Is Xbox cooked as a console brand?

[RatsTheDonkey]

UPDATE: Microsoft has more or less given their console brand the certified "Kiss of Death" today, because they've now RAISED the price of their consoles by $100 worldwide. I've never seen any game company boneheaded enough to do this in my lifetime. I can understand the Switch 2 being more expensive than it's predecessor out of the starting gate, but the Series S/X are already a few years old. The idea of making a console brand you already have a hard time selling even MORE expensive midway thru it's life cycle and expecting it to still sell is just plain absurd. Oh, and to add insult to injury, the games and controllers are getting a price hike too.

[ActRaiser]

UPDATE: Microsoft has more or less given their console brand the certified "Kiss of Death" today, because they've now RAISED the price of their consoles by $100 worldwide. I've never seen any game company boneheaded enough to do this in my lifetime. I can understand the Switch 2 being more expensive than it's predecessor out of the starting gate, but the Series S/X are already a few years old. The idea of making a console brand you already have a hard time selling even MORE expensive midway thru it's life cycle and expecting it to still sell is just plain absurd. Oh, and to add insult to injury, the games and controllers are getting a price hike too.

Wowza!

Well, we can all thank the brilliant idea of exacting tariffs for <shakes the magic 8-ball> making 'merica great again. You've got to love the unintended consequences.

[BlasteroidAli]

UPDATE: Microsoft has more or less given their console brand the certified "Kiss of Death" today, because they've now RAISED the price of their consoles by $100 worldwide. I've never seen any game company boneheaded enough to do this in my lifetime. I can understand the Switch 2 being more expensive than it's predecessor out of the starting gate, but the Series S/X are already a few years old. The idea of making a console brand you already have a hard time selling even MORE expensive midway thru it's life cycle and expecting it to still sell is just plain absurd. Oh, and to add insult to injury, the games and controllers are getting a price hike too.

Not in the UK. It is the same price as it was at the start of the year. Think with the console not being made in the US of A, it will attract Trump's levies on China. This is not a political point, it is just a fact of life, you raise a tariff, then prices go up not down.

In the coming months, it will affect Nintendo and Sony. Yep, it would be good if it could be made in the US of A, like The Atari Jaguar and Stadia.

[definitelynotbob]

I can see why people dont really like Xbox anymore. MS isn’t really focused on creating a console that has some new feature, but just making a powerful console. I think Nintendo has the right idea when it comes to consoles, and that’s to make each one unique and not focus on just the hardware capabilities. If you take the two most recent Xbox consoles, there aren’t really many noticeable differences, no new groundbreaking features.

[BlasteroidAli]

UPDATE: Microsoft has more or less given their console brand the certified "Kiss of Death" today, because they've now RAISED the price of their consoles by $100 worldwide. I've never seen any game company boneheaded enough to do this in my lifetime. I can understand the Switch 2 being more expensive than it's predecessor out of the starting gate, but the Series S/X are already a few years old. The idea of making a console brand you already have a hard time selling even MORE expensive midway thru it's life cycle and expecting it to still sell is just plain absurd. Oh, and to add insult to injury, the games and controllers are getting a price hike too.

Not in the UK. It is the same price as it was at the start of the year. Think with the console not being made in the US of A, it will attract Trump's levies on China. This is not a political point, it is just a fact of life, you raise a tariff, then prices go up not down.

In the coming months, it will affect Nintendo and Sony. Yep, it would be good if it could be made in the US of A, like The Atari Jaguar and Stadia.

https://www.ign.com/articles/microsoft-raises-the-price-of-all-xbox-series-consoles-xbox-games-confirmed-to-hit-80-this-holiday
Looks like you were right. A move that is sure to kill the consoles. I have an X and an S and they are good. Worth and extra 100? Not sure.

[GStratos]

I feel like less and less people are buying (non-Nintendo) consoles since so many games from both Microsoft and Sony are available on PC nowadays, with casual gamers staying behind on consoles for games like Madden while hardcore gamers increasingly flock to the PC, at least from what I've read in several articles. Maybe this is partially responsible for the price hike? Microsoft trying to milk more out of their console audience given those who are left are not that likely to go away at this point?

[VideoGameCritic]

In retrospect, if Microsoft had just walked the straight and narrow path, the Xbox brand would still be wildly popular.

Instead they:
- tried to force Kinect on everybody
- tried to force online only on everybody
- came up with the most confusing consoles naming system imaginable
- buy up expensive developers who never produce anything again

If Microsoft had a clue, their no-frills Xbox 4 would be selling like hotcakes.

Look at Nintendo. Nothing fancy, just a steady evolution.

[RatsTheDonkey]

In retrospect, if Microsoft had just walked the straight and narrow path, the Xbox brand would still be wildly popular.

Instead they:
- tried to force Kinect on everybody
- tried to force online only on everybody
- came up with the most confusing consoles naming system imaginable
- buy up expensive developers who never produce anything again

If Microsoft had a clue, their no-frills Xbox 4 would be selling like hotcakes.

Look at Nintendo. Nothing fancy, just a steady evolution.

Yes! And there's also that little thing called "Lack of exclusive titles that really justify owning an Xbox"! And if Microsoft gradually bringing whatever exclusives they do have to other consoles and doing the whole "You Don't Need An Xbox To Play Xbox" campaign isn't a red flag, I don't know what is.

[GStratos]

I would argue Sony has also similarly been in hot water despite not doing as many controversial decisions a Microsoft, but they're still pursuing the same path for the most part (loosening down on exclusives, jacking up prices for their systems, embracing PC as a platform more and more). I think it's more that times are changing and the old ways no longer work, and Nintendo themselves struck gold with the Wii first and then the Switch due to how innovative they were (thus I'd argue they were definitely "fancy"), and can afford to remain a walled garden for a long time as a result. But with increasing competition from the Steam Deck and other devices, it remains to be seen whether the Switch 2 will be able to let them ride out their success to the next decade. Personally, I think Microsoft simply hasn't been able to reproduce the success of the Xbox 360, no doubt thanks to their awful online-only policy afflicting the successor to that, and they've been living with the consequences of that ever since.

[RatsTheDonkey]

But with increasing competition from the Steam Deck and other devices, it remains to be seen whether the Switch 2 will be able to let them ride out their success to the next decade. Personally, I think Microsoft simply hasn't been able to reproduce the success of the Xbox 360, no doubt thanks to their awful online-only policy afflicting the successor to that, and they've been living with the consequences of that ever since.

The Steam Deck is a niche device that hasn't even achieved a fraction of the success of the original Switch (3.7-4 Million, as opposed to the 150,000,000+ the Switch 1 has sold), same with anything else coming out alongside it. Casual gamers don't really want a glorified laptop stuffed into a semi-portable shell, they just want a device that plays video games and doesn't require any hitches that interrupt the experience (i.e. DRM, making sure your games actually work on the Steam Deck at all, etc.). Anything else included is just a nice perk, and Nintendo knows that and plays to their strengths instead of stretching themselves thin with too much multimedia stuff.

The Xbox One definitely made a really bad first impression with the online only policy, trying to force Kinect on people and even trying to lock physical games to users accounts (though they quickly backpedaled on that due to the massive backlash they got over it), but the lack of exclusive games was what really did it in. The Switch and even PS4 both ate Microsoft's lunch there. The Series X took those problems and only compounded them thanks to the Series S kneecapping developers from fully taking advantage of the hardware and stretching themselves thin trying to get their games to run well on both systems.