wtf... I don't understand how MS could be having more production problems in 2023 than 2022 or possibly even 2021. The problems are mostly over you can actually buy GPU's now.

I have no idea what could possibly cause Xbox to tank that hard in the US.

Unfortunately that's what happens when you don't keep up with the competition on first-party output. Not to mention major issues with your, at the time, biggest IP.

With so many acquisitions in recent years, Xbox still hasn't been able to find their identity or footing really so far this generation. There's been some smaller gems, but they're betting heavily on Starfield to be the title that defines Xbox though and lays the groundwork for their future AAA titles.

Yeah, he is baffled as well, as am I. One theory is that Xbox is increasing their Cloud server capacity again, and since Cloud uses Series X chipsets, it's hogging most of the chipset stock that need to be selling in retail Series X units.

Whatever the problem, Xbox needs to remedy it and fast. It's a bad look when PS5 is beating Xbox by 9:1 in Xbox's strongest market, the US. Series X production needs to go up asap since Series X is still out of stock everywhere unlike PS5. Since Series S is in stock but just isn't selling well, Xbox needs to do something to entice people to buy it, either the first official pricecut from $300 down to $250, or a big bundle with like 3 or 6 months of Gamepass or something. They can bundle S with Starfield later this year, but that is 6 months from now, they need to do something about the dismal Series S sales long before then. 

Purely a guess, but I wouldn't be surprised if MS is saving up consoles for the launch of Starfield.

PS5 production continued to have issues throughout 2022, then all of a sudden by the time Ragnarök released, there was a HUGE influx of consoles. Starfield is the equivalent to Ragnarök in terms of how big the game is expected to be. 

That is one theory, but it's a theory that made more sense back when we thought Starfield was a June release. Now that it is a September release, it doesn't really make much sense for Xbox to already be storing up stock for Starfield, 6 months from now. You would typically expect a sales drop from stock saving, at least on the magnitude of the sales drop we are seeing in March (his March tracking is showing sales are just 25% of what they were in February), to start only like 3 months early, not 6 months early.

I can't imagine a drop that radical, if it is the case, is from that alone though. But I wonder what could have happened over the past 4 years or so if MS had focused on restructuring their studios instead of acquiring new ones. There's no denying that the quality and speed for their developers is subpar and most of them need some kind of overhaul. Other than the consistent quality and output of Forza content it's been bad. Their studios are bloated and have been poorly managed.

343 should never have been allowed to balloon to over 750 employees, then they had the help of 5/6 support studios and Halo Infinite still didn't come out in a timely manner or in a complete state when a game like that should have been achievable with a much smaller studio. Halo Infinite really isn't that ambitious of a title, it's not a sprawling 100 hour open world game.

Microsoft's studios are really not living up to their potential and I'm sure the blame lies fairly high up on the chain. 

As nice as it sounds that Xbox is very hands-off when it comes to intervening their studios, it clearly doesn't work as they hope. Half the studios operate just fine whereas the other half struggle. 

You never hear issues with Double Fine, inXile, Obsidian, World's Edge, Turn 10, or Compulsion, but there's obvious issues with 343, The Initiative, and Undead Labs that only in more recent times has Xbox tried to resolve. 343 has been completely gutted as a studio finally and good leadership has been put in place, but that's what I meant that Xbox hasn't really found their identity or footing. Some studios are fine, some aren't, it's not unified in the way you would hope, and rather than focusing on those problems to unify the Xbox platform, they're working on a $70 billion acquisition lol.

Undead Labs. I forgot State of Decay 3 even got announced. Geeees.

Edit: Had to remind myself of what was actually in the pipeline after that sudden realisation SoD3 existed.

Everwild - TBA (Announced November 2019)
Hellblade 2 - TBA (announced December 2019)
Avowed - TBA (Announced July 2020)
Fable - TBA (Announced July 2020)
State of Decay 3 - TBA (announced July 2020)
Perfect Dark - TBA (Announced December 2020)
Contraband - TBA (Announced June 2021)
Outerworlds 2 - TBA (Announced June 2021)

So we'll soon hit the mark where we have 5 games that were announced over 3 years ago and still haven't come out. If that isn't a wakeup call you are managing studios wrong I don't know what is.

Yeah in 2019 and 2020, Xbox announced too many CGI-trailer only games that were too early in development to even announce yet lol. It's not uncommon practice though. We'll have had to wait for almost 4 years for Tears of the Kingdom to release since its first announcement and probably at least 7 years for Metroid Prime 4 lol, or who knows when the Wolverine game from Insomniac is releasing. 

It's very common to announce games too early, but because Xbox first-party output has been so inconsistent, Xbox does get more of the limelight on those shortcomings.

Good news is though that the summer showcase will be about an hour and a half of brand new announcements or updates/release dates from previously announced games. The only games that will have not released that were advertised at E3 2022 is Forza Motorsport and Ara: History Untold. With Starfield getting its own presentation, Xbox gonna have to show everything off that they've been working on. Gameplay and release dates need to happen. 

Don't forget Elder Scrolls 6 (announced June 2018) and Indiana Jones (announced January 2021). With TES 6 we are already at 5 projects announced more than 3 years ago within Xbox's current 1st party. 

One thing is for sure, this year's E3 show needs to show gameplay for alot of these games that were announced with CGI teasers years ago. I want to see very few games being announced with CGI teasers that won't be released until 2025 or later, I really hope all of their new announces are 2023 and 2024 releases that already have gameplay/in-engine trailers ready, and that we get gameplay or in-engine teasers for alot of the above list of games that were announced years ago with CGI teasers.