@BraLoD @Chrkeller
I disagree.
Sony tried all they could to block the ABK deal, because the thought of COD, a single title, leaving Playstsation scared them shitless. They managed to force a contract forcing COD to support Playstation for at least 10 more years.
Series XS did quite a few things better than PS5, and Sony did screw up on multiple fronts that Xbox could capitalize on, but none of their mistakes were close to being as terrible as a "complete lack of exclusives" which sealed Xbox's fate.
Sony's 1st party sales in the last few PS4 years hit 50-60 million annually on a 75-110~ million installbase. PS5's 1st party games are selling a lot less on a larger and more popular platform, partly because their output has been poor-ish (compared to PS4) due to the live service mess they got themselves into.
Xbox's output wasn't the best, but it was decent enough to make a difference if they went with traditional exclusives. If hypothetically Call of Duty, Forza Horizon, Obsidian's games etc released exclusively on Xbox (even against PC), then they would have sold tons of consoles and kept rhr platform healthy. Conversely, if Sony released everything they had on PC day 1, PS5 sales would have been much lower. Why is this controversial?
I'm now reminded of this Xbox fan here who challenged me with the argument that COD didn't need Xbox exclusivity to significantly increase sales YOY. He argued that marketing and GamePass inclusion in addition to Starfield were going to be enough to cause a big increase post acquisition. Well... these didn't even register as farts in the wind. Because most people kept buying them on PC and/or Playstation. Granted Statfield underwhelmed everywhere.
Xbox slowly became the definition of "redundant". I of course agree that other factors played their roles too. But the complete lack of exclusives was definitely the primary cause. No matter how good Microsoft's output gets, it will not save Xbox without exclusivity.
