Don can be congratulated for the Xbox360 era. Arguably Xbox finest. Also Kinect was a success to boost the platform at the time. But then he made a miscalculation with the Xbox1. Overplayed his hand. At least he had a vision, eventhough the vision for the Xbox1 did not work out.

Phil on the other hand almost seems to just trow things at the wall and see what sticks. In a more positive spin one could say he is AB testing. There is course correction upon course correction which leaves the consumer confused. The terrible communication through it all is another reason for consumers to lose trust in the platform.

the 360 era was something Don inhereted really. He can still be blamed for the second half of the 360's life having a total dearth of games after it started off so well. His biggest success of the Kinect ended up being a fad that held them back in the long run.

Playstation games constantly chart, what are you even talking about? Their past couple of years have been relatively weak because their output itself has been poor. They're just not making enough game due in part to their GaaS initiative.

Microsoft isn't adding any value to "Xbox", all they're doing is transitioning a platform into a glorified sticker (plus GamePass I guess which doesn't require Xbox lol) and you're celebrating it. Their current software is in a league of its own popularity wise. They can easily make Xbox a relevant platform again if they wish to. It's not just CoD and Minecraft, that's almost like saying Nintendo is just Mario and Pokemon.

The majority of Playstation gamers supposedly playing GaaS doesn't change the fact that their consoles are selling like 300 million software annually, which doesn't take into account F2P, microtransactions, and services. Playstation remains a huge platform. The only reason Sony is supporting PC and other platforms is greed/expansionism. They seem to think they can keep the Playstation brand strong forever without true exclusivity, I think reality will bite them in the ass eventually.

This I'd have to disagree with; the second half of the 360's life saw the likes of Gears of War 3 and Judgement, Halo Reach and 4, Forza 4 and Horizon, Alan Wake, Fable III, Splinter Cell Conviction, Crackdown 2, State of Decay, Trials Evolution, etc, as well as great third party titles like Mass Effect 2 + 3, Bioshock Infinite, Skyrim, Portal 2, Witcher 2, etc.

I thought second half was okay, but disappointing. Gears 3, Reach, Horizon, and Forza 4 was good. However everything else was mediocre. 


As an Xbox series consoles fan, I thought the 360 was overrated. I like the controller and Xbox live / UI. However, the faulty hardware, pay for online and lack of anything compelling outside of Halo, Gears, and Forza was aggravating.

I may seem like a hypocrite because I like the Xbox Series consoles, but Game pass makes all the difference imo. 

There was a ton of great console exclusives on 360 outside of just Halo/Gears/Forza; Witcher 2, Alan Wake, Splinter Cell Conviction, Condemned, Fable 2/3, Ace Combat 6, COD2, Metro 2033, Lost Odyssey, Left 4 Dead 1/2, Shadow Complex, Prey, Dead Rising, Project Gotham Racing 3/4, Quake 4, Dead or Alive 4, etc.

That's without even counting that it had almost all of that generation's top third party games, and usually the superior version of them over PS3.

The hardware was also fixed in models from 2008 onwards; mine is 16 years old and still going strong.

I'm referring to Xbox 360 after 2009 in regards to software and the PS3 ended up having way better exclusives when it was all said and done. The multi-platform difference was small between ps3 and 360 after 2007 with a few exception and didn't mean anything when you have faulty hardware and have to pay for online. 

The 360 hardware issues went on way too long and it wasn't resolved until 2009 last I checked. The pay for online model still makes me mad to this day and wish Xbox will get rid of that crap.

Despite my name, I'm not a blind fanboy. I think playstation is a shell of its former self and has nothing like game pass to make it enticing to me.

Their exclusive first party games are not charting as well as you think. They do well for few months then they die off a few months later. That is why Sony is focusing on GAAS because it is their only hope to please the share holders. Sony knows consoles are losing their value because the third party games they rely on are now on PC/Cloud for the most part.

Only a matter of time before third party games run on mobile natively as well which will only hurt Playstation and Xbox even more.

Except, it is not an excuse. You are comparing apples and oranges. Nintendo is definitely not in the same boat. Mario, Zelda, etc will ALWAYS make Nintendo relevant, even if they have a bad generation; people who got crazy about the Wii simply waited the next gen. Not to mention the Switch and the portability which makes it a completely different beast all together. That's not at all the same story.

Same goes for the PS3 and Xbox 360. A "significant lead"... What are you talking about, there is a big difference between having one console coming out a year later but with people waiting for it and 70% of the marketshare with a console (the Xbox One gen) that was completely under-performing the other one and nobody looking forward for the next one and again, comparing apples and oranges. 

The ecosystem and the domino effect of the Play Station 4 is the main reasons why Xbox could not come back from the Xbox One debacle. 70% of the people wanting a home console during the last generation went for a PlayStation 4 and for good reasons, if you really believe that it was almost impossible for Xbox to come back after that with a console and offering that was basically similar to the Play Station 5, you are delusional. Why on earth would anyone who invested so much in Sony's ecosystem switch for Xbox when the offering was basically the same on both side? This is simple logic. How can you even argue against that is beyond me. 

And how Mattrick leaving by himself after screwing up is making things EVEN worse for Spencer? Can you enlighten me here... I get that you seem to really dislike the guy (Spencer) but come on, this makes no sense.

The 360 sold more than 40m units in the USA, the PS3 couldn't surpass 30m. While on the other hand the PS4 beat the One by only 5m in the USA. Despite the Xbox One debacle, there were still almost as many people in the Xbox ecosystem as there were in the PS ecosystem. Globally, the Xbox One was a disaster; but in the USA it absolutely still had a basis to have its successor beat the next PS, because a lifetime sales difference of 5m is not much in the US market.

You and some others try to portray history as if Microsoft was always doomed to lose everywhere, so Spencer did a good job actually. But that isn't true. It was doable to beat the PS5 in the USA, it's just that Spencer failed. So right now the Series trails the PS5 by around 10m units in the USA with the gap continuing to grow every month.

Mattrick supposedly leaving by himself isn't making things worse for Spencer specifically, but for Xbox management decisions in general. What I said was a statement about how poorly run that company is, if it's true that they didn't even want to fire Mattrick. In any case, whether or not Mattrick would get fired wasn't Spencer's decision to make, so this has no bearing on the thread's question.

I don't dislike Spencer. I am answering the thread's question, that's all. Mattrick did do a lot of damage to the Xbox console business, but he didn't deliberately attempt to kill it like Spencer is doing. That's why Spencer gets the vote.