You're in charge of Xbox division. What would be your battle plan for Xbox Series X?

[Robert_Downey_Jr.]

Mr Puggsly said:

curl-6 said:

The way I see it one of Xbone's biggest failing was a lack of true killer apps.

Where PS4 and Switch keep delivering system sellers from BOTW to Smash Bros Ultimate to Pokemon and from Uncharted 4 to Spiderman to God of War, Xbox seemed to have little to no megaton system sellers of the same calibre. Hellblade 2 is a good start if it can live up to the original, but they need to build up their first parties to the point where they can deliver the same kind and quantity of killer apps Sony/Nintendo can and do.

I am gonna say something that has annoyed people in the past but I stand by.

Nintendo games does a much better job selling hardware than Sony. People arent buying Playstation and Xbox for exclusives any where near the rate of Nintendo. However, better software to increase hardware sales is not a bad idea.

I feel mistakes made early on are far more impactful on sales throughout the gen. Primarily, the high price to bundle in Kinect. Even if MS had a few adventure games like Spiderman or Uncharted, I think it would only boost sales a few million at best.

Bear in mind PS4 was trouncing X1 before any game you mentioned existed. Its not like they were tied and the gap grew with games you mentioned. Unless youre gonna tell me Knack and Killzone were killer apps.

Again, MS is making a lot of obvious choices in regard to hardware and greater focus on software. So keep doing that and hope they win people over.

On a side note, I think Xbox content was much better this gen then its given credit for. The only glaring hole in my mind was 3rd person adventure games, which is where Sony has thrived. However, MS had better games in other genres. Halo 5 and Gears 4 werent amazing but better than Sony shooters. Forza games were amazing this gen, better than GT Sport on its own. Sony moneyhat a fighter partly because they didnt make one. For me it was worth having both consoles for different experiences.

However, these are consoles heavily reliant on 3rd parties. People can get their fix in many genres on either Xbox or Playstation. Sony didnt have to make a good shooter because they can rely on CoD, BF and Destiny. Meanwhile MS didnt make great adventure games, but users still had the latest Assassin's Creed, Tomb Raider, etc.

Nintendo does a better job moving hardware with exclusives because they virtually have their own audience via unique games.

Of course Nintendo exclusives are more easily tied to sales.  As you said they don't have any third parties you could blame sales on.  Sony had momentum going into the gen because of the great exclusives on the more expensive PS3 helping it overtake 360 at the end including a stellar 2013 lineup on PS3.  Also I don't see how forza having a gagillion installments makes it better.  Id rather have 1 game that gets patched and content updated as the only reason to redo a racing sim is for a new gen or maybe twice in the same gen if there's a big enough gap.

Sony exclusives sell consoles but they're more of a pebble on the scales that tilts it towards them instead of Xbox.  Customer A buys a PS4 because it has GT.  They don't buy any other exclusives and get a bunch of third party other than that

Customer B buys a PS4 because of GOW and does the same.

Customer C does the same but with infamous

And so on

So if an exclusive sells a couple million it very well could have been the pebble that tilted that mostly third party buyer into getting PS4 for a million of them even if they're not primarily into exclusives like a Nintendo customer might be.  Didn't mean it didn't influence the sale.  

Harder to track but still a definite selling point as much or more so (as the numbers indicate) than a few more pixels on third party games