Did Microsoft totally mess up their holiday strategy?

[barneystinson69]

WillianBM97 said:
Microsoft had a really good holiday. I think it's basically impossible to compete against PS4 at this point, so they just did enough to keep the Xbox business healthy. Good (but not crazy) deals, great exclusives and marketing for Fallout 4. Now to what they did wrong:
- Rise of the Tomb Raider: what the f... were they thinking? There's no sense in BUYING exclusivity for a game and just let it DIE. Look, I bought Rise of the Tomb Raider, but this mess will be remembered for the next 10 years (or even more).
- "The greatest games line-up in Xbox history": No. Five games. Halo, Forza and Gears AGAIN. Rare Replay is a collection of old games (even though Rare did a good job on this one). Rise of the Tomb Raider is a timed-exclusive. This would be a perfect line for 2016's line-up. Gears of War 4, Crackdown 3, ReCore, Quantum Break, Scalebound, Halo Wars 2, probably Forza Horizon 3, Cuphead and more. Even with Gears and Forza being a big part of the line-up, Microsoft has a good number of new IPs to deliver.
- Letting Call of Duty go away: if they were thinking about not renewing the deal with Activision, 2015 was not the year to do it. Ghosts was horrible and Advanced Warfare is not good as well. They had 2013 and 2014 to do this (if the contract was already done, they should buy another one or two years).
- Bundles: last holiday, the main bundle was AC: Unity (a completely broken title, at least at launch). This year, a remaster. Really, Microsoft? What about a Fallout 4 + Halo 5 + 500 GB for US$ 299 (or even US$ 349)? If someone can give me a good reason for Gears of War: Ultimate Edition being the main bundle, please do it. +

 

Yes, COD is absolute garbage. But what does that matter. Millions still play it, and now Sony has the ballg ame. Very dumb move to let go of that, whether what I or you think of it or not. 

 

As for the greatest games lineup, it could just be used for 2015 and 2016, why not? People can say whatever they like, but the XB1 has a very comparable lineup to the PS4 for 2016, so it won't be a big deal (usually people say Sony absolutely dominate's).

But Microsoft made a big mistake cutting the third party deals. I don't know how Microsoft is going to find a new way to make up for lost sales.