Xbox console sales continue to crater with 42% revenue drop
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
If you have your entire collection of games on PS4 (or Steam, or Xbox), moving to a different ecosystem is a pain. Even if the console itself is cheap and they give away games, once you have everything in one place, there is little incentive to move away from your console of choice on the next generation. You have to differentiate a lot of your competition, (as nintendo does) but an xbox is basically the same as a ps5, just with 20 or so different games (exclusives).
That wasn't the case in the past. With physical games, I usually had more than one console, and depending on the price, performance, or other factors, I would choose one platform or another.
That's why I think they want to push PC and even TV gaming. Getting people into their ecosystem is the tricky part.
The console as hardware is actually great, probably better than the PS5, and really cheap for such a powerful computer.
I own an xbox (previous generation), and pay for game pass. There hasn't been a game on game pass or that has come to the store (that I am interested in) that doesn't play on the previous generation. I _want_ a new one, but haven't bumped up against anything that I haven't been able to do with my older xbox, so I haven't had anything to look forward to or get access to with the new system.
I also wonder how much their naming scheme hinders their sales. I find it so confusing, and the current and previous generations may as well have the same names as I can't disambiguate them.
For the remaining potential buyers who want a console for the "it just works" factor (which is still significant – point in case, look at how poorly Windows handles even first-party Microsoft-branded controllers in the absence of Steam, not to mention the GPU driver mess among other things), an Xbox holds little advantage over a PS5, and depending on the type of games you want to play, even over a Switch.
Microsoft naming: Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Xbox One S, Xbox One X, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S
It makes no sense. The second one was "360" and not the third one as you might expect, because the third one is "one".
This name actually somewhat (still) did make sense to me since the Xbox 360 was the competitor to the PS3. The naming did give a hint for that.
The new generation is "Series", with the X being more powerful than the S. So the Xbox Series X is the best model, and the Xbox Series S is the same generation, but less powerful. It's like if the PS4 and PS4 Pro came out at the same time.
Then on the "Series" line you have Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X.
So many people can think "X" or "S" as being a "Series", something of a kind, and confusing a "xbox one X" with a "xbox series X". - You have a series X? oh yeah, i have the xbox one X.
Also the looks of the xbox one S and the xbox series S is quite similar...
Not sure why didn't called xbox 2022 pro and slim or something.
And it's a shame, i have an xbox series x and is actually a great product.
> Then on the "Series" line you have Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X.
Wait, the Xbox One S/X and the Xbox Series S/X are different things?! I actually never realised that.
They really need someone better naming their consoles.
I jest, but then, I also don't.
The WiiU attracted a lot of justified derision on its naming scheme, but I wonder if it also got a lot because it was still legible enough to be seen by people as mistake. Speaking for myself, even as a bit of a gamer (not a major one, but I'm in touch with the scene in general), the XBox line is just a cognitive blur to me. I couldn't even name them correctly any more. If they come out with an XBox XS I would literally need to read an article pointing out that it's a new release. The line is so illegible as naming schemes I can't even make fun of them properly.
Fun fact: when it came out, I originally thought that with "Xbox One" they meant the original Xbox (the one before the Xbox 360).
Microsoft is fundamentally culturally incompatible with basically any product that isn't Enterprise B2B. The stories from e.g. Seamus Blackley out of early-day Xbox are harrowing; the division exists despite the rest of Microsoft, almost in flagrant opposition. They've invested hundreds of billions of dollars into game development over the past ten years, managing to produce literally zero new titles achieving even same-magnitude levels of cultural and market success as a typical Playstation triple-A. They've sustained themselves on ZIRP acquisitions of big games, and given enough time have managed only to run their acquisitions into the ground.
Xbox made a call a few years ago that "more eyeballs on games is always better"; they reduced the prominence of the Xbox console, brought all their games to PC on day one, and even started selling them on Steam. That prioritization gave up all of their platform power; tithing 30% of every sale to Steam is a huge revenue leach, not to mention losing out on their own 30% on Xbox consoles. Spencer's argument has always been that Game Pass is the platform; but gamers aren't the kind of passive consumer of content that e.g. Netflix subscribers are. Gamers very regularly make value assessments like "yeah I want to try this new game, I'll pay the $10/mo for one month of Game Pass, cheaper than the $20 upfront", or "I'll be playing call of duty all year, cheaper to buy it upfront on Steam than pay for Game Pass". It was obvious to anyone that Game Pass's primary function was to save gamers money; no one sticks with the platform when it stops doing that.
There is literally no company I would short harder than Xbox, if Xbox were shortable independent of Microsoft. The world would be better off if Spencer had never taken over for Mattrick; Mattrick is actually mind-numbingly, fool-in-the-public-square level incompetent, and if he had remained in charge we wouldn't even be having this conversation in 2024, ABK would still be independent, maybe even Halo would have been sold off to a better studio than 343i. Spencer has done better, but in his valiant attempts has taken a dozen classic gaming brands and franchises down with him.
Ultimately I tend to feel that the success of Xbox 360 is predominately attributable to the early failures of the PlayStation 3. PS3 was WAY too expensive, inflation-adjusted one of the most expensive consoles ever made outpacing everything on the market today, and had almost no great launch titles. When you consider that X360 had CoD2 as an exclusive launch title in 2005, the story kinda writes itself; people may have bought the console on these points + the promise of Halo 3 in the future, but it likely would have done well without it.
Its also important to recognize: The PS3 did outsell the Xbox 360 by the end [1]. Its definitely the closest margins of any of their competing generations; generally Playstation does much better, not just a little better. But this is not the sense that I have growing up in that generation; I have the sense that the 360 dominated. Reality is a bit different.
Sadly; whatever gains Microsoft won during the X360 generation, Mattrick immediately threw away with X1 [2]. Their early DRM policies set Sony up to drop what is arguably the most effective piece of video game advertising ever made [3], the forced Kinect bundle communicated to customers that Microsoft's vision for the future is more important to them than the games themselves, and Sony got their pricing and launch lineup (Infamous?) under control.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_game_cons...
I wonder if this makes sense at scale? Sure the sales of the console itself are down, but are sales of games/passes up? Is selling a subscription to a choice of games more lucrative than selling a console one time, and selling a game one time?
How is Microsoft expecting to sell hardware when it's not available officially?