At what point do you think MS completely lost the plot?

I think it was when they introduced Play Anywhere. It's a great deal but ultimately gives no reason for anyone to own an Xbox. Can you imagine Halo 6 releasing simultaneously with the PC? My goodness, they practically killed the Xbox brand doing this.

It all started when they let go of Bungie. Once they got it in their brains that something other than games defined a console, they lost their way. I am, of course, assuming you are speaking of what went wrong with the XBox because MS as a whole is doing just fine.

SW armchair CEOs to the rescue.

2010 is when it all started to go downhill. MS was at the height of Kinect‘s success and they started selling all their studios and focusing on trashy casual games. The success of Kinect is what made them go full steam into TV TV TV DRM Kinect Box 2.0 with the Xbone. It’s also the reason they don’t have enough studios and IPs to rescue them from the pounding they are receiving from Playstation and Nintendo right now.

Releasing everything on PC as well was a smart move. It insured MS for the future. As console gaming slowly dies off, they will still have a foothold in the PC space.

@lifelessablaze: So you're saying that everybody would buy Halo 6 on PC over Xbox? If there was a *lost the plot" moment, it was launching the X1 at $100 more, with less grunt available. That passed, and for the life of me, I can't see how anyone would see Play anywhere as a negative. I use it very often, and it has no equivalent elsewhere ... same with Gamepass.

@Shewgenja: MS didn't let go of Bungie ....thought that was common knowledge.

they lost the plot when they revealed the Xbox One after a very long wait and the first thing they showed was how to watch sports and use skype.

that is when they lost focus and they havent gotten it back yet.

I will know when they get it back when they start talking more about games and less about pricing models and platforms

There is. The X1 used a significantly weaker GPU than the PS4, yet it cost $100 more. I'm not sure why MS thought they could compete at the price point. It made zero sense.

MS had last-gen going for them in late 2005 and after 2010, MS got fucking lazy!!! No new IP exclusive games, just more Halo, Forza, and Gears of War. MS focus on more Kinect games, trying to shove it into game developers by implanting more Kinect features, MS was all caught up with Media apps, too much TV talks and when you focus more then just games, you are going to look bad and that was MS downfall.

I used to be a MS fanboy. Not so much xbox (because I dont like consoles) but as a company overall.

I was growing impatient with their lack of entry into the smart phone industry but for me when they opened up Xbox One reveal day with sports, tv and skype that was the deal breaker.

I also used to love the 360, best MS console I own back in 2005 and when I became a PC gamer in 2007, I still find enjoyment on the 360 and boy, after 2010, I rarely turn on the 360 and my PS3/PC were getting more gameplay. Had fun with the Xbox 360 but the lack of exclusive games is what really starting to hurt the brand and this gen is even worst for MS.

What made you a fanboy of the company?

I love how cheap OneDrive is compared to Dropbox/Google Drive, and MS Office is basically free these days, which is a nice gesture. Their laptops/tablets are pretty good too, if overpriced. But Windows 10 still blows ass (like every version of Windows before it), Xbox consoles suck, and Microsoft phones suck.

Anyone complaining about Xbox Play Anywhere is deeply troubled.

Only the fanboys that hate Xbox are complaining.

@xhawk27: They only see sales and scores, while the majority of players are playing games and having fun building a community regardless of what some internet review scored it.

scores and sales arent the only things to take into account. The amount of gamers outweigh those and MS is moving its videogames to what the music industry is doing by streaming services/netflix. More ways to get people playing besides a physical sale of just a game.

Haters just stuck in the past and cant adapt to change just like media going from physical to digital.

Around the middle of Chapter 3. The weird cross-over three-way romance between Rand al'Thor, Master Chief, and Grindelwald in an extended dream sequence was just messed up and I don't think they've been able to bridge the preceding and subsequent narratives

When kinect became a thing.

Can you belive they had the most niche series from Japan exclusive?

The end of last gen into this gen. Kinect combined with a lack of new IP's.

But to sum it up in one word: Kinect

When they decided that making money was far more important than keeping customers happy.

Agreed. I don't see this as a bad thing at all.

Bungie isn't making XBox exclusives. Look at it through whatever rose-tinted glasses you want to.

@Shewgenja: Dude... Bungie finished their contract with MS and wanted to leave because they wanted to make multiplat games....MS didn't let go of bungie, bungie left Microsoft. There's a difference.

Kinect, DRM, Play Anywhere, cancellations, flops...too many to name

I grew up in the 80s.

So my fanboyism comes from the good days of MS.

@me2002: how is playanywhere a bad thing?

Kinect hurt them the most, imo. Releasing a defective console and then taking years to put out a new model that didn't get hot enough internally to melt its own solder off was a bad look, too.

@sealionact: Yeah, and they closed Ensemble in the same freaking year, so there is a very clear line to what MS problem is, whether the narrative about Bungie is to your liking or not.

It's bad for the Xbox brand putting everything on PC.

Kinect

The moment they made this clown head of Gaming Division.

Thank him for:

• Paid DLC
• Lack of exclusives
• Closure of many great first party studios
• Closure of Ensemble
• Getting rid of many great second party studios
• Kinect for Xbox 360
• Timed exclusive Call of Duty DLC over proper exclusive games
• Kinect for Xbox One
• Xbox One DRM station

Srsly, how can any rational person still be a fan of Xbox?

@R4gn4r0k said:

The moment they made this clown head of Gaming Division.

Thank him for:

• Paid DLC
• Lack of exclusives
• Closure of many great first party studios
• Closure of Ensemble
• Getting rid of many great second party studios
• Kinect for Xbox 360
• Timed exclusive Call of Duty DLC over proper exclusive games
• Kinect for Xbox One
• Xbox One DRM station

forgot the most important one!

SPORTS!

and Skype

Loved the focus on games when he announced Xbox One:

And thats bad for the Xbox brand because?

Bad for who?

I wonder how many xbox one owners ever use the xbox for those features

For the people who like to buy redundant hardware is my guess.

Xbox One sales.

less reason to buy Xbox.

yeah

'we made a change to the pricing model' or 'we changed how many devices you can play these crap games on'

instead of

'we are going to make games that actually dont suck a$$'

is the tell.

here is an idea, Xbox Live can have a link on its site that takes me directly to Steam. The portal will still have 'xbox is awesome' written on the side' but at least this way I can find games I give a ^&* about actually playing.

thing is..I think it could actually sell some people 'dude! bro! xbox has all the steam games! I am paying for xbox live now!'

Thats sounds good to me. Less redundant hardware. PC gamers should not be forced to buy hardware that is equal or weaker to their gaming system. In an age where content is shared across devices, Play Anywhere is the future of gaming. The only thing that is holding it back is fanboys.

not this shit again...exclusives are here to stay as long as Sony and Nintendo exists...so...deal with it.

As you have clearly indicated and backed my point. Fanboys (like yourself) are the holding back gaming.

While everyone else is enjoying gaming to it's fullest...sucks to be you I guess.

That makes no sense to anything that was said but nice try though. Also good job holding back gaming.

When they cancelled Scalebound and put all of its money into the XB1x instead, which is just a powerful paper weight that has no exciting console exclusives.

sucks to have deluded thoughts about how exclusives are holding gaming back.

More than once Gabe Newel has said exclusives are a bad business model.

he is by FAR the leader of the gaming space.