But that's the point. Just like the article said, what is Microsoft's vision for the Xbox One then? Right now they have a different product than what it was revealed. What people don't get is that Microsoft doesn't care about vision or the product or the consumers. They want the money. If the Wii U was selling like pancakes right now, they would have put a screen on the controller, or do something to counter that and do it too. Microsoft did all those 180 because they don't want Sony to have any advantage whatsoever with the PS4. Their product wasn't well received, so they preferred to make it as equal as possible to the competition.

worst console in history so far, shame that such a big corp makes so many mistakes in a very short time.

im not sure if they changed policies because of fans or because of pre orders but either way they made the console better and I am thinking of buying it with my other consoles

Instead of backtracking they should've just fully explained the benefits of their visions instead of the "If you don't like it, we have the 360 for that" approach and marketed it better,or maybe just actually sold their policies like true salesmen! Everything just seemed like smoke and mirrors, the public saw that and they got the backlash that they deserved for being unprepared for the big show.

Gotta agree with you. While their initial vision didn't sound great, they should've explained it. They should have told us what the benefits of this vision were. What they did as you mentioned was say,"oh you can't go online, we have a console for you called the XB360."

Now, M$ is explaining a little bit of what they're doing. However, they really have no vision, they just want to clean up the train wreck.

I honestly wondered if people would have accepted anything MS said if they tried to explain it. But I will agree that they should have tried. When asked the serious questions, they talked down to the fan base, or pulled out lines like "Did you see the games!!!?".

It's car salesmanship, and MS should know better.

It's the 3rd console curse!

true! i got a ps3 but didnt see its advantage over xbox until 2009 when games like killzone2 and uncharted2 showed what the console was capable of !

last gen is not done yet and when all is said and done the ps3 will outsell the wii putting it back into number one although not by a great margin this time . congrats to nintendo and micro though because all consoles did well this gen. next gen will be a different story though.

I just don't see "winning" as a binary thing. Sure, the Wii sold the most units and copies of games while making by a good margin the most money. From any financial standpoint the Wii did "win." However, it was a short term success that quickly died down and now Nintendo's next console is struggling mightily and a part of the reason is because Nintendo further cemented their reputation as a maker of weak consoles without third party support, and only a few new IP's. Because of the Wii and now Wii U, Nintendo seems to have a growing divide between what modern gamers want and Nintendo's philosophy.

Meanwhile, the Xbox 360 developed a bad reputation the second half of this generation that it clearly hurting the Xbox One. Sure, 80 million units sold is good (and Xbox Live makes a ton of money) but with or without the 180's the Xbox One was always going to have a negative perception starting this generation.

Then there is Sony, who I'm willing to bet made the least amount of money this generation. The PS3 and Xbox 360 are basically tied for hardware sales and the PS3 is behind overall software sales, but the PS3 looks to still have a decent few years to go. But, more importantly, even though there have been some issues with the PS3 - namely PSN getting hacked - Sony developed a reputation for offering the best and most diverse gaming library between the three consoles while also earning a lot of respect and love for PS+ and the feeling that Sony is very generous (really its just smart business, but we are talking perception).

It's easy to see why people disregard the Wii. For most people it was, or became, a secondary console or just a machine for casual gamers that don't play many games at all. Between the PS3 and Xbox 360 I THINK the PS3 is slightly ahead in hardware sales (after launching a year later) but the Xbox 360 is ahead in software sales. So what does it all mean? Who really won this gen?

I think it's silly to say anybody "wins." There are only losers, like the Dreamcast.

"With any logic and intelligence you'd see that they were moving with the times - everything is going digital at some point. "

http://www.computerandvideo...

""We're shifting our platform more and more to the digital side - PS4 will be similar to PS Vita in that every game will be available as a digital download, and some will also be available as a disc...."

Whats stopping you from buying only digital copies?

"If you're an ignorant ....... then yes it would seem their vision was "screwing over customers"."

Also this was how the XBOX One was going to "screw consumers"."

http://www.ign.com/articles...

"“With Xbox One you can game offline for up to 24 hours on your primary console, or one hour if you are logged on to a separate console accessing your library. Offline gaming is not possible after these prescribed times until you re-establish a connection, but you can still watch live TV and enjoy Blu-ray and DVD movies.""

"“We designed Xbox One so game publishers can enable you to trade in your games at participating retailers...."

And what about those without an internet connection?

http://games.yahoo.com/blog...

""We have a product for people who aren't able to get some form of connectivity - it's called Xbox 360," Don Mattrick told Geoff Keighley on GameTrailers."

Many of their policies have changed but that doesnt change the fact that they tried to be unfair to consumers in the past with the XBOX One.

There's a distinct difference between not choosing to buy a product and complaining about it, getting the things you want and still complaining, saying they don't know what their vision is.

They had a vision, people didn't like it. Their new vision is giving people what they're asking for.

You can do that...brand loyalty is fickle. I'm a pretty decent guy, got some layers to me and care about alot of things. When it comes to electronics I'm pretty shallow, give me what I want and I'll be there, especially enjoyment.

I'm not a Playstation guy at all. But I bought a PS3 cause I wanted to game beyond my 360. Brand loyalty would've prevented me from experiencing what it had to offer this gen..and I would be stupid to voluntarily miss out. Same this coming gen. Don't care for the PS4 as a console...X1 fills my need. But I'd be stupid to miss on the games to come out on the PS4 cause of misplaced loyalty.

MS "Vision" started with the first Xbox. Their "Vision" was to be the center of everyone's living room. Even the most ardent fan boy should know this fact. MS said it themselves before the consoles release...with great pride I might add.

They saw the way PC was going long before the Xbox ever came out, and they wanted to be ready for it. I think what they didn't expect was the smart device/tablet revolution, which they were totally unprepared for, even years after it started.

MS is still holding true to their vision. It is more than apparent that all the changes they made are being made because it's the only way that they can become the center of everyone's living room.

There is nothing wrong with having this vision. To achieve it it means you have to give the customers what they want, in a package they're willing to pay for.

MS vision is unchanged. There was no new vision with the Xbox One. The entire product is geared to be the biggest step they've ever made in becoming the center of the living room. Every feature showcased at the event made it blindingly obvious that they were finally making the big step to achieve their goals. It's their initial policies that screwed everything up.

I doubt MS is lamenting the loss of control over it's distribution methods, given how much they would have lost on achieving their true goal. The initial policies were to make an extra buck, but served no purpose to what they want to achieve in the long run.

Too many fan comments on here either have very short memories, or simply weren't around when the fist Xbox was released. I highly encourage anyone who blindly follows MS to go and look into the history of the console. It is quite interesting. It has it's ups and downs, but you would learn a lot about where MS started in the game industry, how they got to where they are today, and how far they've come to get to where they want to be.

MS was doing great taking the long road to get to the prize. One little pothole derailed them, and now they have to fix the wheel to get back on track. I wish them the best of luck.

These declines are on the back of extra revenue received from releasing games like Forza horizon 5 on PlayStation. So I’m being sarcastic here when I said they should go back to exclusives. Killing off a revenue stream from Ps5 sales will only make things worse

Contractual agreements are not the same as “gentlemen” agreements. If you think that they work with their distributors a month before production then their entire business model is trash. They work with companies like nvidia constantly for building the graphics cards they need. They work with companies that build motherboards years in advance. This is what proper business planning does.

They are not buying components on a whim like a consumer. So again, considering the ram isn’t a singular module and is integrated into the motherboard I highly doubt they wouldn’t have a final schematic that they are supposed to be building around.

If they are delaying production another 3 years then it’s obvious again this is an after though project and is just trying to be responsive to their bad execution they had the last 14 years.

It also isn’t far fetched to use their failure to produce first party titles the last 7 years including the highly anticipated games I mentioned all being cancelled. That they would continue to you know… lie

Yeah with FSR 5 they should be able to offer a much cheaper version of Helix.

Series S is what has killed Xbox Series so... Will they dare?

The factors are largely external. Covid and Russia-Ukraine war causing inflation led to the first price increase in 2022.

Then we get Trump's tariffs increasing hardware prices, AI boom causing a RAM crisis, war on Iran causing a worldwide fuel crisis which impacts the cost of everything.

Gaming doesn't exist in a vacuum. The last few years have been a shitshow and lot of it was definitely avoidable.

LucasRuinedChildhood,

For sure. No disagreement on the external factors doing a lot of this. Where I have to gently push back however is on two fronts:

1. The pandemic definitely caused some issues: asynchronous development was a big issue and really complicated timelines and affected game quality. At the same time, when it comes to price hikes, it's really difficult to know what was genuine necessity and what was taking consumers for a ride. The pandemic brought about "stag-flation" which was increasing prices and stagnant wages, which was a problem caused by supply chain constraints. There was also "Greed-flation", where companies that were slightly affected or had no issues took advantage of the situation and squeezed everyone citing supply chain issues when there were none.

2. It's definitely true that the tariffs, AI boom, and RAM crisis were all things enabled by tech broligarchs throwing money at this caricature of a world leader, one of them being Satya Nadella. I don't think Sony and Nintendo have contributed much to this problem if at all, but Microsoft's Nadella I feel was instrumental in causing every one of those issues. Microsoft as a company contributed to both candidates (though they gave Harris 4x as much if I recall), but Nadella was all in on letting AI run wild. He paid for unregulated AI, and got a war that's not a war (even though Trump called it that at least five times on television) that screwed up helium access. So for me, I feel that one of the players in the gaming industry is a key architect of these issues, and for that reason I struggle a bit to think of it as "external".