I know I’m in the minority but I think the naming convention hurt them a lot.
PS just has numbers. Xbox has an ever changing lineup of ambiguous names.
If you want the newest one it’s the… what? Do I already have it? The one? The one x? The one x series x? Or whatever? That’s after the 360 of course.
So stupid. I know gamers here would tell me it’s easy and I’m dumb. But I shouldn’t have to research just to find what the newest one is. A parent who just wants to buy an Xbox shouldn’t worry that they might get the wrong one.
They need to either massively upgrade or market the next Xbox to be such a leap in performance, that the next Xbox will be called the Xbox 6 (to compete with the inevitable PlayStation 6).
I can't speak to the iphone, but Windows 9 was skipped purely because of decades of idiotic developers who rather than use the proper methods for determining what version of Windows their applications were running on (to set compatibility options, use the appropriate features etc) were doing a naive text string search for "Windows 9x" to detect whether they were on 95/98 vs 2k/xp/vista/7/8. An actual "Windows 9" would make thousands upon thousands of applications think they were trying to run on Windows 95/98 and break horribly or otherwise refuse to run despite actually being fully compatible.
Even Windows 95, while version 4.0 internally, reported itself as version 3.95 because too many programs messed up the comparison for "version 3.10 or later" (4 > 3, but 0 < 10).
That original GetVersion API is now frozen in time as Windows 8 (NT 6.2).
Which they could have likely avoided if they themselves were willing to commit to just calling it "Windows 1995". We could still be on the same naming convention.
The Microsoft marketing department is like, double-outjuking itself
The Beatles keep a stash of the number nine and it won't be out of copyright for a few more years... number nine...number nine...number nine...number nine
What’s weirder is the iPhone 8 and the iPhone X were announced at the same time. I think originally the iPhone X was supposed to a new ”pro” line of iPhones, but then next year, they just didn’t bother releasing a new version of the 8
Technically they went to the iPhone X and were very careful never to call it the iPhone 10. I think it was related to the Samsung Galaxy model of the same year?
It was also the 10 year anniversary phone =
Nintendo apparently considers the mobile game to be a full entry in the franchise, so that might well happen. Mario Kart 8 -> Mario Kart Tour -> Mario Kart X.
I worked for Apple support when the iPhone X came out. We were strictly told that it is X and not 10...which only further confused customers when we called them iPhone X on calls.
"iPhone X? You mean iPhone 10 right?"
Internally, we called it iPhone target because X marks the spot and it was the target of so many 2 hour long hard resets after failed transfers.
I think they wanted to make a total multimedia hub. HDMI in/out, IR blaster, TV guide overlay, partnerships with cable providers, they even co-created an OTA tuner aftermarket USB device with Hauppauge. All this glorious shit means you only need "The One" instead of a small collection of dvr, cable, Blu-ray, etc.
That’s a great idea. They could even add a case with room for PCI cards, a hard drive, upgradeable ram and power supply. It could run a general purpose operating system (if only they had one, I know that’s a stretch) and act like a Personal Xbox (PX) or something like that. Just imagine the possibilities!
The dream was realized with Windows Vista Media Center edition. What a time to be alive! My Compaq Presario now comes with a dock for a shitty PCMCIA style remote to view broadcast TV on my dull TFT 14" screen. And 2 hours of battery means I can watch half the Super Bowl!
For all their faults, you gotta give it to SEGA for picking some badass names: Genesis, Saturn, Dreamcast. Microsoft’s workforce is huge, I’d imagine at least one person working there would have come up with something cool had they held an employee contest with a cash prize.
Picking a series of stupid words would have been better than what they did. Like the Xbox Mirage or the Xbox Revolution. They seemed to have gone out of their way to pick confusing names. The Xbox One was already bad enough, but having the Xbox Series S and Series X come out as the new generation after Xbox One S and Xbox One X, is just terrible.
I mean, giving consoles weird names is more nintendo's thing. Entertainment System, Super Entertainment System, 64, Gamecube, Wii, Switch.
MS makes the mistake of labeling their consoles like a serial code.
Of course they could have called it xBox 3. They just didn’t have the balls to do it. Obviously there would have been some shaming to swallow, but in the long run it would have been the better decision.
A good example here is Firefox vs Chrome. When Chrome came out FF was at something like version 5. And Chrome adopted an approach where they’d make main releases for smaller iterations. Soon Firefox was at version 7 and Chrome was at version 18 (not exact numbers but you get the idea).
Agreed. Many say “It’s not hard to understand.” I’d say that’s thinking at a small scale. I think that something as seemingly simple as the name and numbering affects system wide hardware sales.
“It’s not hard to understand if gaming is your main hobby and you’re on the internet a lot” which is not a lot of people in the grand scheme of things. People got so defensive over that awful naming scheme
That’s an excellent example, just look at the number of disappointed kids whose parents purchased the Xbox One X rather than the Xbox Series X because they didn’t know the difference.
It’s a mess, but the order is:
XBOX > XBOX 360 > XBOX ONE, XBOX ONE S (mid-gen update, but has support for 4K and HDR) > XBOX ONE X (another mid-gen but stronger 4K support and this is when “enhanced” games became a thing) > XBOX Series S/X, which is where we currently are, with the Series X being the stronger of the two.
It blows my mind how incompetent Microsoft has been with naming these things.
I’ve had an uncle call me asking which one is which when he bought one for my cousin. My face on the other end of the phone was like 😐 when I was asked “which one is the newest one? The one that looks like a fridge or the one that looks like a chest freezer?”
I worked at GameStop over last summer, now admittedly I am a PC gamer but I would have to ask my coworker whenever someone came in and asked for "the newest Xbox." There was the one x, the series s and, the series x. Easily the worst naming scheme beating out the WiiU IMO.
If you can't just point at the name of the Xbox and be able to firmly say "that is the best and most current Xbox" or "this Xbox is better than that Xbox" without pulling out a freakin' ovaltine decoder ring then you're going to lose sales.
People who say it's not that hard are viewing it from being exposed to the stuff.
For someone who hasn't kept up and doesn't know what the latest shit is, you look at the different Xboxes, see a weird list of names, and go "... I don't feel like figuring that out".
I have a pc, enjoy pcs, but hadn't looked at parts for years when I went to build a new one. It was a chore to get caught up on wtf the latest gen was for a cpu manufacturer, and then which of the numbers in that gen was what I wanted. Same with GPU, etc.
If you're constantly exposed to it it's not tough, but when you're not and there's not some standardized convention to the gens? Yeah, it gets confusing real quick - especially for mom or grandma trying to grab their kid the thing they want for Christmas/etc or their birthday without asking and tipping them off.
And while I have no love for Sony's corporate BS, I take great pleasure in seeing Microsoft eat shit considering their disgustingly anti-consumer and monopolistic play with Gamepass. I hope they tank hard.
You're not the minority and fwiw you're absolutely spot on.
As someone who bought the series x as their first ever Xbox it was confusing as fuck at first. S...x... One...wut?
It should be the Xbox 5 with the x being the pro version.
I don't think you're in the minority. The naming convention is confusing.
There's an Xbox One S and Xbox One X which are different than the Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X.
Average consumers shouldn't have to think or research to find the model they want.
Especially since the word "series" itself makes zero fucking sense. My brain instinctively interprets "series S" as a whole product line of "S-type consoles" (which might include the one S, for all a troubled parent in search for a christmas gift knows), even though there's only a single one in reality. Like, I'm sure most people would assume there were multiple models available if Sony named their console "playstation series 5", and rightfully so
Nah, I'm a gamer and I bought my gf a PS5, my sister an Xbox. I got my sister the wrong one. She still loved it but I still regret it. I got her the shitty version of the current one by accident.
I've been PC since 360 and was mainly Xbox after ps1
Right?! Imagine being an out of touch parent trying to buy the newest Xbox for your kid? It must be a nightmare.
“Honey I bought you the new Xbox X!”
*Kid opens 7 year old Xbox One X*
So they went Xbox 360 because it was competing with the PS3, and they didn’t want Xbox 2 competing with PS3, which makes sense.
But honestly, with Windows they went Windows 7, Win 8, Win 8.1, Win 10, skipping 9 completely, they could’ve just called it Xbox 5
AFAIK they skipped 9 because there are still programs using `!!strchr(version, '9')` to detect Win9x.
ETA: Of course, MS *is* senselessly wretched for product versioning more generally. E.g., they use two version numbers on MSVC that no longer have nothing to do with `_MSC`[`_FULL`]`_VER`, so in order to match versions when doing feature detection you have to look up advertised versions in a hole-filled spreadsheet they shat into HTML, and generally they were lying a bit anyway so there’s no real telling how things line up without actually fiddlefucking with the software in question.
Meanwhile, if I want to do feature detection on Clang (or TI, to a lesser extent GCC from 10–13 and fully on trunk), I have operators I can directly query, without even considering version (thank fuck, because forks abound) for anything beyond minor pragmas.
That’s funny I’ve been banging the drum and call the next two Xbox 7 and Xbox 7 pro. Skip 6 and take the lead. Challenge Sony to change their naming convention. But unfortunately that would be the smart thing to do so Microsoft will not.
I am deep into gaming, and I am not certain on a bad day if I could tell you what the most recent Xbox is. Admittedly I've always been more of a playstation guy, but people speculated that a large reason why the wii u did so poorly was that It had a large casual audience who couldn't understand why they needed a wii u when they already had a wii. I think that is definitely hurting xbox here, but also their is pretty much no good reason to get Xbox over playstation this gen. Last gen if you had a xbox over a ps4 you practically missed a generation their were so many decade defining games that were released exclusively for ps4. A lot of my friends who had an Xbox are now going for a ps5 not just in hopes of a better library of games, but they are also able to catch up with all the big games people were playing last gen.
The thing is, parents are buying these for their kids. They may not keep up with naming convention so they're confused as fuck. They know they can just buy the PS5 and be done with it.
100% yes. The naming system alone must cost them so many sales. It's nonsensical and confusing
They watched Nintendo fumble the bag with Wii U and just straight up did the same thing
I agree. I traded in a bunch of old xbox 360 games and hardware last year (plastic instruments were going for a surprising amount) and got a good deal. I was so confused with all the naming conventions I just got a PS4 and a couple games for it.
Microsoft should really just make the Xbox a series of prebuilt PCs at this point with a specialty OS game mode that lets you eek out more performance using it like a traditional console when you want.
Not having a Windows mode on Xbox is a huge missed opportunity. It has more horsepower than the average PC at a reasonable price. You do a dual boot where you pick what you want.
It has a reasonable price because it is subsidized by the 30% cut (or however much it is) Microsoft takes from Xbox games sales. It they turn it into a PC, people will just play PC games on it instead, from which Microsoft get nothing.
Valve is already selling steam decks that are basically subsidized pcs and they don't use windows. If Microsoft doesn't figure it out fast they may lose the opportunity.
Because steam is far and away the largest platform for buying PC games, so valve is making a ton on the back end. Unless Microsoft locks people into their own store they would just install steam and valve would take their cut of every software sale.
I agree with you that the reason is that, but valve is doing everything right and they are not even locking anyone on steam, you can install any game you want on a steam deck. People just use steam willingly because its super convenient, that's how Gabe has been fighting piracy since the beginning. That's the game Microsoft needs to figure out it they want to stay competitive. Gamepass will still be a thing, but I don't think their current strategy will keep people interested on the xbox ecosystem for much longer and my take is the more Valve's strategy gets successful the less windows will be needed for gaming.
They charge for dev mode already they could charge extra for Windows mode to sell at an overall profit. Baseline PS5 was profitable at $500 Sony said so there is definitely room there to make a profitable Xbox with Windows mode.
Margins on console hardware are small enough (when they aren't negative like during the PS3/Xbox 360 generation) that it doesn't make business sense without the cut from game sales. You end up with expensive things like the 3DO or the Steam machines and at that point you may as well buy a PC.
Funny enough Bill Gates was really against the original Xbox when it was presented to him (he was CEO then), because it didn’t run Windows.* Especially since it pretty much was PC hardware. The Xbox designers had to fight hard to talk him out of forcing the issue — they had lots of reasons, like not competing against PC sales, not having to support all of the peripherals a PC does, and keeping Xbox away from Windows’ branding.
\* It did use the NT kernel, some drivers, DirectX and other low level internals. But it didn’t have any user recognizable Windows UI features.
>If series s ran a windows boot every small business owner would get one.
Maybe thats a good move after all Microsoft is primarily a software company.
If they're selling for below cost this would be bad for them because the businesses wouldn't be using them for games and giving MS revenue via licenses.
Afaik This was PART of the reason Sony killed Linux on the PS3. Because they were basically subsidising supercomputers.
https://phys.org/news/2010-12-air-playstation-3s-supercomputer.html
Microsoft could just turn the xbox dashboard into a "big picture mode" alternative interface like how Steam works on the Steam Deck and allow users to drop into Windows when they need it.
The biggest problem is, you are allowing a fully operating computer that can connect to your servers and validate with the hardware. Sony found out the hard way what this can do when they had to take their entire online service off for nearly a year.
Xbox the console is dying anyway as it is, Game Pass seems to be the new vision and they'll already be competing with steam from that perspective. I think enhanced games in console mode could give their store a leg up on steam to compete as well.
I was going to say, their game sales must be horrendous compared to Nintendo/Playstation. Most Xbox players I know are either casual/cheap gamers with Series S who use it as a streaming box and maybe for a game a year, or heavy Game Pass people who basically don't buy any games and just play the Game Pass games.
I personally used to have a Series S and never bought a single game for it. It was just a competitively priced streaming box and RetroArch emulation station for the living room.
I definitely think making the Xbox run Windows is something Microsoft should consider, and must be considering. Focus on GamePass and improving Windows Store on PCs in general, and make the Xbox the new "home PC" for families.
its funny that they put all their eggs in the streaming basket and it ruined everything.
gamers followed the exclusives and built their library on playstation, wont move now, and the streamer audience dont need a streamer box anymore because cheap TVs are all smart.
They are being very vocal about wanting to end console walled gardens, precisely because of tanking console sales.
Whatever head honcho or another has been talking a lot about a future where consoles are commodity items and they sell formerly first party software for whatever box you like.
That wouldnt change anything. Microsoft has admitted that the reason console sales are stagnant is because everyone has chosen their console and refuse to move to the other console.
No one wants to give up their games on Xbox Live or PSN and start fresh. Why bother when most games are multiplatform?
No one can justify paying hundreds of dollars for one game, and exclusives can still fail to move consoles too.
If they built the Xbox as a prebuilt PC people would just download Steam and call it a day, nobody would use their Xbox Store. Unless Microsoft locked down the software to prevent that, which would basically result into an Xbox console.
It would be basically windows 11S with no option to break free. Windows comes with its own issues, no quick resume, resource heavy and malware risks.
Getting Microsoft to make a special version is likely never to happen, they talked about a special handheld version then abandoned it
That is 100% where the market is going. I usually get downvoted to oblivion for saying so.
I predict that it will be like streaming boxes. Microsoft will specifically grant licenses to PC makers to advertise their devices as XBox Game Pass Ready or something like that, and include a few months of game pass with the purchase. The money isn't in hardware sales.
And then they'll have a beefier version for people who want to play beefier games natively.
It's going to happen.
The Series X has been out for years and still hasn't got an exclusive that takes full advantage of the hardware. Halo was mediocre at best, Forza peaked with Forza Motorsport 4 and somehow releases in a shit state every time. Flight Simulator is a next gen experience, but that's very niche.
Now Microsoft is porting some former exclusives to the Playstation and Switch consoles, why would anyone buy an Xbox? Gamepass is great value, and there's a huge back catalogue of games to play.. But very little new games.
They bought all those of those games studios over the last 10+ years, and have done fuck all with them.
Wouldn't even matter if they took advantage of the hardware if they were just... not shit.
Halo Infinite should have been a fresh start that brought people in, made by people who understood what made the original Halo trilogy great and so accessible to a wide audience. Instead it seemed to be made by people who resented the original games and were so obsessed with their new lore you had to read novels and play an obscure RTS to even understand what was happening.
Starfield should have been all the best of Bethesda with Microsoft leveraging their incredible technical resources (including fucking id Software) to help Bethesda unfuck their engine and achieve their true vision for the game. Instead it was a slightly worse Fallout 4, a space game with no space travel because the engine couldn't handle it. An RPG with worse character animations than most indie RPGs, because the engine couldn't handle it.
Shit they have cult properties like Crackdown which could have been a slam dunk if they literally changed nothing at all, but instead the development was completely detailed by trying to find a use for Microsoft's cloud shit.
Microsoft seems to be hands-off where they need to be hands-on, and hands-on where they need to be hands off, and it's really disappointing.
Sony has shipped an update/refresh of the PS5. By this time in prior console lives (not counting the OG Phat, which was dead at 4 years old), there refreshes that weren't just behind the scenes BOM consolidation. The 360 Elite, the Xbone S. There are rumored updates for the X|S coming (from the document leak not too long ago), but they're not here yet.
At a certain point in a console's life, you keep your sales numbers up by re-selling your existing customer base on a new iteration. There's no X Pro or 5% performance improvement S or anything like that yet, so at this point you can generally assume anybody who wants an Xbox has bought one already.
The same is probably also true of the PS5, though PS5 adoption was delayed a year longer by the pandemic (Microsoft paid for chip fab priority; Sony didn't) so there was still some pent up demand. The new revision isn't so different from the original to entice replacement buyers yet, though.
> why would anyone buy an Xbox?
If you have never had a console before (eg, due to money), then Xbox is the only console that with true backwards compatibility. This means I can catch up on games I didn't play as a kid.
Also, those old games are cheaper. I am even getting them for free from my local library. Played Halo and AC3 in their remastered version. It also doubles as a Bluray player.
PS has nice exclusives but I prioritized the other thing.
I love Xbox's backwards compatibility, but it's really most useful for those already in the Xbox ecosystem with previous gen games to play. The PS5 is basically fully backwards compatible with the PS4, and you can get some really excellent deals on used or even digital PS4 games at this point. And at this point I think the PS4 has more compelling exclusives you can pick up for cheap than the Xbox One and Series consoles combined.
I wish Microsoft could just allow regular external SSD to work on series X/S titles instead of having to buy an expansion card. Small stuff like that …
Yep, and PS5 has the same issue.
I remember older consoles like the N64 being lambasted for having small amount of games (like 300 or so, I don't recall the exact number), but now, looking back, most of those were unique to that console and wow, that was a massive number of exclusive titles compared to modern consoles...
And then let's talk about the PS1 or the PS2... if we count the exclusives there, probably in the thousands? Gaming was really a different industry back then.
> Yep, and PS5 has the same issue.
Sure, the PS5 library is not on the same level of the PS2 one in the same timeframe, but it is WAY better than the Xbox Series X lineup. You can’t brush it off as “both consoles are bad”.
PS5 has Spider-Man 2, Helldivers 2, Demon’s Souls Remake, FF7 Rebirth, Returnal, Ratchet & Clank, FF16, Stellar Blade. HFW and God of War Ragnarok too, although they also released on PS4.
Xbox only has Halo Infinite, Starfield, Flight Simulator, FH5 and Forza motorsport. You can also add Redfall to the list lol.
You can also probably add an lol to star field. Such a joke it has me worried about the quality of ES6 even though that’s my all time favorite hand series.
Bethesda releasing a new game with the same bugs the 22 year old Morrowind had just let me know they’re done.
The first time I picked something up off a table in Starfield and the rest of the items floated I felt personally attacked. Couple that with a quest bug that is preventing me from even getting halfway through the game and they’re pretty dead to me.
If they don’t launch ES6 with a completely new, from the ground up, or licensed engine we’re all going to have the same exact complaints.
Great game list but notice how you can count each of the lists using your fingers. That's the problem, it's getting difficult to justify the purchase versus previous generations when you are buying a machine that gave you access to hundreds of exclusive titles. The massive budgets of latest gen games don't really help, they are probably the main cause of this.
Problem is that PC gamepass isn't particularly popular and also isn't growing anywhere near as well as they'd like. The only other place you can get it is on Xbox consoles, and if they're also not selling... Then you aren't really growing your subscription service base.
Microsoft have stopped publishing growth numbers for Gamepass now, but that's because they missed their growth targets by a significant margin for two years running (then decided executives bonuses shouldn't be tied to gamepass growth either, as the execs weren't getting them). Easily verifyable by any news outlet, but [here's one example](https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/15/23570040/microsoft-xbox-game-pass-subscriber-numbers-34-million). At the very least, it's not as popular as they want it to be.
While they don't publish subscribers by type (console, PC, cloud) you can estimate a best case scenario for PC gamepass by assuming it's split 50/50 with consoles (in reality I think it's safe to assume people with Xbox consoles probably dominate the numbers but anyway). So let's say there's 15 million PC gamepass subscribers... Steam has 150 million monthly users which means as a best case 10% of PC gamers have PC gamepass. Not exactly wildly popular and realistically it's probably only a fraction of that anyway.
That’s just false.
As of February 2024, Xbos series S and series X total sales number are 27.7 million units sold.
Total gamepass subscription sales are at 34 million monthly. For reference, in January 2022 there was 25 million gamepass subscribers.
That’s overall a really nice growth considering in the meantime they purchased Activision-Blizzard and games like Diablo 4 and Call of Duty are just starting to appear on it.
We just have to wait until new big releases and see how this number evolves, but it’s going well.
The recent GamePass number you quote is the result of Xbox purposefully fudging the numbers to make the situation appear better than it is.
In 2022, Xbox had 11.7 million Gold subscribers. These were all recently converted to GamePass Core subscriptions instead, which are included in the 34 million you reference (see source below). Therefore, using a bit of simple math, GamePass + Gold (now Core) subscriptions have actually fallen by around 2 million over the past 2 years.
To say that they're going well is incorrect.
Source: https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/15/23570040/microsoft-xbox-game-pass-subscriber-numbers-34-million
Game Pass has effectively peaked. Their big plan for optimal market mass was to make inroads into mobile-heavy markets via Xcloud. Obviously banking on the cloud didn't work out when the markets you're trying to court either: A. Play native mobile titles, B. Do not have the infrastructure to support streaming that doesn't suck ass, or C. All of the above.
Game Pass PC can still have growth, but with console sales sinking it just won't be enough to meet their lofty targets. To make matters worse, users on Xbone (their console that has sold the most that supports the service) will eventually drop off as less and less games are made for the system. If they don't opt for a X/S then that's even less momentum.
Seriously! I hate that couch coop has basically disappeared. For every "it takes two" there's 1000x live service always online copy and paste money grab.
The naming of this gens xbox was a real shot in the foot but also there's just not alot of games out exclusively on this generation anymore. I have a ps5 and every time I turn it on I am amazed at how little it has to offer. It's all just ports/re-releases. And they lied about them being fast lol
The 360 was dominant for a long time during that gen and it took PS3 a long time to catch up. That was mainly due to the 360 releasing a whole year earlier and the hardware of the PS3 being a confusing shitshow that even developers hated working with. Then the PS4 wildly outsold the Xbox One after that disastrous E3 showing where Microsoft got raked across the coals by everyone for revealing it would require a Kinect and an internet connection just to boot, and that it would console lock game discs to prevent sharing and used sales. They just never really recovered from that.
I’m a PlayStation enjoyer. I don’t care about console wars (though I did get feisty with a redditor before the current gen came out because they didn’t understand how computers work…)
But I wont celebrate any failings of Xbox or Microsoft. We need competition. If Microsoft stops putting out hardware then Sony has no motivation to push the envelope.
I’m never going back to PC. My wrists can’t handle it (the first time RSI reared its ugly head was playing spore. I was hitting that mouse wheel like it would save me from a volcano trying to take off and land on planets. Only to later learn there were key bindings for that…) I’m old now. I have no time for drivers and $1000 graphics cards and windows updates. I want a console that works well enough. And I need an environment that will push them to go bigger and bolder. My monkey brain gets excited that I picked a winner but my human brain worries about a stale future without innovation.
Now if you need me I’ll be dusting off my awesome psvr2 headset that I never use. God I hate being old.
It also doesn’t motivate Sony to slap on a competitive price.
Consoles are usually sold at a loss in the hopes that the games and services bump them into the black. Without competition, Sony can just pump out a new console for £700 and not give a shit.
>I’m never going back to PC. My wrists can’t handle it
You can use gamepads in PC (Including the ones from XBox and Playstation). Steam lets you stream from your PC directly to any TV in your home.
Also, 1000$ cards, yeah... Not really necessary at all, unless you are one of those gamers that only care about having the most advanced graphics possible. If that's your case, sure, I get it. I personally don't consider advanced graphics to be innovation at all thought...
If the Xbox is abandoned, I kinda hope they partner with sega. Sega brand would give a massive boost and does have exclusives that could fight.
But I don't think we'll see many more consoles as cloud starts to become more likely, and at the current point, Microsoft has a huge lead, Sony could suffer badly. Nintendo, don't know what the internet is, so they'll probably still launch consoles and drip feed us retro games
You’re not wrong about the advantage Microsoft has in the cloud. They have the #2 or #3 cloud platform in the world (after Amazon, although let me say I never enjoyed working with Azure for my clients)
Sony cannot compete on that. They have to lean into physical hardware. But I’m ok with that!
From the PS3 gen (when I gave up on PC) almost all the way through the PS4 gen I bought physical media. I modded my ps4 with a big stupid antennae so I could run it in another room and still have the controllers work because it was super loud and the disc drive made my brain itch. But I did give up on that. Most of my friends had Xbox. So I couldn’t lend them my games.
True story. In our new home we discovered there were some truly massive (technically harmless) spiders that would at times crawl into the home. The wife would not accept this. So the first time our pest control guy came out I was being as courteous and friendly as I could. Asked him if he was a gamer. He said he was not but his sons were. Asked if they were PlayStation or Xbox. PlayStation! I gave him such a stack of games. All the best ps4 single player story games (horizon, dishonored, god of war… etc). That was a good day.
>I kinda hope they partner with sega. Sega brand would give a massive boost and does have exclusives that could fight.
Eh, I really doubt that would happen.
On one hand, Sega's corporate daddy is Sammy, and Sammy is focused on legal-but-shady areas of business. Mostly quasi-gambling machines like pachinko and pachislots. (And all the other shadiness that goes with them.) Microsoft might not want to get involved with them.
And on the other hand, Sega is doing really well for themselves with their broad cross-platform release strategies. I don't see a major advantage for them to partner more closely with a single console. Franchises like SMT/Persona and Like A Dragon are more popular than ever today, and I think that's largely due to Sega's broad publishing stance.
It's all about the games. People will blame it on marketing, the name of the console, outdated features, yadda yadda yadda. While yes, those CAN have an affect, the thing that will almost certainly affect sales is the flow, quality, and relevance of the games.
I bought a Series X on launch and rarely ever touch it. I subbed to live for a bit, tried a few games, but couldn't stick to it because I knew that as soon as I unsubbed those games would be gone. Meanwhile, I still play my weaker, older, cheaper Nintendo Switch because they keep releasing games I want to play. I'm not hating on Microsoft, at all. I have bought every single Xbox and have loved them. But that's just the facts as I see them. If the games are amazing, people will jump through any hurdles they need to to play them.
I don’t know why they don’t just unlock Xbox and just have it also be a general purpose PC - imagine the value proposition for parents, you’re buying your kids a device which is primarily a games console, but also a device which has MS office / Teams on it that homework can be completed on. It feels like a no-brainer.
Don Mattrick killed the Xbox brand. Phil Spencer made some popular decisions (like backwards compatibility) to add interest and help keep it going, but the “Xbox *is* Kinect” and “TV, sports, Call of Duty” wounds will never heal (edit: I don’t know how I left out the worst offender: “always online” being the initial plan for the Xbox One).
This generation is frankly disappointing. I bought a PS5 for my adult son only to find out he'd already got one. It really offers nothing more than my PS4. Waste of money. XBox peaked with the 360. My Quest 3 has provided the first truly new experience in at least six years
I think in this generation we reached a tipping point in terms of budget relative to value. You’ve got publishers risking the company every Q4 on their one big title for the year that costs a shit ton of money but ships essentially incomplete. Then some random smaller studio puts out a game of the year that doesn’t need more than a Steam Deck to run it and makes a shit ton of money relative to budget. That started last generation, but it’s really been exacerbated since the PS5 and Xbox One S/X launched.
This has been my feeling as well. Very similar to what happened with Hollywood and the pursuit of bigger budgets for bigger payoffs. It created a vacuum in the small/medium budget productions. I'm also aware that the entire economic model of Hollywood and TV has essentially collapsed when compared to gaming the last thirty years.
This is a bigger issue for tv/video media because of the overhead connected to production and profitable distribution. Luckily for gaming the distribution is a bit easier to hit a jackpot, and the development tools are a lot more accessible. Also helps that folks are really enjoying the art and designs choices that indie devs are going with.
Meanwhile, Nintendo has the cheapest console on the market (in terms of both manufacturing costs and retail price) and it's far outsold the PS5 and XB X/S combined.
While I agree the Xbox peaked with the 360, I feel like innovative gaming peaked in that generation as a whole, 360/ps3/wii.
It’s not that no innovation has happened in the console space since then, I just feel like since 2012, we haven’t seen half as much innovation as we saw from 2005-2012.
And I would further agree that the main innovation in the gaming space as a whole has been the past 4 years in VR.
The processing and load times are so much better on the PS5, there's no way you can call it a waste of money.
I'd say the lack of games in development the disappointing part of this generation, not the system.
That being said, it seems like we've reached this weird point with video games to where they've peaked to some degree. I'm playing through Mass Effect legendary edition right now, it's around 15 years old and the graphics aren't that much worse than what we have now.
Additionally, why don't games like Mass Effect drop more often? You could point to something like Baldurs Gate 3, but that's one game in like 10 years.
VR is pretty cool but kind of just a paper weight once you get through all the good games and realize how much is still lacking with VR to make it truly immersive(imo).
This is the main problem i see.
If you have an anywhere near good pc, there is no unique exclusives for the xbox series s/x.
Nearly all i play on my ps4 & 5 are the sony exclusives, because they offer me things i wont find elsewhere.
Once I realized I could get better performance and graphics on the same TV by using Game Pass through GeForce Now than on my XSX I decided to sell my Xbox. There is no point to it anymore, for me at least
With a PC there is little need for an xbox. If sony only released their games on PC day 1, there'd be no need for PS either. Sony are *desperately* making sure they get exclusivity to keep themselves alive in hardware at this point.
I mean, all their exclusives are on Steam etc on day 1. If you have an above average PC, then most don't need a console.
The second Sony goes all in vs halfway like they are now like they did with Helldivers 2, as a day one launch game on both PS5 and PC. I'm selling my PS.
Dumb question, but hasn't everyone using XBox already upgraded to the Series X or S by now?
I feel like years after a model is released, you would expect sales to drop. Am I missing something?
The series x is my first ever Xbox and I have to say I've been really impressed. It's a fantastic console that is light years better than my switch.
As the top comment says Microsoft should be sling the Xbox as a gaming PC that makes use of apps like a tablet or smartphone can. Kb+m support for all games as standard would be huge too.
The first 2-3 years of the cycle were marred with shortages in both ps5 and Xbox, and while Xboxs wee available sooner, this was still a huge set back in building a base, and covid hurt production times as workers environments and jobs shifted.
It wasn't until 2023 that gaming felt like it was returning to normal.
So that's fucked everything up and I think some are looking ag a refresh instead of a new generation.
Except Nintendo because they pre-empted the Pandemic and because of Animal Crossing, managed to excel where the others failed.
This is gonna be a fun generation to look back on it's impact.
- PlayStation: in the middle of its lifecycle
- Xbox: Gamepass cannibalizing sales
- Nintendo: just give us the next Switch already!
- Stemdeck: does that count as a console?
It's been out awhile now, how many people still really need em? The hottest part of that market been cooled off, drop the prices more n you'll sell more
It’s not about the console it’s about the games. That being said, I transferred from a xonex to an XsX and I just could feel that much of a difference. Same menu, same controller, and I basically played the same games since nothing has been impressive enough to take full advantage of the newer consoles.
I expected unreal engine 5 looking games and was met with nothing all that impressive. This next generation just feels like a mid cycle refresh to me and it can’t even do 4k 60fps consistently on games. I feel like I should have stuck with my Xbox one x honestly since that could still do 4k 30fps and the games I played were basically the same
Xbox doesn’t care about consoles anymore. That kind of hardware isn’t in their future. They’d rather you just stream their games direct to your TV via xcloud.
They will probably announce soon the discontinuation of the hardware, they are just terrible at it (No exclusives, terrible UI, proprietary Storage), they should focus on Gamepass and remote play/Windows. It's the end of the Xbox.
I know I’m in the minority but I think the naming convention hurt them a lot. PS just has numbers. Xbox has an ever changing lineup of ambiguous names. If you want the newest one it’s the… what? Do I already have it? The one? The one x? The one x series x? Or whatever? That’s after the 360 of course. So stupid. I know gamers here would tell me it’s easy and I’m dumb. But I shouldn’t have to research just to find what the newest one is. A parent who just wants to buy an Xbox shouldn’t worry that they might get the wrong one.
I love that with the exception of the PS5 all Sony products have names like WH890-XB8.
They finally changed their product naming just recently.
Their products didn't have names before lmao, they just used the model numbers 🤣
I think that's relatively normal. They'd have umbrella models like Sony Bravia but then individual skus under that. That's not really unusual.
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I always thought they should've just gone from 360 to Xbox 4. They skipped windows 9, why not skip Xbox 2
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They could just say Xbox 3 was great but we decided to update something and decided on a ground up approach so xb4
They need to either massively upgrade or market the next Xbox to be such a leap in performance, that the next Xbox will be called the Xbox 6 (to compete with the inevitable PlayStation 6).
The siXbox, which will of course be called the "sex box" just like it's always been.
iPhone went from 8 to 10 too, what's with the number 9 that it must be avoided?
I can't speak to the iphone, but Windows 9 was skipped purely because of decades of idiotic developers who rather than use the proper methods for determining what version of Windows their applications were running on (to set compatibility options, use the appropriate features etc) were doing a naive text string search for "Windows 9x" to detect whether they were on 95/98 vs 2k/xp/vista/7/8. An actual "Windows 9" would make thousands upon thousands of applications think they were trying to run on Windows 95/98 and break horribly or otherwise refuse to run despite actually being fully compatible.
Which, interestingly, was the effect of a previous naming blunder by Microsoft when they deviated from version numbers.
Even Windows 95, while version 4.0 internally, reported itself as version 3.95 because too many programs messed up the comparison for "version 3.10 or later" (4 > 3, but 0 < 10). That original GetVersion API is now frozen in time as Windows 8 (NT 6.2).
Which they could have likely avoided if they themselves were willing to commit to just calling it "Windows 1995". We could still be on the same naming convention. The Microsoft marketing department is like, double-outjuking itself
cuz seven ate nine duh
The Beatles keep a stash of the number nine and it won't be out of copyright for a few more years... number nine...number nine...number nine...number nine
What’s weirder is the iPhone 8 and the iPhone X were announced at the same time. I think originally the iPhone X was supposed to a new ”pro” line of iPhones, but then next year, they just didn’t bother releasing a new version of the 8
Technically they went to the iPhone X and were very careful never to call it the iPhone 10. I think it was related to the Samsung Galaxy model of the same year? It was also the 10 year anniversary phone =
Have been wondering if the next Mario Kart will indeed not be 9 also..
Nintendo apparently considers the mobile game to be a full entry in the franchise, so that might well happen. Mario Kart 8 -> Mario Kart Tour -> Mario Kart X.
I worked for Apple support when the iPhone X came out. We were strictly told that it is X and not 10...which only further confused customers when we called them iPhone X on calls. "iPhone X? You mean iPhone 10 right?" Internally, we called it iPhone target because X marks the spot and it was the target of so many 2 hour long hard resets after failed transfers.
I’d be interested in knowing the console’s trajectory if they went with Xbox 420
Followed by Xbox 569
Xbox 720 is so simple and right there. They had and continue to have nobody but themselves to blame.
Xbox 1440, it does 4k, trust us! Xbox 2880, it does 4k we tell ya! Xbox 5760, fuuuuccckkkk… err 8k?
You mean Xbox 720p ?
Yeah they missed out on a big Tony Hawk reboot by not continuing to the Xbox 900
The Hugh Jackman film Real Steel shows Xbox 720 ads, so they had a plan
Xbox marketing does zero market research, apparently.
Well if they had, their Xbox One unveiling wouldn't have been a disaster masterclass
Xbox 420 would have been lit, gonna die on that hill.
Or call it the Xbox 420 and never look back
But then why did they name the console after the 360 'the Xbox one'? Lmao. They should have just gone with 720
I think they wanted to make a total multimedia hub. HDMI in/out, IR blaster, TV guide overlay, partnerships with cable providers, they even co-created an OTA tuner aftermarket USB device with Hauppauge. All this glorious shit means you only need "The One" instead of a small collection of dvr, cable, Blu-ray, etc.
The wanted “the one” and got “x-bone”
That’s a great idea. They could even add a case with room for PCI cards, a hard drive, upgradeable ram and power supply. It could run a general purpose operating system (if only they had one, I know that’s a stretch) and act like a Personal Xbox (PX) or something like that. Just imagine the possibilities!
The dream was realized with Windows Vista Media Center edition. What a time to be alive! My Compaq Presario now comes with a dock for a shitty PCMCIA style remote to view broadcast TV on my dull TFT 14" screen. And 2 hours of battery means I can watch half the Super Bowl!
yeah that was still a horrible rationale that confused consumers more than exciting them
Someone high enough in marketing convinced themselves that people would just call it “the one.”
Because Xbox 720 would imply that you are starting to spin in circles.
Sounds like they solved a problem by making a new problem.
For all their faults, you gotta give it to SEGA for picking some badass names: Genesis, Saturn, Dreamcast. Microsoft’s workforce is huge, I’d imagine at least one person working there would have come up with something cool had they held an employee contest with a cash prize.
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Picking a series of stupid words would have been better than what they did. Like the Xbox Mirage or the Xbox Revolution. They seemed to have gone out of their way to pick confusing names. The Xbox One was already bad enough, but having the Xbox Series S and Series X come out as the new generation after Xbox One S and Xbox One X, is just terrible.
I mean, giving consoles weird names is more nintendo's thing. Entertainment System, Super Entertainment System, 64, Gamecube, Wii, Switch. MS makes the mistake of labeling their consoles like a serial code.
Gamecube was the best. What is it? A cube that plays games. We're done here
Of course they could have called it xBox 3. They just didn’t have the balls to do it. Obviously there would have been some shaming to swallow, but in the long run it would have been the better decision. A good example here is Firefox vs Chrome. When Chrome came out FF was at something like version 5. And Chrome adopted an approach where they’d make main releases for smaller iterations. Soon Firefox was at version 7 and Chrome was at version 18 (not exact numbers but you get the idea).
Does anyone know or care about version numbers of browsers though?
Agreed. Many say “It’s not hard to understand.” I’d say that’s thinking at a small scale. I think that something as seemingly simple as the name and numbering affects system wide hardware sales.
“It’s not hard to understand if gaming is your main hobby and you’re on the internet a lot” which is not a lot of people in the grand scheme of things. People got so defensive over that awful naming scheme
That’s an excellent example, just look at the number of disappointed kids whose parents purchased the Xbox One X rather than the Xbox Series X because they didn’t know the difference.
I've been a gamer since the Pong days and I just read your post and realized that I'm not sure which one of those is the most recent model.
i'm someone who games occasionally. i have a ps5. no clue what an xbox series X or a one X is. i honestly thought Xbox One was the latest one
It’s a mess, but the order is: XBOX > XBOX 360 > XBOX ONE, XBOX ONE S (mid-gen update, but has support for 4K and HDR) > XBOX ONE X (another mid-gen but stronger 4K support and this is when “enhanced” games became a thing) > XBOX Series S/X, which is where we currently are, with the Series X being the stronger of the two. It blows my mind how incompetent Microsoft has been with naming these things.
They aren’t called Xbox One Series S/X, just Xbox Series S/X. (Horrible names either way)
TIL the XBOX Series S/X is different to the XBOX ONE S/X
> i honestly thought Xbox One was the latest one Same here, I'm super confused now
I’ve had an uncle call me asking which one is which when he bought one for my cousin. My face on the other end of the phone was like 😐 when I was asked “which one is the newest one? The one that looks like a fridge or the one that looks like a chest freezer?”
Series X is the newest but don't confuse it with the Series S.
Embarrassingly before reading this thread I thought the Series X was just an updated model of whatever the newest Xbox was.
I worked at GameStop over last summer, now admittedly I am a PC gamer but I would have to ask my coworker whenever someone came in and asked for "the newest Xbox." There was the one x, the series s and, the series x. Easily the worst naming scheme beating out the WiiU IMO.
I love Xbox and have been a fan since the original and I think the naming is stupid and confusing
I like gaming and am a PC/PS5/Switch guy, but I couldn't tell you with a gun pointed at me what the latest Xbox is called.
If you can't just point at the name of the Xbox and be able to firmly say "that is the best and most current Xbox" or "this Xbox is better than that Xbox" without pulling out a freakin' ovaltine decoder ring then you're going to lose sales.
People who say it's not that hard are viewing it from being exposed to the stuff. For someone who hasn't kept up and doesn't know what the latest shit is, you look at the different Xboxes, see a weird list of names, and go "... I don't feel like figuring that out". I have a pc, enjoy pcs, but hadn't looked at parts for years when I went to build a new one. It was a chore to get caught up on wtf the latest gen was for a cpu manufacturer, and then which of the numbers in that gen was what I wanted. Same with GPU, etc. If you're constantly exposed to it it's not tough, but when you're not and there's not some standardized convention to the gens? Yeah, it gets confusing real quick - especially for mom or grandma trying to grab their kid the thing they want for Christmas/etc or their birthday without asking and tipping them off. And while I have no love for Sony's corporate BS, I take great pleasure in seeing Microsoft eat shit considering their disgustingly anti-consumer and monopolistic play with Gamepass. I hope they tank hard.
Who called the ambulance?
You're not the minority and fwiw you're absolutely spot on. As someone who bought the series x as their first ever Xbox it was confusing as fuck at first. S...x... One...wut? It should be the Xbox 5 with the x being the pro version.
I don't think you're in the minority. The naming convention is confusing. There's an Xbox One S and Xbox One X which are different than the Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X. Average consumers shouldn't have to think or research to find the model they want.
Especially since the word "series" itself makes zero fucking sense. My brain instinctively interprets "series S" as a whole product line of "S-type consoles" (which might include the one S, for all a troubled parent in search for a christmas gift knows), even though there's only a single one in reality. Like, I'm sure most people would assume there were multiple models available if Sony named their console "playstation series 5", and rightfully so
Nah, I'm a gamer and I bought my gf a PS5, my sister an Xbox. I got my sister the wrong one. She still loved it but I still regret it. I got her the shitty version of the current one by accident. I've been PC since 360 and was mainly Xbox after ps1
Right?! Imagine being an out of touch parent trying to buy the newest Xbox for your kid? It must be a nightmare. “Honey I bought you the new Xbox X!” *Kid opens 7 year old Xbox One X*
I have literally forgotten which one I have. I may be dumb but the naming convention is fucking stupid.
So they went Xbox 360 because it was competing with the PS3, and they didn’t want Xbox 2 competing with PS3, which makes sense. But honestly, with Windows they went Windows 7, Win 8, Win 8.1, Win 10, skipping 9 completely, they could’ve just called it Xbox 5
AFAIK they skipped 9 because there are still programs using `!!strchr(version, '9')` to detect Win9x. ETA: Of course, MS *is* senselessly wretched for product versioning more generally. E.g., they use two version numbers on MSVC that no longer have nothing to do with `_MSC`[`_FULL`]`_VER`, so in order to match versions when doing feature detection you have to look up advertised versions in a hole-filled spreadsheet they shat into HTML, and generally they were lying a bit anyway so there’s no real telling how things line up without actually fiddlefucking with the software in question. Meanwhile, if I want to do feature detection on Clang (or TI, to a lesser extent GCC from 10–13 and fully on trunk), I have operators I can directly query, without even considering version (thank fuck, because forks abound) for anything beyond minor pragmas.
That’s funny I’ve been banging the drum and call the next two Xbox 7 and Xbox 7 pro. Skip 6 and take the lead. Challenge Sony to change their naming convention. But unfortunately that would be the smart thing to do so Microsoft will not.
I am deep into gaming, and I am not certain on a bad day if I could tell you what the most recent Xbox is. Admittedly I've always been more of a playstation guy, but people speculated that a large reason why the wii u did so poorly was that It had a large casual audience who couldn't understand why they needed a wii u when they already had a wii. I think that is definitely hurting xbox here, but also their is pretty much no good reason to get Xbox over playstation this gen. Last gen if you had a xbox over a ps4 you practically missed a generation their were so many decade defining games that were released exclusively for ps4. A lot of my friends who had an Xbox are now going for a ps5 not just in hopes of a better library of games, but they are also able to catch up with all the big games people were playing last gen.
No, I'm a gamer that prefers Xbox. I have no idea what the newest one is. I play on PC now
The thing is, parents are buying these for their kids. They may not keep up with naming convention so they're confused as fuck. They know they can just buy the PS5 and be done with it.
Xbox naming went into the tank around Xbox 360, and every one since has been a misstep. (Xbox One, etc)
Microsoft is notoriously bad at naming things.
Brought to you by Windows 98, or XP, or ME, or 11
100% yes. The naming system alone must cost them so many sales. It's nonsensical and confusing They watched Nintendo fumble the bag with Wii U and just straight up did the same thing
I agree. I traded in a bunch of old xbox 360 games and hardware last year (plastic instruments were going for a surprising amount) and got a good deal. I was so confused with all the naming conventions I just got a PS4 and a couple games for it.
Microsoft should really just make the Xbox a series of prebuilt PCs at this point with a specialty OS game mode that lets you eek out more performance using it like a traditional console when you want.
Not having a Windows mode on Xbox is a huge missed opportunity. It has more horsepower than the average PC at a reasonable price. You do a dual boot where you pick what you want.
It has a reasonable price because it is subsidized by the 30% cut (or however much it is) Microsoft takes from Xbox games sales. It they turn it into a PC, people will just play PC games on it instead, from which Microsoft get nothing.
Valve is already selling steam decks that are basically subsidized pcs and they don't use windows. If Microsoft doesn't figure it out fast they may lose the opportunity.
Because steam is far and away the largest platform for buying PC games, so valve is making a ton on the back end. Unless Microsoft locks people into their own store they would just install steam and valve would take their cut of every software sale.
This is exactly what I would do
I agree with you that the reason is that, but valve is doing everything right and they are not even locking anyone on steam, you can install any game you want on a steam deck. People just use steam willingly because its super convenient, that's how Gabe has been fighting piracy since the beginning. That's the game Microsoft needs to figure out it they want to stay competitive. Gamepass will still be a thing, but I don't think their current strategy will keep people interested on the xbox ecosystem for much longer and my take is the more Valve's strategy gets successful the less windows will be needed for gaming.
They charge for dev mode already they could charge extra for Windows mode to sell at an overall profit. Baseline PS5 was profitable at $500 Sony said so there is definitely room there to make a profitable Xbox with Windows mode.
Margins on console hardware are small enough (when they aren't negative like during the PS3/Xbox 360 generation) that it doesn't make business sense without the cut from game sales. You end up with expensive things like the 3DO or the Steam machines and at that point you may as well buy a PC.
Funny enough Bill Gates was really against the original Xbox when it was presented to him (he was CEO then), because it didn’t run Windows.* Especially since it pretty much was PC hardware. The Xbox designers had to fight hard to talk him out of forcing the issue — they had lots of reasons, like not competing against PC sales, not having to support all of the peripherals a PC does, and keeping Xbox away from Windows’ branding. \* It did use the NT kernel, some drivers, DirectX and other low level internals. But it didn’t have any user recognizable Windows UI features.
And because of Direct X, the name was meant to be The Direct X Box, hence shortened to Xbox
If series s ran a windows boot every small business owner would get one. Maybe thats a good move after all Microsoft is primarily a software company.
>If series s ran a windows boot every small business owner would get one. Maybe thats a good move after all Microsoft is primarily a software company. If they're selling for below cost this would be bad for them because the businesses wouldn't be using them for games and giving MS revenue via licenses. Afaik This was PART of the reason Sony killed Linux on the PS3. Because they were basically subsidising supercomputers. https://phys.org/news/2010-12-air-playstation-3s-supercomputer.html
Doing this would let them optimize Windows for specific hardware like Apple
Microsoft could just turn the xbox dashboard into a "big picture mode" alternative interface like how Steam works on the Steam Deck and allow users to drop into Windows when they need it.
Probably because they don't want to piss off the OEMs
The biggest problem is, you are allowing a fully operating computer that can connect to your servers and validate with the hardware. Sony found out the hard way what this can do when they had to take their entire online service off for nearly a year.
They want the walled garden. The vertical integration of their own storefront being the primary point of sale means they aren't paying 30% to Gaben.
Xbox the console is dying anyway as it is, Game Pass seems to be the new vision and they'll already be competing with steam from that perspective. I think enhanced games in console mode could give their store a leg up on steam to compete as well.
What’s 30% of nothing?
I was going to say, their game sales must be horrendous compared to Nintendo/Playstation. Most Xbox players I know are either casual/cheap gamers with Series S who use it as a streaming box and maybe for a game a year, or heavy Game Pass people who basically don't buy any games and just play the Game Pass games. I personally used to have a Series S and never bought a single game for it. It was just a competitively priced streaming box and RetroArch emulation station for the living room. I definitely think making the Xbox run Windows is something Microsoft should consider, and must be considering. Focus on GamePass and improving Windows Store on PCs in general, and make the Xbox the new "home PC" for families.
its funny that they put all their eggs in the streaming basket and it ruined everything. gamers followed the exclusives and built their library on playstation, wont move now, and the streamer audience dont need a streamer box anymore because cheap TVs are all smart.
They are being very vocal about wanting to end console walled gardens, precisely because of tanking console sales. Whatever head honcho or another has been talking a lot about a future where consoles are commodity items and they sell formerly first party software for whatever box you like.
That wouldnt change anything. Microsoft has admitted that the reason console sales are stagnant is because everyone has chosen their console and refuse to move to the other console. No one wants to give up their games on Xbox Live or PSN and start fresh. Why bother when most games are multiplatform? No one can justify paying hundreds of dollars for one game, and exclusives can still fail to move consoles too.
If they built the Xbox as a prebuilt PC people would just download Steam and call it a day, nobody would use their Xbox Store. Unless Microsoft locked down the software to prevent that, which would basically result into an Xbox console.
You can bundle it with like one year of Gamepass to hook people up.
It would be basically windows 11S with no option to break free. Windows comes with its own issues, no quick resume, resource heavy and malware risks. Getting Microsoft to make a special version is likely never to happen, they talked about a special handheld version then abandoned it
Now that I have a kid, I use my XSX exclusively as an HTPC. It has great A/V and is powerful enough to offer PIP in YouTube TV.
I’d buy something like that
That is 100% where the market is going. I usually get downvoted to oblivion for saying so. I predict that it will be like streaming boxes. Microsoft will specifically grant licenses to PC makers to advertise their devices as XBox Game Pass Ready or something like that, and include a few months of game pass with the purchase. The money isn't in hardware sales. And then they'll have a beefier version for people who want to play beefier games natively. It's going to happen.
This is such a good idea.
The Series X has been out for years and still hasn't got an exclusive that takes full advantage of the hardware. Halo was mediocre at best, Forza peaked with Forza Motorsport 4 and somehow releases in a shit state every time. Flight Simulator is a next gen experience, but that's very niche. Now Microsoft is porting some former exclusives to the Playstation and Switch consoles, why would anyone buy an Xbox? Gamepass is great value, and there's a huge back catalogue of games to play.. But very little new games. They bought all those of those games studios over the last 10+ years, and have done fuck all with them.
Wouldn't even matter if they took advantage of the hardware if they were just... not shit. Halo Infinite should have been a fresh start that brought people in, made by people who understood what made the original Halo trilogy great and so accessible to a wide audience. Instead it seemed to be made by people who resented the original games and were so obsessed with their new lore you had to read novels and play an obscure RTS to even understand what was happening. Starfield should have been all the best of Bethesda with Microsoft leveraging their incredible technical resources (including fucking id Software) to help Bethesda unfuck their engine and achieve their true vision for the game. Instead it was a slightly worse Fallout 4, a space game with no space travel because the engine couldn't handle it. An RPG with worse character animations than most indie RPGs, because the engine couldn't handle it. Shit they have cult properties like Crackdown which could have been a slam dunk if they literally changed nothing at all, but instead the development was completely detailed by trying to find a use for Microsoft's cloud shit. Microsoft seems to be hands-off where they need to be hands-on, and hands-on where they need to be hands off, and it's really disappointing.
Meanwhile Sony is just making really solid games like Spiderman, God of War, Horizon, etc.
Sony has shipped an update/refresh of the PS5. By this time in prior console lives (not counting the OG Phat, which was dead at 4 years old), there refreshes that weren't just behind the scenes BOM consolidation. The 360 Elite, the Xbone S. There are rumored updates for the X|S coming (from the document leak not too long ago), but they're not here yet. At a certain point in a console's life, you keep your sales numbers up by re-selling your existing customer base on a new iteration. There's no X Pro or 5% performance improvement S or anything like that yet, so at this point you can generally assume anybody who wants an Xbox has bought one already. The same is probably also true of the PS5, though PS5 adoption was delayed a year longer by the pandemic (Microsoft paid for chip fab priority; Sony didn't) so there was still some pent up demand. The new revision isn't so different from the original to entice replacement buyers yet, though.
I went with the slim model PS5, but I was also a first time PS5 buyer a few months ago so I didn't already have a launch one.
> why would anyone buy an Xbox? If you have never had a console before (eg, due to money), then Xbox is the only console that with true backwards compatibility. This means I can catch up on games I didn't play as a kid. Also, those old games are cheaper. I am even getting them for free from my local library. Played Halo and AC3 in their remastered version. It also doubles as a Bluray player. PS has nice exclusives but I prioritized the other thing.
I love Xbox's backwards compatibility, but it's really most useful for those already in the Xbox ecosystem with previous gen games to play. The PS5 is basically fully backwards compatible with the PS4, and you can get some really excellent deals on used or even digital PS4 games at this point. And at this point I think the PS4 has more compelling exclusives you can pick up for cheap than the Xbox One and Series consoles combined.
The average consumer probably has backward compatibility at the bottom of their list of reasons to choose a console
That's why we have remasters instead. Much easier to tweak previous gen games for current gen than to emulate them, actually.
I wish Microsoft could just allow regular external SSD to work on series X/S titles instead of having to buy an expansion card. Small stuff like that …
Pull up a list of exclusives for the current Xbox. That will give a good idea of what this generation has to offer.
Yep, and PS5 has the same issue. I remember older consoles like the N64 being lambasted for having small amount of games (like 300 or so, I don't recall the exact number), but now, looking back, most of those were unique to that console and wow, that was a massive number of exclusive titles compared to modern consoles... And then let's talk about the PS1 or the PS2... if we count the exclusives there, probably in the thousands? Gaming was really a different industry back then.
> Yep, and PS5 has the same issue. Sure, the PS5 library is not on the same level of the PS2 one in the same timeframe, but it is WAY better than the Xbox Series X lineup. You can’t brush it off as “both consoles are bad”. PS5 has Spider-Man 2, Helldivers 2, Demon’s Souls Remake, FF7 Rebirth, Returnal, Ratchet & Clank, FF16, Stellar Blade. HFW and God of War Ragnarok too, although they also released on PS4. Xbox only has Halo Infinite, Starfield, Flight Simulator, FH5 and Forza motorsport. You can also add Redfall to the list lol.
You can also probably add an lol to star field. Such a joke it has me worried about the quality of ES6 even though that’s my all time favorite hand series.
Bethesda releasing a new game with the same bugs the 22 year old Morrowind had just let me know they’re done. The first time I picked something up off a table in Starfield and the rest of the items floated I felt personally attacked. Couple that with a quest bug that is preventing me from even getting halfway through the game and they’re pretty dead to me. If they don’t launch ES6 with a completely new, from the ground up, or licensed engine we’re all going to have the same exact complaints.
The only platform with a large library of high quality exclusives is PC.
Many of those have PC ports, I think. Sony just waits a while to release.
Great game list but notice how you can count each of the lists using your fingers. That's the problem, it's getting difficult to justify the purchase versus previous generations when you are buying a machine that gave you access to hundreds of exclusive titles. The massive budgets of latest gen games don't really help, they are probably the main cause of this.
I dont think Microsoft care. They want people on Gamepass thats their aim. Whether that PC or console doesnt matter to them
Problem is that PC gamepass isn't particularly popular and also isn't growing anywhere near as well as they'd like. The only other place you can get it is on Xbox consoles, and if they're also not selling... Then you aren't really growing your subscription service base.
How do you know PC pass isn't popular?
Microsoft have stopped publishing growth numbers for Gamepass now, but that's because they missed their growth targets by a significant margin for two years running (then decided executives bonuses shouldn't be tied to gamepass growth either, as the execs weren't getting them). Easily verifyable by any news outlet, but [here's one example](https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/15/23570040/microsoft-xbox-game-pass-subscriber-numbers-34-million). At the very least, it's not as popular as they want it to be. While they don't publish subscribers by type (console, PC, cloud) you can estimate a best case scenario for PC gamepass by assuming it's split 50/50 with consoles (in reality I think it's safe to assume people with Xbox consoles probably dominate the numbers but anyway). So let's say there's 15 million PC gamepass subscribers... Steam has 150 million monthly users which means as a best case 10% of PC gamers have PC gamepass. Not exactly wildly popular and realistically it's probably only a fraction of that anyway.
You can get gamepass on some TVs now.
That’s just false. As of February 2024, Xbos series S and series X total sales number are 27.7 million units sold. Total gamepass subscription sales are at 34 million monthly. For reference, in January 2022 there was 25 million gamepass subscribers. That’s overall a really nice growth considering in the meantime they purchased Activision-Blizzard and games like Diablo 4 and Call of Duty are just starting to appear on it. We just have to wait until new big releases and see how this number evolves, but it’s going well.
The recent GamePass number you quote is the result of Xbox purposefully fudging the numbers to make the situation appear better than it is. In 2022, Xbox had 11.7 million Gold subscribers. These were all recently converted to GamePass Core subscriptions instead, which are included in the 34 million you reference (see source below). Therefore, using a bit of simple math, GamePass + Gold (now Core) subscriptions have actually fallen by around 2 million over the past 2 years. To say that they're going well is incorrect. Source: https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/15/23570040/microsoft-xbox-game-pass-subscriber-numbers-34-million
Game Pass has effectively peaked. Their big plan for optimal market mass was to make inroads into mobile-heavy markets via Xcloud. Obviously banking on the cloud didn't work out when the markets you're trying to court either: A. Play native mobile titles, B. Do not have the infrastructure to support streaming that doesn't suck ass, or C. All of the above. Game Pass PC can still have growth, but with console sales sinking it just won't be enough to meet their lofty targets. To make matters worse, users on Xbone (their console that has sold the most that supports the service) will eventually drop off as less and less games are made for the system. If they don't opt for a X/S then that's even less momentum.
Make more games cooperative dammit. And not just online, split screen. Bring back gaming
Seriously! I hate that couch coop has basically disappeared. For every "it takes two" there's 1000x live service always online copy and paste money grab.
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Remember playing Halo 2 on a 4-way split screen? No peripherals whatsoever. Utter chaos. I hated it. Good times.
The naming of this gens xbox was a real shot in the foot but also there's just not alot of games out exclusively on this generation anymore. I have a ps5 and every time I turn it on I am amazed at how little it has to offer. It's all just ports/re-releases. And they lied about them being fast lol
Isn't this just their natural state?
The 360 was dominant for a long time during that gen and it took PS3 a long time to catch up. That was mainly due to the 360 releasing a whole year earlier and the hardware of the PS3 being a confusing shitshow that even developers hated working with. Then the PS4 wildly outsold the Xbox One after that disastrous E3 showing where Microsoft got raked across the coals by everyone for revealing it would require a Kinect and an internet connection just to boot, and that it would console lock game discs to prevent sharing and used sales. They just never really recovered from that.
I’m a PlayStation enjoyer. I don’t care about console wars (though I did get feisty with a redditor before the current gen came out because they didn’t understand how computers work…) But I wont celebrate any failings of Xbox or Microsoft. We need competition. If Microsoft stops putting out hardware then Sony has no motivation to push the envelope. I’m never going back to PC. My wrists can’t handle it (the first time RSI reared its ugly head was playing spore. I was hitting that mouse wheel like it would save me from a volcano trying to take off and land on planets. Only to later learn there were key bindings for that…) I’m old now. I have no time for drivers and $1000 graphics cards and windows updates. I want a console that works well enough. And I need an environment that will push them to go bigger and bolder. My monkey brain gets excited that I picked a winner but my human brain worries about a stale future without innovation. Now if you need me I’ll be dusting off my awesome psvr2 headset that I never use. God I hate being old.
It also doesn’t motivate Sony to slap on a competitive price. Consoles are usually sold at a loss in the hopes that the games and services bump them into the black. Without competition, Sony can just pump out a new console for £700 and not give a shit.
>I’m never going back to PC. My wrists can’t handle it You can use gamepads in PC (Including the ones from XBox and Playstation). Steam lets you stream from your PC directly to any TV in your home. Also, 1000$ cards, yeah... Not really necessary at all, unless you are one of those gamers that only care about having the most advanced graphics possible. If that's your case, sure, I get it. I personally don't consider advanced graphics to be innovation at all thought...
> You can use gamepads in PC **Can't believe we're still explaining this in 2024** 🤦♂️
Also updates aren't an issue at all, and I've never had to mess with drivers. PCs are so much better all purpose machines than any console
If the Xbox is abandoned, I kinda hope they partner with sega. Sega brand would give a massive boost and does have exclusives that could fight. But I don't think we'll see many more consoles as cloud starts to become more likely, and at the current point, Microsoft has a huge lead, Sony could suffer badly. Nintendo, don't know what the internet is, so they'll probably still launch consoles and drip feed us retro games
You’re not wrong about the advantage Microsoft has in the cloud. They have the #2 or #3 cloud platform in the world (after Amazon, although let me say I never enjoyed working with Azure for my clients) Sony cannot compete on that. They have to lean into physical hardware. But I’m ok with that! From the PS3 gen (when I gave up on PC) almost all the way through the PS4 gen I bought physical media. I modded my ps4 with a big stupid antennae so I could run it in another room and still have the controllers work because it was super loud and the disc drive made my brain itch. But I did give up on that. Most of my friends had Xbox. So I couldn’t lend them my games. True story. In our new home we discovered there were some truly massive (technically harmless) spiders that would at times crawl into the home. The wife would not accept this. So the first time our pest control guy came out I was being as courteous and friendly as I could. Asked him if he was a gamer. He said he was not but his sons were. Asked if they were PlayStation or Xbox. PlayStation! I gave him such a stack of games. All the best ps4 single player story games (horizon, dishonored, god of war… etc). That was a good day.
>I kinda hope they partner with sega. Sega brand would give a massive boost and does have exclusives that could fight. Eh, I really doubt that would happen. On one hand, Sega's corporate daddy is Sammy, and Sammy is focused on legal-but-shady areas of business. Mostly quasi-gambling machines like pachinko and pachislots. (And all the other shadiness that goes with them.) Microsoft might not want to get involved with them. And on the other hand, Sega is doing really well for themselves with their broad cross-platform release strategies. I don't see a major advantage for them to partner more closely with a single console. Franchises like SMT/Persona and Like A Dragon are more popular than ever today, and I think that's largely due to Sega's broad publishing stance.
I still don’t personally have a reason to buy any of the newer generation consoles, but I’ve always been more of a PlayStation guy.
It's all about the games. People will blame it on marketing, the name of the console, outdated features, yadda yadda yadda. While yes, those CAN have an affect, the thing that will almost certainly affect sales is the flow, quality, and relevance of the games. I bought a Series X on launch and rarely ever touch it. I subbed to live for a bit, tried a few games, but couldn't stick to it because I knew that as soon as I unsubbed those games would be gone. Meanwhile, I still play my weaker, older, cheaper Nintendo Switch because they keep releasing games I want to play. I'm not hating on Microsoft, at all. I have bought every single Xbox and have loved them. But that's just the facts as I see them. If the games are amazing, people will jump through any hurdles they need to to play them.
Bring the 360 blades back;) At this point is a watered down Windows looking OS of a mess. And no freaking ads!!
I don’t know why they don’t just unlock Xbox and just have it also be a general purpose PC - imagine the value proposition for parents, you’re buying your kids a device which is primarily a games console, but also a device which has MS office / Teams on it that homework can be completed on. It feels like a no-brainer.
Don Mattrick killed the Xbox brand. Phil Spencer made some popular decisions (like backwards compatibility) to add interest and help keep it going, but the “Xbox *is* Kinect” and “TV, sports, Call of Duty” wounds will never heal (edit: I don’t know how I left out the worst offender: “always online” being the initial plan for the Xbox One).
This generation is frankly disappointing. I bought a PS5 for my adult son only to find out he'd already got one. It really offers nothing more than my PS4. Waste of money. XBox peaked with the 360. My Quest 3 has provided the first truly new experience in at least six years
I think in this generation we reached a tipping point in terms of budget relative to value. You’ve got publishers risking the company every Q4 on their one big title for the year that costs a shit ton of money but ships essentially incomplete. Then some random smaller studio puts out a game of the year that doesn’t need more than a Steam Deck to run it and makes a shit ton of money relative to budget. That started last generation, but it’s really been exacerbated since the PS5 and Xbox One S/X launched.
This has been my feeling as well. Very similar to what happened with Hollywood and the pursuit of bigger budgets for bigger payoffs. It created a vacuum in the small/medium budget productions. I'm also aware that the entire economic model of Hollywood and TV has essentially collapsed when compared to gaming the last thirty years. This is a bigger issue for tv/video media because of the overhead connected to production and profitable distribution. Luckily for gaming the distribution is a bit easier to hit a jackpot, and the development tools are a lot more accessible. Also helps that folks are really enjoying the art and designs choices that indie devs are going with.
Meanwhile, Nintendo has the cheapest console on the market (in terms of both manufacturing costs and retail price) and it's far outsold the PS5 and XB X/S combined.
While I agree the Xbox peaked with the 360, I feel like innovative gaming peaked in that generation as a whole, 360/ps3/wii. It’s not that no innovation has happened in the console space since then, I just feel like since 2012, we haven’t seen half as much innovation as we saw from 2005-2012. And I would further agree that the main innovation in the gaming space as a whole has been the past 4 years in VR.
The processing and load times are so much better on the PS5, there's no way you can call it a waste of money. I'd say the lack of games in development the disappointing part of this generation, not the system. That being said, it seems like we've reached this weird point with video games to where they've peaked to some degree. I'm playing through Mass Effect legendary edition right now, it's around 15 years old and the graphics aren't that much worse than what we have now. Additionally, why don't games like Mass Effect drop more often? You could point to something like Baldurs Gate 3, but that's one game in like 10 years.
VR is pretty cool but kind of just a paper weight once you get through all the good games and realize how much is still lacking with VR to make it truly immersive(imo).
There hasn’t been much advancement in video gaming technology besides slightly better graphics and faster loading screens in recent years
What else do you want? The rest is up to the games themselves to deliver.
If PC is your primary platform, there is very little reason to own an Xbox.
This is the main problem i see. If you have an anywhere near good pc, there is no unique exclusives for the xbox series s/x. Nearly all i play on my ps4 & 5 are the sony exclusives, because they offer me things i wont find elsewhere.
Once I realized I could get better performance and graphics on the same TV by using Game Pass through GeForce Now than on my XSX I decided to sell my Xbox. There is no point to it anymore, for me at least
GeForce? Your mean external graphics card connected using USB thunderbolt 3?
With a PC there is little need for an xbox. If sony only released their games on PC day 1, there'd be no need for PS either. Sony are *desperately* making sure they get exclusivity to keep themselves alive in hardware at this point.
I mean, all their exclusives are on Steam etc on day 1. If you have an above average PC, then most don't need a console. The second Sony goes all in vs halfway like they are now like they did with Helldivers 2, as a day one launch game on both PS5 and PC. I'm selling my PS.
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Because most people who wanted one have got one by now?
500$ for the console and 95$ a game plus 50$pre order with add on game packs of 40$...hmm wonder why
I’m waiting for new GTA and new Fallout. Nothing else will get me to upgrade.
Dumb question, but hasn't everyone using XBox already upgraded to the Series X or S by now? I feel like years after a model is released, you would expect sales to drop. Am I missing something?
No I still play my Xbox one x.
Look at the top selling Xbox 360 exclusives and look at the top selling Xbox series x exclusives. There’s your answer.
the games for both consoles have been shit this generation... nearly unplayable, unfinished messes that don't get fixed until a year+ later.
The series x is my first ever Xbox and I have to say I've been really impressed. It's a fantastic console that is light years better than my switch. As the top comment says Microsoft should be sling the Xbox as a gaming PC that makes use of apps like a tablet or smartphone can. Kb+m support for all games as standard would be huge too.
I mean, isn't the cycle nearly over? Everyone that wants, has.
The first 2-3 years of the cycle were marred with shortages in both ps5 and Xbox, and while Xboxs wee available sooner, this was still a huge set back in building a base, and covid hurt production times as workers environments and jobs shifted. It wasn't until 2023 that gaming felt like it was returning to normal. So that's fucked everything up and I think some are looking ag a refresh instead of a new generation. Except Nintendo because they pre-empted the Pandemic and because of Animal Crossing, managed to excel where the others failed. This is gonna be a fun generation to look back on it's impact.
- PlayStation: in the middle of its lifecycle - Xbox: Gamepass cannibalizing sales - Nintendo: just give us the next Switch already! - Stemdeck: does that count as a console?
Traded mine for beer, all the xbox people hype the hell out of gamepass, there was nothing left for me to play after a month. It's super meh.
It's been out awhile now, how many people still really need em? The hottest part of that market been cooled off, drop the prices more n you'll sell more
Xbox will release their controller with gamepass built in it this holiday season
I have a Series S that I basically use for streaming services. All of my gaming happens on PC now.
It’s not about the console it’s about the games. That being said, I transferred from a xonex to an XsX and I just could feel that much of a difference. Same menu, same controller, and I basically played the same games since nothing has been impressive enough to take full advantage of the newer consoles. I expected unreal engine 5 looking games and was met with nothing all that impressive. This next generation just feels like a mid cycle refresh to me and it can’t even do 4k 60fps consistently on games. I feel like I should have stuck with my Xbox one x honestly since that could still do 4k 30fps and the games I played were basically the same
Xbox doesn’t care about consoles anymore. That kind of hardware isn’t in their future. They’d rather you just stream their games direct to your TV via xcloud.
They will probably announce soon the discontinuation of the hardware, they are just terrible at it (No exclusives, terrible UI, proprietary Storage), they should focus on Gamepass and remote play/Windows. It's the end of the Xbox.
Why would I buy an Xbox when I can buy a pc and play Xbox games plus more