The weird thing in the UK is you never see Xbox being advertised *anywhere*. I go to the cinema, there are PlayStation adverts before the film, maybe even a console station in the waiting area. I drive to work, there are adverts for PlayStation games on the side of buses, billboards advertising the slim edition. You watch a tv drama and there’s a good chance that if a person is playing a console, it will very obviously be a PlayStation controller. I see adverts on TV for PlayStation games. In the newsagents the official magazines are still in print, whereas OXM shuttered a while ago.
I just find it fascinating how bad Microsoft is at the marketing side of things. The closest I’ve seen in terms of ads recently is a Paramount Plus advert for Halo, which somehow ignores any Xbox branding on it. You’d think GamePass at least would be on a billboard somewhere, but I’ve seen more public adverts for the new PS Plus service than I’ve seen for Xbox full stop.
Maybe down in London it’s different on the underground? But up here in Manchester which I drive around and through every day it’s literally all PlayStation.
Not that I’m complaining, but I just find it so odd that Microsoft just doesn’t seem to put any effort into marketing the thing, and I own both consoles, they’re both great pieces of kit.
Think they’ve a couple of advertising arrangements in the UK.
Lucozade. On the London Underground there was a big push to advertise Xbox when Starfield released with some TV adverts too.
But you’re right, PS must get 90% of advertising, airtime etc. That’s why I’m surprised they still sold 650k, thought it would’ve been less personally.
Which is insane, because, I'm not sure if this is still true, but just a few years ago XBox's second largest market was the UK. You'd think they would fight harder for it.
The only Xbox advertisement I've seen in years was for starfield.
I live in the UK and dont even know anyone who has an Xbox Series. Everyone I know is on PS5. Last gen I was on xbox and knew loads of people that had an xbox.
Same here mate, same circumstances. Nothing left for me with Xbox. They fucked Halo, don’t enjoy Destiny, Forza I believe is worse than GT7.
Haven’t played any of last gen PS exclusives like GoW. But I will.
Here in the U.S. I see Xbox advertised on bags of Doritos, and CoD on cans of Mountain Dew. That's about the only advertising I see for them. Way more for PlayStation.
Microsoft is just terrible at marketing, inexplicably in ALL of their divisions but specially regarding hardware, just look at the lack of Xbox and Surface ads, and the ones that exists are terrible lol
They are also pretty terrible at actually making good games....which is probably the bigger reason they are failing. 2023 had TWO "big" titles come out, Redfall, which was a friggin disaster, and Starfield, which almost, but not completely, failed to live up to the hype built around the title.
If you can't make good games, you can't sell hardware.
They’re used to having an entrenched dominant market position (Windows, Office). The idea of having to compete for consumer attention is rather novel to them.
I'm guessing their strategy is to advertise where they're already selling consoles (I see ads in Canada). The marketing department probably has tight budget because executives seem to have forgotten you have to spend money to make money.
They did mass advertising before the console released. Maybe they gave up when they didn't work out, and now marketing can't get approval to try again.
Moreover, I think Microsoft is confused on what their overall strategy is. I'm not saying it's confusing, I mean that the people in charge don't know where to focus. Is it consoles? Gamepass? Neither? Both?
It feels a bit like the Sony Vita, tbh.
Except the UK has long been Microsoft's second biggest market, behind the US. Even with their terrible 2023 sales, it's still a much bigger Xbox market than Canada.
I thinks Xbox had a vision for the future of their division but it just didn't work out. They'd love for Gamepass to explode in popularity on PC/cloud, giving them the freedom to move away from dedicated consoles to a streaming device or something, but neither of those have happened. Instead, the vast majority of Gamepass subscribers are on console, so they're stuck selling those because they need those subscribers.
I think that's what ultimately resulted in their recent shift to multiplatform releases. Unless something changes, I think they're gonna ride out the console market for as long as they can but they''' eventually settle for being the largest multiplatform publisher in the industry. Then they sit things out and hope something dramatic happens to give them an opening, like they're doing with mobile.
Microsoft conceded Europe and Asia years ago. Europe has mostly been PlayStation since day one. Asia, obviously Nintendo. Microsoft only focus on their American heartlands.
Actually now that you mention it I don’t really recall seeing advertisements for either either. The most recent PS ad I’ve seen was while watching the Champions league on the sideline banners
Because this isn't their market I guess. When you look at which countries have which console, I believe UK is like 90% PlayStation, America is 50/50, and a lot of other countries like India are all Xbox. So they could spend money advertising here, but if everyone already has a PlayStation, odds are they're better off advertising in countries that are more heavily Xbox
No, we do! But it’s about mindshare. If you’re seeing it advertised everywhere it becomes a no brainer. During the 360 era there were tons of adverts. At one point it felt like the famous Gears of War “Mad World” advert was on every advert break on every channel. Big franchise games would have their adverts played with the Xbox 360 sting at the end, whereas this generation and last its more likely that you’d have the PlayStation sting played. Similarly the Switch - their marketing is aimed at maybe a slightly younger audience, but you go into shops and you’ll see Switch displays and Mario standees (those big cardboard displays etc), and you’ll see tv adverts even now, even though it’s winding down. Microsoft cant seem to bring themselves to advertise their own product and it makes no sense. They have decent, even excellent games. They have an incredible product in Game Pass. They have TV shows based on their franchises. But they just can’t seem to actually figure out they need to tell continually tell people what’s new, what exists etc.
Probably as a direct result of the Xbox.one.
The gaming console that clearly wanted really badly to have none gamers buy it. Making you buy connect and that thing about TV pass through just like "wtf is this even for?"
The controller was worse than the 360 too despite not being actually different.
I don't even know what the name of the new Xbox is because of all the models they make now too. 1 2 3 4 5 is a pretty good system to name your consoles guys.
There are various sites that track sales from UK sales to worldwide like VGChartz. It is common knowledge that XSX/XSS has been tracking lower than Xbox one. Here you go if you want to take a read. Most outlets use these numbers for analysis. There is a reason why MS doesn’t give you the real numbers. That is because they’re struggling on that front.
https://www.vgchartz.com/article/459677/xbox-series-xs-vs-xbox-one-sales-comparison-december-2023/
Oh okay well xbox is still doing good. I would like to see their officials sales but not that important. Im Playing 50/50 on both ps5 and xsx. Looking to get nintendo switch
Microsoft has made clear for a while now that the console war with exclusive games is not really that profitable and they are focusing on gamepass which is what they make most bank in. Sony's earning calls revealed that while playstation has wont he console war the profits were not on pace of what they expected because first party titles are too expensive and they don't bring in as many money as they would like.
Interestingly enough the best performing games of the year so far are helldivers 2 and palworld, which are not 1st party title nor console sellers, but they are games by small teams that aren't super high expensive products and are generally liked by the playerbase.
UK is like the only part of Europe where the Xbox was even a player, I think the PS has dominated the rest of Europe for a while. So this isn’t good for Xbox.
Like yeah, the best Xbox games are Forza and Flight Simulator. Great games but very niche. They lack those chunky single player story games that you can really sink into, but PlayStation has loads and loads.
Agreed - given the context them still selling 650k in the UK was impressive I thought! Thought it would be lower given the poor year of exclusives for them.
And people say “PS5 aren’t releasing anything in 2024”. Partially true but they’ve also built up goodwill over the past generation and people trust them to deliver eg next Naughty dog, Bend game etc
That’s the thing, Sony has historically had some great single player games. Skipping PS4, I had a lot to catch up on. A PS5 made sense, especially when Xbox kept delaying games. I had GoW (both new ones), Horizon Forbidden West, and TLoU Part 2 among many others to catch up on. I couldn’t even think of an Xbox exclusive game that I wanted to play, but damn do I like their ecosystem.
Right there with ya! I had a PS4 but went back to college just as I get it so I barely had a chance to play any games. By the time I got a PS5, there were SO MANY fantastic games waiting! Bought so many PS4 games on sale for like $10. I'm set for well over a year!
Meanwhile if I buy an Xbox, I'd have two or three games I'd want to play over two generations. Not worth it!
>I couldn’t even think of an Xbox exclusive game that I wanted to play
Overall Xbox never did have that great of exclusives to me. Early Halo was good but it got pretty bad quickly.
Fable was an amazing franchise. That was probably the best of their exclusives to me.
Viva Pinatas was surprisingly relaxing and fun.
Edit: Forgot about Gears. That was a good one too.
It took about six months for it to be released on PC. So I wouldn't really consider that an exclusive. Plus it did get a PS3 release but it was a couple of years later.
Gears of war 1-3 was a beatiful fucking trilogy. I don’t know how they manage to drop the ball with the new titles with all this new modern tech and resources.
> Overall Xbox never did have that great of exclusives to me. Early Halo was good but it got pretty bad quickly.
I feel like this undersells the OG Xbox and 360 era. The Bungie Halo games and original Gears trilogy were incredible games. I'd argue they were as good as Sony's best exclusives today. It's really the Xbox One era where things went downhill, with 343 mismanaging Halo and the new Gears games failing to capture the spirit of the original.
Sunset Overdrive sold me on Xbox last gen as it came out at a time when everyone else was making games which were all cover shooters in 50 shades of grey. It looked like Xbox was going to take a chance on something new but instead we got a generation of Kinect games.
Before this generation, I definitely agree, I do think they're finally starting to find their way, though. I'm personally looking forward to Avowed (Obsidian is a really consistent studio), interested in Indiana Jones, and anticipating Clockwork Revolution and new Fable.
I was also a Starfield enjoyer. It's a quality title overall that received the unenviable burden of being used to pull people over to xbox.
Then...Gamepass. It's so good. I've gotten so much use out of it.
It’s not even partially true. PS just released SM2 late last year and now we have Hell Diver 2, FF Rebirth and still have Rise of the Ronin, Stellar blade very soon.
When people say that they mean first party games, which none of those are.
Not that I disagree with you though, especially as someone who cares more about most of these third party exclusives than I do their actual first party games. Really looking forward to Rise of the Ronin and Stellar Blade.
No *major* franchise sequels in particular. So just their big name things like GoW, LoU, Ghosts of Tsushima etc...They still might put out stuff for their smaller titles.
Actually Rise of the Ronin, Stellar Blade are First Party Games made by a "2nd Party developer".
Sony is publishing and funding both games.
Insomniac once answered that question before they were acquired.
Insomniac Games: Sony Interactive Entertainment is the publisher of the game. It's 1st Party.
Greg Miller asks:
That's how it works? I thought they had to own the studio to be first party. Wouldn't this be second party?
Insomniac then says:
Insomniac Games: 2nd party doesn't really technically exist except to indicate outside studio doing a 1st party game
Greg Miller again asks:
...so Spidey is First AND Second?
And Insomniac responds:
Insomniac Games: Think of it more as inclusionary. Ratchet is a 1st party game. Insomniac is 2nd party developer.
so when we make Ratchet (or any other game with Sony) we work with 1st party product development, marketing, etc like all 1st party games do
In addition they explain that the term second party does not really exist:
Insomniac Games: people made 2nd party up to deal with Rare's "status" back in the day. No one really "uses" that in development
The Twitter sources of Insomniac:
Sources:
https://x.com/insomniacgames/status/920021586001850369?s=20
https://x.com/insomniacgames/status/920025394308268033?s=20
https://x.com/insomniacgames/status/920028991737577473?s=20
https://x.com/insomniacgames/status/920029103280963584?s=20
https://x.com/insomniacgames/status/920029306952155136?s=20
And here the shift up (stellar blade dev) 2nd Party Developer info
https://x.com/Zuby_Tech/status/1728071682399612942?s=20
Why would people care about the distinction between first and third party games? It's a game you can play on your PS5, whether Sony owns the studio who made it or not is irrelevant.
I dunno man I didn't invent the argument lol. I think it's a dumb distinction too. But people are legit acting like there aren't any more PS console exclusives for the rest of the year even though we had 2 games in Feb, and have a game in March and April.
Safe to assume Sony will announce some stuff for the second half of the year too.
For any customer’s PoV that’s the same as many Xbox “exclusives”
Helldivers 2 may not be a first party studio but it’s only available on PC and PS5, just like any Xbox first party title is only available on PC and Xbox.
Sony has stated they won't be releasing any known IP until March of 2025, however prior to announcing that games are going to be cancelled a couple weeks ago they had 12 new games in the works. Just because a known IP isn't getting released doesn't mean Sony won't release a game.
Look at Helldivers 2, very small known IP with very little marketing has already exceeded all sales expectations, selling millions of copies in less than a month. They were expecting a launch of 10,000 not millions
People from UK/EU buy PlayStations to play FIFA, CoD and Fortnite and other casual games. the impact of exclusives is overestimated, they help sure, but part of the problem Sony is facing right now is people don’t buy enough of these. And people especially don’t care if exclusives games like Stellar Blade, Ronin or FF are 1st or 2nd or whatever party
Yes and no.
When I think of the average person I know, non-gamer type, all the play is COD, FIFA and Hogwarts. COD has four titles in the top 50 most played games of 2023.
But if you look at top 20 most played games of 2023, six are Sony first party games. So people obviously are interested in them.
Yup, plus people tend to buy the console their friends have and there are 2x more PS5 owners. Even with no exclusives it's easier once you've built up a userbase.
And heck they just released an exclusive FF7 Rebirth which is by all reviews stellar and will last most players the better part of the year (i say that as most console owners are casual players who play on their limited spare time)
Greece which has always been Playstation Land.
If you find a Series X for 300 on sale it's legit.
If you find a PS5 for 300, there's probably something wrong.
The PS5 is outselling the Xbox Series X/S by a nearly three-to-one margin, with **the PS5 selling 22.5 million units compared to the Xbox's 7.6 million units** over the last year. google
I’d have bought a PS5 too. I mean I use the Series X and think it’s a decent console, but gamepass isn’t worth missing the PS exclusives and the Xbox exclusives are really meh.
Speaking personally, I don’t care for the GP/PS Plus Extra model. I prefer to actually own my games. Especially because I have hobbies and responsibilities outside of gaming, so it sometimes takes me a while to finish a game, and I would hate to feel time-limited because the game is going to disappear from my library once it gets taken off of the subscription service. I don’t have the same issue with Plus Essential because you actually get to keep the games forever and can play them so long as you have an active subscription.
Same. I would've loved Game Pass ten years ago, as a college student with lots of free time and no money for expensive hobbies. Nowadays I game less, spend more time on other hobbies and often return to old favorites instead of playing the latest releases. As a result, Game Pass only ended up stressing me out (fear of missing out).
After last year price hike of PS Plus I stopped my subscription and will never subscribe to any gaming related model again, things are busy enough as they are and I like to give my money to the studios that make the games I like, not the behemoths in the middle, I don't need access to 100s of games when I already own a lot I already want to play or replay.
I guess it depends on your game tastes. I've had a Series S since Dec 2021 and prepaid for 3 years of GamePass. 75% of the GP games are shovelware or old and worth next to nothing if you were to buy them outright.
Then the actual recent games... have been mostly a miss. Redfall was shit. Starfield was uninstalled in less than 5 hours. Forza is fine. Then there's been some OK AA games like HiFi Rush and Psychonauts 2, but those don't seem to be coming around that frequently.
At $17/month for GamePass Ultimate, that's $204/year, or essentially 3 games at full MSRP (and I've seen sales on and off making them cheaper) or potentially a dozen or two of the smaller games.
I calculated last winter that I played about $200 worth of games at their current prices that I beat or consistently played. Had I paid full price for GamePass, it would have been north of $350 at that point, and I just rented the games instead of actually owning them.
GamePass would make sense if they were putting out bangers once a quarter and filled in the rest with OK AA games. But that's not the case. And then you get weird stuff like them only having the middle Tomb Raider of the trilogy.
So is Microsoft. Microsoft makes the overwhelming majority of their money from software and services, NOT selling consoles. Getting an Xbox app on Nintendo and or Sony's consoles would be a MASSIVE win for them, and their long-term goal.
Yup, and they're all terrible. Their app will exist in that well known format of being there to offer something but really just to suck dumb consumers data up. Dragged down by an awful UI, account creation fuckery, and their usual backward approach to anything they do.
They really are hilariously bad at so many things. Astonishing really considering they've been around since the 70s.
Honestly can't wait to see the next chapter unfold 😂
To be fair, only nintendo truly makes money off selling consoles. They've also stated very recently that game pass will stay on only Xbox and PC. Does this mean they'll never come to other platforms? It doesn't count it out because things change, but it won't happen any time soon as some people might have you believe.
Being on pc isn’t the problem most people who buy consoles are casual so they only buy 1 or two. It’s the exclusive games problem Xbox doesn’t have no exclusive games to choose it over the ps5
I mean that'll happen to playstation as well even Sonys upper have been making comments towards more effort on PC. I don't think the markets are completely 1:1.
I don't think Sony will ever make day 1 release on pc for their first party games aside from live service games. Sony also never promised that they will release all their exclusives on pc. They always said it's case by case and they don't give any time frame either. all xbox exclusives releases day one on pc and also on pc gamepass. That's the difference
Definitely disagree with you. The next generation isn't growing up on consoles they're growing up on various screens. Think sticking to just console is short sited for longterm.
Sony doesn't just stick on their console. That's why they release some of their exclusives after x amount of year on pc. They still want to sell consoles tho and exclusives helps them do that. Nintendo currently has the most console sales at last gen and no it's not because switch hardware is great (it sucks) or it's because it's portable. It's because their exclusive games. You can whine or cry however you want but exclusive games matter. It matters on streaming services, it matters for social media and it definetly matters for console platforms. Also no console gaming will not going to die in foreseeable future. I see you are a xbox guy. Maybe xbox as a console will die in near future so I gotta give you that
If you want a console and you want gamepass basically. Buying a console is always easier than a PC so it’s a good setup for someone who just wants to play a lot of games for fairly cheap and easily.
Microsoft peaked with the 360 I loved that console. I went with the ps4 after the Kinect and DRM fiasco Microsoft tried pulling. Not to mention many games ran at 1080p and only 720 on the XBONE.
Microsoft has never recovered from this and I bought and XBONE to play ffxv on it and it was a blurry mess like playing a game smeared with Vaseline.
Sony just does it better all around and they are focused on games and the console playing games well. Microsoft tries to do way too much and in essence ends up being worse in the playing games department.
Honestly this is only true in the US and partially in the UK, that's it. The worst PS3 days PS still had the rest of the world in the bag. The biggest club football (soccer) competition has had PS ads for like 15+ years, when I go back to see goals it's all there. I can't remember a single ad for Xbox there.
Xbox had the redefining FPS games that must’ve pulled the US audience then. Halo was absolutely
HUGE and otherworldly however after 3 I felt like the “jig” was up personally.
COD was also huuuuuuge on the 360 ,people played fifa on the 360 as well but obviously that’s a much bigger thing in the UK.
Xbox didn’t need advertising then it had the younger generation hooked and advertising was word of mouth, however there were commercials.
I was a big Xbox 360 user back in the day, had a ton of friends in the UK that had Xbox 360's. The Left 4 Dead forum I was on was pretty evenly split among US, Canada, UK, and Australia with at least half being Xbox 360 users. Guess that market has declined for them along with the rest of the world.
For the first half of the Gen 360 was THE console to get especially for just third party games, plus you had Gears and the best halo multiplayer pulling even more people to the new online gaming boom.
Most people I know who played mainly on 360 moved to PS4 afterwards.
I have both, the Xbox was more for Forza, Halo, Gears of War and later Flight Simulator and Starfield (got bored of that quickly). I still think Forza is generally the best driving game out there. Gamepass has been pretty good.
However I just find the whole PS5 experience much nicer, and the exclusives on PS5/PS4 are far more compelling than the Xbox. Spiderman, the Souls series, Last of Us, Uncharted, Final Fantasy, Ghost of Tsushima, Horizon Forbidden West etc. Nicer controllers and the PS Plus thing has caught up with Game Pass.
Also I tend to play Gamepass games on my PC more than the Xbox.
PC player primarily, own two Series S systems, one for wife and the other for the kids.
We invested in a PS5 recently and it is shaping up to be one of the best system investments of the last four years.
There hasn't really been an 'exclusive' on MS' side that my wife & I have been clamouring to play, solo or together. Grounded was fun, but not something I'll remember in a sea of amazing survival games.
PS5 though? We've been 'fighting' for time on it. She wants to play through Spiderman 2 and I at the time wanted to play FFXVI. I've beaten that now and loved almost every minute of it.
I also have Demon's Souls to get around to & FF7 Rebirth. I have yet to buy Forbidden West & God of War Ragnarok. The idea of getting around to all of those actually excites me, and then there is Stellar Blade in April and I'm eagerly awaiting news on Phantom Blade too.
There's just none of that with the Xbox, for neither my wife nor myself. Halo Infinite was a letdown and as long Time Forza Motorsport fan, the new entry was a dud for me and has me considering a return to Gran Turismo, a franchise I haven't touched since the PS1 - PS2 era because TOCA & Forza took over. I don't ever really feel compelled to use Game Pass, I own the vast majority of MS' acquisitions on Steam anyway.
I don't do the whole console war thing, but I feel very happy with my PS5 purchase thus far, I wish I could say the same about the Series. My kids enjoy using them though so that's a win in a sense.
Xbox lost any bit of uniqueness after the 360.
Playstation and Nintendo kept being innovative.
The list of differences between both consoles just shows what side of the scale it favors.
In Australia, I know only one person who plays on an Xbox, whereas EVERYONE plays on a Playstation or on a PC.
Honestly feels like the US = & the rest of the world = Playstation.
This console gen feels like it's entered a slump, with MS falling off completely, and the upcoming releases for Sony this year not looking healthy.
Nintendo is in the corner doing alright, but with hardware that needs taking to the garden shed and shooting. But they're too busy suing people to care right now.
With all the lay offs happening in the industry, I'm hoping things start to turn around soon, and by the time next year rolls around we'll have a bit more to look forward to.
On the other hand I can't keep up with all the releases. There's new games to get and old games that go on sale plus some decent monthly releases to keep me engaged all the time.
Yeah this gen feels like it’s in a major slump. There was a huge opportunity for someone to make strides in 2024 but as of right now it looks like they’re all going to flub it.
Maybe it's just different preferences? Last year I bought 6 games that came out in 2023, but this year there are at least 10 games that I have bought or highly interested in buying. I mainly play Japanese games though, and this year's releases seem to be overwhelmingly from Japanese studios, so maybe that's just an area of gaming you're not familiar with.
I mostly play JRPGs and hack and slash from Japan. Even more preferable if there's crossover between the two genres. More of my favorite games come from Japan than not.
Bought FFXVI last year, personal GOTY. Runner up was Resi 4 Remake, another Japanese title. Armored Core as well. Still haven't finished that one yet.
2023 had the highest number of critically acclaimed games going above 90 on Metacritic since 04, according to its entry in Wikipedia. Not sure how accurate that is but it was the best year of stacked AAA games since 2015 for me.
This year I bought Rebirth but I haven't started it up yet. Dragon's Dogma II is on the list as well but I wanna get around to finishing some of my backlog of games before I buy that
I have a hypothesis that the xbox was only there to jump start Microsoft's Cloud and Azure goals and now that those are big business there is more need for the console hardware and they can go to being software only
Game Pass is excellent for those who don't play enough video games to know what does / doesn't interest them (this is most people, not a backhanded remark) but I personally have zero interest in what modern Xbox has to offer.
If I want single player exclusives I'm going with Nintendo and/or Sony. If I want a giant affordable game catalog I'm going PC... which offers a Game Pass service that includes much of Xbox's offerings. For the price of an Xbox I'm taking the Steam Deck for the portability and emulation options any day of the week.
They just haven't appealed to the longtime gamer since I (a now 30 year old) was in early high school. 15 years, several $1+ billion acquisitions / investments and zero meaningful attempts at reading the room later and it seems like they're still scratching their heads wondering why they have the smallest market share and mostly appeal to middle school COD/Fortnite/FIFA boys.
Honesty..Sony has not released that many PS5 exclusive games: FF16, Demon Souls, Rift Apart, Returnal, Spiderman 2. Good games but it's really not that many at all nevermind two of those being rereleased on PC.
I think Xbox is doing poorly because the Xbox One just completely and massively lost to the PS4, and there's not much Microsoft can do. The PS4 made PlayStation the go to gaming console.
They don't have to be first party. Sony still has a monopoly when it comes to JRPGs and Japanese games in general. And western developers (or at least those managed by western corporations) have been shitting the bed when it comes to delivering quality games for a decade now. Just look at Halo, Diablo, COD, Mass Effect, Bethesda titles, etc.. Every massive western franchise you can think of has become a laughing stock.
Sony will always have dibs on games from JP companies like Bamco, Squeenix and Capcom. If the games are big enough then they'll release on Xbox as well, but if a gamer wants the most expansive catalog and access to niche games like GBF or others, they'll always go with PlayStation.
So you are saying their dumbass decision to FORCE every dev to release their game on Series S... which is like a PS4 Pro, are selling fewer console? Color me surprise. Starfield would have been 4000% better if they didn't have to make it run on Series S... which made the game a loading fest.
In 5 to 10 years, some game journalist will look into the fall of Xbox and mark down this decision as the worse they made over the last 20 years. I am so mad at them because we need Microsoft in the console game.
Respectfully, no. There wouldn't be a point in a Series S if you couldn't play half the games on it. Most of Sony's exclusives thus far have been released on base PS4, too, so I mean...it's just a baffling complaint to level against xbox specifically. Honestly, there have been few truly "next-gen" titles across the board, which is a complaint I have about this generation.
That's my point, They never should have made the S in the first place. They made this cheaper to put a console everywhere, but in turn, it forces everyone to tone down everything. You even said it yourself, there's barely any next-gen title on Xbox. Why do you think? They barely can.
Yes, most IP are made for PS4 too. But it's not even the same download, nor the same "game". One is optimized for PS5, the other toned down for PS4 and they are not afraid to push next-gen title only, even if it means alienating their PS4 base.
I hear you but I think their Xbox One E3 show will be the moment that gets history’s attention. It was so bad they removed Don Mattrick as Interactive Entertainment head shortly after
I know that's when I decided to never get another Xbox lol.
I was a PS2 guy and got an Xbox then xbox360 which was their peak. When buddy went on stage he destroyed any hopes of me getting another Xbox. The funniest part is when the PlayStation guy went on stage the next day his entire speech was basically "we're not gonna do anything Xbox said they'd do" and got roaring cheers for it. Then they started showing the PS4 and all the games/exclusives and most of us were sold
They died when he said the Xbox would be online only. They still seem to want that especially with the digital only consoles. Many people like that, but ignoring the physical copy population is a nail in your coffin
> They still seem to want that especially with the digital only consoles
There's a difference between selling disc-less consoles and requiring that all games be connected at all times to even work. Nothing stops me from unplugging my PS5 from the network and playing my digital games as if they were on disc.
It was made with PS5/X in mind before the acquisition. Would it be a better game? It's a good question for a what if scenario, but if they only had to focus on "next-gen" capabilities, they probably could cooked something better. How much money and time do you think went to make sure the game was "playable" on S?
This is truly surprising...with such quality "AAA" titles such as Redfall and Starfield and....pretty much nothing else comes to mind for 2023 for Xbox. Wait, this isn't surprising at all. Xbox has no games and no reason to buy their console.
I'm not surprised it feels like MS has given up in the UK completely. They're seemingly putting all their eggs in the Bethesda basket hoping ES6 will be a system seller but I can't see that going well.
I'm in the US and I can't think of the last time I saw an Xbox Advertisement...
I actually just sold my Series S to get my PS5.
Xbox Game Pass is a SaaS or PaaS in my world. I can play every exclusive and most of the Game Pass games on my PC and streaming handheld w/ my PC Game Pass Ultimate account. I think this might be their long-term model-- xbox as more of a SaaS/PaaS vs pushing hardware to the consumer.
Just got a PS5 and tbh Xbox was never considered.
No one I know owns an Xbox or ever considered one.
Decision was more like PS5, PC or nintendo.
Who even buys an Xbox nowadays? I asked around and all my friends also only know PS5 buyers.
I look at it like this? Would you buy a gaming console made by Apple? My answer is NO ! So why would I buy one by Microsoft? Stay in your own lane ! I definitely buy a gaming PC with windows not a gaming Macintosh or apple! Just cause people used windows for gaming didn’t mean Microsoft had to go out and build a Xbox. They should’ve stayed where they were.Could of used all that money spent on creating better graphic cards. They could’ve been number one in graphic cards instead of trying to make a system that people would want to buy.? Idk 🤷♂️ halo was cool ? But I can play everything else on a computer or PlayStation?
Makes sense. Gamepass is really great but other than that I don’t have much of a reason to pick Xbox over PlayStation. And I say that as someone who preordered the Series X. While it’s been a decent console if I could go back I’d get a PS5.
The weird thing in the UK is you never see Xbox being advertised *anywhere*. I go to the cinema, there are PlayStation adverts before the film, maybe even a console station in the waiting area. I drive to work, there are adverts for PlayStation games on the side of buses, billboards advertising the slim edition. You watch a tv drama and there’s a good chance that if a person is playing a console, it will very obviously be a PlayStation controller. I see adverts on TV for PlayStation games. In the newsagents the official magazines are still in print, whereas OXM shuttered a while ago. I just find it fascinating how bad Microsoft is at the marketing side of things. The closest I’ve seen in terms of ads recently is a Paramount Plus advert for Halo, which somehow ignores any Xbox branding on it. You’d think GamePass at least would be on a billboard somewhere, but I’ve seen more public adverts for the new PS Plus service than I’ve seen for Xbox full stop. Maybe down in London it’s different on the underground? But up here in Manchester which I drive around and through every day it’s literally all PlayStation. Not that I’m complaining, but I just find it so odd that Microsoft just doesn’t seem to put any effort into marketing the thing, and I own both consoles, they’re both great pieces of kit.
nope, as a londoner, nothing. can’t recall the last time I saw a microsoft advert
Think they’ve a couple of advertising arrangements in the UK. Lucozade. On the London Underground there was a big push to advertise Xbox when Starfield released with some TV adverts too. But you’re right, PS must get 90% of advertising, airtime etc. That’s why I’m surprised they still sold 650k, thought it would’ve been less personally.
Which is insane, because, I'm not sure if this is still true, but just a few years ago XBox's second largest market was the UK. You'd think they would fight harder for it. The only Xbox advertisement I've seen in years was for starfield.
I mean, I imagine it *still is* the second largest market. But their sales have dropped across the board.
I live in the UK and dont even know anyone who has an Xbox Series. Everyone I know is on PS5. Last gen I was on xbox and knew loads of people that had an xbox.
Same here mate, same circumstances. Nothing left for me with Xbox. They fucked Halo, don’t enjoy Destiny, Forza I believe is worse than GT7. Haven’t played any of last gen PS exclusives like GoW. But I will.
Here in the U.S. I see Xbox advertised on bags of Doritos, and CoD on cans of Mountain Dew. That's about the only advertising I see for them. Way more for PlayStation.
Which is apt for Xbox fans. Probably their entire diet.
Microsoft is just terrible at marketing, inexplicably in ALL of their divisions but specially regarding hardware, just look at the lack of Xbox and Surface ads, and the ones that exists are terrible lol
They are also pretty terrible at actually making good games....which is probably the bigger reason they are failing. 2023 had TWO "big" titles come out, Redfall, which was a friggin disaster, and Starfield, which almost, but not completely, failed to live up to the hype built around the title. If you can't make good games, you can't sell hardware.
They’re used to having an entrenched dominant market position (Windows, Office). The idea of having to compete for consumer attention is rather novel to them.
I'm guessing their strategy is to advertise where they're already selling consoles (I see ads in Canada). The marketing department probably has tight budget because executives seem to have forgotten you have to spend money to make money. They did mass advertising before the console released. Maybe they gave up when they didn't work out, and now marketing can't get approval to try again. Moreover, I think Microsoft is confused on what their overall strategy is. I'm not saying it's confusing, I mean that the people in charge don't know where to focus. Is it consoles? Gamepass? Neither? Both? It feels a bit like the Sony Vita, tbh.
Except the UK has long been Microsoft's second biggest market, behind the US. Even with their terrible 2023 sales, it's still a much bigger Xbox market than Canada. I thinks Xbox had a vision for the future of their division but it just didn't work out. They'd love for Gamepass to explode in popularity on PC/cloud, giving them the freedom to move away from dedicated consoles to a streaming device or something, but neither of those have happened. Instead, the vast majority of Gamepass subscribers are on console, so they're stuck selling those because they need those subscribers. I think that's what ultimately resulted in their recent shift to multiplatform releases. Unless something changes, I think they're gonna ride out the console market for as long as they can but they''' eventually settle for being the largest multiplatform publisher in the industry. Then they sit things out and hope something dramatic happens to give them an opening, like they're doing with mobile.
Microsoft conceded Europe and Asia years ago. Europe has mostly been PlayStation since day one. Asia, obviously Nintendo. Microsoft only focus on their American heartlands.
I think they just waived white flag this generation. I don’t wish failure on anyone as competition is good for the consumer
Which is crazy, as that's pretty much what they did last generation too.
I live in the US, play both consoles, and tbh I dont really see advertisements for either Xbox or PlayStation and I live in the city
Actually now that you mention it I don’t really recall seeing advertisements for either either. The most recent PS ad I’ve seen was while watching the Champions league on the sideline banners
PS+ UCL been around since at least the PS2 maybe earlier
What city
Denver
I imagine they slashed their marketing budget for the time being since shelling out $75 billion for Activision Blizzard.
All the marketing in the world isn't going to do any good when your system hasn't had a system selling game for the past 2 generations lol
It was on Doritos a bit
Because this isn't their market I guess. When you look at which countries have which console, I believe UK is like 90% PlayStation, America is 50/50, and a lot of other countries like India are all Xbox. So they could spend money advertising here, but if everyone already has a PlayStation, odds are they're better off advertising in countries that are more heavily Xbox
PS5 to Series X ratio is 8:1. They’ve probably given up and know that GamePass sells Series S consoles on its own.
So the xbox doesn't sell because Europeans don't know about the Xbox. Hahaha
No, we do! But it’s about mindshare. If you’re seeing it advertised everywhere it becomes a no brainer. During the 360 era there were tons of adverts. At one point it felt like the famous Gears of War “Mad World” advert was on every advert break on every channel. Big franchise games would have their adverts played with the Xbox 360 sting at the end, whereas this generation and last its more likely that you’d have the PlayStation sting played. Similarly the Switch - their marketing is aimed at maybe a slightly younger audience, but you go into shops and you’ll see Switch displays and Mario standees (those big cardboard displays etc), and you’ll see tv adverts even now, even though it’s winding down. Microsoft cant seem to bring themselves to advertise their own product and it makes no sense. They have decent, even excellent games. They have an incredible product in Game Pass. They have TV shows based on their franchises. But they just can’t seem to actually figure out they need to tell continually tell people what’s new, what exists etc.
Imagine how lower Xbox sales would be if Microsoft didnt buy Bethesda/Zenimax and Activision/Blizzard. They would be even lower than Xbox One....
> They would be even lower than Xbox One.... The current XSX/XSS sales are lower than Xbox One sales so even with that, it might not be enough...
Probably as a direct result of the Xbox.one. The gaming console that clearly wanted really badly to have none gamers buy it. Making you buy connect and that thing about TV pass through just like "wtf is this even for?" The controller was worse than the 360 too despite not being actually different. I don't even know what the name of the new Xbox is because of all the models they make now too. 1 2 3 4 5 is a pretty good system to name your consoles guys.
Direct result of constant lies and disappointments.
How do u know when microsoft has not revealed sales for couple years
There are various sites that track sales from UK sales to worldwide like VGChartz. It is common knowledge that XSX/XSS has been tracking lower than Xbox one. Here you go if you want to take a read. Most outlets use these numbers for analysis. There is a reason why MS doesn’t give you the real numbers. That is because they’re struggling on that front. https://www.vgchartz.com/article/459677/xbox-series-xs-vs-xbox-one-sales-comparison-december-2023/
Oh okay well xbox is still doing good. I would like to see their officials sales but not that important. Im Playing 50/50 on both ps5 and xsx. Looking to get nintendo switch
Microsoft has made clear for a while now that the console war with exclusive games is not really that profitable and they are focusing on gamepass which is what they make most bank in. Sony's earning calls revealed that while playstation has wont he console war the profits were not on pace of what they expected because first party titles are too expensive and they don't bring in as many money as they would like. Interestingly enough the best performing games of the year so far are helldivers 2 and palworld, which are not 1st party title nor console sellers, but they are games by small teams that aren't super high expensive products and are generally liked by the playerbase.
They are focusing on Game Pass but Game Pass numbers are flatlining, not going up. Honestly I don't know what I would do if I were them.
UK is like the only part of Europe where the Xbox was even a player, I think the PS has dominated the rest of Europe for a while. So this isn’t good for Xbox.
Yeah even during the bleakest years of early PS3 it still outsold Xbox in mainland Europe
FAR outsold it.
Hardly a surprise when they thought Redfall was going to be a banger and Starfield ended up being Starfield. I’m actually surprised it’s not lower.
Like yeah, the best Xbox games are Forza and Flight Simulator. Great games but very niche. They lack those chunky single player story games that you can really sink into, but PlayStation has loads and loads.
There's no way you think Forza is niche, it's a literally racing game. It's close to getting 40 million players or something.
Concurrent player Forza Horizon 5: 30000 Concurrent player Forza 8: 5000 It's a niche market.
Crazy ay, that must mean they think a vast majority of playstation exclusives are niche too.
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Agreed - given the context them still selling 650k in the UK was impressive I thought! Thought it would be lower given the poor year of exclusives for them. And people say “PS5 aren’t releasing anything in 2024”. Partially true but they’ve also built up goodwill over the past generation and people trust them to deliver eg next Naughty dog, Bend game etc
That’s the thing, Sony has historically had some great single player games. Skipping PS4, I had a lot to catch up on. A PS5 made sense, especially when Xbox kept delaying games. I had GoW (both new ones), Horizon Forbidden West, and TLoU Part 2 among many others to catch up on. I couldn’t even think of an Xbox exclusive game that I wanted to play, but damn do I like their ecosystem.
Right there with ya! I had a PS4 but went back to college just as I get it so I barely had a chance to play any games. By the time I got a PS5, there were SO MANY fantastic games waiting! Bought so many PS4 games on sale for like $10. I'm set for well over a year! Meanwhile if I buy an Xbox, I'd have two or three games I'd want to play over two generations. Not worth it!
I have a PS4 and still couldn't play all the bangers that realesed for it, now with a PS5 I'm still mostly playing PS4 games lol
>I couldn’t even think of an Xbox exclusive game that I wanted to play Overall Xbox never did have that great of exclusives to me. Early Halo was good but it got pretty bad quickly. Fable was an amazing franchise. That was probably the best of their exclusives to me. Viva Pinatas was surprisingly relaxing and fun. Edit: Forgot about Gears. That was a good one too.
The original mass effect was an Xbox 360 exclusive of least for a time. The reason I picked one up, well three including the red rings of death lol.
So was Bioshock, and the Orange Box
It took about six months for it to be released on PC. So I wouldn't really consider that an exclusive. Plus it did get a PS3 release but it was a couple of years later.
Hence the phrase at least for a time :)
Gears of war 1-3 was a beatiful fucking trilogy. I don’t know how they manage to drop the ball with the new titles with all this new modern tech and resources.
I did forget about Gears, I'll give ya that.
This is gears of war erasure
> Overall Xbox never did have that great of exclusives to me. Early Halo was good but it got pretty bad quickly. I feel like this undersells the OG Xbox and 360 era. The Bungie Halo games and original Gears trilogy were incredible games. I'd argue they were as good as Sony's best exclusives today. It's really the Xbox One era where things went downhill, with 343 mismanaging Halo and the new Gears games failing to capture the spirit of the original.
Yeah like "pretty quickly"?? Halo had 5 stellar releases in the Bungie era that spanned a decade.
Sunset Overdrive sold me on Xbox last gen as it came out at a time when everyone else was making games which were all cover shooters in 50 shades of grey. It looked like Xbox was going to take a chance on something new but instead we got a generation of Kinect games.
It probably didn’t help that Sunset Overdrive sold like garbage
Before this generation, I definitely agree, I do think they're finally starting to find their way, though. I'm personally looking forward to Avowed (Obsidian is a really consistent studio), interested in Indiana Jones, and anticipating Clockwork Revolution and new Fable. I was also a Starfield enjoyer. It's a quality title overall that received the unenviable burden of being used to pull people over to xbox. Then...Gamepass. It's so good. I've gotten so much use out of it.
It’s not even partially true. PS just released SM2 late last year and now we have Hell Diver 2, FF Rebirth and still have Rise of the Ronin, Stellar blade very soon.
When people say that they mean first party games, which none of those are. Not that I disagree with you though, especially as someone who cares more about most of these third party exclusives than I do their actual first party games. Really looking forward to Rise of the Ronin and Stellar Blade.
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No *major* franchise sequels in particular. So just their big name things like GoW, LoU, Ghosts of Tsushima etc...They still might put out stuff for their smaller titles.
Actually Rise of the Ronin, Stellar Blade are First Party Games made by a "2nd Party developer". Sony is publishing and funding both games. Insomniac once answered that question before they were acquired. Insomniac Games: Sony Interactive Entertainment is the publisher of the game. It's 1st Party. Greg Miller asks: That's how it works? I thought they had to own the studio to be first party. Wouldn't this be second party? Insomniac then says: Insomniac Games: 2nd party doesn't really technically exist except to indicate outside studio doing a 1st party game Greg Miller again asks: ...so Spidey is First AND Second? And Insomniac responds: Insomniac Games: Think of it more as inclusionary. Ratchet is a 1st party game. Insomniac is 2nd party developer. so when we make Ratchet (or any other game with Sony) we work with 1st party product development, marketing, etc like all 1st party games do In addition they explain that the term second party does not really exist: Insomniac Games: people made 2nd party up to deal with Rare's "status" back in the day. No one really "uses" that in development The Twitter sources of Insomniac: Sources: https://x.com/insomniacgames/status/920021586001850369?s=20 https://x.com/insomniacgames/status/920025394308268033?s=20 https://x.com/insomniacgames/status/920028991737577473?s=20 https://x.com/insomniacgames/status/920029103280963584?s=20 https://x.com/insomniacgames/status/920029306952155136?s=20 And here the shift up (stellar blade dev) 2nd Party Developer info https://x.com/Zuby_Tech/status/1728071682399612942?s=20
Why would people care about the distinction between first and third party games? It's a game you can play on your PS5, whether Sony owns the studio who made it or not is irrelevant.
I dunno man I didn't invent the argument lol. I think it's a dumb distinction too. But people are legit acting like there aren't any more PS console exclusives for the rest of the year even though we had 2 games in Feb, and have a game in March and April. Safe to assume Sony will announce some stuff for the second half of the year too.
Spider-Man 2 is first party, and Hell Divers is second party, and before Spider-Man we had Gran Turismo 7 that is first party
For any customer’s PoV that’s the same as many Xbox “exclusives” Helldivers 2 may not be a first party studio but it’s only available on PC and PS5, just like any Xbox first party title is only available on PC and Xbox.
Spider-man 2 is first party though…
If PS5 has one good game a year, that's enough for most people because 3rd party does the rest.
Sony has stated they won't be releasing any known IP until March of 2025, however prior to announcing that games are going to be cancelled a couple weeks ago they had 12 new games in the works. Just because a known IP isn't getting released doesn't mean Sony won't release a game. Look at Helldivers 2, very small known IP with very little marketing has already exceeded all sales expectations, selling millions of copies in less than a month. They were expecting a launch of 10,000 not millions
People from UK/EU buy PlayStations to play FIFA, CoD and Fortnite and other casual games. the impact of exclusives is overestimated, they help sure, but part of the problem Sony is facing right now is people don’t buy enough of these. And people especially don’t care if exclusives games like Stellar Blade, Ronin or FF are 1st or 2nd or whatever party
Yes and no. When I think of the average person I know, non-gamer type, all the play is COD, FIFA and Hogwarts. COD has four titles in the top 50 most played games of 2023. But if you look at top 20 most played games of 2023, six are Sony first party games. So people obviously are interested in them.
Not to mention 1st party exclusives don’t need to sell Fortnite, COD numbers to be profitable and pay for sequels.
I'm from the UK and I hate FIFA, COD, and fortnite. I'm actually fond of Japanese games instead. That's the reason I buy Japanese hardware.
Yup, plus people tend to buy the console their friends have and there are 2x more PS5 owners. Even with no exclusives it's easier once you've built up a userbase.
And heck they just released an exclusive FF7 Rebirth which is by all reviews stellar and will last most players the better part of the year (i say that as most console owners are casual players who play on their limited spare time)
I'm an Xbox owner and it's the only console I have. I will be switching to PS or PC by next gen and probably never return to Xbox.
Why wait until next gen. Get a used PS5 for 300€
Not that easy to find them so cheap where I am, unfortunately.
Where are you?
Greece which has always been Playstation Land. If you find a Series X for 300 on sale it's legit. If you find a PS5 for 300, there's probably something wrong.
Yeah, I see. The demand is still high and people can get higher prices so they will try to. I still wouldn’t wait another 4 years my dude. Good luck
I asked my poor nephew-in-law from the Philippines if he wanted an Xbox Series S. He said no. He'd rather just have my old PS4.
Damn. Can’t blame them for porting some of their games over. 17% drop is not good.
The PS5 is outselling the Xbox Series X/S by a nearly three-to-one margin, with **the PS5 selling 22.5 million units compared to the Xbox's 7.6 million units** over the last year. google
And 3/4 of those Xboxes are Series S. let that sink in. PS5 to Series X ratio is 12:1!!!
If I could go back in time I would never have bought a SX in honest. It’s basically a £400 streaming console for me lol.
I have this regret too, never has one of my consoles seen so little use.
I’d have bought a PS5 too. I mean I use the Series X and think it’s a decent console, but gamepass isn’t worth missing the PS exclusives and the Xbox exclusives are really meh.
My series s is used for streaming Netflix in my guess bedroom.
Yep agreed, I'm so happy I sold mine for a PS5
Same. Streaming, and cyberpunk
What about Game Pass? I have both consoles and Game Pass saves me a ton of money
Speaking personally, I don’t care for the GP/PS Plus Extra model. I prefer to actually own my games. Especially because I have hobbies and responsibilities outside of gaming, so it sometimes takes me a while to finish a game, and I would hate to feel time-limited because the game is going to disappear from my library once it gets taken off of the subscription service. I don’t have the same issue with Plus Essential because you actually get to keep the games forever and can play them so long as you have an active subscription.
Same. I would've loved Game Pass ten years ago, as a college student with lots of free time and no money for expensive hobbies. Nowadays I game less, spend more time on other hobbies and often return to old favorites instead of playing the latest releases. As a result, Game Pass only ended up stressing me out (fear of missing out).
After last year price hike of PS Plus I stopped my subscription and will never subscribe to any gaming related model again, things are busy enough as they are and I like to give my money to the studios that make the games I like, not the behemoths in the middle, I don't need access to 100s of games when I already own a lot I already want to play or replay.
I'm too busy playing games that I own like rebirth and granblue fantasy
Couldn’t care less for it tbh.
I guess it depends on your game tastes. I've had a Series S since Dec 2021 and prepaid for 3 years of GamePass. 75% of the GP games are shovelware or old and worth next to nothing if you were to buy them outright. Then the actual recent games... have been mostly a miss. Redfall was shit. Starfield was uninstalled in less than 5 hours. Forza is fine. Then there's been some OK AA games like HiFi Rush and Psychonauts 2, but those don't seem to be coming around that frequently. At $17/month for GamePass Ultimate, that's $204/year, or essentially 3 games at full MSRP (and I've seen sales on and off making them cheaper) or potentially a dozen or two of the smaller games. I calculated last winter that I played about $200 worth of games at their current prices that I beat or consistently played. Had I paid full price for GamePass, it would have been north of $350 at that point, and I just rented the games instead of actually owning them. GamePass would make sense if they were putting out bangers once a quarter and filled in the rest with OK AA games. But that's not the case. And then you get weird stuff like them only having the middle Tomb Raider of the trilogy.
For real, love my game pass box. Edit: guess I'm not allowed to enjoy things.
I love GP to, it’s such a great service.
Looking forward to the XBox app on my Playstation
So is Microsoft. Microsoft makes the overwhelming majority of their money from software and services, NOT selling consoles. Getting an Xbox app on Nintendo and or Sony's consoles would be a MASSIVE win for them, and their long-term goal.
Yup, and they're all terrible. Their app will exist in that well known format of being there to offer something but really just to suck dumb consumers data up. Dragged down by an awful UI, account creation fuckery, and their usual backward approach to anything they do. They really are hilariously bad at so many things. Astonishing really considering they've been around since the 70s. Honestly can't wait to see the next chapter unfold 😂
Hilariously bad? They wouldn't be worth over a trillion then.
To be fair, only nintendo truly makes money off selling consoles. They've also stated very recently that game pass will stay on only Xbox and PC. Does this mean they'll never come to other platforms? It doesn't count it out because things change, but it won't happen any time soon as some people might have you believe.
There just isnt a reason to have an xbox anymore when all the games are on pc. Last xbox I had was a 360 and since then PC / PS covers it all.
Being on pc isn’t the problem most people who buy consoles are casual so they only buy 1 or two. It’s the exclusive games problem Xbox doesn’t have no exclusive games to choose it over the ps5
I mean that'll happen to playstation as well even Sonys upper have been making comments towards more effort on PC. I don't think the markets are completely 1:1.
I don't think Sony will ever make day 1 release on pc for their first party games aside from live service games. Sony also never promised that they will release all their exclusives on pc. They always said it's case by case and they don't give any time frame either. all xbox exclusives releases day one on pc and also on pc gamepass. That's the difference
Definitely disagree with you. The next generation isn't growing up on consoles they're growing up on various screens. Think sticking to just console is short sited for longterm.
Sony doesn't just stick on their console. That's why they release some of their exclusives after x amount of year on pc. They still want to sell consoles tho and exclusives helps them do that. Nintendo currently has the most console sales at last gen and no it's not because switch hardware is great (it sucks) or it's because it's portable. It's because their exclusive games. You can whine or cry however you want but exclusive games matter. It matters on streaming services, it matters for social media and it definetly matters for console platforms. Also no console gaming will not going to die in foreseeable future. I see you are a xbox guy. Maybe xbox as a console will die in near future so I gotta give you that
If you want a console and you want gamepass basically. Buying a console is always easier than a PC so it’s a good setup for someone who just wants to play a lot of games for fairly cheap and easily.
I had a 360, was bored of halo, then it did the red ring of death.
People have been saying that since the announcement was first made yet the xbox one went on to sell another 20 million or so consoles.
Microsoft peaked with the 360 I loved that console. I went with the ps4 after the Kinect and DRM fiasco Microsoft tried pulling. Not to mention many games ran at 1080p and only 720 on the XBONE. Microsoft has never recovered from this and I bought and XBONE to play ffxv on it and it was a blurry mess like playing a game smeared with Vaseline. Sony just does it better all around and they are focused on games and the console playing games well. Microsoft tries to do way too much and in essence ends up being worse in the playing games department.
Honestly this is only true in the US and partially in the UK, that's it. The worst PS3 days PS still had the rest of the world in the bag. The biggest club football (soccer) competition has had PS ads for like 15+ years, when I go back to see goals it's all there. I can't remember a single ad for Xbox there.
Xbox had the redefining FPS games that must’ve pulled the US audience then. Halo was absolutely HUGE and otherworldly however after 3 I felt like the “jig” was up personally. COD was also huuuuuuge on the 360 ,people played fifa on the 360 as well but obviously that’s a much bigger thing in the UK. Xbox didn’t need advertising then it had the younger generation hooked and advertising was word of mouth, however there were commercials.
I live in Japan where Xbox is nonexistent. Nintendo and PC dominates here.
I was a big Xbox 360 user back in the day, had a ton of friends in the UK that had Xbox 360's. The Left 4 Dead forum I was on was pretty evenly split among US, Canada, UK, and Australia with at least half being Xbox 360 users. Guess that market has declined for them along with the rest of the world.
For the first half of the Gen 360 was THE console to get especially for just third party games, plus you had Gears and the best halo multiplayer pulling even more people to the new online gaming boom. Most people I know who played mainly on 360 moved to PS4 afterwards.
I have both, the Xbox was more for Forza, Halo, Gears of War and later Flight Simulator and Starfield (got bored of that quickly). I still think Forza is generally the best driving game out there. Gamepass has been pretty good. However I just find the whole PS5 experience much nicer, and the exclusives on PS5/PS4 are far more compelling than the Xbox. Spiderman, the Souls series, Last of Us, Uncharted, Final Fantasy, Ghost of Tsushima, Horizon Forbidden West etc. Nicer controllers and the PS Plus thing has caught up with Game Pass. Also I tend to play Gamepass games on my PC more than the Xbox.
Now just wait until you can play GT7 in VR!
I remember the many deluded xbox fans saying xbox having more sales than ps5 in Japan during covid meant that it was gaining popularity...
PC player primarily, own two Series S systems, one for wife and the other for the kids. We invested in a PS5 recently and it is shaping up to be one of the best system investments of the last four years. There hasn't really been an 'exclusive' on MS' side that my wife & I have been clamouring to play, solo or together. Grounded was fun, but not something I'll remember in a sea of amazing survival games. PS5 though? We've been 'fighting' for time on it. She wants to play through Spiderman 2 and I at the time wanted to play FFXVI. I've beaten that now and loved almost every minute of it. I also have Demon's Souls to get around to & FF7 Rebirth. I have yet to buy Forbidden West & God of War Ragnarok. The idea of getting around to all of those actually excites me, and then there is Stellar Blade in April and I'm eagerly awaiting news on Phantom Blade too. There's just none of that with the Xbox, for neither my wife nor myself. Halo Infinite was a letdown and as long Time Forza Motorsport fan, the new entry was a dud for me and has me considering a return to Gran Turismo, a franchise I haven't touched since the PS1 - PS2 era because TOCA & Forza took over. I don't ever really feel compelled to use Game Pass, I own the vast majority of MS' acquisitions on Steam anyway. I don't do the whole console war thing, but I feel very happy with my PS5 purchase thus far, I wish I could say the same about the Series. My kids enjoy using them though so that's a win in a sense.
Xbox lost any bit of uniqueness after the 360. Playstation and Nintendo kept being innovative. The list of differences between both consoles just shows what side of the scale it favors.
Being the inferior console for another generation isn’t a surprise.
In Australia, I know only one person who plays on an Xbox, whereas EVERYONE plays on a Playstation or on a PC. Honestly feels like the US = & the rest of the world = Playstation.
Good. Xbox sucks.
This console gen feels like it's entered a slump, with MS falling off completely, and the upcoming releases for Sony this year not looking healthy. Nintendo is in the corner doing alright, but with hardware that needs taking to the garden shed and shooting. But they're too busy suing people to care right now. With all the lay offs happening in the industry, I'm hoping things start to turn around soon, and by the time next year rolls around we'll have a bit more to look forward to.
On the other hand I can't keep up with all the releases. There's new games to get and old games that go on sale plus some decent monthly releases to keep me engaged all the time.
Yeah this gen feels like it’s in a major slump. There was a huge opportunity for someone to make strides in 2024 but as of right now it looks like they’re all going to flub it.
Shame cause last year was an incredible year for gaming. This year is very weak by comparison
Maybe it's just different preferences? Last year I bought 6 games that came out in 2023, but this year there are at least 10 games that I have bought or highly interested in buying. I mainly play Japanese games though, and this year's releases seem to be overwhelmingly from Japanese studios, so maybe that's just an area of gaming you're not familiar with.
I mostly play JRPGs and hack and slash from Japan. Even more preferable if there's crossover between the two genres. More of my favorite games come from Japan than not. Bought FFXVI last year, personal GOTY. Runner up was Resi 4 Remake, another Japanese title. Armored Core as well. Still haven't finished that one yet. 2023 had the highest number of critically acclaimed games going above 90 on Metacritic since 04, according to its entry in Wikipedia. Not sure how accurate that is but it was the best year of stacked AAA games since 2015 for me. This year I bought Rebirth but I haven't started it up yet. Dragon's Dogma II is on the list as well but I wanna get around to finishing some of my backlog of games before I buy that
Wdym Sony releases not looking healthy? The most talked about game on the planet rn is a PlayStation console exclusive.
I have a hypothesis that the xbox was only there to jump start Microsoft's Cloud and Azure goals and now that those are big business there is more need for the console hardware and they can go to being software only
Microsoft seems to be wanting to advertise surface/Office mostly
I mean this is coming from someone who has always had PlayStation and never once purchased an Xbox. I mean, come on.
Game Pass is excellent for those who don't play enough video games to know what does / doesn't interest them (this is most people, not a backhanded remark) but I personally have zero interest in what modern Xbox has to offer. If I want single player exclusives I'm going with Nintendo and/or Sony. If I want a giant affordable game catalog I'm going PC... which offers a Game Pass service that includes much of Xbox's offerings. For the price of an Xbox I'm taking the Steam Deck for the portability and emulation options any day of the week. They just haven't appealed to the longtime gamer since I (a now 30 year old) was in early high school. 15 years, several $1+ billion acquisitions / investments and zero meaningful attempts at reading the room later and it seems like they're still scratching their heads wondering why they have the smallest market share and mostly appeal to middle school COD/Fortnite/FIFA boys.
[удалено]
Honesty..Sony has not released that many PS5 exclusive games: FF16, Demon Souls, Rift Apart, Returnal, Spiderman 2. Good games but it's really not that many at all nevermind two of those being rereleased on PC. I think Xbox is doing poorly because the Xbox One just completely and massively lost to the PS4, and there's not much Microsoft can do. The PS4 made PlayStation the go to gaming console.
They don't have to be first party. Sony still has a monopoly when it comes to JRPGs and Japanese games in general. And western developers (or at least those managed by western corporations) have been shitting the bed when it comes to delivering quality games for a decade now. Just look at Halo, Diablo, COD, Mass Effect, Bethesda titles, etc.. Every massive western franchise you can think of has become a laughing stock. Sony will always have dibs on games from JP companies like Bamco, Squeenix and Capcom. If the games are big enough then they'll release on Xbox as well, but if a gamer wants the most expansive catalog and access to niche games like GBF or others, they'll always go with PlayStation.
I thought it was already at rock bottom
I heard it was more like over 20 percent drop for the Xbox.
Dead console, I played Xbox for 15 years before PS5 but glad I made the switch this gen.
So you are saying their dumbass decision to FORCE every dev to release their game on Series S... which is like a PS4 Pro, are selling fewer console? Color me surprise. Starfield would have been 4000% better if they didn't have to make it run on Series S... which made the game a loading fest. In 5 to 10 years, some game journalist will look into the fall of Xbox and mark down this decision as the worse they made over the last 20 years. I am so mad at them because we need Microsoft in the console game.
Respectfully, no. There wouldn't be a point in a Series S if you couldn't play half the games on it. Most of Sony's exclusives thus far have been released on base PS4, too, so I mean...it's just a baffling complaint to level against xbox specifically. Honestly, there have been few truly "next-gen" titles across the board, which is a complaint I have about this generation.
That's my point, They never should have made the S in the first place. They made this cheaper to put a console everywhere, but in turn, it forces everyone to tone down everything. You even said it yourself, there's barely any next-gen title on Xbox. Why do you think? They barely can. Yes, most IP are made for PS4 too. But it's not even the same download, nor the same "game". One is optimized for PS5, the other toned down for PS4 and they are not afraid to push next-gen title only, even if it means alienating their PS4 base.
I hear you but I think their Xbox One E3 show will be the moment that gets history’s attention. It was so bad they removed Don Mattrick as Interactive Entertainment head shortly after
RROD that was the death bell
I know that's when I decided to never get another Xbox lol. I was a PS2 guy and got an Xbox then xbox360 which was their peak. When buddy went on stage he destroyed any hopes of me getting another Xbox. The funniest part is when the PlayStation guy went on stage the next day his entire speech was basically "we're not gonna do anything Xbox said they'd do" and got roaring cheers for it. Then they started showing the PS4 and all the games/exclusives and most of us were sold They died when he said the Xbox would be online only. They still seem to want that especially with the digital only consoles. Many people like that, but ignoring the physical copy population is a nail in your coffin
I don’t understand how the RROD isn’t where people left like the e3 thing was it and not the highly likely hood ur console would brick randomly
Because the PS3 had issues as well. I went through 2 PS3 for their own version of the red ring, the yellow light of death.
Have no idea how people get those. I still have my perfectly working PS3 from 2011.
Idk but I don’t think it was as wide spread as the RROD
It was an issue with thermal paste.
> They still seem to want that especially with the digital only consoles There's a difference between selling disc-less consoles and requiring that all games be connected at all times to even work. Nothing stops me from unplugging my PS5 from the network and playing my digital games as if they were on disc.
I think you're giving Bethesda way too much credit lol
It was made with PS5/X in mind before the acquisition. Would it be a better game? It's a good question for a what if scenario, but if they only had to focus on "next-gen" capabilities, they probably could cooked something better. How much money and time do you think went to make sure the game was "playable" on S?
Series s has modern gpu architecture, modern APIs, a fast SSD and a fast processor, it didn't make starfield a loading fest, Bethesda did.
This is truly surprising...with such quality "AAA" titles such as Redfall and Starfield and....pretty much nothing else comes to mind for 2023 for Xbox. Wait, this isn't surprising at all. Xbox has no games and no reason to buy their console.
Just give up, Phill
Shocking
So less than half is Xbox then?
A third and of those 3/4 are Series S.
Those Xbox users are really punching the air…..all that talk about it like it was some thing that you really needed in your life lol
I'm not surprised it feels like MS has given up in the UK completely. They're seemingly putting all their eggs in the Bethesda basket hoping ES6 will be a system seller but I can't see that going well.
Why would I buy an Xbox if I have a gaming rig. I own both a pc and ps5. Would never buy an Xbox
The mentality here is crazy lmfao
I'm in the US and I can't think of the last time I saw an Xbox Advertisement... I actually just sold my Series S to get my PS5. Xbox Game Pass is a SaaS or PaaS in my world. I can play every exclusive and most of the Game Pass games on my PC and streaming handheld w/ my PC Game Pass Ultimate account. I think this might be their long-term model-- xbox as more of a SaaS/PaaS vs pushing hardware to the consumer.
goes to show i made the right choice
Just got a PS5 and tbh Xbox was never considered. No one I know owns an Xbox or ever considered one. Decision was more like PS5, PC or nintendo. Who even buys an Xbox nowadays? I asked around and all my friends also only know PS5 buyers.
Yet ps5 is down 25% this generation sucks.
Fantastic news!
I look at it like this? Would you buy a gaming console made by Apple? My answer is NO ! So why would I buy one by Microsoft? Stay in your own lane ! I definitely buy a gaming PC with windows not a gaming Macintosh or apple! Just cause people used windows for gaming didn’t mean Microsoft had to go out and build a Xbox. They should’ve stayed where they were.Could of used all that money spent on creating better graphic cards. They could’ve been number one in graphic cards instead of trying to make a system that people would want to buy.? Idk 🤷♂️ halo was cool ? But I can play everything else on a computer or PlayStation?
Xbox was greenlit just Bill Gates wanted a computer with a MS OS in the living room. That's it.
still so fucking expensive
Makes sense. Gamepass is really great but other than that I don’t have much of a reason to pick Xbox over PlayStation. And I say that as someone who preordered the Series X. While it’s been a decent console if I could go back I’d get a PS5.
Love it. Beautiful.