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SvennoJ on 13 July 2025
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curl-6 said:
Trentonater said:

that is the problem, the second half of the 360 was when microsoft got the reputation for only churning out samey gear halo and forza games with nothing else to offer. gear of war judgement, and halo 4? these weren't even well-recieved games by the fanbases... much less than mentioning the reception fable III and crackdown 2 got. and after 2010 especially they just had nothing to offer. Don was a death nell for xbox first party output and his decision included shutting down ensemble studios when they had never released an unsuccessful game.

I mean the vocal component of a fanbase that complains about things online is a tiny share of the overall audience; Halo 4 was the third highest selling retail video game of 2012. And a number of the listed games came after 2010.

xboxgreen said:

Crackdown 3 sucks and fable 3 was a disappointment. Metro 2033 was hardly a green game on metacritic during the 7th generation when journalists were more forgiving. Alan awake was a boring game.

Only good games you listed was splinter cell conviction and Witcher 2. Still pales in comparison to what PS3 offered and proving my point 360 second half was disappointing.

Also, I have to wait four years for Microsoft to fix their console and to buy it again? What a joke.

Taste is subjective; many people liked games like Alan Wake, Fable 3, and Metro. It's just not accurate to say there was nothing outside of Halo/Gears/Forza.

RROD was a misstep, but for most of the 360's life it was solved.

Reputation and confidence were shattered all 360's life though. RROD then E74, waiting for repairs leaving the door open to play on another console and get hooked on that... Get a repaired console back that failed again within a few months. My 3rd 360 might still work, haven't dared to touch it since finishing TWD in 2013...

That loss of confidence combined with a back half that mostly focused on shovel ware and Kinect made ps3 the better console for 'full time' gaming.

And the difference between free and paid online sealed the deal. When I switched to ps3 as my main console after the 2nd 360 failure I also cancelled XBox Live. Then having to sign back up / pay again for online kept me playing 3rd party games on ps3. Which mostly sealed my choice between Forza Motorsport and Gran Turismo. I played GT5 a lot online, could have been Forza 3, but I skipped that to wait for GT5 since online was behind a paywall. And my first 360 RROD was while playing Forza 2 after all :/

RROD / E74 uncertainty, paid online, lackluster back half line-up, DVD not containing the full game, focus on Kinect. While Sony turned their disastrous start around with great games people wanted, MS did the opposite and ran out of steam / lost focus chasing Wii's blue ocean with Kinect shovel ware. It made for some hilarious E3 content though.



That while Sony was announcing Uncharted 2 and God of War 3, and Nintendo SMBW and SMG 2.


Just blaming the downfall of XBox on the XBox One reveal is not fully correct imo. 360 was already eroding XBox at the end of its lifespan. The Kinect fad was a huge disruption for a temporary boost that ultimately led nowhere. (35 million Kinect sold in the end until 2017) Even if XBox One didn't have a bungled start, it would have still suffered a setback like WiiU after Wii. That blue ocean did not stick around, or rather stuck with Wii / 360 Kinect to bring out on family occasions instead of buying into a new generation.