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Why XBOX lost the war - according to Laura Fryer

SABRE220

Member
Very insightful video and kind of puts light on Microsofts shift from their prime in the 360days.

While xbox hasnt been able to match sony it hasn't lost the war. Unfortunately, as soon as Microsofts coffers opened up for xbox it became almost impossible for them to lose completely. It's like fighting a noob player who has infinite pay to win heals, you can embarrass them for a bit but they will keep getting backup and eventually wear you down.

I know Xbox has been terrible at managing their brand but lets be real zenimax along with activision and blizzard are a huge get, they have near all of the western RPGs on lockdown, have the best selling and acclaimed shooters in cod and doom on lockdown and they will keep buying until they get what they want. Microsoft has been incompetent this gen yes but throw enough money at the problem and things happen unfortunately, and with near-unlimited funds, they will keep coming until shit sticks.

Honestly while depressing next gen is going to be very interesting considering how xbox's buying spree go's.
 
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T-0800

Member
Where the hell did you took that from?! The Series consoles were launched in 2020, basically alongside the PS5.

Both of them are selling good because of the basic of economics: profit. If they're profiting, even if is like a penny, they're doing good. Also, while the One sold less than 60 million, they got the money

And that's why you can't say that they lost the "war". You can't loose when you're growing. That's stupid. And even if you think just a little on this "war", Sony didn't win too, it's Nintendo since ever just because they're way small and their profit is always on the roof

The concept of console wars was a 90's thing. The marketing made at the right time. Doesn't really work now, specially when a lot of people nowadays have more than one machine at home
Adam Sandler GIF by IFC
 
approaching the business of creating video games in the same way you'd approach the creating of sausage or spreadsheet software - basically approaching it as 'manufacturing'. acquiring a developer that has already created some good video games is absolutely no guarantee whatsoever that the developer will simply continue to create some more good video games...

& yes: compounding this approach with game pass has some serious downside potential...

One problem is that Microsoft tends to buy studios that are in trouble in some way or shape.

I guess technically Sony bought Insomniac who had been in trouble, but with Spider-Man 2018, they had just released their most successful game ever.

You look at all of Sony's purchases and they tend to be on high notes or entry notes.

Buying a company doesn't magically make their problems go away, especially if you allow them to act independently. That's largely why Bungie is still having issues out of the gate. They're acting independently and were already having issues. One of Sony's most uncharacteristic purchases.
 

Killjoy-NL

Member
They could chose to turn cod into a new game. Same gameplay, different name. Get all studios to make quality games. Each studio expected to make one successful game every 16 years. They get 1 successful AAA exclusive game every 6 months.
Yes, MS should do just what you suggested. That'll guarantee MS fucking it all up.
 

Thirty7ven

Banned


The game is ten years old and still puts out content and has a sizeable daily audience across all platforms. It seems monetization and lack of catering to a certain audience has drawn backlash but I don’t see how Bungie is in trouble.

I personally know a group of WOW fans who up until recently spent most of their time playing wow classic, and they had already put hundreds of hours playing Wow before. They do nothing but complain.

Wow came out 20 years ago. From the outside looking in it seems an impossible job for the devs to please everybody, and people who spend hundreds of hours on gaas games while complaining are lost causes to me.

Fact is Bungie has grown massively ever since leaving MS, and is getting massive investment from Sony. Over a thousand devs and growing. Marathon reveal trailer did almost 20 million views.

Bungie is in trouble my ass.
 

Duchess

Member
One of Sony's most uncharacteristic purchases.
I imagine they bought them because of their experience in making first person shooters. It's a genre that's severely lacking from Sony's first party portfolio.

(actually, so are RPGs, but they tend to lean on SE to handle that problem).
 
The game is ten years old and still puts out content and has a sizeable daily audience across all platforms. It seems monetization and lack of catering to a certain audience has drawn backlash but I don’t see how Bungie is in trouble.

I personally know a group of WOW fans who up until recently spent most of their time playing wow classic, and they had already put hundreds of hours playing Wow before. They do nothing but complain.

Wow came out 20 years ago. From the outside looking in it seems an impossible job for the devs to please everybody, and people who spend hundreds of hours on gaas games while complaining are lost causes to me.

Fact is Bungie has grown massively ever since leaving MS, and is getting massive investment from Sony. Over a thousand devs and growing. Marathon reveal trailer did almost 20 million views.

Bungie is in trouble my ass.



they are not a well-oiled machine working smoothly to deliver what fans want from them.

is clear that they haven't figured out the most efficient pipeline to make the content people want in a timely fashion and now they are struggling with resources between Destiny and marathon
 

Thirty7ven

Banned


they are not a well-oiled machine working smoothly to deliver what fans want from them.

is clear that they haven't figured out the most efficient pipeline to make the content people want in a timely fashion and now they are struggling with resources between Destiny and marathon


Took a look at his channel, dude’s content is driven by mostly doomsday negative bs.
 
I imagine they bought them because of their experience in making first person shooters. It's a genre that's severely lacking from Sony's first party portfolio.

(actually, so are RPGs, but they tend to lean on SE to handle that problem).

They used to do RPGs pretty well internally and externally. Their reliance on Square Enix, especially one that has gone so downhill is really disappointing.

Sony is responsible for two of the best RPG franchises in Arc the Lad, Alundra, and Legend of Dragoon (although may be hard to call the latter a franchise and Alundra 2 wasn't Sony and was really bad).

It's crazy to me that we haven't seen an Arc the Lad 1+2 remake. Seems like a no-brainer to me. Legend of Dragoon should have kept going but because it wasn't a FF killer they squashed it.

Sony has had historically poor management of their franchises and often gives them up entirely too quickly. You look at Resistance and The Getaway and you can see a lot of left over potential there.
 

Kumomeme

Member
dont know how its going on behind the door, but based on the output and their focus pattern, itseems like things barely change. perhaps phil spencer tried as how he talk in the video(well he always talk) but the output indicated it either failed or not really working on 100%.

the decision for things like Series S is good example. obviously the devs would be against it. its like some decision made by higher up in the power instead of based on devs feedback value. simply to say lot of things seems to be decided by those in bussiness suit instead of by those value in production. we can see their lean of attention also align with this. despite in the seat, i wonder how many of those in higher position is 'detached' against the industry since lot of decision and output seems weight more from bussinessman standpoint while ignoring technical and gaming culture as whole.

the overall focus also kind of imply that those in position focused on what the best for them instead of the best of the brand. this going on for decades. we got lot of talk about branding, face value, bussiness model, promise, 'career moment' acquisition instead of crucial stuff like proper first party games.

compared to Sony or Nintendo, itseems like phil spencer is the one that keep getting all the attention. rarely we hear another figure spoke in the spotlight. i wonder if the stuff in the video talk still happening. smaller circle of cabal make decision from above over and over again. not suprise if someones else is the one doing all the heavy lifting behind the scene, something that commonly happened everywhere.
 
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Neff

Member
360 was a hit but RROD hurt trust.

Here in the UK I knew one or two people who ditched Xbox after RRoD, but I also know quite a few who stuck with it. It was a very well-regarded console. Only the most ardent of Xbox fans stuck with the One, and of those who did, they've yet to make the jump to Series X/S.

MS really shit the bed with Xbox One.
 

StueyDuck

Member
Industry veteran weighs in on why XBOX lost the console war.

Makes very interesting points.



This person has like 5 videos and mostly Microsoft related, this is some straight up propaganda, the actiblizz purchase was going through so we gotta start spreading stories that they've "lost the war" so they we can tell ourselves it's ok they buy more publishers.

This is Some undercover agent stuff and I don't put it below MS to do such stunts
 
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