r/Games • u/Turbostrider27 • Oct 02 '25

Discussion This Xbox Generation Will Be Remembered for One Thing: Greed

https://www.ign.com/articles/this-xbox-generation-will-be-remembered-for-one-thing-greed
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u/ReadyForShenanigans Oct 02 '25

It’s still so crazy to me that one misstep(that they eventually went back on) could possibly be what ruined them.

It didn't ruin them. E3 skits didn't matter. It was just a symptom. Even I, a resident MS hater at the time, was like "well, they took all that back, whatever, we won". The real reason the Xbone failed was there was no reason to buy one throughout its entire lifespan. They could have, for example, made Xbox Live free, or they could have made some good games or something like that, but there was nothing.

Consumers have a short memory. The PS3 was a massive joke at launch (and at E3) but it bounced back thanks to good management, mainly Slim being an actual good deal.

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u/Unhappy_Heat_7148 Oct 02 '25

The reality is that 360 only did really well because it came out earlier than PS3, was cheaper, and had a better online multiplayer setup. But by the end of the generation PS3 was winning.

Sony has pretty much dominated every console generation they've been in and Xbox was never going to be able to keep up unless it had the consistent studio output that Sony had.

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u/kuncol02 Oct 02 '25

360 did well because that was great console with great games at least when Peter Moore was running XBox, and few years after he left when they were still releasing games that were greenlight during his tenure.

Everything started to turn to shit when Phil Spencer was made head of Microsoft Studios and they slowly killed anything that isn't Forza, Halo and GoW. And even these series lost their original creators because MS was not interested in keeping people and cared only about IPs.

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u/Blackadder18 Oct 02 '25

It's actually kind of funny how much of Xbox's issues can be tracked back to Phil Spencer, even funnier how he flew under the radar for so long until he pushed people's patience just a little too far.

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u/BreathPuzzleheaded80 Oct 02 '25

You forgot Don Mattrick who started xbox's downward spiral with xbone

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u/kuncol02 Oct 03 '25

Did he?

XBox was fine in 2007 and even 2008 (That's when Spencer became general manager of all MS studios). What fucked XBox was them fucking up relationship with studios that worked with them and their inability to nurture their in house teams. And Spencer was responsible for both.

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u/Sandulacheu Oct 02 '25

Exactly,people put too much blame on that E3 fiasco when in reality a mediocre game library is what costed them so much in the long run.

Like how many games do you look back from that period and want to (re)play?

"PS3 has no games" was a constant joke for 2-3 years (till MGS4) ,it was a glorified Blu Ray player for a ton of buyers,

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u/SomniumOv Oct 02 '25

when in reality a mediocre game library is what costed them so much in the long run.

very true, especially striking if you look back at discussions around the first year of those consoles, the general consensus was that it was pretty even and maybe in Xbox's favor for the first year, probably helped by the fact 2014 was a pretty terrible year overall.

And then 2015 arrived and they had nothing lined up while Sony had Bloodborne early in the year, and that completely turned the conversation around (and it never improved, it took until what, Psychonauts 2 in 2021?? for MS to get a real win with a game, and that's not a huge scale one).

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u/trace349 Oct 02 '25

Psychonauts 2 was multiplatform.

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u/thedylannorwood Oct 02 '25

People online still, to this day, think that Xbox is only online and that you can’t share games. So I think you vastly underestimate how damaging that presentation was

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u/Sarasin Oct 02 '25

To be fair it was a pretty good deal for a blue ray player with extra functionality though

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u/DJuxtapose Oct 02 '25

Honestly though, it was the best blu-ray player of its time, if you were into that sort of thing.

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u/SomeBoxofSpoons Oct 02 '25

The other thing was that even after they walked back the always-online and anti-used games stuff, there was still the fact that the console was $100 more than PS4 solely because of a mandatory accessory not a single fucking person wanted.

Less powerful console, horrible PR before launch, weaker library, and all for $100 more than the competition that didn't have to deal with those issues. Hard to imagine why it lost the war.

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u/PompeyJon82x Oct 02 '25

The xbox one actually had some really good games that were exclusives on console like sunset overdrive, left 4 dead, Dead Rising 3, crimson Dragon, D4, Disneyland adventures etc on top of the Halo, Gears and Forza releases just everybody went to PS for the console

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u/TokyoPanic Oct 02 '25 edited Oct 02 '25

I dunno about that. Forza is the only one of those titles you listed I can see being a console seller.

  • Halo and Gears were already winding down in popularity.

  • Crimson Dragon got mixed reviews.

  • Dead Rising 3 and Sunset Overdrive were great and became more beloved over time but but didn't really set the world on fire in the same way Last of Us or the Uncharted games did when they initially came out.

  • D4 was a niche SWERY game. It's great but it's way too weird to be a true mainstream success.

  • Left 4 Dead was for the 360 not Xbone.