| RolStoppable said: Your confidence isn't based on sound reasoning. You post a link about the Xbox One being allegedly sold at a profit, but that article is from right around its launch, so of course it doesn't account for all the price drops of the Xbox One that had to come way quicker than planned. Another thing that Microsoft did, besides hiding their console's shipments number, is a change to their reporting method for online interaction. Whereas they previously spoke about growing Xbox Live Gold subscriptions, they ended up with monthly active user stats to paint a picture of continued success. That makes it highly likely that Gold subscriptions were decreasing due to the Xbox One; after all, the console sold far fewer units than the Xbox 360. Also related to hardware sales is the number of software sales which dropped significantly for the Xbox One, including first party software sales. The moment Xbox changed its lead is not equal to the metrics of success changing in a significant way for the Xbox One. Phil's task with the Xbox One was all about damage control, but none of that could be able to turn the Xbox One into a success. As for Phil removing the childish nature of the industry, that's a very delusional statement to make. Spencer has repeatedly made hypocritical comments and if he truly believed that hardware aren't important, then he would have been fired a long time ago. There's an obvious link between hardware sales, software sales, DLC sales, the volume of microtransactions and online subscriptions; the higher the hardware sales are, the higher everything else gets. But thanks for answering my question. I expected that kind of answer. |
You need to look at this the way the businessmen look at things. They don't care about fanboys or console wars, they look at money. If Xbox wanted to compete head on with Playstation than the XB1 would have been the same as the PS4 from the very start, like the 360 was to the PS3. Not come out the gates with an always online, Kinect Bundle, DRM machine. Xbox was always heading towards a full digital future which was delayed due to criticism across the board of marketing.
The question to you is why does MS want to disclose console figures when its not solely about the console anymore? The 360 was in a different era, it was all about the console hardware. The 360 was all about exclusive content on one platform. The 360 was the same as the Wii and Playstation 3, much like the WiiU and PS4 was to its predecessors.
The XB1 is in another era, the brand went though a transition to get people onboard an always online digital future with cloud based gaming, much what we have now with GP and XCloud. Disclosing hardware sales when customers don't even need to buy the hardware to be a customer is pointless and only flames console wars which breeds bad marketing. When Xbox competed with the PS3, they proved they can match them in sales when the systems were similar, however they tried to change to quickly the following gen and moved the brand into in a bigger ocean which didn't benefit them at the time. Until now.
Last edited by Azzanation - on 22 September 2021
