Microsoft is unhappy with the state of the Xbox (should Spencer be substituted?)

[Chazore]

Soundwave said:

It's hard to gain marketshare in this industry unless the company you are chasing makes big mistakes, Sony doesn't give MS a whole lot to work with.

In that case, you have to play it like Sega did in the 16-bit wars and take the fight to the body of your opponent and be extremely aggressive. Marketing should be hostile towards them too.

MS is sitting back too much and relying on Game Pass to do everything. They should take the money they were going to sink into Activision and buy exclusives instead with it, games that will be out on the market soon.

Looking back on history, Sony just reminds me of that one guy in class that literally sits back and waits for others to slip up, then doesn't do the bad things those people in class did to avoid making the same mistakes.

Look at what Xbox did a gen and a half ago, and all Sony had to do was not do what MS did, and they even capitalised on MS's mistakes on top of it, which let them sail smoothly since.

MS on the other hand has had two uphill battles, their console rep was tarnished to hell with that reveal, then the following yrs of "no games" (remember when Sony had that issues and became a meme itself?), and topping it all off with the umpteenth time of "We hear you PC gamers and we care" promise of them returning to PC (Which tbf, they did execute properly this time, instead of dropping PC, if Xbox sales ever picked up).

Sony doesn't really have the kind of issues MS has to deal with, which is why I believe Sony has it better. They didn't really have to bother much with appealing to 2 different platforms, two different sets of customers, as well as having to appeal to a regional market that wasn't really interested with them to begin with (Japan/rest of Asia).

Apart from that, they really do need to get their collective shit together, and Spencer I think has got to go, since he's become more of an image/PR guy quickly over time. MS needs to actually get people who are willing to give these studios they buy, some space, instead of "will this idea print us money?" after 3 yrs into each dev cycle, then cancelling the IP when it turns out to not be a live service game that's designed to milk money over periods of time. 

They actually had something when they tried working with kamiya, but then they wrestled control, which is usually something you do not do with a studio you partner with, since that also means you dislike giving said studio autonomy to make something that could turn out good.

At this rate though, I don't see MS ever gaining good marketshare back. Mindshare is also another stupidly hard battle, and Xbox still hasn't managed to shake off the now ancient "dudebro" console vibe, or the new "gamepass rentabox" (Tbf, everyone is betting on GP, and it really is just you renting games, so the name sticks in a fitting, if not bad way).