Yes.
In hindsight, it's always easy to make a statement, right? I know.
But everyone like me who had a gut feeling like "I don't know man, the reboot of Perfect Dark in the hands of Xbox feels kinda shallow!" turns out to have felt right.
They didn't show anything at their last Showcase. It again felt suspiciously awkward.
The Series generation is nothing less than a disguised financial recovery...
Upper managment knew about it in 2019/2020 already.
Zenimax and ActivisionBlizzardKing were the strategy to be bought out to try and save the Xbox brand economically and fill GP with exclusive content.
(If they hadn't, the Xbox division would had fallen down to ~9-14bn in annual revenue. Even today, with 21bn in annual revenue, it's a safe bet Xbox still ain't profitable yet.)
But within the upcoming 5, even the full 6 to 7 ...
And I agree here, too.
It's no myth and ain't no legend of ill will - but it is what it is:
When the Xbox One was being prepared, their executives, driven by totally unrealistic, non-gaming related business decisions, failed 7 years of a console generation even before D1.
(And they did so again with X|S.)
That's life.
When I go too late to any appointment or even to a store, I can't ...
"Don't agree."
That's absolutely okay, and actually, your explaination is quite right.
In my thoughts I just came from from the direction of "the Xbox brand turning into a healthy business decision for Microsoft with growing reputation".
But ofc, looking from a fan perspective, your point of view is correct, too.
They've tried, but died.
The best years I remember Xbox ever had were between 2008/9 to 2011.
(Ironically even then, when they've pushed software, they suffered a hardware flaw.)
They are definitely exiting the console hardware business the way they see fit.
But ultimately, Microsoft/Xbox are still going to try to push Sony Playstation out of business. I can already feel the next bitch move incoming.
My personal opinion:
Manufacturers and publishers have indeed inflated the industry.
From $700 million development costs for games like Call of Duty, to digital (store) prices for games and DLCs, online multiplayer fees on consoles (why can you play Helldivers 2 online for free on PC but not consoles?) or still preventing sell/lend digitally purchased games.
Sometime in the future, this bubble will collapse.
They shou...
Let's assume:
• Xbox Next, 2026
• PS6, 2028
That'd be a two year gap. But in hardware specs, too.
Would they really do that?
You could have saved an additional 500 bucks. Just sayin.
I would like to be a fly on the wall during such negotiations.
If they were absolutely certain about the quality of Marathon, then they had not delayed it just now.
So they've basically just confirmed what everyone, well, a lot of people saw: Marathon is not ready yet, still no soul to be seen.
120 bucks?
My gawd. This is truly horrible.
@Obscure
"Gears of War was *born* on Xbox"
You gotta admit that I didn't say any contrary.
Gears of War was an original Epic Games IP until Microsoft bought the rights in 2014.
Gears of War is not an original Microsoft creation, but an example of an adopted third-party IP that Microsoft later fully integrated.
Thank you!
Nope, 'displeased' ain't the feeling I had when reading that article.
But speaking of pleasure:
Are you personally pleased with that line-up Xbox have in store for you in the Series' fifth year?
Edit: I didn't downvote you.
If you look closer again, then you'll notice that I, at any point, didn't even mentioned the adjective "bad".
But you.
Yeah.
I must have skipped those years being frozen in Area 51 in which 75 billion dollar acquisitions of around 25 original multiplatform IPs were already normal.
I count 7 original multiplatform IPs, which were ultimately bought and are now published by Microsoft.
Sigh.
This list, that's been posted again, and again, and again in every single topic like this, contains almost nothing, literally almost nothing from Microsoft's own creational thoughtprocess.
It's a bunch of former 3rd party IPs.
Now even slowly returning to Playstation in some cases like Indiana, Hellblade, probably Starfield soon too, after they were made exclusively to Xbox on purpose.
Due to Microsoft's lack for own IP ...
"When you turn that silliness off you realize as a consumer this is one of the best things to happen in gaming.“
Microsoft easily could have told anyone in 2020 already.
They already knew how their next 5 years would evolve, didn't they? In hindsight?
So people could at least have thought about it twice if they'd pay for an X or S - or instead just buy a PS5 right away.
What I am saying is:
<...
So is & was the Xbox brand, with only very few years being an exception.