No. 1 Avoid another red ring of death debacle at all costs!!
No. 2 Games are art and as powerful a medium as books, films and painting. They have the potential to be better than all those if given the chance. Sony already realise this hence the WIDE spectrum of both AAA and indie games they allow on their console.
No. 3 The executives behind Xbox CANNOT be accountants and bean counters. They need gamers who are executives. These GEs would be able to spot talented game studios and games and invest in that studio's vision.
No. 4 TV, tv, tv, tv, tv, tv, tv etc should be an after thought if they want to capture true gamers as their core fansbase.
No. 5 They need game developers/stuios who output the kind of game quality that Kojima, FromSoftware, Naughty Dog and Santa Monica Studios do. ND particularly has changed the expectations of gamers in that respect. Combining gameplay and story like almost no other devs. I recently played Horizon Zero Dawn and you'd think GG would have spoken to ND about how to polish their 3rd person shooter, considering ND are pretty much the benchmark now for this genre of game. Don't get me wrong HZD is a good game, but it just doesn't have the finese that a ND title has. And they are part of the same company, so not excuses, other than ego stopping them sharing info/tips to make better games!! So Microsoft need game developers of the ND calibre, regardless of the game type being released on their platform. They need to raise the bar if they want to beat Sony next gen.
6. Stop with the backwards compatibilty rubbish. If gamers want to play retro games, they should invest in MAME. The Xbox brand should be able innovation and pushing the envelope not a box that plays old games better. Wrong message to prospective buyer, IMO.
Final advice, Don't turn up to the next gen battle with last gen or 2 gens ago weaponary and mentality. Games and gamers have changed!
