Xbox, Identity, and the Power of Exclusives | Unpacked

One thing about Phil Spencer that I remember from my employment with Xbox was a town hall. Where he was comparing Xbox vs Netflix, and how Netflix had more users and more revenue. He was wondering, "how do we get Xbox to that state? What makes more people choose watching TV over playing video games?" I remember thinking at the time that he was misunderstanding or miscomparing the product and services that we were working on. That gives you a hint for why all the initiatives were focused on getting Xbox everywhere. We'll see what happens with them, and if they're really ready to refocus their priorities.

Having bought a second hand PS4 on the cheap years ago because I wanted to play bloodborne and then stuck with the PS platform since as it was “what I already had” I would be VERY pleased to see xbox return to the space as a serious competitor. Sony needs to be nervous and hungry if it’s going to continue to put out good games.

So it only took losing $300M for the execs to realise the traditional behaviour of the CoD/sports game crowd..... I appreciate the drop in price, and further still the rumours of a cheaper rung of the subscription, deals with Discord, and a flexible 'pick your own plan' GP model allowing more mix-and-match choice of rewards (Fortnite Crew, Cloud Gaming, EA Play etc). Also....I'd love to think that those were just some stock clips of Marty.

My opinion, I think its far too soon to know how genuine any of this is. Setting aside the use of the "2 steps forward, 1 step back" approach with Gamepass' price, being less then the last price hike but still more then it was originally, this is also the exact same marketing strategy they used when Phil Spencer was very first put in charge.