I really wanted to call this one “Xbox is dead” but that would too clickbaity and I sorta don’t like that. But make no mistake, Microsoft Xbox, the console maker, the first party as we understood is now dead. Enter the weird ‘we do everything (and nothing) at once’ Xbox.
I alluded a few times this fact, see a previous post of mine before, where I said and quote:
This half-half solution only makes the brand look super weak, because you’re selling consoles but your first-party games are in other consoles or PC, so what’s the point of buying the console? PC gamers wait years for console ports to come, and waited for a few years for some EGS ‘exclusives’, having time exclusivity doesn’t work if you’re making a first-party game.
I said this in December 2024! Hard to believe that Xbox essentially went that route. ‘We don’t do exclusives anymore’ says Microsoft while having DirectX still exclusive to Windows. What they really mean is ‘We don’t do exclusives anymore because people aren’t buying them’. That makes more sense but not cutting off the sentence makes you a massive hypocrite.
In any case, Xbox is cooked.
Some wonkiness going on
Sales for their consoles are down worldwide. Rumors broke out that several places are no longer stocking Xbox hardware or games at all, and they denied those rumors. Please note that the news comes from Windows Central owned by Jez Corden, an unapologetic Xbox and Microsoft fanboy that acts more like a PR mouthpiece from Microsoft than the owner of a fan website. And people refute it because who reported it was him. He has been wrong in the past about many things and also remains wrong about more stuff.
After the big success of the Nintendo Switch, both Sony and MS looked at it with some new eyes and want to make it something of their own. But according to KeplerL2, a very reliable leakster of hardware said that MS cancelled their handheld because AMD required a minimum of 10 million units in the contract. They have little confidence on selling hardware to the point that they don’t know if they can sell 10 million units of a handheld Xbox…
On October 1st, Microsoft announced that Xbox GamePass was gonna get price increases, making the Ultimate Tier cost 30 USD and the be only tier with Day One releases, including Call of Duty. Previously, the price was 20 USD, so it was quite a steep increase, but Ultimate wasn’t the only tier that got games ‘day one’, but now it is.
As I said, some wonkiness is really going on at MS, increasing prices, internally cancelling contracts and just recently Bloomberg reported that their profit margins has been pushed to hit 30% (while the market’s average is 17~22%). The writing is on the wall.
‘How2Fix PLS!’
How to fix this disaster of a company? Well, Microsoft could try to fix in a few unique ways.
Sell it off
If Xbox doesn’t work, it would be better to sell it off. Amazon probably wants to buy it and I don’t think they would be sad from it, but not sure if it would be a solution. Maybe they just make the brand independent or something.
Management shakeup
As I said in my previous post:
And what they should do? Get rid of this terrible leadership, and strength their leadership with people that have worked in the industry and understand how to fix a sinking ship.
Just fire the top. The middle and bottom of Xbox is blameless of its shitty decision, the top is that is needs to go. Fire everyone and get new people with better ideas.
Go Third Party, fully
They look like they are gonna be doing this, but if they want to save the brand, going full third party seems to be a good thing. They announced a remake of Halo 1 for PS5 after all, but if it doesn’t sell there, imagine their long faces.
Closing Words
It’s not like I hate Microsoft (I sorta do), but this dislike comes from making bad decisions that affect a lot of people without caring if it’s gonna be good or not. Microsoft’s management has been poor for ages and it shows, and Xbox seems to be the next victim. Gaming is not gonna make over 80 billion USD in a few years so just give up that thought. And I’ll end this with the same ending as my previous post:
Xbox has tried to save its tarnished image in 2013 by making sure that everything could be an Xbox. But during that, they made (and still make!) many missteps, dumb acquisitions and generally have been being poorly managed. It’s not a surprise that they are being like this, trying to get people to play their games on platforms they compete against, because, otherwise, how else would you play them? No one is buying an Xbox anymore, and the people that make Xbox apparently accepted that fact.