@MadAussieBloke As opposed to Gran Turismo 7, God of War 5, and KillZone 4.
Microsoft's problem this generation was a lack of new IP that really hit big, not a massive oversaturation of their three "pillar" franchises. That, and those sequels didn't really strike a major note with critics or players (except Forza Horizon and Gears 5).
There's been one mainline Halo game this entire console generation, and it came out four years ago - much less than last gen. There's been two Gears titles - less than last gen.
And to be clear, my first sentence isn't a criticism of those games - it's pointing out the glaring hypocrisy behind your snark. God of War was a terrific game, and GT Sport has slowly become a terrific game, and I enjoyed both (KillZone Shadowfall was "meh").
@NorrinRadd As someone who is older than six, I can vividly remember the first couple of years of this generation, when the Team Blue fanboys relentlessly mocked the Xbox for only being able to run most games at 900p. It seems power mattered very much back then, when the "exclusives gap" was narrower
While the games are ultimately the biggest pieces of the puzzle regarding the success of a platform, and Microsoft definitely fell down badly on that front this generation compared to Sony, I do enjoy the revisionist history from blueshirts pretending like they don't really care about power, and "games are what matters".
Sort-of like how backward compatibility definitely doesn't matter, but being able to sell used games definitely did. Weird how it always works out that whatever Team Green does is either bad or irrelevant. Almost like motivated reasoning or something.
As someone who always buys all of the consoles, I have no rooting interest here, but boy do fanboys give me a laugh.
@Nickolaidas People seem to forget that the console was (and to some extent still is) the low/no margin device the platform holders HAD to sell you, in order to get you into their walled garden, where they would make their real money on accessories, services, and game sales/licencing.
If you don't buy a Scarlett, but still get Game Pass, and Halo, and an Xbox Controller for your PC, all you've done is cut out the low margin middle-man, in favour of buying the high margin stuff from Microsoft. There's a reason Google was happy to jump in and try to sell you everything BUT the console.
This is also why "attach rate" was always bandied about as an equally important data point for the health of a platform. The size of your customer base obviously matters (which is "the console wars"), but your attach rate represented how much money you were making from each of those customers.
The "Console Wars" are only going to become less and less relevant as the battlefield becomes more and more asynchronous. Next gen you're gonna have Sony with a traditional console, Microsoft with Console + PC + Streaming, and Google with pure streaming (assuming it's still around a year from now, haha).
@Rob_230 The Xbox 360 had an early advantage last generation, because the PS3's proprietary Cell architecture was a nightmare to code for, and poorly annotated. This is also why 360 versions of multiplats ran better for years, despite Cell theoretically being more powerful.
As devs got more comfortable with Cell, that gap closed. Had nothing to do with the availability of dev kits.
Comments 4
Re: Microsoft Wants to 'Surprise Sony' with Xbox Scarlett, Devkits are Reportedly Rare and 'Nowhere Near Final'
@MadAussieBloke As opposed to Gran Turismo 7, God of War 5, and KillZone 4.
Microsoft's problem this generation was a lack of new IP that really hit big, not a massive oversaturation of their three "pillar" franchises. That, and those sequels didn't really strike a major note with critics or players (except Forza Horizon and Gears 5).
There's been one mainline Halo game this entire console generation, and it came out four years ago - much less than last gen. There's been two Gears titles - less than last gen.
And to be clear, my first sentence isn't a criticism of those games - it's pointing out the glaring hypocrisy behind your snark. God of War was a terrific game, and GT Sport has slowly become a terrific game, and I enjoyed both (KillZone Shadowfall was "meh").
Re: Microsoft Wants to 'Surprise Sony' with Xbox Scarlett, Devkits are Reportedly Rare and 'Nowhere Near Final'
@NorrinRadd As someone who is older than six, I can vividly remember the first couple of years of this generation, when the Team Blue fanboys relentlessly mocked the Xbox for only being able to run most games at 900p. It seems power mattered very much back then, when the "exclusives gap" was narrower
While the games are ultimately the biggest pieces of the puzzle regarding the success of a platform, and Microsoft definitely fell down badly on that front this generation compared to Sony, I do enjoy the revisionist history from blueshirts pretending like they don't really care about power, and "games are what matters".
Sort-of like how backward compatibility definitely doesn't matter, but being able to sell used games definitely did. Weird how it always works out that whatever Team Green does is either bad or irrelevant. Almost like motivated reasoning or something.
As someone who always buys all of the consoles, I have no rooting interest here, but boy do fanboys give me a laugh.
Re: Microsoft Wants to 'Surprise Sony' with Xbox Scarlett, Devkits are Reportedly Rare and 'Nowhere Near Final'
@Nickolaidas People seem to forget that the console was (and to some extent still is) the low/no margin device the platform holders HAD to sell you, in order to get you into their walled garden, where they would make their real money on accessories, services, and game sales/licencing.
If you don't buy a Scarlett, but still get Game Pass, and Halo, and an Xbox Controller for your PC, all you've done is cut out the low margin middle-man, in favour of buying the high margin stuff from Microsoft. There's a reason Google was happy to jump in and try to sell you everything BUT the console.
This is also why "attach rate" was always bandied about as an equally important data point for the health of a platform. The size of your customer base obviously matters (which is "the console wars"), but your attach rate represented how much money you were making from each of those customers.
The "Console Wars" are only going to become less and less relevant as the battlefield becomes more and more asynchronous. Next gen you're gonna have Sony with a traditional console, Microsoft with Console + PC + Streaming, and Google with pure streaming (assuming it's still around a year from now, haha).
Re: Microsoft Wants to 'Surprise Sony' with Xbox Scarlett, Devkits are Reportedly Rare and 'Nowhere Near Final'
@Rob_230 The Xbox 360 had an early advantage last generation, because the PS3's proprietary Cell architecture was a nightmare to code for, and poorly annotated. This is also why 360 versions of multiplats ran better for years, despite Cell theoretically being more powerful.
As devs got more comfortable with Cell, that gap closed. Had nothing to do with the availability of dev kits.