So, the infographics show had video on why the xbox brand is failing in recent years. I kind of thought that it was cringe, so I want to give my own take on the industry.
Quite frankly, I think if not for the Xbox 360 generation, Xbox would've long since died off. They've generally been the weaker brand. Don't get me wrong, of consoles, I probably am more attracted to xbox in terms of games and the like, but my opinions are minority. In gen 6, the Xbox was a weak performing console. The whole premise behind xbox was to make a gaming PC as a console. The first xbox did not sell very well. It competed too closely with the PS2, and the only things it really had over playstation were exclusives like halo, and PC ports like Doom 3 and Morrowind. It was a nice console, but it sold like crap. Heck, Gen 6 was just a runaway success for the sony playstation. Not even nintendo's exclusives, and as we discussed recently, a cheaper price, persuaded consoles to it. That's why nintendo since rebranded with the DS and Wii to focus more on gimmcks and family friendly type stuff. They were getting eaten alive by playstation.
This brings us to gen 7, the Xbox 360. This was the one generation xbox did well. Why did it? Well, let's look at the environment. Xbox launched their console first. They continued their strategy of getting PC ports on their console. It made it SUPER attractive to me, and i went wih the Xbox 360 early. The PS3 and Wii came a year later. The PS3 was a hot mess. It was overpriced, it took longer to get games on it, and the performance was a bit worse than the Xbox. On the flip side it had free multiplayer (paying a premium for xbox live has always been something that turned me off fromm their model), but generally speaking, it was a stronger business model. Sony dropped the ball after the PS2. They launched late, they didnt have a strong game library, the console was grossly overpriced. It just wasn't a good value package. It didnt really reach parity with the 360 until its later years and yeah. And this time Nintendo outsold both. So let's not act like the xbox 360 was that successful. The wii had the largest user base of all 3, due to its low price point and console exclusives.
This brings us to gen 8. By this point, I mostly got out of the console business, mainly due to my introduction to PC. Quite frankly, PC was better than consoles. better graphics, better frame rates, free online play, etc. As such since 2010ish my xbox collected dust and I just poured my money into PC. However, i also understand this is a minority opinion, so let's focus on the console side here.
Here, nintendo got the first shot with the Wii U, but due to underpowered hardware and a high price point, it didn't sell well and it seemed the public was tiring on nintendo's gimmicks. The PS4 and the Xbox one came out a year later. And much like sony with the PS3, Xbox dropped the ball. The fact was, they had a weaker console, for one. For two, it was the same price as the sony one this time, rather than being 33% cheaper. Third, they forced a lot of gimmicks on people like kinect, they had always online requirements, lots of downloading, and it just didnt work for a lot of people. Sony was able to take advantage of this and blast microsoft hard for this. And much like with the PS2 era, the Xbox one was kinda relegated to a weaker option. And by this point, not even its exclusives could save it. All it had were gears of war and halo and halo...lost a lot of steam under 343. Halo 4 was divisive, halo 5, the console's only halo game, was considered an abject failure by fans. Honestly? If you liked microsoft, you were better with a PC. Component prices had dropped, you could score a relatively futureproof PC fairly cheaply. And yeah, sony just ended up being better.
And this brings us to the new generation. Nintendo, again, they're off doing their own thing. They learned from their mistakes of the wii u and released the swiitch mid generation. It's still their current console, although switch 2 comes out in like a month. And now we're in the COVID era. 2020 was a bad time to launch consoles. There were shortages, scalpers made them unaffordable, the generation might as well have not started until 2022. And once again....why go xbox? Now, I admit, the video makes it sound like microsoft being consumer friendly with not walling everything into exclusives, but i like MS's business model. Rather than focus on being a console manufacturer, they're becoming a game service. Theyre on any platform, they offer a good service for consumers, and despite them buying up studios like crazy, they got a HUGE army of IPs now. If they wanted to play the console exclusive game, they could F everyone over, but they don't.
Honestly, i do admit what they're doing makes buying an xbox less attractive. BUt is that a bad thing? I remember 20 years ago i thought it was the end of the world when sega stopped making consoles after the dreamcast, but now sega is everywhere, and you can buy their games on any platform. Xbox going that direction and focusing on games and not studios is a good thing. So...maybe xbox fails. Is that bad? Maybe its a winning move long term. I actually dont like consoles as a PC gamer. I dont like walled gardens. I like being able to play what i want, on what i want, when i want, where i want.
So idk. In the grand scheme of things, microsoft is probably better as a games service than a console maker. Their consoles have almost always sucked and have been long behind sony. They were ahead with the 360, but keep in mind, sony F-ed up there. That's why they were successful. It was a one generation thing. Sony's "generation of humiliation" or whatever. The default trend over the past 20 years is people like sony better than microsoft. They're the nintendo to microsoft's sega. And I honestly think microsoft should learn from sega and go in that direction. Microsoft has a lot of solid IPs. Selling games is their strong suit. Selling hardware isn't. Just my opinion.
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