypotheticals to factor in.

I'm just cool we finally moved on from "MS aquired Bethesda and ABK because of Sony timed exclusives".

Because that never made sense, at all.

 

[Rawbutt Jellybean]

Take a time machine back to 2014. Slap Spencer’s face until he drops GamePass and builds up new studios with new talent and make original games. No spending 80 billion on the most abhorrent western developers ever. Suffer through the One generation. Have a healthy Series X generation with a 1:1 sales ratio against PlayStation.

Side effect: Sony can’t go all in for GaaS since they have competition now. And if they do this generation would have been worse than the PS3 one sales wise. A landslide from Xbox publishing games.

You’re welcome.

But today? After being overgrown and with a tiny install base and, more importantly, no credit after the many promises of Spencer in the One generation (remember Scalebound)? It’s impossible. They decided to be the Netflix of video games (that can’t be done, but that’s for another thread) and that way only lead to one possible result: today.

If GP didn't exist console sales would be even lower. Well over 50% of console owners have it. Go back to 2007 and slap Mattrick's face because he's the one who put them in an impossible situation.

 

[SHA]

Given the timeline it's difficult to answer but let's say at the moment, it's AI and big franchises being released every 3 years.

 

[Radical_3d]

If GP didn't exist console sales would be even lower. Well over 50% of console owners have it. Go back to 2007 and slap Mattrick's face because he's the one who put them in an impossible situation.

One bad generation can be saved. Look at Nintendo. Loosing the trust of your core audience is almost forever. “Next year is Xbox’s”, GP and day one on PC burned the brand to the ground. Starting this generation with 4 years of bangers versus one rat game and one souls remake would have been a win for the ages. Not to mention the grim future of the next four years. 8 years with actually good games and we wouldn’t have threads like this one.

 

[EN250]

I can tell you how, build a time machine, get back to the year 2012, slap the living fuck outta Don Mattrick till he gets amnesia or something, that way some other suit get his role, then go to the house of this new suit at night and scare him The Godfather's way (no need for a horse, use his pet if necessary) and tell the mfer that tvtvtvtvtvtv, sportsportsport and this project prism ready kinect camera are out of the next console reveal aka the Xbone, you're done

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

their next console in the shape of a buttplug.

 

[Azelover]

Don't do the Project Natal/Kinect thing.

The rest will fall into place.

 

[reinking]

 

[Moriarty1889]

Fire Phil for starters…….all kidding aside if it were my division to run I would have done the following :
Not put games on PC day one.
No Day one AAA exclusives on gamepass. Wait at least six months to a year to incentivize sales for those games.
Push the hardware more and not lose focus on the importance of building a console base.
Be more aggressive with third party deals like back in the 360 gen.
Properly utilize all the newly acquired studios with putting a competent studio head in charge. Keep dev teams on strict timelines and make sure they are progressing at the proper time frames.
Keep exclusives only on Xbox consoles to entice and justify people to buy into the ecosystem.

That about sums it up. Pretty basic I would think. Would it have worked? Who knows. All I know is Phil and Co have done everything they can to run the brand into the ground and make it an embarrassment at this point. Sad day in gaming to see them sheepishly porting their games to their most fierce competitor in the hopes to stay relevant or simply alive. A three trillion dollar company that bought up most of the industry and still can’t win……utterly pitiful.

 

[jshackles]

Microsoft releasing Game Pass on PC was the clincher for you, huh? Weird take, but okay.

I would propose that Microsoft should have gone MORE all-in on PC. Make every Xbox game "Play Anywhere", and require it from third party publishers as well. Games such as Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth I instantly bought on Xbox, knowing I could play it on my console or PC. Cloud saves automatically sync between the two, so it's actually a really great pick up / put down anywhere kind of setup. Throw in an Xbox handheld (similar to Steam Deck) and Microsoft might have had a run at the beginning of this gen at putting a dent in Steam's dominance in the PC space.

Instead, even their latest COD isn't Play Anywhere, and the Steam Deck is dominating the handheld PC space. They may try to pivot, but I think it's already going to be too little too late.

 

[Rawbutt Jellybean]

One bad generation can be saved. Look at Nintendo.

Nintendo also had a large audience split between 2 platforms, the strongest 1st party in the industry, doesn't sell hardware at a loss while still being cheaper than the competition, and has games that are cheaper to make. They were in a much better position going into the Switch than Xbox was going into the Series X/S.

 

[viveks86]

Great games

 

[ungalo]

I think Microsoft’s wealth was a big part of the problem

Whenever the Xbox team failed, Microsoft basically said “don’t worry about it” and bailed them out every time.

They never learned from mistakes, they never feared failure, and as a result they were sloppy throughout the 25 years they were in the console war and just kept fucking up

I don't know about that, since 2016, they've been incredibly unambitious, at least until they bought major publishers.

Something definitely broke in 2016, after Halo 5 and Gears 4. After that their failures were not spectacular, it looked more like stringency. To think they let the Xbox One rot for almost 4 years with so few exclusives games, just to start a new generation with 0 line up, and only 2 major exclusives in the first 4 years of the console.

I mean they definitely let it rot. It has nothing to do with Nintendo when Wii U bombed. And Wii U had more games, better games when it flopped. Still its lifespan was only 4 years and a half, Xbox One was like 7 years.

 

[jroc74]

If GP didn't exist console sales would be even lower. Well over 50% of console owners have it. Go back to 2007 and slap Mattrick's face because he's the one who put them in an impossible situation.

You really think Game Pass helped console sales?

It's obvious by now that it didn't.

Don't confuse ppl buying the Series S because they couldn't get a XSX for Game Pass being a system seller.

 

[Danjin44]

Great games

/thread

 

[Sooner]

The theory that the casual brogamers that play only Call of Duty are going to buy a $300-$500 Xbox, so they can rent Call of Duty for $240 a year, so they can avoid buying it for $70 makes no sense.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Great games

Imagine suggesting something so preposterous

 

[Rawbutt Jellybean]

You really think Game Pass helped console sales?

It's obvious by now that it didn't.

Don't confuse ppl buying the Series S because they couldn't get a XSX for Game Pass being a system seller.

You misread what I wrote.

 

[Certinty]

Halo 3
Halo 4
Forza Motorsport 2
Forza Motorsport 3
Forza Motorsport 4
Project Gotham Racing 3
Project Gotham Racing 4
Gears of War
Gears of War 2
Gears of War 3
Left 4 Dead
Left 4 Dead 2
Fable 2
Crackdown

They went from having console exclusive games like all on the Xbox 360 to not even having a quarter of exclusives even half as good in the two gens combined after.

That says enough.

 

[Bumblebeetuna]

Xbox fucked up the end of the 360 gen when Sony was pumping out big games and they fucked up the Xbone gen when people built their digital libraries going forward. They then fucked up the X|S launch by having nothing in terms of next gen exclusive software or meaningful games for long after launch.

Their goose was cooked long before GamePass was a thing. GamePass is a Hail Mary to save the Xbox division. It needs as much revenue as possible, not limited to Series hardware.

People who own a PC aren’t going to get a console for GamePass. There are lots of sub services offering cheap access to games on PC.

People wanting a console aren’t going to bypass the casual dudebro PS5 console where they can play their digital PS4 games just to save $70 a year on CoD.

 

[kikkis]

I think exclusives is poor strategy. My stragegy would be. Get rid of xbox gold, it would make the system attractive to online gamers which are the majority. Allow dual boot of windows 11, it would attract pc gamers who want the advantages of xbox like sleep mode downloads and lack of online cheating.

 

[ZehDon]

Do you mean "Xbox" the console? Or "Xbox" the platform?

In terms of the console, a proper Xbox console likely died after the Xbone, where Microsoft needed to generate revenue despite not having platform hardware or, frankly, a whole lot of games people actually wanted to buy. Their solution? Put what games you do have on a non-competing platform to increase sale volumes: PC. Unfortunately, they never fixed the other part, meaning their hardware install base never improved, creating the death spiral that got them where they are today. Instead of fixing up their first parties which in turn push hardware, they kinda... did nothing, and seemed happy to give us turds like Halo Infinite and Redfall along the way. The Series X|S, despite being great bits of hardware in their own right, ultimately were just the Death Certificate confirming what had already happened.

As for the Xbox platform, I don't think it needs saving. Microsoft have transitioned into a third party publisher as a way to stay alive, but they're the only ones with enough volume to sustain a subscription model that justifies itself. As such, they're not going anywhere any time soon. PlayStation gamers will subsidise the model with full price purchases of Xbox's games, while the Xbox console and PC Gamers will have access to the Game Pass service, encouraging their gamers to forego purchases and become entirely reliant on Microsoft's subscription. How long does that model last? Who knows - but with PlayStation now funding it, it'll last a whole heck of a lot longer.

 

[Rocky_Balboa]

They make more money if they are a publisher. Also if they can make a deal of having game pass on other platforms. Personally I would like them to go full on exclusive with their first parties and keep going like Sony.

 

[Killer8]

The time to save Xbox was waaaay further back than people think - it was midway through the Xbox 360 generation. Microsoft relied a lot on exclusivity deals during that generation and in the meantime neglected its first-party with studio closures and a failure to acquire good studios.

Of course the Xbox One had well documented PR disasters and sold like shit as a result, but it also didn't help that during that generation Xbox had just three tentpole franchises left: Halo, Gears and Forza. And two of those franchises saw their original, beloved developers depart.

Putting all their games on PC too was not a bad idea. Game Pass, in principal, was not a bad idea. Re-launching their console as Xbox One X was not a bad idea. Phil Spencer is not a total idiot. His biggest folly however was waiting until 2018 to realize that subscription services and games consoles need fucking content to attract people to pay for them.

Nowadays a game can easily take 5 years to make. That's almost an entire generation. Putting the wheels in motion right at the end of last-gen to rebuild their first-party has meant that we're now in year 5 of Xbox Series and it's only just hitting its stride in terms of game releases - right as the hardware sales are collapsing.

The time to go on the studio buying spree was early in the Xbox One generation so the games would've been ready in time for the Series launch. Maybe then they would've stood a chance and wouldn't be haemorrhaging their content to the competition.

 

[Radical_3d]

Nintendo also had a large audience split between 2 platforms, the strongest 1st party in the industry, doesn't sell hardware at a loss while still being cheaper than the competition, and has games that are cheaper to make. They were in a much better position going into the Switch than Xbox was going into the Series X/S.

With the Game Cube they were almost in the same situation. Sure Xbox didn’t thad the Game Boy, but they do have bloody Microsoft. If they could afford several generations of Surface fiasco, they could bear the One.

 

[Insolent]

Fire Nadella and Spencer first
2 losers

 

[Whipped Spartan]

They’ve been third place every gen globally. Just never put effort into any markets outside US.

They lasted longer than Sega as a console maker. Sega made it 16 years and 4 gens. Xbox made it 23+ years and counting and 4 gens so far.

 

[Bridges]

A lot of the points being thrown around have been discussed to death so let me throw out a few that don't get mentioned as much:

Don't shut down Lionhead
Don't let go of Bungie or Twisted Pixel
Don't sell back rights to thinks like Alan Wake
Buy Respawn before EA can
Buy The Behemoth

Obviously the X1 launch decisions were more consequential then any of these would've been but it's so boring to always talk about that. Microsoft willingly gave up on many companies and franchises that brought them success and could've really bolstered their portfolio during the "wait for next year" era of Xbox that is finally coming to a close

 

[Humdinger]

1. Change your management culture so that it fosters good game development (no small feat).

2. Rewind to 2012 and stop chasing trends. Don't try to be an entertainment center for the living room. Try to be a great game console, like you were for a while there. Stick to that.

3. Make some great exclusives (after accomplishing #1). As part of that effort, spend a small portion of that 90 billion on acquiring some quality developers. Don't spend 90 billion and force yourself into going multiplatform.

4. Don't ever offer Day 1 giveaways of your main exclusives. That was a bad idea. GP is fine in theory, but giving away your highest-profile exclusives for free was foolish.

 

[poppabk]

There was no saving the Xbox. There is no need for two very similar consoles - as the industry became 3rd party centric there was always going to be a de facto choice. After the PS3 wiffed a little they had the slight possibility to nudge momentum their way but fucked it up.

 

[Sooner]

They’ve been third place every gen globally. Just never put effort into any markets outside US.

Technically, the original Xbox was second place. But, that was more PS2 first and everybody else last (by a mile).

And even that chart is a bit misleading, as PS2 sold 160 million.