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Xbox Almost Lost:
Seamus Blackley, one of the creators and designers of the Xbox, feared the end of the brand when the Xbox One launched. The Xbox One was quickly and harshly criticized by gamers upon its initial reveal. During its pre-E3 reveal event, Microsoft largely focused on entertainment features, TV programming (much of which amounted to nothing in the long run), and featured very few games. Although there were games at the Xbox One E3 event, all of them were overshadowed by a rather convoluted DRM system, mandatory Kinect usage, and a $500 price tag. It did not go over well.
In December, Microsoft released a new 6-part Xbox documentary that went through the console’s extensive history. The documentary was pretty vocal about the early days of the Xbox One being a low point for the brand, and established that the initial reveal was a total misfire. Things eventually turned around after Phil Spencer came on as head of Xbox, resulting in things like Xbox Game Pass, backward compatibility, and massive acquisitions. With that said, many feared that Xbox was pretty much a dead brand when Xbox One was released.
Xbox Setting Records:
It’s been a record-breaking first year for the Xbox brand, as Microsoft’s use of double SKUs has allowed shipments and sales of the Series X and S to thrive, even in the midst of supply shortages.
Phil Spencer talked about Xbox sales this past year to the New York Times, and while he didn’t give any specific numbers, he made it clear this is a record:
“Supply is actually as big as it’s ever been. It’s that demand is exceeding the supply for all of us. At this point, we’ve sold more of this generation of Xboxes, which is Xbox Series X and S, than we had any previous version of Xboxes.”
Is Cross Play Bad?
Xbox players are growing increasingly frustrated at being forced to play against PC gamers. While crossplay was initially a popular request from Xbox and PC players that Microsoft has backed strongly for years, those playing first-person shooters on Xbox are struggling to opt out of the experience to avoid PC cheaters.
Games like Call of Duty: Warzone and Halo Infinite force Xbox players to match against PC gamers in a variety of playlists. You don’t have to look very far to see why people are angry about it. “Now that cheating in Halo is confirmed on PC, can we have to option to opt out of cross-play?” asked one Reddit post in November, just weeks after the multiplayer version of Halo Infinite launched.
“Forced crossplay is a scam by Microsoft,” reads another post in Microsoft’s Halo Waypoint forums. “Forced crossplay is a mistake,” says another Redditor, and the list goes on, and on, and on.
No More Cheaters?
Xbox boss Phil Spencer has revealed that Microsoft would like to help get rid of bad actors in the online gaming landscape by creating a multi-network program whereby bans that apply to Xbox, for example, might also carry over to networks from other companies.
Speaking to The New York Times, Spencer acknowledged that this would be a “hard one” to achieve, but it’s something he hopes to see someday.
“Something I would love us to be able to do–this is a hard one as an industry–is when somebody gets banned in one of our networks, is there a way for us to ban them across other networks?” he said.