Phil Spencer: "So, they don't "gobble" the deals up. They buy them. You know, I read the same things you do, and I know some people think it's somehow less expensive to sign third-party exclusives if you have a bigger market-share. I can tell you, it has nothing to do with market share."

Well Phil, the biggest game Microsoft flat out money hatted and the publisher behind it says other wise. becayse EA's Chief Financial Officer Blake Jorgensen said this.

""I think you should assume that we made that decision when it was back a few years ago when we decided to go exclusive," explained EA's Chief Financial Officer Blake Jorgensen when asked if the deal with Microsoft for Titanfall's exclusivity would offset potential sales the game could have had if released on PlayStation.

"We had some forecast at that time from where we thought both Xbox and PlayStation would be and that's what we based our decision on. I think we're still feeling very comfortable with that," he said. 

source: http://www.gamezone.com/news/titanfall-s-exclusivity-based-on-ea-s-xbox-and-playstation-sales-forecast-not-xbox-one-s-cloud

Wasn't that their original plan before the generation started.

I wonder what their forecast was? That 8th gen Xbox would further remove market share from Playstation? That's some pretty poor forecasting there if so. It was clear from at least 2009 onwards that the 7th gen was as good as Xbox was going to get in terms of marketshare relative to PS. With all the negatives around PS3 and Sony PS3 was still able to claw back 360's 1 year lead and draw level.

OTOH if they were forecasting a more or less even US marketshare, and that FPS fans would still mostly be on Xb one, then they picked right, and went in with Titanfall with their eyes open.

I'm guessing their original forecast was based on specs and price. The One was priced cheaper and had the US audience. Xbox 360 won comfortably there so they thought people would happily adopt the Xbone, basically a 1 to 1 from 360 to Xbone. The cloud stuff helping the decision. Come the reveal and MS saying 'We think you are all theives so you need to log in once a day.' seemed to change that. If they didn't try and go that route, I think things would be different.

Phil Spencer is losing credibility by the day. Too bad because I kind of liked the guy. It must be the brainwashing from the many executive's training at MS.

Nobody was able to forecast Don Mattrick's meltdown.

Yeah, I have to admit, even as a 100% PlayStation supporter that I was a bit nervous coming into the 8th gen. Microsoft had gained a lot of momentum in the 7th gen, and seemed like they had all the cards. Then, XBO early media breifing about the next gen living room did not sit well with Xbox gamers (Which, honestly I thought was dumb, and applaud Microsoft and Sony's efforts at bringing all media on the TV to powerful gaming machines). Then everyone relised that XBO was quite a bit weaker than PS4, and things strated to slide even more. However, the nail in the coffin was, by far, Don Mattrick's infamous, "if you don't like our XBO policies, then we have a product on the market that is for you, and it is called X360." As they would say in God of War, By The Gods Don. 

I think it was quite easy to see why companies would have been backing MS going into gen 8, but that 2 month span between E3 and Gamescom will haunt MS and the Xbox for years to come.

He never had credibility for anyone with opened eyes, even Don Mattrick was better at the end, at least he was honest about stupid moves and straight

The general industry forecast was that the next Xbox was going to blow the next Playstation out of the water. I'll edit in a link when I find it, but I read that many, many publishers/developers thought Xbox was going to be the go ahead console to support this generation. This was based on the 7th gen (yes, Sony got their act together in the second half of it, but still). MS went from 25M to 80M. Sony went from 150M to 80M. They thought MS would only continue to get better. So, yes, they though the Xbox would further remove marketshare from Playstation.

Also, always-online DRM was something many publishers backed, especially EA.

Side note: I don't care what Peter Moore said. Publishers knew about MSs plan before XBOne's policy reveal. They had to, in order to ready games for launch. You can't say "we haven't decided what to do because this just happened", referring to XBOne's policy reveal at E3 2013, when something that big is obviously something you knew about going into the development of your games. As Kotaku said, EA (and Ubisoft) gave "weird answers" about DRM instead of just saying yes or no about whether they support it, especially so when the consoles were only 5 mmonths from launch at the time. If what Moore says about what people claimed about EA was "absolutely incorrect" (them backing DRM), then a hard "no" would have been the answer about them supporting DRM. Instead it was "we've yet to decide to opt-in"....when they already instituted policies to block being able to play full games if they were bought used (remember online passes?)

Anyway, always online DRM  supposedly helps curb piracy. And it helped quell the storm between publishers and companies like Gamestop, as well, because the companies would, then, tack on additional fees to license used games when you bought them from their store. Stores like Gamestop still get their money and publshers get a piece of the cake (instead of nothing, like before), so everyone wins in that scenario. 

Consumers may have had backlash against the XBOne (mind you, this was after E3 2013), but the industry loved it and that's why their forecast (read: before everything was revealed) was that the next Xbox would carry the torch for the next generation

Looking at the sales discrepancy now, hindsight can easily make you think "why would they have ever backed the XBOne in some kind of major way outside of standard support", but before the initial backlash? They all "jumped in"

It was obvious from the beggining . Phill is sinking by the day, he is set to outdo Don.