This just occurred to me.
Thinking back to 2013, it seemed like Microsoft had the world in the palm of their hands. They had the foresight to introduce their XBOX Live service early in the lifecycle of the original XBOX. During the XBOX 360's run, this paid huge dividends. The 360 maintained a respectful lead over the PS3 in no small part due to the XBOX Live user base. Switching platforms involved not only buying new hardware & software, but it meant leaving a whole community! What a great customer retention strategy!
It's simply amazing to me when I think about how badly the XBOX One launch needed to be botched for Microsoft to lose the edge they had so skillfully developed. There were many problems with the platform as it was at launch, but the main ones that come to mind are:
And here we are today. Sony is firmly back on top as if the PS3/360 generation never even existed.
Thinking back to 2013, it seemed like Microsoft had the world in the palm of their hands. They had the foresight to introduce their XBOX Live service early in the lifecycle of the original XBOX. During the XBOX 360's run, this paid huge dividends. The 360 maintained a respectful lead over the PS3 in no small part due to the XBOX Live user base. Switching platforms involved not only buying new hardware & software, but it meant leaving a whole community! What a great customer retention strategy!
It's simply amazing to me when I think about how badly the XBOX One launch needed to be botched for Microsoft to lose the edge they had so skillfully developed. There were many problems with the platform as it was at launch, but the main ones that come to mind are:
- Leaning so hard on Kinect integration. This raised the price of their hardware at launch substantially, but amazingly, this was the least of the issues! Sometimes I forget how XBOX One was positioned to be more than just a game console; it was to be the control for your entire entertainment center. I mean I guess that's fine, but when you look at how this functionality was implemented: Kinect was listening. All the time, whether your XBOX One was on or asleep. Every spoken word within "hearing" distance of Kinect was transferred through the Cloud for processing. Nowadays, that's no where near as surprising/alarming as we have Amazon dots and Siri/Google Assist agents on all our phones and they work the same way. But still; this was a game console! No one; absolutely no one was asking for the next XBOX to be voice-activated set-top-box!
- Going all-in with digital distribution/Always-on DRM. You know how you can walk into Target and buy XBOX One games on disk just like every other console? That was not in the original plan. When the XBOX One was announced, all software was to be purchased and delivered digitally. I feel as if this were announced for a new console today, there would be a lot less backlash. Although there is still a pretty large contingent of folks who swear by physical media, the mere fact that GameStop is close to going out of business is clear indication that people are buying their games digitally more and more every day. Still, back in 2013, this was a bit too "ahead of it's time".
Of course the cherry on top was the fact that you originally would have needed an ever-present Internet connection to play any of your games; whether they were multi-player or not! In my opinion, this is an absurd requirement for a game console even today. To make matters worse, I remember a (now former) Microsoft employee going on a Twitter tirade actually defending the always-on DRM model and talking down to folks who were upset about it. That's nothing short of committing brand damage, IMO.
- Loot Box Pioneers: As Jim Sterling so articulately explained Microsoft was one of the first (if not the first) AAA publisher to jump on the
loot boxsurprise mechanics bandwagon. Early marquee titles such as Ryse offered chances to win rare gear by spending real money (even though said gear could be obtained in the game free-of-charge... as long as you're willing to give up your day job to grind). While Sony was building a war chest of system sellers that were simply great products, Microsoft was one of the first to get back into the pockets of their customers using full-priced products that those customers already paid for.
And here we are today. Sony is firmly back on top as if the PS3/360 generation never even existed.