I will never, ever understand why the Xbox didn't just go with 1, 2, 3, etc. Even after the 360, why not do 720, 1080, etc? after the xbox ONE, why not xbox TWO, THREE, etc? Why go with Series S and X? it makes no sense - literally beyond my comprehension. so, going back to the article, xbox died for me the minute the xbox one came out. the name alone was indicative of a rot and disfunction beyond comprehension.
The established wisdom is that it is because the Xbox was one generation "behind" the PS. They didn't want to call the second Xbox an "Xbox 2" because people would assume it was intended to be a competitor to the PS2, when in fact it was a competitor to the PS3 - hence, "Xbox 360".
They went off the deep end after that. Xbox One was a stupid name, as is the current alphabet soup. They should have gone from Xbox 360 to Xbox 4. Yes, it would be a little embarrassing to copy your competitor's versioning, but that's a small price for consumer clarity.
I imagine the going Xbox 360 -> Xbox 720 would just have been asking to people to joke about it being 720p (even if not actually, the picture quality joke basically writes itself).
The solution though was obviously not the brainworm reasoning that got us the Xbox One (nobody was going to call their console 'The One', cf. 'X-bone'). Your alternative of going straight to the Xbox 4 would probably have been considered a loss by the executives, but I imagine it at least wouldn't have been made fun of beyond the release period, since it would have been clear why they did the change.
(a) they wanted to make it hard to know what console was the newest or oldest to promote users to just throw up their arms and buy the newest XBox?
(b) they wanted each one to be very unique and different sounding so they would never get confused with one another, but their sequence is difficult to understand
The people in charge of such decisions were too stupid or self-assured to realize or worry about such obvious problems.
There is no meritocracy. These billion dollar brands and endeavors, that have thousands of livelihoods tied up in them, are managed by absolutely brain dead bozos.
xbox went up in flames with the xbox one, which was around about when microsoft as a whole started to get run by business types that had no idea what they were doing whatsoever. 2013 was when xbox permanently lost the console 'war'
I doubt the war was truly lost on that faithful day in 2013. It was still possible to save, and Phil Spencer even did a decent amount of work trying to reclaim the goodwill of people by pushing for things like backwards compatibility for previous gen Xboxes.
I think the larger problem is just that Xbox doesn't really know what itself is. Sony has the same problem to a lesser extent. None of the current gen consoles have any exclusives of note. Sony have a few, while Microsoft have basically none. That alone gives Sony a big advantage. Meanwhile, in the PS4 days, people would buy one just for Bloodborne, while in the 360 days, they'd buy one just for Halo. Now Halo is on PC, so no longer an exclusive, and while the same goes for Sony, they still retain a bit of a default console status, which helps draw in the couch console crown who aren't interested in the PC. If you want a traditional console experience, you buy a PS5, since there's no real reason to buy the Xbox even if you did care to compare them side by side.
This is anecdata point of one, but I bought the xbox hoping to play split screen with my kids and to play some more of the ghost recon franchise which I last played on the original xbox. My kid got into the latest ghost recon on the xbox, but I don't like sandboxes so I never played it. The split screen on xbox never materialized for us, I just couldn't find any good titles.
I ended up getting a steam deck which is just amazing and the kids ended up on on tablets (minecraft/roblox) and on PCs (arma and such).
For split screen we ended up occasionally connecting the steam deck to the tv and re-pairing Xbox controllers to it.
I can absolutely relate. I bought a series x at launch with the exact same idea, and have had the same disappointment. Minecraft and Borderlands have been about the only solid split screen titles on this whole generation. That being said, I do feel like I've gotten my money's worth out of the hardware. It just didn't play out like I was hoping. Also, I agree with the article's complaint about gamepass. I had ultimate starting when I bought the console in 2020. I don't remember what I paid at the beginning, but I think it was like $8/month. They lost me when they just upped it from $20-$30. I mean, $20 was already a stretch, but a 50% increase on top of that? Bye.
The ONLY split-screen games I've found of any use on Xbox are the various silly cooking/moving games (which are fun), Minecraft, Stardew Valley, and ... that's basically it.
Quite hard to find couch coop these days. People play mostly online. Overcooked, It Takes Two, Larian studios games are the ones we’ve found that we enjoy as a couple. But realistically only Overcooked is drop in arcade like playable.
Though one vertical shooter “sky force reloaded” is super fun in the old style.
I don't really want this future, but is there any reason why Sony hasn't just embedded Playstation into their TVs? It seems obvious to me that they could persuade people to buy their TV over others this way.
The controller design/feel and the more seamless/intuitive online play & party handling kept me on the Xbox side of the fence for a looooooong time.
That said, if I didn’t have to re-buy a bunch of content I already own and if I could avoid playing against MnK players while I’m on controller, I’d have already switched over entirely to using my workstation to play all my games. New purchases for myself and my kids are 100% on Steam.
>and if I could avoid playing against MnK players while I’m on controller
If you can stand to move away from an Xbox controller (they're the only ones without gyro still) and learn gyro/flick stick, it levels the playing field a lot more. Flick stick's instant turns even give it some advantages over KB+M.
8BitDo's controllers are the best-supported on Steam at the moment, with gyro, analog triggers, and back buttons all fully working at the same time now in DInput mode. I use the Pro 2, but if you prefer Xbox layout, you may want one of their Ultimate controllers. Don't buy the ones that are licensed Xbox controllers as I believe they then don't have gyro. Many have the Nintendo button labels, but Steam has a toggle to use the Xbox layout.
I really hate UI button mismatch in steam. I grew up on PS controllers, I couldn't even tell you the xbox layout from memory. I was once forced to use a Switch controller (was traveling, forgot my main) while the in-screen UI was XBox. I had so much trouble at first, especially since the xbox and switch controllers share button names but even the "x" made me think of the playstation x. Just some musings.
Some games now put you in matchmaking pools based on input device, like Overwatch from a update a few months ago. In OW, you have a Controller pool and a Mouse and Keyboard pool. You confirm which device you want to use for gameplay and other inputs are disabled. Although I do think they don't let controller on pc play in comp.
I meant the other way. I would switch over to playing something like Destiny on Steam on my PC and just use the Windows Xbox app for joining chat parties with my friends, but if I am playing on PC using a Controller, I’m going to end up matched with a ton of cheaters and be in mixed MnK and controller lobbies. By continuing to play on Xbox I mostly avoid those issues, save for PlayStation players using a Cronus or Xim.
However, in writing this I’ve realized that this is really only a problem for me when playing Destiny and only when I’m playing PvP. As the player population continues to die and I move on to other games or mostly PvE content in Destiny, then I’m not going to care anymore and I can switch entirely over to PC.
On the one hand, that’s going to be pretty convenient. On the other, it’s kind of a sad realization as it marks the end of a very long era of console gaming for me stretching all the way back to the NES.
My son has a Switch, but other than that my kids have only ever known using a PC as a “console”. Their play room has a relatively compact PC (13th Gen. Intel CPU & ARC A770 dGPU) connected to a TV that just runs Steam and Batocera with 4x USB 8BitDo controllers attached.
By all appearances, until about the last year or so, I would look like an ideal customer demographic for Microsoft. I’ve purchased every single gaming platform they’ve ever produced, but I’m thiiiiiiiiis close to having migrated entirely away, and it wasn’t really a conscious decision. It just sort of happened a little bit at a time. :-/
They should really not charge for the old Xbox Live subscription to play multiplayer and keep the subscriptions for access to the Netflix style library of games, long overdue.
You used to have Xbox Live Gold and Silver, they ought to just make a Bronze level that allows free multiplayer but spams you with ads, Silver allows multiplayer ad-free and a limited selection of rotated games ala the epic store freebies, and gold includes the Game Pass functionality + everything else and a special cosmetic tag so people know you're a Serious Gamer. Could even go with Xbox Live Diamond which is $100 a month and only includes a diamond tag and some microsoft store credit each month, to capture the financially irresponsible market.
This is an opinion piece embodying a meme that willed itself into existence this year, mostly through social media and Youtube influencers. It was interesting to observe (and tedious as a friend watched dozens of hours of these videos and breathlessly repeated their contents to me.) At some point an Xbox executive had to respond to it to assure that they are working on the next Xbox console, which should've been obvious to players given where we are in the cycle.
The will to manifest the meme into reality came from a convergence of trends. Neophyte linux enthusiasts in gaming drove a lot of it, I suspect.
I'd be more impressed if an Xbox executive said that they weren't working on a new console, I mean I can't see how it can work as a business unless they change their attitude 200%. I trust those YouTubers more than I trust mainstream game journalists.
In the current market for electronics I can't imagine a quantum leap in consoles at a sub-$1000 price point, it is not like NVIDIA or AMD gives a damn about gaming in this environment where it is all about selling as many GPU for AI as they can while they can.
Steam Deck is long in the tooth. I think PS and XBOX portables could muscle into that space, XBOX is already licensing their name, but balancing size-cost-performance-power does not look easy but the PS Vita was my favorite dedicated game system I ever owned. I like my Deck but it is too big and I have to think long and hard if I want to pack it in my t̴a̴i̴l̴ backpack on any given day or pack something else.
A realistic plan is shut down most of Activision and sell the rest to Tencent, take an $80 billion goodwill loss so they won't pay tax for half a decade, Wall St won't care so long as they keep making noises about AI, do right by Azure, Windows, Office and the enterprise stuff. Keep Windows great for gaming and keep the brand alive as part of that and if they want to sell XBOX branded body wash or something, bully for them. Set free from Activision those developers will be able to make good games again.
I think that's part of the convergence, too. A perceived war between scrappy honest influencers and legacy journalism, some long fallout from game journalism controversies a decade ago. Why would someone read a mainstream games journalist about this story, either? Same for tying a hardware console's fortunes to whatever Microsoft is doing with Activision.
All three (four counting Steam) consoles update every several years. A quick Wikipedia skim tells you almost everything you need to know about that. They're all packaging the AMD and Nvidia hardware available along some price-performance point (they all have access to the same tradeoffs) and releasing developer SDKs. Each one has a store, some deals and a slightly different take on how they integrate streaming and retro games.
I have trouble seeing how attitude affects executing any of this. The attitude only comes into play because Xbox has to respond to this meme in a way that placates gamers.
That said, my kids got a Switch 2 for Christmas and we just got done with a super fun session of Mario Party Jamboree and boy are Mario, Bowser, and the gang looking GREAT! Super fun, everyone was laughing and having a great time. They’ve always operated in a different universe than the other console makers.
If we want to play the sorts of games XBOX and PlayStation offer, we’ll just load up the Steam Deck, or if it’s a super graphically intensive game we’ll use my RTX 5090 I use for local LLMs anyway. With a few console commands and config hacking, I was able to get Portal 2 to run split screen across 2 full screens for each player, which was super fun!
Imo it is just a matter of time until linux replaces Windows as the primary gaming OS. What ripple effects that will have idk, but I def think Windows will primarily become a casual computing OS
What? It's not talking about WINE, it's talking about SteamOS.
> The Steam Machine is basically a tiny gaming desktop for your TV, running the Steam Deck's SteamOS. That platform is a Linux distribution optimized for emulating Windows titles.
I hope Sony dies as well because the way they be charging prices is absurd. I once had my account hacked and they couldn't get my $300+ I've spent on digital content.
While I agree with your overall point (that Sony's customer support in this case is terrible), I feel it also illustrates the biggest flaw in SAAS gaming and the inability to back up game installers (á la GOG) if one wishes to: that if someone else dictates your access to games you supposedly own, then you don't actually own it. Access = ownership.
Couldn’t read the article (ad blockers just decided the whole site is an ad, perhaps?)
But I agree. I (foolishly) spent money on an Xbox last year only to find bugs that would make the Windows operating system weep. My kids have to ask me CONSTANTLY to update things, re-install game, or even just troubleshoot a damn controller not working.
Compare that to Steam, where I can just add them to my family and give them access to a huge number of split-screen compatible games across my entire catalog. It just doesn’t make financial sense to keep supporting Microsoft’s enshittification of everything.
I used to hate everything GAME PASS stood for but couldn't deny it was good value for the money and if you could find a game you wanted to play on it every month go right ahead.
With this year's price hikes though that's not the case anymore, you are better off just buying a good $20 game every month or buying a good $50 game every other month.
I used to follow system wars. I used to love following which home console was performing the best and then hopping online and trolling the people who bought the console with the least support. I was a huge fan of the 360 when I was younger. It had a superior controller, awesome online play, and decent graphics. I was never a fan of Sony's consoles. I didn't like the controller layout, and the exclusives never appealed to me. I typically owned a Nintendo and a Microsoft console when I was a kid. I started with the N64, GameCube, 360, and I had an Xbox One.
I stopped following mainstream gaming not too long ago, to me, I just couldn't care less at this point. The Series X doesn't appeal to me at all as I've gotten older.
It would be interesting if Microsoft went the way of Sega and stopped producing home consoles. I still think they have the superior controller.
There seems to be a point in every large tech company's lifecycle where they decide they can replace innovation with businesses deals.
Someone with no real technological vision takes the helm, and they end up listening to MBAs instead of techies, visionaries or even customers. They spend their efforts focusing solely on maximizing profits, and then trying to take a shortcut on invention through acquisitions or by chasing fads.
I mean, Microsoft makes like $20B in profit every quarter, so it's not like the MBAs are useless. They're just useless at creating the future.
I like to think it's a plan to kill off video games. I mean, make it so uncool that parents will be worried that the kids won't sit in front of the game console and insist on playing outside all the time.
(To be fair, game consoles outgrew kids by the Xbox 360 generation if not earlier, they'd have to ruin mobile games to change childhood)
They went off the deep end after that. Xbox One was a stupid name, as is the current alphabet soup. They should have gone from Xbox 360 to Xbox 4. Yes, it would be a little embarrassing to copy your competitor's versioning, but that's a small price for consumer clarity.
The solution though was obviously not the brainworm reasoning that got us the Xbox One (nobody was going to call their console 'The One', cf. 'X-bone'). Your alternative of going straight to the Xbox 4 would probably have been considered a loss by the executives, but I imagine it at least wouldn't have been made fun of beyond the release period, since it would have been clear why they did the change.
(a) they wanted to make it hard to know what console was the newest or oldest to promote users to just throw up their arms and buy the newest XBox?
(b) they wanted each one to be very unique and different sounding so they would never get confused with one another, but their sequence is difficult to understand
The people in charge of such decisions were too stupid or self-assured to realize or worry about such obvious problems.
There is no meritocracy. These billion dollar brands and endeavors, that have thousands of livelihoods tied up in them, are managed by absolutely brain dead bozos.
I think the larger problem is just that Xbox doesn't really know what itself is. Sony has the same problem to a lesser extent. None of the current gen consoles have any exclusives of note. Sony have a few, while Microsoft have basically none. That alone gives Sony a big advantage. Meanwhile, in the PS4 days, people would buy one just for Bloodborne, while in the 360 days, they'd buy one just for Halo. Now Halo is on PC, so no longer an exclusive, and while the same goes for Sony, they still retain a bit of a default console status, which helps draw in the couch console crown who aren't interested in the PC. If you want a traditional console experience, you buy a PS5, since there's no real reason to buy the Xbox even if you did care to compare them side by side.
I ended up getting a steam deck which is just amazing and the kids ended up on on tablets (minecraft/roblox) and on PCs (arma and such).
For split screen we ended up occasionally connecting the steam deck to the tv and re-pairing Xbox controllers to it.
Though one vertical shooter “sky force reloaded” is super fun in the old style.
They did try it once before.
it's not like sony never gave it a shot (ref. KDL22PX300)
That said, if I didn’t have to re-buy a bunch of content I already own and if I could avoid playing against MnK players while I’m on controller, I’d have already switched over entirely to using my workstation to play all my games. New purchases for myself and my kids are 100% on Steam.
If you can stand to move away from an Xbox controller (they're the only ones without gyro still) and learn gyro/flick stick, it levels the playing field a lot more. Flick stick's instant turns even give it some advantages over KB+M.
8BitDo's controllers are the best-supported on Steam at the moment, with gyro, analog triggers, and back buttons all fully working at the same time now in DInput mode. I use the Pro 2, but if you prefer Xbox layout, you may want one of their Ultimate controllers. Don't buy the ones that are licensed Xbox controllers as I believe they then don't have gyro. Many have the Nintendo button labels, but Steam has a toggle to use the Xbox layout.
However, in writing this I’ve realized that this is really only a problem for me when playing Destiny and only when I’m playing PvP. As the player population continues to die and I move on to other games or mostly PvE content in Destiny, then I’m not going to care anymore and I can switch entirely over to PC.
On the one hand, that’s going to be pretty convenient. On the other, it’s kind of a sad realization as it marks the end of a very long era of console gaming for me stretching all the way back to the NES.
My son has a Switch, but other than that my kids have only ever known using a PC as a “console”. Their play room has a relatively compact PC (13th Gen. Intel CPU & ARC A770 dGPU) connected to a TV that just runs Steam and Batocera with 4x USB 8BitDo controllers attached.
By all appearances, until about the last year or so, I would look like an ideal customer demographic for Microsoft. I’ve purchased every single gaming platform they’ve ever produced, but I’m thiiiiiiiiis close to having migrated entirely away, and it wasn’t really a conscious decision. It just sort of happened a little bit at a time. :-/
The will to manifest the meme into reality came from a convergence of trends. Neophyte linux enthusiasts in gaming drove a lot of it, I suspect.
In the current market for electronics I can't imagine a quantum leap in consoles at a sub-$1000 price point, it is not like NVIDIA or AMD gives a damn about gaming in this environment where it is all about selling as many GPU for AI as they can while they can.
Steam Deck is long in the tooth. I think PS and XBOX portables could muscle into that space, XBOX is already licensing their name, but balancing size-cost-performance-power does not look easy but the PS Vita was my favorite dedicated game system I ever owned. I like my Deck but it is too big and I have to think long and hard if I want to pack it in my t̴a̴i̴l̴ backpack on any given day or pack something else.
A realistic plan is shut down most of Activision and sell the rest to Tencent, take an $80 billion goodwill loss so they won't pay tax for half a decade, Wall St won't care so long as they keep making noises about AI, do right by Azure, Windows, Office and the enterprise stuff. Keep Windows great for gaming and keep the brand alive as part of that and if they want to sell XBOX branded body wash or something, bully for them. Set free from Activision those developers will be able to make good games again.
All three (four counting Steam) consoles update every several years. A quick Wikipedia skim tells you almost everything you need to know about that. They're all packaging the AMD and Nvidia hardware available along some price-performance point (they all have access to the same tradeoffs) and releasing developer SDKs. Each one has a store, some deals and a slightly different take on how they integrate streaming and retro games.
I have trouble seeing how attitude affects executing any of this. The attitude only comes into play because Xbox has to respond to this meme in a way that placates gamers.
If we want to play the sorts of games XBOX and PlayStation offer, we’ll just load up the Steam Deck, or if it’s a super graphically intensive game we’ll use my RTX 5090 I use for local LLMs anyway. With a few console commands and config hacking, I was able to get Portal 2 to run split screen across 2 full screens for each player, which was super fun!
https://web.archive.org/web/20150704163602/http://www.euroga...
> That platform is a Linux distribution optimized for emulating Windows titles
WINE stands for "WINE is not an emulator."
> The Steam Machine is basically a tiny gaming desktop for your TV, running the Steam Deck's SteamOS. That platform is a Linux distribution optimized for emulating Windows titles.
But I agree. I (foolishly) spent money on an Xbox last year only to find bugs that would make the Windows operating system weep. My kids have to ask me CONSTANTLY to update things, re-install game, or even just troubleshoot a damn controller not working.
Compare that to Steam, where I can just add them to my family and give them access to a huge number of split-screen compatible games across my entire catalog. It just doesn’t make financial sense to keep supporting Microsoft’s enshittification of everything.
With this year's price hikes though that's not the case anymore, you are better off just buying a good $20 game every month or buying a good $50 game every other month.
I stopped following mainstream gaming not too long ago, to me, I just couldn't care less at this point. The Series X doesn't appeal to me at all as I've gotten older.
It would be interesting if Microsoft went the way of Sega and stopped producing home consoles. I still think they have the superior controller.
Someone with no real technological vision takes the helm, and they end up listening to MBAs instead of techies, visionaries or even customers. They spend their efforts focusing solely on maximizing profits, and then trying to take a shortcut on invention through acquisitions or by chasing fads.
I mean, Microsoft makes like $20B in profit every quarter, so it's not like the MBAs are useless. They're just useless at creating the future.
What is Microsoft's BHAG for XBox?
(To be fair, game consoles outgrew kids by the Xbox 360 generation if not earlier, they'd have to ruin mobile games to change childhood)