It’s incredibly difficult to put into so few words why this opinion is valid and accurate, and N4G only gives you 4,000 character’s which goes by really fast so, I’ll see what I can do.
Anyone whose been following gaming since the Xbox 360 would know and understand the validity of this point. When all of my friends had PS2 consoles, the Dreamcast was dead and I was looking at getting an Xbox because it seemed so much like the Dreamcast 2, I’d be stayin the night at my buddies and we be up late in the dark talking about next gen consoles. He was getting a Gamecube and when I told him I wanted the Xbox, I got a long dissertation from him (a big PC gamer) on why Microsoft was the devil and the Xbox was poison to the industry and they didn’t belong in console gaming. Needless to say, I didn’t listen and got an Xbox, and it wasn’t for Halo, it was for Hunter the Reckoning and Sega titles.
Now, what you have to bear in mind here is who Xbox’s friends were through all of this. Xbox is an American console and just like High School, gaming has clicks and everyone likes to hang out in their clicks, so who do you think buddied up with Xbox? Electronic Arts and Activision. Xbox was the new kid on the block, PlayStation and especially Nintendo has spent a long time building and having to EARN those relationships. PlayStation provided a cheaper way to publish games backed by Sonys reputation while Nintendo wanted to avoid piracy, CD’s were cheaper with more storage space to create games. Nintendo, as a result, and having a reputation already for being monopolistic, lost a lot of support to Sony and Sony already had a reputation of having the edgy attitude of Sega for teenagers so Squaresoft left.
So, how was Xbox going to compete with this come Xbox 360? Peter Moore who hadn’t been with Sega long and was only with Sega for a few short years, you’d have thought Bernie Stoler or Tom Kalinski would’ve been approached by Xbox but it was Peter Moore for a while who after Xbox went to EA, and who do you think Xbox appointed to run Xbox? John Shappert who came from Electronic Arts who was then followed by Don Mattrick who came from Electronic Arts. Do you see this pattern?
So what’s wrong with this and what does it have to do not only with the history given and this article? It’s how Xbox did business that Sony sort of came along for the ride to try and stay relevant and what Xbox’s influence has done to gaming. See, Xbox didn’t have long relationships so they turned to their strength, deep pockets and instead of showing developers what was best for them and the industry, they simply bought them off and the first game that really caused disruption and abruptly made that change was Grand Theft Auto IV. Do you remember the Ballad of Gay Tony? That’s what Xbox did, they couldn’t establish exclusivity deals like Sony had done to earn trust, Xbox went after exclusive content instead with PAID DLC. See, before all that, what you paid for was what you got. DLC started out as an extension of a game, but that’s now how it goes today. Today they complete the game and before it goes good and they go on vacation, they dissect the game and sell you 60% of the game and store 40% of the game elsewhere to sell you as DLC or Season Pass. You’re paying full price for 60% of the content and they’ll milk you for the rest of it later. Street Fighter 6 is a good example of this, if you watch the documentary of the return of Killer Instinct on Xbox One and it exposes the whole sham, but again, I only have 4000 characters. And it still can’t be done. [SEE PART II ABOVE]
