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Xbox was poised to dominate the eighth gaming cycle.
By: Jessica Conditt for Engadget
No one would argue Microsoft didn't mess up in 2013,
but looking back on five years of computational advances and widespread internet adoption, it seems like the company was onto something with an always-on Xbox One. Its original vision for the eighth console generation has come true. Today, the Xbox One, PS4 and even Nintendo Switch are all online-focused consoles, with the bulk of their entertainment options tied directly to streaming or live online services. Many of the top games today only work online, including
League of Legends, Overwatch, Fortnite, Dota 2,
PUBG,
Rust,
Roblox and multiplayer
Battlefield, Star Wars Battlefront and
Call of Duty iterations. Even games that don't have online components receive regular updates via an internet connection, often on day one. Esports -- games of high skill played against people around the world -- have exploded in popularity. Netflix, the
most-used app on the Xbox ecosystem, today has 125 million subscribers and is valued at more than $140 billion, competing directly with giants like
Disney and Comcast. Twitch, owned by Amazon since 2014, is a global livestreaming phenomenon with more than
15 million daily active viewers.
Our online world has changed drastically in the past five years and the gaming industry has done a fairly good job of keeping up, taking advantage of better connections and more widespread internet adoption, and generally pushing the technology industry to evolve.
Now imagine the street cred Microsoft would have if it had pressed forward with its online version of the future -- and actually succeeded in selling it to the public. Allowing physical games to be given away once after this process was generous, from a digital-first standpoint. Plus, with a constant (or at least regular) internet connection, players could share their entire digital libraries with friends at the tap of a button.
The current video game marketplace makes Sony's 2013 jab at Microsoft's game-sharing policies look hopelessly out of touch. The video showed two people sharing a game by simply handing over a box, but who actually buys discs anymore?
The Xbox One probably wouldn't operate very differently today had Microsoft stuck with its original plan. Players can share their libraries with friends, download games to their Xbox accounts and take them to other consoles, and stream media all day long if they'd like. But maybe Microsoft's dedication to digital gaming would have paid off in unforeseen ways. It could put more pressure on the PS4 to play catch-up -- maybe Sony would have given in to demands for cross-console play by now. It is
the lone holdout in that regard, after all.
Microsoft had a wild idea, and looking back, it was a good one. However, selling DRM to video game fans isn't easy, and Xbox leaders took every wrong turn they saw. They could have laid out a clear vision of gaming's digital future, expressed all of the benefits this system could bestow upon players, and then branded the Xbox One as the only console capable of fully delivering on this promise. Players simply wanted to buy into a future they could believe in, and the Xbox crew couldn't keep its story straight.