Was he really that bad? Wasn't the predecessor dude the guy who said something along the lines of "all games will require an Internet connection, you cavemen" or something along those lines?
Xbox has been languishing badly and Microsoft games in general have not been doing very well over the past decade despite gaming becoming completely mainstream so one might suspect that he is being retired rather than retiring. Yes, he was better than Mattrick but that was a very, very low bar to clear.
I will give Spencer a bit of credit though for bringing back Microsoft Flight Simulator.
I want to agree but I don't see the greener grass at all. Please bear in mind that this is totally anecdotal.
I own all three major consoles. My PS5 has been switched on about six times since I purchased it at the time the PSVR2 was released. Is it because I'm not into the funky and weird JRPG titles or am I just sold to the Xbox ecosystem? I play Xbox almost every single day. My PS5 is just using up space and for two titles which didn't fully grip me (Horizon and The Last of Us).
All Xbox games are available on PS5. You can play Forza Horizon just fine on PS5 but Ghost of Yotei is never coming to Xbox. Microsoft had to do this because Xbox sales are dismal (below Xbox One) and they're being outsold 3:1.
When did the last new Gears and Halo games come out again? 5+ years ago? That's what Xbox has, historic exclusives. Gears 1 Reloaded came to PS5, Halo: Campaign Evolved is coming to PS5. All the big recent Xbox games have either come to PS5 or are coming. Indiana Jones, Avowed, Flight Simulator 2024, Forza Horizon 5, etc. Then you have to remember most everything else but Halo 5 and a few Gears games were already on PC too.
The only reason to keep an Xbox these days is for your existing library.
Funky and weird JRPG titles and games with cartoony graphics and ridiculous titles are (a) a small percentage of the PlayStation library given that >99% of games are cross-platform, (b) not nearly global enough in their appeal or sales figures to make any disinterested persons the outliers, and (c) in my experience, many of them also release on Xbox, Switch, and/or PC.
I own no consoles and am neutral on JRPGs and cartoony graphics, so I have no skin in this game. But you seem oddly focused on writing off a functionally identical piece of hardware based on the existence of one particular genre that doesn't interest you.
Sounds like the GP still has the mentality of the PS2/late PS1 era, where JRPG with cartoony graphics were indeed the big trend and pushing force of gaming.
But that very abruptly ended with the PS3, between development costs ballooning and shutting down many longstanding studios, trends shifting to chase open world or the blossoming online FPS genre, a shift of Japanese developers towards "global appeal", and the extremely slow start of the PS3 as a viable console to sell for.
Any JRPG studios surviving past that purge are the stragglers, not the trendsetters. And every company has their battle scars from that time. Final fantasy development exploded in budget, the "Tales of" series coasted along (fans would call it the "call of duty of JRPGs"), Atlus had to be bought out by Sega to survive (and fortunately, thrive), Monolith broke off of Bandai Namco and went to Nintendo, and so many more stories. Falcom seems to be the only one who simply cruised on by, which speaks to how lean and consistent their development cycle was.
I haven’t looked at the specifics but it’s seemed to me that for years anything that came out on Xbox also came out on PC on the same date, and the PC has titles that aren’t on either Xbox or PS5. There are a lot of games that come out on PS5 and then either never come to PC or there’s a year+ delay. Thats why I have a PC and a PS5 and haven’t considered buying an Xbox for a long time.
There are rumors about upcoming handheld Xbox. Many like the idea
It is announced, marketed as handheld Xbox (asus xbox ally x). Quite expensive, but okay.
After some time (!) they reveal that this handheld Xbox actually won’t play your Xbox games/subscription. It will play your pc subscription and pc games. Wtf
Literally about time when the sales of the device actually start, Microsoft racks up the price of Xbox ultimate from $20 to $30 per month. They unsubscribe page is overloaded.
MS appointing someone with no game experience isn't a good sign, but to be expected at this point. Gamers abandoned the platform and I don't expect it to survive much longer.
That documentary looks like it pulled content from Microsoft's own commissioning of a documentary (an excellent one where they pull no punches on the mistakes they made). While most of it focused on the original Xbox going into 360 the last episode discusses the Xbox One years
God I wish I could just block throwaway accounts sometimes.
Since your snark indicates that you clearly have watched the documentary that I am referring to here is the youtube captions of the relevant segment:
"In order to fix this problem, breakthrough came when we understood that the connections that were being broken were not located on the motherboard but they're actually located inside the components.
The problem was a connection was breaking.
The reason it was breaking was thermal, but it wasn't because of the peak temperature; is because when the unit would get hot and then cold, hot and then cold, every time it did that would stress the connection.
All these people loved playing video games, so they would turn this thing on and off, and when it would turn on and off you get all sorts of stresses, and just like when you you bend something too many times till it finally breaks, that's what was happening."
Lets put aside that of the million plus people watching RIP Felix's "research" only a handful of people actually have the technical expertise to confirm or deny his thesis. Regardless of if his "research" is valid or not, his video is not exactly a mass market documentary like the Microsoft one was. The caption above does a good job of generally explaining the issue to normies and then moving on because you know they have like 18 years of history to cover. Its only a small cadre of weirdos that like to take this ~30 seconds of footage and blow it out of proportion.
No, Phil was quite a good exec I believe, but he was dealt a bad hand and never really was able to play his way out of it. I also think he was hamstrung by Microsoft leadership outside of Xbox and the general push toward AI. There were some issues under his leadership. Notably game quality and timeliness languished under his tenure.
Phil was a terrible exec who confused buying things for growth. The ABK acquisition was a disaster. He wanted to buy Nintendo and valve too. They gave him all the cash he wanted and he just lit it on fire.
