Global Hardware 17 November 2018

[zorg1000]

Mummelmann said:

zorg1000 said:

This isn't entirely true, the year headstart certainly helped but Sony's own missteps helped 360 just as much, if not more, than anything Microsoft did in those first few years.

It's going to take a hell of a lot more than releasing earlier to take back marketshare from Sony, they pretty much have to rely on Sony repeating what they did with PS3 to do that.

True, Sony really dropped the ball with the PS3, but even still; it won't hurt MS to try to get ahead into next gen. More cross development with PC using their newly acquired studios could help them lift them into a decent start. Remaining where they are right now could seriously harm the Xbox brand. The biggest issue I see is the will to spend the funds to try a head start, the Xbox division has been hanging more or less by a thread for some time from MS corporation centrally, and plenty of higher ups want to axe it and put focus elsewhere. 

Their newly acquired studios arent likely to have new titles for the launch window of a 2019 release though.

inXile & Obsidian released both released games this year and both have multiplat titles coming next year.

Undead Labs, Playground & Compulsion all released games this year.

I don't see any of these studios having big titles ready for late 2019/early 2020.

Same goes for their other studios. Rare released a game this year, Turn 10 confirmed they are skipping next year, The Coalition has an XBO game next year.

 

That doesnt leave them with many options for games to release during the year headstart outside of ports and cross-gen titles which I dont think will be enough to gain take sales away from Sony.

It seems like a holiday 2020 release for the new Xbox fits better for their 1st party studios to get exclusive games out at launch and during the first year.