Phil Can't do it alone!

Spencer can eventually be the saving grace of the XBOX brand but its going to take far more than just a guy dedicated and passionate for gaming to steer this sinking ship. The company has dug themselves so deep in sludge within the past year. There is only so much One man (Phil Spencer) can do in order to rectify the situation. I've come up with a few things they can work on to better help keep XBOX afloat. Coming from a neutral CAMP (Being someone who games on all platforms), I felt like I could write what I think is wrong with Microsoft's XBOX division without getting my head chopped off.

1. Parity Clause

This needs to be addressed and fixed, and even though its recently been brought to light, Microsoft still says they will continue to do this. It is a sad attempt to delay gamers all over the world simply because they want it that way. This isn't fair to developers and this is why a lot of them turn down Microsoft Indie program. Microsoft knows this is an ongoing issue but refuses to budge. The fact that developers have to launch the game on the same platform at the same time or NO DICE is bull. This isn't fair to gamers and it certainly isn't fair to the developers. It is clear that there is no intention to get rid of the Parity Clause they love so much. It is a real shame cause this would benefit gamers and the console greatly. IT shouldn't matter when the game comes out on whatever platform first, as long as it comes out at all right? Apparently not. All we get out of this is avoided replies for example

" Many indies have voiced their concerns over the clause, and even Sony has taken a swipe at its rival’s stance on indie self-pubishing – before GDC PlayStation’s VP of publisher and developer relations Adam Boyes tweeted a ‘list’ of platforms developers are not allowed to release their games on before they hit PSN. So, at the ID@Xbox event we asked corporate vice president of Microsoft’s Xbox division Phil Harrison if he’d seen the tweet, and what he thought of it.
“I laughed,” he said. “Taking aside competitive positioning and all of that, the winners in all of this are game players. There are more games coming out for these platforms, there are more developers creating for these platforms, there are more fresh minds coming into our industry than any time in recent memory. And that’s so, so important to the future of our industry.”

-Taken from Edge Interview with Phil Harrison-

This is clear EVASION of the topic, you don't want to admit you guys are doing this because you are scared gamers will choose competing platforms, you want to make up some bull about how "The winners in all of this are game players. There are more games....blah blah blah"
That isn't right, they know it isn't right and they continue to do it. So why should anyone feel bad for a company that basically BULLIES developers into making sure CERTAIN things are in order for a proper release on their console?

2. PR MESS

This is probably the biggest reason they are so far behind Sony right now. All the bad PR turned into worse PR and just kept spiraling out of control. Sony learned to do it and now Microsoft should too. Just tell the truth because in the end we all find out and it doesn't help when you end up looking like an askhole. I really don't need to go down the list of PR bombs that have occurred since the announcement of Xbox One but at least this quality is redeemable simply by being honest.

3. Price Tag

A lot of people know this about Xbox One, it is 100$ more than the PS4. Yes you can buy one with TitanFall or Forza and get it for the $499.99, but why not DROP THE PRICE OF THE CONSOLE to match or compete with PS4. In todays economy 400$ sounds like a lot less than $500. We all know that, but instead of giving people games they may not want, why not just drop the price of the console in General, or sell one without a Kinect for around $379. That would get the ball rolling much faster. So many options to rectify the situation, yet the only one they can come up with is to lose money on game sales to hope that it boost the sales of their limping console. Not a great idea Microsoft. Price cut is needed if you really want to see sales SKY ROCKET.

4. Paywall.

Microsoft started out really rough we know this. Its all over the internet and its not hard to find on any game related site. To sit here and tell us you want an all in one entertainment device make it so! Lets pretend that a family buys a console for their living room and they dont play Multiplayer. They want to play single player games, watch netflix, YouTube, Hulu. Etc. They decide to buy a Xbox One thinking (hey this is an all in one device great). All the sudden "You must have Xbox Live GOLD to use ANYTHING"--Family returns the console and goes for a PS4, since the only thing PS+ is needed for is online, nothing else. Microsoft needs to get rid of the pay wall if they want to sell an "all-in-one" entertainment DEVICE. It's NOT impossible to do and it's not like they'd lose a massive amount over this. Gamers will always buy Xbox Live they NEED IT. But families may reconsider when they find out they need to dish out an extra 60$ a year on top of fees for the services they ALREADY pay for.

5. Hard Drive

When Designing the Xbox One why did they not bother to think that people MAY want to CHANGE the hard drive to a bigger size? They did it with the 360 (even though it was an overpriced laptop HDD with a proprietary connector) and they go on and on about Digital Age this , No more physical that? YET, they don't bother to allow you to upgrade the internal HDD with a bigger one? Come on, that was a major decision in buying a console for a lot of people. You can sit there and pretend it doesn't matter cause of external USB support but honestly I'd rather have all my games on a nice 1.5TB drive sitting INSIDE the unit, when I travel and not taking up an extra USB port. I know I am not the only one that thinks that way either, I am already at 300GB of space used on my Xbox One and it sucks. I don't think it was a wise choice to decide to go ahead and remove the ablity to change out the HDD, Even IF you would charge an outrageous amount of money for a bigger HDD (think back when a 320GB HDD cost around 60$, it cost around 150+ for the Xbox 360 version).

In my opinion GAMES aren't really the issue here, its the knowledge we now have that we didn't have when the internet wasn't as sensationalized. People use google for all types of things. For answers to a question, how to spell a word, and the most obvious thing. REVIEWS! They see what is being said about the Xbox One, about the PRICE, about the power about the lack of 1080p etc. etc. etc. Microsoft needs to be fair, we know that games will be made, and we know they will have some great ones. We as gamers INVEST in a product be it a video card or a console. We hope that product last us a fair amount of time and a console is usually a great value even from the start. When you really think about it how often do we upgrade our video cards VS our consoles? The value is there for consoles but the PRICE isn't fair and they know it. When the competition is priced at a 100$ lower, and putting out better graphics it shows and it hurts Microsoft. So you can show as many games as you want at E3 or Gamescom but it won't change the fact that people are more cautious when it comes to this stuff. I bought a Xbox One for a few reasons, and I am okay with it, but not everyone has the choice and people want the better value, and clearly its not the Xbox One.

So before you think that one man will change everything about XBOX brand in general, you are mistaken it will take a lot more than that. I respect Phil Spencer and believe he is a genuine man and a gamer at heart. That is a good start but we need to keep the momentum going. Even I know that this type of gap in sales is scary when it comes down to GAMERS. We need the competition, it produces results. Without it the companies get lazy, don't make good games and start to ride on the hype more than they produce, and that's the scary part. Sony is a perfect example of this. PS2 was amazing so amazing that Sony figured they could do what they want with PS3, and look how that E3 turned out. This caused Sony to act upon that and change a lot of things, and it paid off. Just look at them now. Microsoft needs to take some notes from the previous generation.

Comments are appreciated and welcome. I hope you enjoyed this bit of blog!