Worst Moves in History (Microsoft)

[S.T.A.G.E.]

J_Allard said:

S.T.A.G.E. said:

XSN. They got their collective asses handed to them by the third party competition.

I don't see why any gamer would look back to XSN and call it a bad move or a mistake. The service was ahead of its time and it brought up amazing games like Links 2004, Top Spin, and Rallisport Challenge 2. Those 3 games alone you could throw up against any games in their genres today, 9 or 10 years later, and they are still great. The problem was the other 3 games in the main sports were not up to par and gamers didn't seem interested in sticking with the franchises while they were ironed out when you could buy Madden football or 2k basketball instead.

But the year after XSN games launched, Madden and 2k had online leagues so you could say XSN pioneered a lot of the online social competitive gaming we see in sports games today. Furthermore right after they closed XSN, MS partnered with EA Sports and it was a huge reason why Live took off so well.

They must have done a pretty amazing job over the years if they is one of their worst moves.

Madden and NBA Live were the kings back then (until 2k made NBA 2k's debut). The only exclusive team sports game that couldn't be beaten was MLB The Show. Microsofts efforts were sour and NBA 2k was a breath of fresh air on the Dreamcast. I remember playing that game and thinking this will be the end all be all of basketball videogames. Microsoft never owned TopSpin, they just published it exclusively for the Xbox and it was on the PS2 as well. XSN was a broken joke unless Microsoft could figure out how to keep every game exclusive to them that was worth a damn. Every single first party sports game that Microsoft funded failed. The only thing that was correct about XSN was the match making which was destined to come, but how can you control the stats and online playability of games you dont own? Since then their exclusives efforts have left a trail of cold or dead franchises.Tell me...out of the exclusives Microsoft started with, how many remain today? Thats right the same three. Forza, Fable and Halo. Twelve years for Halo, Nine for fable and eight for Forza. Please correct me if I am missing something.

PS

XSN exclusives werent even a threat. ESPN's sports titles were shit and even they were giving EA a hard time. Top Spin thrived for all the reasons I mentioned, without Microsoft to drop them, they survived multiple iterations.