I am …. Bewildered you don’t know this …. I … everyone knows it’s .. I wish I could spoiler tag this (damn mobile editor) but it means raw tip and I’ll let you deal with googling more of that. 

I was confusing LIRC and IIRC for a while (made for some awkward mental understandings) . I'm too old for abbreviations unless they're from the renaissance period.

I understand that you're not talking about sales here but Xbox has been hammered with bad news and while a lot of it is blown out of proportion and people come to ridiculous conclusions I don't think it can be understated how poor the start of this year has been for Xbox hardware sales.

The lack of growth (rather decline) for Xbox Series this past quarter is unprecedented. No console tracked by VGC had a worse YoY decline at the equivalent quarter. 3 Weeks into the next quarter and Xbox Series X is still out of stock on Amazon.com. They're barely selling any and still can't stock the thing. How hard are they even trying to fix this situation, and if they are giving it sufficient effort why on earth is it taking so long to rectify? With the problem lasting this long and no communication acknowledging the situation it just gives the impression that it's not a priority. It boggles the mind.

It's no surprise that negativity is everywhere right now when every month articles come out about how much sales are dropping. The last AAA game they released was 15 months ago and Halo Infinite had it's own fair share of negativity surrounding it and now after a very long wait their next AAA game has negative buzz again. It's far too easy to hate on Xbox atm.

If Starfield is as big as it should be then it will hopefully pull Xbox out of the rut it's in, but until Forza+Starfield come it's going to be a very rough year for Xbox.

The Xbox Series is a far better console than the Xbox One ever was and that Microsoft have started this generation so poorly has in my opinion really hurt it's potential and is a real shame. In 2021 I could have seen it reaching 360 levels.

It's nice to see Xbox having each others backs when some shit like this happens.

Reminds me of when Pentiment was leaked and Rare employees were commenting on how shitty it was.

And Kelly did too IIRC, Lol. She's always calling out shit.

Time to give Minecraft Legends a go. It reviewed pretty mediocre but so did Minecraft Dungeons and I liked that so worth a shot.

Hi all, I'm not an XBox gamer, but I am interested in what fans think of the current Microsoft mood. It seems to me the height of XBox fandom was during the middle years of the 360's lifespan. At that point almost everyone that I encountered in real life was playing on their 360 (even more so than people I would encounter that played the Wii). What was the point that the slide in popularity and positivity began to take hold? I certainly have a few theories of my own, but I'd like to hear where true XBox fans side on this issue. And if you don't think there has been a slide, by all means state that and why you don't think there has been one in terms of popular sentiment about the console.

By the way, as a Nintendo fan, I'm more than aware of what it feels like to have your company of choice take a few shots on the nose, and also that tides can change rather quickly in this business. Are you bullish about Microsoft's future in the console space over the next 10 years, particularly with the acquisition of Activision/Blizzard?

Yeah, I know Console sales aren't too hot right but I guess what makes me chill about that is that I don't really care that much, haha. I never expected Xbox Series to reach 360 levels in terms of hardware sales, Xbox fucked up in quite possibly the worst generation they could, the network effect was at its peak, it's a lot harder to convince people to swap when all their friends are already locked into the PS ecosystem now.

In order for Xbox 360 to even reach 80m, it needed PS3 to shoot itself in the foot multiple times, a year head start, and a Kinect fad boost as well.

The fact that we can claim to know the issue as a "lack of stock" also makes me less worried, if the issue is stock then the issue will be fixed eventually, and a console can still comeback with a strong stream of exclusives. However if Microsoft isn't worried then I'm not really worried, it ain't my business. Microsoft has made clear that Consoles aren't a priority anymore, now that is not to say that Consoles aren't important but it means the business has expanded more broadly to which Console sales aren't the only measure of success anymore.

As long as the business is still profitable, I anticipate Consoles will continue to exist, for starters, a large reason why the business is profitable is Xbox Live and the 30% transaction cut taken on every single digital purchase, without Xbox hardware they have no way to take money off 3rd party publishers, there is a reason why Fortnite/GTA, etc, are mentioned in almost every fiscal report, they are large drivers of revenue. Now with CoD they'll get 100% of that revenue from Xbox consoles at least, Lol.

Another reason why they won't go is that they are inherently linked to xCloud, the xCloud machines are Xbox hardware and that makes it easier for a developer to put something onto xCloud if it already exists on Xbox, it sets itself apart from other Cloud services, it has issues in that it takes stock away from consumers but it has benefits in that it's a lot easier to upgrade, it's a lot easier for developers, rather than Stadia which is custom hardware which required specific working to get a game working on it.

So all that being said: I never expected Xbox to come close to PlayStation to begin with, a business can still be beaten easily and still be profitable, I think even a 50m-60m can even be profitable, the stock issue will be temporary, I don't expect Xbox to leave the hardware market, so my only concern would be if stuff skips Xbox but (sorry to Japanese fans) that tends to be IPs that I don't give a damn about and even a 50m+ install base will be hard to ignore for most major developers.

If it makes it easier for Sony to moneyhat then fair does, Xbox just got Activision-Blizzard, Lol. I'm content with Xbox's future line-up and their current stable of studios for the most part now and anticipate myself having a very happy generation. I expect this gen to reach 360 levels in terms of exclusivity content, at minimum it should destroy Xbox One and if that happens I don't really care how much Xbox hardware sells as long as the business is profitable.

The slide began after MS/Xbox announced always online for the Xbox One (and other negative things like you wouldn't be able to share your games with others etc...). They've recovered somewhat but I do think the overall negative sentiment many gamers hold for MS and Xbox hasn't truly recovered from that debacle. Couple that with the wildly inconsistent release of 1st party titles (plus I think there is probably some series fatigue with Xbox's core IPs Forza, Halo, and Gears). MS has been addressing their lack of 1st party output with the purchase of Bethesda, Activision/Blizzard, Obsidian, Ninja Theory, etc... but these studios have yet to release anything so we're still waiting for them to bear fruit at this point. My overall feeling for Xbox in the future is generally positive though, and I know it's a meme at this point but we just have to be patient and wait.

The peak of Xbox was early-middle Xbox 360 (aside from RROD). The darkest era of Xbox was by far 2013 - 2017.

The decline started with Xbox One, it had a strong start (likely due to 360 fans) but then it plummeted in sales and never quite recovered, their studios were a mess (what few they had), almost everything released either flopped or was critically panned, Lol. Halo 5 did significant damage to the franchise and caused a huge detour to plans, Crackdown 3 killed its franchise, multiple titles were cancelled (Scalebound, Phantom Dust, Fable Legends), we lost Lionhead, almost every month people were speculating about Xbox being shutdown, Lol. It was not a nice time.

Now I'm very optimistic about Xbox's future, I'm interested in the vast majority of their upcoming exclusives, I'm extremely excited as an WRPG fan who was demanding for years that Microsoft bring back Fable and become invested in WRPGs again. I've not been this optimistic about Xbox since the 360 era, sure, there are a few stumbles in getting there but it was never going to be perfect when they had to basically rebuild themselves after the disaster Xbox One era.

The individual studio acquisitions showed a renewed commitment, Zenimax confirmed they aren't leaving, Activision-Blizzard cemented it, signed and sealed it, they're here to stay, which isn't something I was confident in saying during the Xbox One era, I'm simply not that worried as long as Satya remains CEO. He has made his commitment clear.

They won't ever beat Sony again, they won't even come near Sony again, Imho. But that's okay, they don't need to, they've changed their business model, it doesn't mean Sony is doing their business wrong, it doesn't mean Xbox is doing theirs wrong. They're both focusing on their own measures of success now and Xbox deviated in order to survive but that turned into a good thing because it led to a massive renewed investment in the brand and led to Game Pass which is awesome.

Frustrating it is taking long for the AAAs to hit but I don't know how anyone can look at what they have planned and say that absolutely nothing in that list excites them, Lol. They're covering so many genres, so many sizes, from AA to AAA in the foreseeable future and they've made their long term commitment clear so, it's a matter of when, not if. Starfield alone for me is more exciting than half of Xbox One's exclusive line-up, Lol.

Lots of quality shown already in their AA releases, a lot of variety as well. But they're lacking the AAAs that move consoles, as much as the AAs are good, it needs AAAs, but they are coming. For quite a few of the studios they acquired, I can't wait to see what they pull off with a larger budget.