Since the 360, Xbox's userbase has shed some 50 million plus players.

For those who used to be foremost Xbox gamers but are not any more, when and why did they lose you? What was the final straw?

I love the 360. Still one of my favorite consoles ever. The moment I started to get concerned was their 2013 E3 conference. Just seemed like they focused more on the Xbox Ones other features than the games. The mandatory Kinect and some other stuff. I did get the Xbox One Gears Of War 4 Edition which looks awesome, but that gen was when I fell off Xbox. It just didnt have many exclusives I cared about and the PS4 was just such a great console compared to it.

They didn't lose that many players. Millions of Xbox players still play on Xbox One in addition to the mllions on Series XS.

I owned the original Xbox and X360, both great consoles but I had enough issues with X360 that I decided to skip the Xbox One before it ditched true exclusives:

1. The 2nd half of Xbox 360 was kind of crap. PS3 took all my time from 2009 onwards  My X360 got RROD's anyway, which is another reason I grew to dislike the brand.

2. I hated paid online which Microsoft and Xbox 360 normalized.

3. Xbox One had a bunch of solid exclusives early on, but I was fed up with AAA western games at that point, because the majority of gen 7 games I played were western, and I was starting to warm up to Japanese games again in gen 8. Xbox didn't have Bloodborne, NieR Automata, or Persona 5 (the latter two got ported year(s) after I finished them on my PS4). Outside exclusives, the system is too similar to PS4.

4. Microsoft is one of my most hated companies. I'm just not willing to give them my money unless they give me something I deem truly exceptional, then I might reconsider. If someone feels the same about Nintendo or Sony or Valve, power to them! We have our different opinions and experiences.

5. I just don't play video games as much as I used to. Technically, I don't even have my own PS5. But I do use my brother's and bought a bunch of games on it. Long gone are the days where I got all platforms and spent countless hours gaming. Current Xbox offers little that Playstation doesn't, and NOTHING that PC doesn't.

They really only had me for one generation (360), but this was quite the one-two punch:

I had the OG and quite enjoyed it.

But 360 vs PS3, PS3 had free online and FF Versus XIII so I had to choose PS3.

Eventually I got 2 360s and had some fun but they both RROD on me, which turned me off of xbox entirely.

All that before Kinect and the later fiascos.

Even with all that said. I play more MS first party games (in terms of hours) than Sony and Nintendo combined.

With the XBox One reveal pretty much.

Loved the XBox and 360, but saw no value in Kinect. So during the Kinect craze my attention was already shifting away and my 360 had little use in the last couple years before PS4/XOne. Total turn around from 90/10 360 use when PS3 came out to 90/10 ps3 use when TloU came out. Then the XBox One reveal, Tv Tv Tv and Kinect mandatory shut the door. 

I thought things were turning back around with Series XBox and got the Halo edition Series X, but it ended up hardly used. Most I used that for was Forza 7 and Gears 4 (already played Horizon's and Halo on PC) in anticipation of Forza 8 and Starfield. Both games I didn't bother buying after reviews. That was the final nail.

End of 360, beginning of Xbox One

It was clear towards the end of the 360s life that Sonys and Xbox were handling their first party very differently and everyones eyes were on Playstations offering whereas Xbox was just stuck in a franchise loop without much ambition.

The nail in the coffin for me was giving up on Lionhead and Halo 5 not having splitscreen. The 360s early life also benefitted from a lot of RPG love (Elderscrolls, Mass Effect, Bioshock, Fable). Aside form Fable these games were all timed exclusive to Xbox for one reason or another and helped build its brand during the 360 years. Microsoft completed left that RPG and story focused audience dry for a whole generation. Whereas Sony doubled down on single player and narrative based games with light RPG elements. There was no reason to look back at Xbox after that.

I do not know anyone in my group who has ever left :) We are all playing either on PC or Xbox since the original Xbox, mainly (with some of us having a Play Station and Switch too).
My kids are playing on Xbox/PC (none of them use the PlayStation, my little ones are using the Switch a bit more often).
Frankly, I do not (and never have) had any issue with Xbox other than the Xbox One flop; as someone who plays on multiple devices, their strategy is actually quite aligned with what I need :) And I do not care if Xbox games are also on other platforms; more money for Xbox at the end and more flexibility for me as a gamer who plays on multiple devices.

I'm likely out of pocket for saying this (though I suppose the population is too small for this forum to be picky about that) since they havent lost but gained a fan out of me.

I like the continued b/c and their variety of how their providing games (through Windows Store, xcloud, xbox, gamepass, etc).

The rumored plans of them pushing their next gen to be more PC like with the intention of somehow (hopefully) allowing b/c titles to be playable (likely through emulated means) and their suppose goal to provide multiple ways and venues (like Xbox Play anywhere) to play the said games is what got me into the Xbox ecosystem.


Series S was my first Xbox and the first Xbox I traded in - I still have a Series X 1 TB which I got for like $350 during black friday couple of years ago. Gonna continue buying hardware specific Xbox if the changes are so different compared to owning a gaming PC otherwise I'll continue getting into their ecosystem whatever other ways I can.

I was never a solo Xbox gamer, as I always had a Playstation and Nintendo console along with it, but the Xbox One and their whole TV push (and attack on used games) was where this train left the tracks. That was smoke if I've ever seen it. Actually, if I'm being honest here, I think it really began with Kinect. When they decided to do that, you could sense that their ideals just weren't there. That it was always just, do what everyone else was doing and exploit it. That they had no real identity of their own etc.

But hey, when I was a boy and a teenager, there was no Xbox. It was Nintendo, Sega and then Sony. So as far as I'm concerned, we've just come back to where we started.