IMO, the Xbox brand has suffered since the late 2000s when Kinect was released. It seems that Xbox is always trying to invent or provide services to the consumer that nobody is asking for instead of focusing on what the consumers clamor for from any gaming division. Which is Games!

Their lack of consumer driven decision making became most noticeable through the forcing of Kinect on the consumer at the Xbox One launch, TV, TV, TV, DRM, GamePass and more recently Halo as a live service experience. Did Halo fans really want Xbox’s self stated most important franchise to be a GAAS game?

The recent acquisitions or coming acquisitions made by Microsoft could be exciting if I could trust them to deliver a quality gaming experience in the same way I did during the OG Xbox and early to mid Xbox 360 era. Sadly my trust in the Xbox brand has completely eroded.

That ship sailed 4 years into the 360 era.

The Xbox console experience is fine for me. I'm loving it. Just bought a Dolby Atmos audio setup so I can play games that support it. If I'm not mistaken, it's the only current gen console that supports it.

xbox seems to be an after thought for microsoft right know, but things are meant to improve by 2026, lets give phil the benefit of the doubt and see what he has in store

How is this different from the last decade?

They need to focus back to core gaming. All of us have been saying that for ages.

It’s a shame because the series x is probably the best console hardware there is. But what good is it with mediocre games?

theyve been distracted since the xbox one.

No it is not. The Xbox is doing better than ever. All 3 people that I know with Xbox Series X are having a good time.

The are not distracted, they just have never cared enough to try in the first place. Microsoft has all the money in the world already they have no incentive to fix any of the underlying issues the xbox brand has. They will attempt to buy their way to success before anything else.

Xbox gamers clearly don't care what state the brand is in as long as they get games for a cheap price (no it's not free). Until the brand goes under and they start yelling "but we supported you".

For 10+ years, and counting…

Xbox has been distracted for almost 25 years. It's strange the lengths people go to justify this stuff.

Making games and consoles have never been MS’s main focus. They would destroy console gaming in a second if it means domination over publishing of games. MS is not a “entertainment” company. They do mot have the background and expertise to create, thus the cannobalization we are witnessing.

MS needs to stop trying to change things too much, Sony focuses on the PS console and its games, and thats what people want, MS isnt focused on the console, everything is on PC play anywhere etc, and the games, dont worry about individual games so much, gamepass, its the netflix of games, also they get a bad wrap for their exclusives, i feel sony plays it much safer with its exclusives, while MS will take risks, though Sony does have the quality in there too.

As a PS5/Series S owner myself, I am debating whether I should sell the Series S (if someone will actually buy it).

Now playing the Horizon DLC, getting ready to play Final Fantasy XVI and hopefully Spiderman 2 this year. It seems like huge exclusives are always a month or two away on PS5 and Sony has already delivered incredible PS only experiences.

On Xbox I played Halo Infinite (meh), Sunset Overdrive (loved it) and I guess Psychonauts 2 (also available on other systems). I am a GamePass subscriber and I keep trying to get a good deal but the games I actually want to play are on either PS or Switch (Zelda and Pikmin 4 already preordered).

With Microsoft, it feels like I will forever be waiting for Perfect Dark, Everwild, Fable, etc. And I'm not even sure they will deliver given their track record.

If only they had money to focus on multiple things at once. Sadly with their limited funds they only know how to buy industry built by others.

I don't know

When Sony doesn't offer up anything this year except DLC they start putting out articles about how bad Xbox is at doing things. Can't make this stuff up. lol

It's time for Phil Spencer to step up and make place for someone with a more progressive strategy. I've been thinking this for some time now.

They mistyped the title. It was supposed to be written as: “With Microsoft distracted since 2013, the Xbox console experience is suffering”

When are people going to get it through their heads that Microsoft has ZERO long-term interest is being a hardware and game developer? They want only to be a subscription/streaming storefront, siphoning their 30% from everyone else's effort. They're doing as little as possible every step of the way, hoping eventually to meet a critical mass of subscribers.

Well I've been playing mine more than my PS5 so

Xbox has been distracted for a long time.

Not only did MS Shoot themselves in the foot in the Xbox One years, but they bought Devs right after and unfortunately it takes time to make games. It's going to take a while to get to the point of pumping out 3 to 4 AAA games a year. I also suspect they are holding back A Lot at the moment with all the ABK stuff going on. I think they'd like to keep the Status Quo until that goes through in hopes of not giving and Gov Bodies reasons against them. I could be way off, but that's my opinion.

@surgicalm

What you described above is comparable to Samsung OTS sound for tvs.
Right now, neither one is superior than dolby atmos which is why it's the preferred tech of most game developers. A TV alone can't do what a dedicated sound system can regardless of what type of dedicated sound hardware inside a console. If it did noone would buy it because it would way too expensive for most people.

What are they distracted about, focusing too much on Gamepass?

One other good thing about xbox series x its very durable i dropped it on the floor from my tower speaker which is 110cm tall and no damage at all.

Just drop that price when Starfield drops and all will be forgotten.

Well, we all know that this will eventually happen. If Gamepass dont require an Xbox console, why would people buy a console?

Stick on to PC, mobile and cloud. The console wars have been over for a few generations now. Let the big blue and red do what they do best.

Unfortunately, it won't be Microsoft's demise. Seriously, Xbox fans have let Microsoft treat them like a beaten Labrador for way too long. Microsoft makes promises and breaks them, and then just apologizes, never tries to do better. Or imposes lame restrictions or price hikes and when the fanbase lashes out, they withdraw (which they were never allowed to get away with when the Xbox One imposed its restrictions and gamers left to greener fields (which is actually a thing on PS4 now, you have to sign on to activate your console to prevent piracy, yeah, it eventually happened so if you have two PS4 consoles for your two kids and a PS5 for you and everyone shares the account, only one of you can be online to play games at a time), but fans today just say: "It's okay Xbox (Phil Spencer) we'll just hope for a better tomorrow" that never comes. Seriously, Xbox are the most unprofessional team ever. They say theirs names on the chopping block because Microsoft isn't happy with things recently out of the Xbox division and Hi-Fi rush sales didn't perform like they wanted. Well:

1) Fire Executive Fanboy Aaron Greenberg. Seriously, why is this guy still there? He's the most unprofessional and he's their Executive Marketing Director but he behaves like a teenager. Why is he still there? Obviously his marketing is atrocious!

2) What do you expect from Game Pass. You were giving the game away for free. That's the climate you've cultivated. When you give things away for free, devs can't afford to feed their families and can't make quality AAA games. Instead, you have vets working on SNES game experiences which is equal to indie devs today. Seriously every game looks like it's developed for the Super Nintendo and we're on 8th Gen consoles. What gives?

3) SHINJI MIKAMI uh.... The Father of RESIDENT EVIL JUST LEFT HIS COMPANY AT TANGO GAMEWORKS because he's sick of how Xbox does things. He thought Capcom was bad and wanted to cut his head off if he had to develop another game for PlayStation and wanted to develop for the Gamecube and he's probably begging for the PS2 right now. You lost a veteran game dev like that. It was his company he could have just sat at home and collected a paycheck while someone else ran his business but he gave gave up all together.

4) Hi-Fi Rush was digital only, what do you expect. A lot of your gaming community want physical media, they want to curate a collection and tally up how much that collection is worth, but you rushed getting the game out (Aaron Greenberg, ya see?) and it's digital only. Shows what your gaming division knows versus Sony that even though their Collectors Editions served both the digital and physical media sphere, you can still buy a disc version when the price goes way down and play the digital until then, Hi-Fi Rush had zero option..... And you gave it away for free, and Mikami has to feed his family, so he's tired of your business practices and left. Oh, and Phil Spencer approved all of this. Your great Savior, eh?

5) ALL of your devs are fed up with your inexperience business practices. You had Rod Ferguson that came from Epic to run The Coalition and he bailed and what have they done recently? Nothing. The Initiative hasn't had a steady Game Designer/Director because they keep leaving so Perfect Dark will never see the light of day and be cancelled. What's going on with Fable? It's likely still in concept hell. And Starfield is supposed to be huge, but it'll bomb, so you might as well just play No Man's Sky and Outworld, and you can play it on PlayStation OR Xbox and have a much better time.

There ya have it. You treat your customers like trash, no wonder.......

Microsoft is the only company that can buy billions of dollars worth of studios and still have no games.

Tell me again how the multiplatform strategy was supposed to fix everything. Look at your results and compare them to Nintendo, which keeps thriving with exclusives. Your loyal fans are gone. And let’s not forget the pile of IPs you purchased only to let them rot.

The worst thing is this is down from last years numbers/expectations which was down from the previous years numbers/expectations. You think about how long “down” has been a consistent part of the communication and you realize those subscriptions are what’s holding that boat together. The price cut of gamespass is still a price raise in a string of price raises. They are trying to use players to offset the missing revenue. Now call of duty is out of gamespass, which is literally WHY they bought the company. To draw people to the subscription. They realized they missed a boatload of money and that wasn’t sustainable. Now you pay for it like you would have if they never bought the company… so why buy the company? Mind you those billions still need to be paid back. Yeah it gives you a chance to say we make the biggest FPS… but the internal conversations must be brutal at high level on topics that really matter. Like revenue. Profitability. And ROI for the shopping spree.

Is this like the 10th quarter in a row they're down 33% on hardware how is that even mathematically possible. You would think their mediocrity would Plateau