Yep not advertising at all in EU is doing wonders, they should keep doing that.
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I have so much to play right now, that even here, I don’t post that much. I think that people are just either too busy with their own life or playing as much as they can, even catching to some older games, especially with all the sales on games Xbox had lately.
I have jumped from release to release since january, so yeah, I have less time for interaction myself. Even on PlayStation, people have been busy with FFVII Rebirth and Helldivers 2. I think that’s pretty normal but it will come back with the Showcase season in june-july. I’m not worried one bit, even with Xbox Series consoles sales being down. It will go back up in a few months with Hellbalde 2.
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You don’t get it do you? Unless it’s a first party Sony game or a Sony published titled, or a Sony paid console exclusive, or have Jim Ryan’s blessing, it just doesn’t count! People don’t play games, they only look at Metacritic scores and whether or not it was released on Playstation. You’ve basically been living a lie this whole time and Xbox has had a game drought on Series consoles since launch.
Honestly though, I have so much good shit on Gamepass right now and I feel bad for people paying full price for stuff on the other system when uncle Phil gives it all away for free!
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The only generation where Xbox was seen as cool and desirable in Europe was during the 360 generation… when MS was heavily advertising to make it look cool and desirable. (This fact confuses the current Xbox leadership)
Nowadays, Xbox is invisible. They barely have retail presence, and don’t advertise at all anywhere. And now even the few pro-Xbox influencers and online community has cooled off Xbox, due to self-inflicted terrible decisions from leadership. So why should a casual gamer think of Xbox when it comes to buying a console? Does the average casual even know what Game Pass is, or that this service exists? Out of sight, out of mind. Sony spends enormously on marketing to make PS the cool and desirable console. And good for them, cause it’s working.
It’s not about ‘‘beating’’ the PS5 either, just growing your userbase, or at the very least, maintaining it. Nowadays, Xbox in Europe is behind Xbox One, so people are LEAVING Xbox. Being invisible is surely the correct strategy to continue this fantastic trajectory.
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360 was an anomaly, not the norm in Europe.
NAh it wouldn’t but it would have been shoehorned in more GOTY categories and critics would forgive it more
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it still sold poorly compared to PS3 in Europe. If you exclude the UK the ratio was disgusting. Especially when you consider 360 was vastly superior in every way for about half the gen
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Yeah, idk why people are using it as an example.
Very special circumstances went into that.
In regards to the Xbox 360 Europe thing, I keep seeing people bring up the fact that the PS3 outsold it.
You are missing the point, and I even said that it wasn’t about beating Sony.
I said: “the last time an Xbox console was cool and desirable was during that 360 gen”. I did not say it was the only desirable console or the most popular one that gen. Why do we need to always bring Sony into this? Because people keep trying to downplay the success of the 360 there so that the atrocious performance this gen doesn’t seem as bad. Regardless, I’m comparing Xbox with Xbox. What Xbox did when it was successful vs what Xbox is doing when it is unsuccessful.
MS increased efforts in Japan, making streaming sponsorships with Vtubers, courting Japanese devs, getting 3rd party marketing deals with Japanese games, advertising Game Pass, doing TGS, etc., and the Xbox Series is outperforming the Xbox One there, and Japan has historically been a territory even more hostile to Xbox than Europe ever was. I don’t see how people can’t connect the dots.
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The official line is that consoles are done and MS is right trying to ditch them in the medium/long run, but it seems to me only Xbox consoles are done. Huge mistake, they’ll cry crocodile tears a couple years from now, like the fake tears for stupidily abandoning mobile (I mean, if MS would lose some money/market share in the grand scheme, I’ll honestly laugh, outside gaming they are among worst offenders in several bad practices). Also, 360 is not considered because current management is not capable to replicate it, aka sell a a desiderable product, too difficult apparently, so “it wouldn’t change” to apply the winning formula used for it. Imagine why it’s the most successfull (yeah, even considering now it had a superior market share and relative numbers, market now is generally bigger) and fondly remembered Xbox.
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The Developer Direct we had in January was great, but the resulting multiplatform news was definitely a punch in the gut that killed off the momentum that had been building at the start of the year. Since then Playstation has gotten two GOTY contenders in Helldivers and Final Fantasy Rebirth, with potentially another on the way in the form of Rise of the Ronin, while all we have until May was that mediocre Partner Showcase and Palworld (which I’m personally not interested in). There’s just not that much to talk about right now unfortunately, and it feels like other than Game Pass (which is still delivering consistently thankfully) Microsoft keep fumbling the ball.
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Good point. I think the team they have put in Japan and Asia has been solid. Who knows you might just see Jim Ryan pop up for Xbox in the UK. They’ve been hiring so perhaps they will get strong group in Europe that can figure out what needs to be done and do it.
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It is a good point but all the work they put in Japan is mainly for western gamers benefit. The hardware is still non existent in Japan nor is it desirable by any means. It outselling X1 means nothing in the grand scheme of things.
There’s an incentive to wine n dine Japanese studios and pump alot of money into the Japan market because they have a ton of studios that they don’t want their games to skip the Xbox platform. That incentive isn’t there for Europe, Xbox doesn’t have to worry about wooing them because the vast majority of European studios already port their games to Xbox. It’s why they try 10X harder in Japan even though the Xbox hardware simply by a numbers game is more irrelevant in Japan than it is in Europe.
Don’t get me wrong, I want them to improve their marketing in Europe but I’m not so sure Xbox sees much gains from it compared to Japan. They certainly behave in that manner.
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I’d probably only consider FF7R a GOTY contender in that list. But also, I wanna see that conversation when Sony has nothing later that year and MS has a deluge of games coming out.
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I disagree. I don’t think they’re putting all that effort in Japan and Asia simply for the benefit of western gamers. They do want to have some ground in Asia and this is a good start. The results you see at the moment might seem to mainly benefit westerners but I think there’s more to it. For example it was recently discovered that Microsoft was quite close to acquiring Sega that doesn’t happen with no foundation in Japan and majority of Japanese developers always complain about Xbox’s presence in Japan often using it as an excuse to skip the console. Another example is Netflix which for quite sometime now has been bringing and bolstering Asian content on their stream and that has led to about 45 million subscribers from Asia. One would think the number might be lower than a million but it is surprisingly high. There is no reason to think the Netflix of games wouldn’t be aiming for similar if not more.
As for Europe it’s still about the business at the end of the day. Though I can see reasons why they may not be doing what many are thinking. At the end of the day it is still a big market in which Microsoft promised to grow in during their time seeking approval for ABK. The business is there so the incentive should as well.
In my opinion though I really don’t think there are many Xbox consoles in the wild which might be one reason as there was news that Microsoft had suspended console production while Sony cut theirs. In Microsoft’s case I’m guessing they’re phasing out the current consoles for a new all digital refresh. Another thing is I just don’t think Microsoft has had any real content this gen to market other than Halo, Forza Horizon an Starfield and they have been sporadic. COD would probably be the first time they will have real major content or perhaps Indiana Jones maybe from there they will kick the marketing into overdrive.
I know people keep saying PlayStation doesn’t have games, but they still do have some money hatted games and some games are skipping Xbox that make them look exclusive to the other platforms. There is still Lost Soul Aside, and the Genshin developers"Mihoyo" have Zenless Zone Zero seemingly coming to Playstation.
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That Zenless game looks really bad and doesn’t come close to the caliber of titles we will be seeing from first parties imo. And Lost Soul Aside from some unknown developer isn’t even comparable in scope and quality.
Why not bring Palworld in the conversation then considering it’s exclusive and had far more players than any of the games mentioned that released so far this year on PS5.
You’re literally comparing games that have 0 hype behind them and comparing them to Indiana Jones and Avowed? Their not even in the same league.
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The 360 even outsold the PS3 in my country… It was the console of choice for gaming media as well, pretty much the complete opposite of now.
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Zenless Zone Zero is actually the only Hoyoverse game I’m interested in and would love for it to come to xbox.
Seems like some people want to downplay of revise history when it comes to how successful the 360 was. Seemed like they were at their most aggressive when it came to pushing the console compared to now. It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows but it was a great time to be an xbox gamer. If only we could combine the more aggressive Xbox division of that time with the amount of Studios and software they have under their belts now.
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I think many have created the delusion current management is god tier because numbers are higher than ever, because… general market grew and MS did a huge M&A campaign, not because Xbox itself has grown that much (if any, they relatively shrunk compared to 360). So you can downplaying 360 looking at numbers without context.
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