I mean, Xbox has yet to have a steady lineup of games tbh. Last year Xbox only released Pentiment, which is extremely niche. This year things are heating up with Forza, Starfield and Redfall, but one game was terrible received.
Starfield is massive but it won’t, on it’s own, make Xbox sell a lot better. It was pretty much the first big Xbox exclusive that wasn’t Forza and Halo, and if you’re a fan of these franchises you probably already have an xbox.
In 2024, or even 2025, we will actually see a steady release of games. Then we will actually see if it has an effect on sales or not.
We need to having hopium about the Xbox hardware winning the sales race, MS don’t care about those anymore. They change the landscape of gaming for a reason, and that is to focus on ecosystems instead of a singular console because it will make them more money in a long run, plus it differentiate them from Sony. Frankly, it’s smart move because they are trying to shape the gaming market in their favor( and it’s working in terms of MAU and profit).
At the same time, Xbox is not going anywhere. It’s part of the ecosystem and as long as there is demand for it, they will still make it. However, it won’t be like the 360 days because Xbox games are also on PC. There is a reason why PS hasn’t committed on putting day one on PC yet, and that is they want to prop up their console sales to tell their shareholders they are doing good, however, with the recent events at Sony right now, shareholders aren’t convinced lol.
On the bright side, COD bundles will be a regular occurrence now since they own ABK, so it’s up to Microsoft to capitalize on, especially for series s, which can be huge in developing countries if they price it right. However, given that their marketing and pricing outside the Anglosphere is meh, they have a long way to go
For me it’s not about the sales race per se, it’s about the market reflecting the value of each product more accurately.
The vastness of the PS5’s current dominance goes way, way beyond what’s in the box (or what’s playable on it). The PS2 was a legitimate monster which came after one of the best consoles of all time with one of the most diverse & greatest libraries of all time (the PS1).
Meanwhile the PS5 has… Spiderman 2? Demon’s Souls Remake? I can play GT7, Ragnarok & Horizon on the PS4. I can play all third party AAA’s on my Series X (with better VRR coverage as well, along with low framerate compensation for people with a 120hz tv). I mean there’s just no way the PS5 is selling so well based on what it offers versus the competition (namely Xbox). Certainly not in terms of games either.
My opinion? The PS5 is the console equivalent of Marvel phase 4. The fans are still buying it & casuals still view it as the ‘default’ entertainment device.
But it doesn’t mean Sony can take this success for granted. If their GAAS fails, or their single player AAA’s become stale (one could argue this is already the case), then they’ll have problems. I guess this is partly why Jim Ryan is out the door, i.e. they want to change a few things to keep on top of the game. We’ll see.
I’m asking what games would make the average gamer decide they really must have an Xbox to play them? They’d need to be massive cultural moments. Games so big you absolutely have to play them. I’m thinking GTA6 level. Even ten or fifteen games that are solid or even really good will not grab attention of the majority of gamers nor in terms of laying out for a new system.
To me I find that we’ve had a steady lineup of incredible games for years. I think the problem is that people, pretty much in all of Europe and Asia, are too deeply into PlayStation and just won’t switch. Unless MS keeps buying and takes big hitters and makes them exclusive to a point where it just hurts players so much that they just can’t ignore you, I think there is little they can do as we have the games, we have the services, we have a good price point, and yet the needle isn’t moving at all.
We literally have one of the best Xbox generations and yet, they don’t have the success they deserve. Something just isn’t right!
There isn’t a single game that will sell consoles, but multiple games definitely will. I mean, I didn’t buy a playstation 4 to play only God of war, even though I had a lot of interest in the game. I bought it to play God of war plus every Sony exclusive game released prior to it, like Horizon, Uncharted 4 and Bloodborne.
One game won’t move the nail, but multiple years of releasing multiple popular and well recieved games definitely will.
I know people that are interested about Starfield but won’t buy an xbox just to play it. But with Starfield, Hellblade II, Avowed and Fable, it surely looks like a more attractive console.
Yeah, this is it. I like Microsoft’s output outside of 2022 , but I think issue is some of these games don’t have the mass appeal that Sony games have. However, they can still turn it around by improving output and improve marketing their games
They are not quite there yet. This gen did not get off to a great start, the console launched without a big game and it took almost a year for those games to come. FH5 being the massive hit, pretty much carrying the console in Europe for a long time, since Halo Infinite fell on its face. Then you have 2022 with nothing big at all and it’s not until Starfield comes along this September that we have a big game. It has been anything but consistent.
We in the ecosystem of course have been eating good, with Game Pass and lots of smaller titles but from the outside it’s probably been kinda meh for this gen.
When more big games come, more often, Xbox will eventually reach that threshold where people will invest in the platform to a larger extent.
Multiple games won’t either. You can have ten Alan wake 2 level games and hardcore will want it but it won’t change the majority. They won’t care. Unless the games are so massive they are must plays and cultural moments I don’t see games changing it.
I mean, we don’t have empirical evidence to talk about this, so all we are saying here are subjective opinion. Until Xbox starts to have a backlog of multiple well received games with mass appeal we won’t know.
But what I can say is that quality speaks for itself. I mean, Baldur’s Gate 3 is a sequel to a 20 years old game, a crpg (which is a very niche genre), and most people didn’t even know about the game until it’s release. In the end, it turn out to be a massive success and a cultural phenomenon.
Yeah but we aren’t taking about whether games can do well. We are talking about a mass market that has chosen PlayStation or switch or Pc instead choosing Xbox. That’s a much different barrier to cross.
Well, my point is that we can’t say that exclusives games won’t make Xbox sell well yet. We need to see Xbox having a bigger and better library than it’s competitors to know it’s effects. And, at the moment, the Series X exclusives library is lacking when compared to Ps/Nintendo.
2023 is a good first step into making Xbox library more attractive. But this is it, a first step. Xbox will need to continue having good years to make itself more attractive. We can’t say that Xbox has done anything in it’s power when years like 2022 happened. Xbox can and will do better. We just need to wait and see the results.
Any game or games, outside of MS somehow making GTA 6 or EA FC console exclusive, will NOT move the needle. They just won’t. Spiderman 2 could have been a xbox exclusive and it would have bombed in EU.
And, while the issue of localization is one MS should fix, but people are deluded if they think that’s the issue.
The problem MS has in Europe, and large parts of the world, cuts much deeper than just games. PS and Nintendo are just entrenched in people minds as console gaming in that region.
It’s a lost cause. What’s more, people inside MS know this, which is why they half ass marketing in that region. They’ve tried in the past. They know it’s pointless. This change inside MS happened years ago when Spencer first declared the console war dead. He knows they won’t ever get close PS again. Remember when he went on Kinda funny and said that Starfield could be a 10 and it won’t close the gap? Well, he was spot on.
A console is like a movie. You know it was good if people go see the sequel.
Xbox Series X suffer from Xbox One being a failure. When you fail, you take more than one gen to recover.
Ps2 was successful thanks to ps1. Ps3 should have been a monster, but it was halted by its infamous price. Ps4 was helped by the good end of gen of the ps3, the general hate towards Kinect and the failed launch of Xone.
ps5 is riding on the shoulders of the success of the ps4. ps6 will have very much difficulties not to be a success, but who knows.
I’m loathe to say ‘too big to fail’, but when it comes to PS in the EU it really is too big too fail. It would take a unprecedented disaster, for say, the PS6 to flop in the EU.
Nintendo and PlayStation brands by themselves won’t save a console. I mean, the Wii U was a total flop. And then, what Nintendo did? They released amazing games consistently with the Switch and it worked out. If the Switch didn’t launch with Botw and Mario Odyssey I can guarantee that it would’t sell as good as it sold.
You’re right that the wii U flopped and Nintendo is not quite the sure bet PS is in EU, but nintendo has a history of selling pretty well in Europe to fall back on. It’s a known and beloved gaming brand.
Xbox biggest success in the EU was being outsold 3:2* by the PS3 (with all its issues).
*I may be being generous by calling it 3:2. I don’t have the exact figure to hand.
Yeah, but if the Xbox One was a success and kept the 360 momentum, Xbox would be slowly closing the gap. Instead the Xbox One launch was atrocious and the gap got bigger. Xbox lost the 360 momentum, they now have to build it again. They can’t afford to have bad years like 2022, while Nintendo and PlayStation could because of their momentum.
What I’m saying is that Xbox will have a hard time gaining it’s momentum in consoles sales back, but if they go on and keep releasing good games it will happen. Years like 2023 should be the norm, not the exception.
WiiU flopped because it was a failed concept. Switch is a good concept, so was the Wii (for its time). Nintendo live and die by being original. No good game would have saved the WiiU.
