In 2001, a new platform joined the world of gaming. Microsoft, the tech giant, introduced us all to Xbox and a new era of gaming started. SEGA was almost done with console gaming as their last few consoles (Saturn & Dreamcast) struggled against Sony and Nintendo consoles (PS1, PS2, and Nintendo 64). Xbox then entered the market to compete against PlayStation 2, which is still the greatest-selling console of all time, and Nintendo GameCube.
Xbox had a solid start with an amazing lineup of games and gained a very strong gaming community. The first Xbox generation didn't do crazy numbers with selling consoles, but to be able to snag twenty million gamers in the PS2 era was somewhat of a success. Then came the Xbox 360 era. According to many gamers, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Nintendo Wii generation was the best generation of gaming. I myself switched from PlayStation to Xbox in the 360 era. At the time I wasn't even eighteen yet but there was just so much noise and energy around PS3 and Xbox 360, especially from 2006 to 2012. The competition was at its peak as both consoles were producing great games and challenging each other to do better. Then things went south for Xbox in 2013.
We already know the story of how the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 generation started. One company decided to keep its focus on gamers and producing great games and the other one decided to do more than gaming by offering less gaming content for more money. PlayStation completely dominated the Xbox One and PS4 generation, and Xbox has been playing catchup since the very start of the generation. While PlayStation was offering great games like Bloodborne, Uncharted 4, Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War, and Spider-Man, Xbox offered some good games such as Sunset Overdrive, Forza Horizon 3 & 4, Gears of War 4 & 5, but they were just not good enough to be system sellers or bring back the gamers they had lost at the start of the generation.
Sometime in 2017, Xbox started to gain some ground back as they started to focus less on media and TV entertainment and more on gaming. They started to spend more money to acquire gaming studios. They introduced a much more powerful version of the Xbox One console by launching Xbox One X for gamers. Xbox team also made many beloved 360 games backward compatible on Xbox One, including Red Dead Redemption. The best thing Xbox ever did last generation was revamping their subscription service, Xbox Game Pass. They announced that they will be adding first-party Xbox games to Game Pass on the very first day of release. Meaning, people will get to play brand-new Xbox first-party games day one without paying full price for them. They will have access to those games for one low monthly price.
In November 2020, the current generation of gaming started. Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 consoles launched globally. So far this generation, PlayStation's latest console is dominating Xbox Series consoles and that is not going to change unless PlayStation just completely loses its way. What we have to understand is that both PS5 and Xbox Series X/S are amazing consoles and offer great gaming features, but their goals are different.
Yes, the end goal for both PlayStation and Xbox is to make as much profit as possible, but they are using different strategies. PlayStation is relying on the old traditional way of selling their consoles with amazing brand new first-party exclusive games, while Xbox is looking to add more and more subscribers to their Game Pass service by offering first-party and some third-party day-one games, along with a huge library of some recently released games and old games. Xbox offers almost all of the Game Pass benefits on PC and other devices via the cloud. You can play Xbox games on a console, PC, and cloud. PlayStation on the other hand releases new games only on consoles. They eventually release some of their exclusives on PC, but if you wanna play their games on release day or within a year of their release, you can only play them on PlayStation consoles.
Since Xbox had a rough time by losing over thirty million gamers during the Xbox One Era, and since they don't release their games only on Xbox Series X/S, then of course PlayStation will sell more consoles than Xbox this generation. That should not be concerning as long as Xbox is still getting people subscribed to Game Pass via console, cloud, and/or PC, and making good decent revenue.
However, if Xbox is serious about selling more consoles, then they need to do a better job of marketing their consoles and games. Team Xbox also need to produce big AAA games a lot more than they have been lately. It has been sixteen months now since they released their last AAA game and that was Halo Infinite back in December 2021. Before November 2021, when Xbox released Forza Horizon 5, they had gone fifteen months since their last big AAA release. If you are wondering about that AAA game, it was Flight Simulator, which is very beautiful but super boring to play (my honest opinion) since all you do is fly a plane in it. Xbox however, during those droughts of no AAA games, did release some really good indie and AA games like Ori: Will of the Wisps, Psychonauts 2, Pentiment, Grounded, and Hi-Fi Rush. All those games are really good, but in order to get a gamer to buy a brand new console for $500, you gotta give him/her at least three to four major AAA games to play with the new console. Sure they can play AAA games developed by a third-party studio, but then again you can play those games on PlayStation along with their awesome exclusive AAA games. There is no need to buy an Xbox if they don't offer anything different and/or less than what PlayStation does.
Another misstep Xbox really can't afford to take if they are trying to compete with PlayStation by getting gamers to buy their consoles, is lying or misleading their customers every now and then. Xbox first said their plan for this generation was to release at least one AAA game every quarter. So far in this current generation, that hasn't happened yet. Then on 12/13/2019, the Xbox Twitter account tweeted that Xbox Series X is four times more powerful than Xbox One X and it will play games in 4K and at 60 FPS with the potential of going all the way up to 120 FPS. Well recently, we all found out that Xbox's upcoming exclusive, Redfall will be releasing day one for players with only quality mode. Meaning you can play the game on your Xbox Series X only in 4K and at 30 FPS and on your Xbox Series S only in 1440p and at 30 FPS. You can't play the game at 60 FPS on either console. If that is the case, it means you can actually play the game on Xbox One X, since it can play games in 4K and at 30 FPS. On a later date (no one knows when), you can play Redfall at 60FPS (and no one knows if you are going to play the game in 4K or 1080p).
So with this Redfall news, Xbox didn't live up to their promise and it has upset many of their games, including myself. I was very much looking forward to playing Redfall day one, but now I'm gonna have to wait for some time before I play it. To be honest, I am so mad that I really don't wanna play Redfall at all. Even though I play on both PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles, I'm just tired of the world's most powerful console getting outperformed by PlayStation 5, not releasing AAA games on a regular basis, and not being able to do what it is capable of doing. Yes, I'm more of an Xbox guy but it is not that I will feel good when PlayStation underperforms or does worse than Xbox's consoles. I just don't like how Xbox keeps touting that their console is the best when it comes to playing games and how their games are so "Next-Gen". We have invested a lot in our brand-new Xbox Series consoles. We put our time and hard-earned money to enjoy great games on our Xbox consoles. We don't want PlayStation to fail, but we want Xbox to compete with it. If PlayStation is releasing great games, then Xbox should match that by releasing their own great games. What the Xbox team is doing is what politicians do. Overpromise and underdeliver. They hype their fans up at the end of the year or at the very beginning of the year, and then in the middle of the year, they bring disappointing news.
Xbox is also not very clear with its messaging to gamers. At times, they themselves will state that they are more than just console gaming as their focus is to grow Game Pass subscribers and they are not competing with PlayStation. Then there are times they will not reveal the console's price until when PlayStation is about to reveal their console's price. They also released Xbox Series X and S just two days before PlayStation 5 launched. Like if you are not competing with PlayStation, why are you following them so closely?
It is not just games when it comes to Xbox not giving us updates on a regular basis. Last year in September, Xbox announced that they will be testing new UI for the Xbox consoles and will be bringing a new home-screen experience for their players in 2023. We are in the fourth month of 2023 and we finally found out that the Xbox team is 'still working very hard' on providing a brand new UI experience to console gamers. Sigh. Well, at least they are still working on it and 2023 isn't over yet.
In 2023, Xbox is not really in PlayStation's league. PlayStation might have more expensive games and not a friendly subscription service, but they produce quality games at their best on a regular basis. They don't go a full year without releasing a single AAA game like Xbox did in 2022. They don't label their console as the world's most powerful console and then watch the rival's console outperform theirs in most games. Xbox in 2020 and 2021 revealed so many good-looking AAA games but as of today, we still don't know when most of those games are going to come out or how far they are in their development. It has been almost three years now since we first saw Avowed, Fable, and Forza Motorsport 8, and more than three years since we first saw Hellblade II. Yet, we don't have a release date for any of those games. We just know Forza Motorsport is releasing sometime in 2023.
We want Xbox to do great things. Not just for their fans, but for their own brand. We don't want Xbox console gaming to disappear like how Sega did twenty-some years ago. Real gamers want PlayStation to succeed, Nintendo to succeed, and Xbox to succeed. Gaming is great when all three are doing great things and living up to their expectations.
No one enjoys fake advertising and that's why so many Xbox gamers are upset with how this generation is going. We were promised a lot of big things once Phil Spencer took over as the head of Xbox. Yet we are still waiting. We sure don't want a year with no AAA games from Xbox Studios. We don't want 30 FPS games on a machine that can play games at 120 FPS. Consistency and greatness are expected from Xbox and they need to deliver. No more waiting!
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