Has Xbox messed up another generation? (pic: Microsoft)
A reader is frustrated at how Microsoft has handled Redfall and complains that Xbox is no longer an effective rival to PlayStation.
It’s funny to think that just a week ago nobody cared about Redfall. And now it’s capped off the most embarrassing couple of weeks Xbox has ever endured. I’d vaguely heard about it before, but as a PlayStation 5 owner I paid it little mind. If you’d asked me, I would’ve said I thought it was a Left 4 Dead clone, but apparently that’s just a false assumption based on the first trailer.
Redfall isn’t what’s important here though, so much as Xbox’s response to its failure. By which I mean that absolutely bizarre podcast from Phil Spencer. At first, I thought it was good that he was appearing on it to apologise for the game, although that seems a bit over-the-top because it wasn’t really anything to do with him. It was started before Microsoft bought Bethesda and unless he thought it was absolutely terrible (which I understand it isn’t) there’s not much he could’ve done about it.
What shocked me though was Spencer’s attitude in the interview. The apology was fine but then he launched into all this weird talk about how even if Starfield got 11/10 it wouldn’t help Xbox and how making ‘great games’ doesn’t make a difference to anything. I mean, first of all how would he know? Because he hasn’t made a great game in years, which is the whole meat of the problem.
If you don’t think making and releasing great games will make a difference why are you even in the games industry? At one point he says Xbox is ‘not in the business of out consoling Sony and Nintendo.’ Since when? And why not? If you’re not in the business of competing with these (much smaller and less rich) companies why are you even making consoles? Why not just go third party and release your games on other formats and streaming?
There was a Reader’s Feature that made basically this point last month and at the time I thought they were being a bit silly but suddenly, just a few weeks later, it almost seems like it’s actually going to happen.
I’ve heard some suggest that Spencer was just trying to make Xbox look bad on purpose, because of investigators about the Activision Blizzard acquisition, and he did repeat some of those same talking points, like complaining about Sony and its exclusives – as if that’s not also something Xbox has.
But I don’t think it was just that, there was something very fatalistic about the way Spencer was talking. Like he realised the game was up and they’d lost the generation. So it was back to hoping they’d do better next time. Maybe he’s secretly the world’s best actor and it was all a performance, but that’s not the impression I got.
Ask any ordinary gamer about why they think the Xbox is doing badly at the moment and I guarantee they’ll all say the same: not enough good games. There’re other factors, sure, but that’s the main problem. But not according to Spencer, he said this: ‘It’s just not true that if we go off and build great games then all of a sudden, you’re going to see console share shift in some dramatic way.’
That goes against everything that 40 years of gaming history has told us about why people buy consoles. It’s also blindingly obvious it’s wrong simply by looking at why the PlayStation 5 and Switch are successful: because of their games!
But no, after saying that Spencer went into some strange rant about digital libraries and how the Xbox One ruined his chances of making the Xbox Series X/S a success. Just complete rubbish. Here is the secret to being a successful console manufacturer: make a console, make games people want to play on that console, sell the console… profit.
It seems simple enough but for two generations in a row Microsoft has failed to do that and I really don’t know why. And you’ll notice I’m not crowing about this because I’m a PlayStation 5 owner, quite the opposite. The last thing I want is Sony to be running rampant with no direct competition because otherwise you’d get, well… the situation we’re in right now.
A lot of us PlayStation owners are upset with Sony because they won’t announce or release any new games and seem to generally resent having to talk to the public. And you know why they’re acting so arrogant and out of touch? Because they have no competition. Xbox is very close to becoming a complete irrelevance and that’s bad for everyone.
By reader Watson
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A reader is frustrated at how Microsoft has handled Redfall and complains that Xbox is no longer an effective rival to PlayStation.