VGChartz Sales Comparison Charts June 2023 Discussion Thread

[RolStoppable]

curl-6 said:

Xbox Series failing to pull ahead of the Xbox One launch aligned is pretty damning considering how badly they screwed up the Xbone.

The lack of first party games is really biting them hard, and at this point I feel like the damage is probably permanent; even if/when they do start actually putting out major software, it may well be too late to escape the reputation of being a console with no games.

MS's management has just been piss poor this past decade; Xbox Series was a chance for a fresh start, but the same mistakes continue to drag them down.

Microsoft messed up badly with the Xbox One, but they kept being aggressive with a quick price cut eight months after launch and a flurry of temporary price cuts afterwards. They haven't been willing to lose anywhere close to this much money with the Xbox Series X.

But yes, first party has been a major blunder. They have had years to put out something of value and have almost completely failed. How Microsoft reacted to their failed Xbox One isn't even remotely comparable to how Nintendo reacted to the failure of the Wii U. Nintendo simultaneously kept putting worthwhile games on the Wii U while building towards their next gen and they did all that in much less time. Sure, Nintendo has a much better first party to work with than Microsoft, but a big part of how things played out is how early Nintendo admitted to themselves that they had failed whereas Microsoft kept telling themselves for years that they are still doing fine due to being unable to properly analyze Xbox 360 vs. Xbox One; the latter was tracking ahead for a few years, so they really believed they are on the right track.

If Microsoft didn't still have all the American and European third parties on board, their Xbox operation would be totally doomed. But with this failsafe in place, they are bound to get the Xbox Series in the same ballpark as the Xbox One. My pre-launch prediction was ~65m and as of now I don't see a reason to change that outlook, especially because this gen will potentially see an eighth year before replacement. The XSX|S still has a big arsenal of price cut options left and the first party situation can only get better during the middle and late stage of the lifecycle.

The upwards adjustment for Xbox One lifetime sales really made things look bad for Microsoft's current gen. But in any case, it was never a question of Microsoft beating anyone this generation. Their decisions before going into this gen had already cemented them in a distant third place by default, therefore postponing any event of significant improvement for at least another generation.