The year 2013 ushered in the Eight Generation of consoles, and with it came a wave of excitement, but also controversy. As then Head of Xbox Division, Don Mattrick took to the stage, fans and shareholders listened with baited breath for all the details regarding the titular Xbox 360’s successor. Palpable excitement quickly turned to confusion and dismay as we watched a presentation that spoke of a DRM enforced ecosystem, an always on-packed in peripheral, an unsettling focus on cable TV, no sharing of physical discs, and very little to do with pure gaming. The show was not completely lost however, as the launch lineup reveal of the excellent Killer Instinct reboot, Crytek’s Ryse: Son of Rome, Forza Motorsport 5, and Dead Rising 3 softened the blow of the polarizing reveal.
Alas. It wasn’t enough. The damage had been done and would only be worsened when Sony’s own Shuhei Yoshida and Iron Galaxy’s Adam Boyes took the opportunity to share a short video mocking Xbox’s game sharing feature. Sony also took the opportunity to drop the PS4’s price point to $400; Undercutting the Xbox One by $100. The media and content creators alike absolutely ate the whole fiasco up and ran with the rhetoric that the Xbox Division was being anti-consumer. Microsoft took notice and quickly moved to change their policies, which helped, but the narrative was already unfolding. The future looked grim.
The Xbox division continued to make strides in winning back the good will of consumers by upending many of the practices that Don Mattrick tried nailing into the console’s perennial coffin. Flash forward to 2014 and we see Chief of Microsoft Studios, Phil Spencer taking over as Head of the Division. Within the first few months of his new position, Phil began to make it clear that he had a very different, consumer driven approach to Xbox’s strategy. The first step was acknowledging that the team made mistakes which needed to be addressed quickly and thoroughly.
Regaining the trust and dollars of a community that felt spurned by its once favorite platform was an uphill struggle. Sony had grossly capitalized on Xbox’s missteps and gained tons of global mind share as well as a firm grip on the market. This, coupled with strong 1st party offerings like Uncharted 4, The Last of Us, Bloodborne, etc. was solidifying Sony’s platform as the leader in the market. Phil and the team continued to stay the course with their own titles such as the stellar Ori and the Blind Forest, Cup Head, Gears of War 4, Forza Horizon 4, Halo 5, Sunset Overdrive, and Quantum Break. It still wasn’t enough. Through incessant memes on social media, regurgitated bullet point videos by content creators (Resolution Gate anyone?), and a strangely open media bias, the Xbox name had been completely tarnished.
Or was it?
Phil Spencer and the team stuck to their guns by constantly updating and improving the Xbox One’s OS functionality, supporting and releasing a steady stream of games and content for their audience to digest, and making as many pro consumer moves as possible in a lead up to their true goal. In 2017 Microsoft launched their video subscription service, Game Pass. Similar to preexisting services like EA Access, Game Pass started off quaintly with a small catalogue and some expected Growing Pains. This was then followed up by the release of the powerful Xbox One X, Microsoft’s answer to Sony’s PS4 Pro which offered true 4K Gaming up to 60fps, and enhancements for existing and Backwards Compatible games. The seeds had been sown. All throughout, the Xbox Division had been supporting its gaming communities, fostering a more ‘transparent’ approach to development and communication, and most importantly; Spear headed an ‘Accessibility’ and ‘Inclusion’ movement in gaming.
Coming up near the end of 2019, Microsoft’s Xbox Division was in a much better place than it had started. Game Pass was maturing at an incredible rate, their Xcloud gaming service was turning heads even in its beta stage, digital and subscription revenue was up, the discless Xbox One S model was now the company’s bestselling hardware, and communities in games like Sea of Thieves, Gears of War 5, and Forza were continuing to grow. Then, during the Game Awards in December, Microsoft dropped a show stopping bomb and unveiled the Xbox Series X; The Ninth Generation console in the Xbox family.
Phil Spencer continued to stay true to his vision of a transparent, forward thinking, driving force in the gaming industry. Bit by bit we were given official details of the Series X as well the studio’s strategy moving forward. Game Pass and Project Xcloud continued to grow and pay dividends while consumers’ interests were suddenly being drawn to the green light in the distance. Then, we were suddenly treated to a Deep Dive performed by none other than the team at Digital Foundry. They took the monolithic looking tower apart and revealed much of its inner workings with concrete build numbers, performance specs, as well as the proprietary tech that lay inside, waiting to be unleashed. This wasn’t the end of it. Not by a long shot. Phil Spencer had been toiling away behind the scenes and secured and cultivating a whopping 15 studios to develop 1st party titles for Xbox. Names like Obsidian, InXile, and Ninja Theory sparked interest and excitement. People were talking about the Xbox brand again. 
Consumers were now seeing the fruits of Phil and his team’s labor. Microsoft Studios was being confident, bold, and strategic. Nothing was being done haphazardly or on a whim. The goal was to completely obliterate the negative image garnered by the 2013 debacle while putting us, the consumers, at the forefront of it all. Tomorrow we will be treated to our first glimpse of Next Generation gaming via the Xbox Inside digital event being held on 5/7/20. The focus will be on 3rd party developers as well some potentially exciting reveals. Following this in June will be another event, then by Microsoft’s E3 Digital Event in July where they will pull back the curtain on their biggest 1st party titles like Halo Inifnite, Hellblade II: Senua’s Saga, and EverWild.
You don’t have to be an Xbox Fan to be impressed by the messaging and accomplishments that are coming out of the studio. To pull themselves out of the mud, charge forward with their vision, meet and exceed goals, and win back so much mind share is nothing short of impressive. I for one am extremely excited for what is to come; not only from Xbox, but the gaming industry as a whole.
What are you excited for right now? Any big games coming from Nintendo and Sony you’re looking forward to? Have any comments and/or predictions for the rest of the year? Let me know!