5 ms·

>has been one of maybe only a couple "great" stewards of the gaming industry for consumers I'm not sure I'd give them much credit on this, since MS/Xbox hasn't

>has been one of maybe only a couple "great" stewards of the gaming industry for consumers I'm not sure I'd give them much credit on this, since MS/Xbox hasn't achieved much at all in the gaming industry over recent years. Maybe there's not much egregious evil there a-la Activision's leadership scandals, but the track record is not great. As a gaming industry consumer who's been playing Microsoft consoles and games my entire life, MS has recently: - Ruined the Halo franchise - Stymied the current console gen with the Series S' weak memory capabilities - Acquired multiple beloved studios and released little to nothing over 5+ years, with their highest profile release being Starfield, the game Bethesda was already developing when MS bought them and made it a platform exclusive - Edit: Forgot trying to turn the Xbox One into an always-online TV set-top box Spinning off Xbox might be a good idea, if it's MS' senior leadership that keeps hamstringing their success. Because if the Activision acquisition proceeded like their previous studio acquisitions, we would see one or two Activision games release in the next decade, along with maybe a mediocre COD TV show.

waboremo 4y ago
Xbox's role in the gaming industry has, funny enough, very little to do with Xbox itself. It's their competitive presence that has kept Playstation from stagnating and making terrible decisions. You can see this extremely clearly when the 360 was outselling the PS3 and Playstation/Sony made plenty of management changes to shift directions.
- mustacheemperor 4y ago
  I can agree there - MS has an important competitive role in the marketplace and it's not like Sony has always been a great steward to the community by comparison. I have mixed feelings about exclusives in general, but Sony has certainly played that game more than MS. But the 360 was unveiled in 2005 and was replaced in the market a decade ago. My criticisms are really oriented to the last 5-10 years. On that note, I'm reminded of the Xbox One "your game console is for watching TV and will always be connected to the internet" release. And in that generation, it was the clamoring market and Sony's response (like the classic 'how to share secondhand games' video[0]) that pushed Microsoft to stop acting unreasonably. [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48nCBnc9VBs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48nCBnc9VBs
  - waboremo 4y ago
    Yes that's very true! Much to their benefit, Playstation has been positively aggressive in recent years, I would attribute a lot of that to Mark Cerny (and the core platform tooling team) learning from PS3 mistakes and making the platform prioritize ease of development, and also from Xbox's mistakes on trying to pivot to general entertainment.
sleepybrett 4y ago
> - Edit: Forgot trying to turn the Xbox One into an always-online TV set-top box people call this a terrible idea, i thought it was a great fucking idea. At the time, and frankly still, streaming apps are mostly what we use tvs for these days, and the platforms to run them that are shipped INSIDE of the tvs we buy fucking suck, uniformly. While the xbox was built as a gaming console initially all they really wanted to do was expand that notion. It could be an everything box for your '10 ft experience' It could play games, and be a dvr, and be a streaming interface, and and and. They could easily spin out another sku with lower specs to curtail some of the gaming power and make a more streaming focused box (like an apple tv but by microsoft) and sell that to the parents while selling the beefy gaming one to the kids. I think the thing that sunk it was some Orwellian notion about the kinect. It's awesome tech, get a siri/alexa plus body tracking. The biggest downside being that MS's stance on privacy is 'peasants get no privacy'. At the time siri/alexa were still in their early stages and people were creeped out by them. Siri with eyes was extra repellent. Well that and gamers throwing a fit because they didn't want their gaming console to be useful to their parents and other non gamers ...
- pdntspa 4y ago
  Microsoft has sought to dominate the living room long before Xbox.... remember Windows Media Center? I don't know if it is still their strategy (seems like not by your post, I don't have an Xbox One S and my living room runs Kodi on Android TV) but it has been their intention for a while.
  - WorldMaker 4y ago
    Windows Media Center is truly dead and all the TV-focused/Roku-competitive parts of the Xbox One were turned off years ago in OS changes. (Many were turned off only months after that sad launch. Some of them were great features and there is reason to lament their loss in the massive turnaround.) The Series S/X successor consoles have never had any of those parts of the OS and the above comment that this "Xbox One living room debacle" being "recent" feels outdated at best. Microsoft seems to have given up on the living room entirely outside of gaming ambitions.
- 4y ago

waboremo 4y ago

Xbox's role in the gaming industry has, funny enough, very little to do with Xbox itself. It's their competitive presence that has kept Playstation from stagnating and making terrible decisions. You can see this extremely clearly when the 360 was outselling the PS3 and Playstation/Sony made plenty of management changes to shift directions.

mustacheemperor 4y ago
I can agree there - MS has an important competitive role in the marketplace and it's not like Sony has always been a great steward to the community by comparison. I have mixed feelings about exclusives in general, but Sony has certainly played that game more than MS. But the 360 was unveiled in 2005 and was replaced in the market a decade ago. My criticisms are really oriented to the last 5-10 years. On that note, I'm reminded of the Xbox One "your game console is for watching TV and will always be connected to the internet" release. And in that generation, it was the clamoring market and Sony's response (like the classic 'how to share secondhand games' video[0]) that pushed Microsoft to stop acting unreasonably. [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48nCBnc9VBs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48nCBnc9VBs
- waboremo 4y ago
  Yes that's very true! Much to their benefit, Playstation has been positively aggressive in recent years, I would attribute a lot of that to Mark Cerny (and the core platform tooling team) learning from PS3 mistakes and making the platform prioritize ease of development, and also from Xbox's mistakes on trying to pivot to general entertainment.

sleepybrett 4y ago

> - Edit: Forgot trying to turn the Xbox One into an always-online TV set-top box people call this a terrible idea, i thought it was a great fucking idea. At the time, and frankly still, streaming apps are mostly what we use tvs for these days, and the platforms to run them that are shipped INSIDE of the tvs we buy fucking suck, uniformly. While the xbox was built as a gaming console initially all they really wanted to do was expand that notion. It could be an everything box for your '10 ft experience' It could play games, and be a dvr, and be a streaming interface, and and and. They could easily spin out another sku with lower specs to curtail some of the gaming power and make a more streaming focused box (like an apple tv but by microsoft) and sell that to the parents while selling the beefy gaming one to the kids. I think the thing that sunk it was some Orwellian notion about the kinect. It's awesome tech, get a siri/alexa plus body tracking. The biggest downside being that MS's stance on privacy is 'peasants get no privacy'. At the time siri/alexa were still in their early stages and people were creeped out by them. Siri with eyes was extra repellent. Well that and gamers throwing a fit because they didn't want their gaming console to be useful to their parents and other non gamers ...

pdntspa 4y ago
Microsoft has sought to dominate the living room long before Xbox.... remember Windows Media Center? I don't know if it is still their strategy (seems like not by your post, I don't have an Xbox One S and my living room runs Kodi on Android TV) but it has been their intention for a while.
- WorldMaker 4y ago
  Windows Media Center is truly dead and all the TV-focused/Roku-competitive parts of the Xbox One were turned off years ago in OS changes. (Many were turned off only months after that sad launch. Some of them were great features and there is reason to lament their loss in the massive turnaround.) The Series S/X successor consoles have never had any of those parts of the OS and the above comment that this "Xbox One living room debacle" being "recent" feels outdated at best. Microsoft seems to have given up on the living room entirely outside of gaming ambitions.
4y ago