Xbox Spring showcase of 2020 they went out of their way on social media to hype up the first Series X “gameplay event”. Aaron Greenberg tweeted repeatedly hyping this event as a big deal. They showed a collection of lower budget third party titles with very little gameplay to be seen and an in engine trailer for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. There was a strong backlash as people were obviously disappointed by what was shown, particularly because they had hyped this to be something much bigger than it was.
Halo Infinite is shown in a very incomplete state, running on a PC, just months before launch. The game is mocked to hell and back and spawns a joke meme that takes over the gaming world for days. The game is delayed 12 months and this leaves the Series X without a single significant exclusive game for it’s launch. This is a colossal blunder. Why wasn’t 343 ready for this event? Trying to pin the blame entirely on Covid doesn’t work. They’d had years prior to work on this game. It was stunning just how incomplete it looked with all the time they had. Why didn’t the Xbox leadership team plan for anything big to go along with Halo? Putting all their eggs in this one basket really left them looking bad.
Xbox Live Gold price doubles, without adding a single new feature, in a obvious attempt to make Game Pass Ultimate look more appealing. This announcement was made on a Friday and written very carefully in a way to try and mislead people into thinking it wasn’t actually a doubling of the price. This announcement receives a swift and furious reaction and is reversed 12 hours later.
The single commonality between all of these events is that they were all such easily avoidable mistakes. Mistakes that amateurs would make. It’s hard not to look at these mistakes and wonder if the people in charge know what they’re doing.
We don’t see Sony or Nintendo trying to double the price of things without adding a single feature, and then having to reverse course hours later because the backlash was so swift. We don’t see Sony or Nintendo launching a console without a single new exclusive game. We don’t see Sony and Nintendo hyping up events and then having to apologize later for being so tone deaf.
Why does this keep happening? Why are some of these same people in charge so many years later, when they’ve been involved in some absolutely ridiculous mistakes like these?
Is Xbox not supposed to hype up there own events? Like thats Aaron Greenberg’s job so who cares.
Halo Infinite is shown in a very incomplete state
No it just lacked visual polish + Covid hit harder than anticipated. Microsoft would rather get this puppy right than half bake it. So correct decision was taken.
Xbox Live Gold price doubles
I do agree this is the only bad one but it was Reversed the same day and nobody cares anymore
This happens because the xbox community is much more critical with Microsoft. Both Sony and Nintendo had lackluster digital events, with fans not being happy enough. Sony did increase price of PS+ and games (with no new features added), and almost nobody complained (and nobody from management apologized or tried to explain their reasons). Nintendo started charging for their bad online service (which, btw, was not associated with a change on thier servers or any attempt to improve their quality), and nobody complained.
Also, Microsoft was much more vocal last year, which increases likelihood to make a mistake.
Obviously everyone has moved on from the Spring event, but I don’t think that means no one should ever bring it up again in the context of a larger discussion, like this one. It was still an embarrassing moment that had every gaming podcast talking for a week about why they hyped up this obviously not impressive event. Aaron Greenberg is a well paid executive. He should know better. That was a rookie mistake.
343 being transparent about new visual improvements to Halo Infinite over the next year doesn’t have anything to do with why the game was in the state it was in July of 2020. They’d already been given 4+ years to work on the game. It did not look impressive given the large development time they’d been given. Why didn’t the Xbox have any other exclusive games to launch alongside Halo? It’s not like console launches sneak up on you. They had years to plan for this, and yet they somehow found themselves with nothing.
the inside show was overhypes by Greenberg. He addressed it and I don’t think they will ever do such a thing again (or from him at least).
XSX needed a must have game for the release and they only had Halo. Maybe they thought they could get away with it and update the graphics at a later date.
Thats probably the result of being a data-driven trillion company. But gamers are irrational, very attached to their console and definitely don’t except such a stupid thing. Someone at Microsoft or even Team Xbox is out of touched and thought this would be a good idea.
Sony and Nintendo do stupid mistakes as well but shitting on Xbox is more fun and having a bigger fanbase results in more fanboys who can make everything Nintendo and Sony do acceptable. PS5 still don’t support an external SSD and no one cares.
The Gold-debacle is the only one that makes me doubt Xbox/MS tbh. That one was insanely out of touch and makes me suspicious. I don’t like what that implies.
Halo was Covid, however it was weird to show it when they should have known it was not ready.
The May show was a combination of setting the wrong expectations and people over hyping themselves, water under the bridge now.
I don’t know who this tiger guy is but if OP want to discuss this topic it’s fair to do it without thinking he’s a fanboy or a troll. Microsoft does a lot of similar mistakes in the past as well.
I have concerns this thread will not lead to particularly useful or productive discussion (even though yes, all 3 of these things were avoidable mistakes)
Please try to be considerate of each other and the points you are making without letting things go off the rails.
