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[Rightisright]

One thing I don't understand is why MS walked back from first party exclusives towards the end of the 360 and through the Xbone.
To me, one of the big leg ups for MS that helped them do so well with the 360 was the exclusives, which alot worked out to be timed, had.
Games like BioShock, Dead Rising, Mass Effect, Alan Wake, Left for Dead, Call of Duty 2, Metro 2033, Call of Juarez, Prey etc.

This is what brought alot of people to the console. The Games. The type of games that 360 had. The shooter box as it was called.
But then something changed. They let Bungle walk away, closed Lionhead amongst others, didnt buy closely linked studios like Bioware. Imagine if MS bought Bioware FFS.
To top it off, they didnt even money hat anymore for timed exclusives.
What did they think would sell the console? Did they think Kinect games would give them the exclusive games? Did they think people didn't care about games being exclusive and would just buy a console for third party games?
Now obviously this has been identified as a big mistake ans MS has reconciled alot of it, but I dont understand what the thought pattern was.
I mean Bungie was their biggest name and best developers, and they gave them away for nothing? Was there photos of someone being used as leverage?
It would be like Sony saying to Naughty Dog that they can walk away and do games for Xbox as well.

So does anyone know of any interviews or stories about what happened during this period?
I actually would like to know. And I'm not shitting on MS, as that period has come and gone.

 

[FranXico]

One thing I don't understand is why MS walked back from first party exclusives towards the end of the 360 and through the Xbone.

They didn't. By the end of the 360 generation, they had more "staple" IPs than at the start. They pretty much went from just Halo to Halo, Gears, Forza.

 

[Bandi]

this is like 10 years ago... OP, why are you trying so hard to bring out negative threads about MS?

 

[TLZ]

this is like 10 years ago... OP, why are you trying so hard to bring out negative threads about MS?

Lol. I don't think that's his intention at all.

 

[brap]

Lol. I don't think that's his intention at all.

It is. Here on xbox gaf we don't take kindly to any criticism or negative news of microsoft. OP needs to stop being a sony/nintendo fanboy.

 

[Team Andromeda]

They didn't. By the end of the 360 generation, they had more "staple" IPs than at the start. They pretty much went from just Halo to Halo, Gears, Forza.

I don't agree. MS let the likes of Mass Effect, Ninja Gaiden, Lost Planet go to rival consoles. Not the best of moves and they also looked to stop working with Formsoftware for exclusives, not the best move.
That's all in the past mind, its clear MS isn't going to make the same mistakes again

 

[Rightisright]

They didn't. By the end of the 360 generation, they had more "staple" IPs than at the start. They pretty much went from just Halo to Halo, Gears, Forza.

Gears launched with the Xbox 360, and Forza first came out on OG Xbox. During the beginning of the 360 and through out its main life it built up a good stable of exclusives, and they had a ton of timed exclusives and exclusive DLC. It was a reason I loved the console so much. I much prefered the Xbox exclusives and game types compared to the PS3.
But there was a change of direction. I would love to know why that happened from a business point of view.
Did they think they only had to money hat and buy exclusives for a certain amount of time till the Xbox took off, and then wouldn't need to keep doing it?
Was it Don Mattox coming from EA that had a different vision of the value of exclusives?
The big drop off really came from exclusive second party games. The 360 had a ton of them, and quality ones at that.

 

[nikolino840]

Are not exclusives games...they have not produced but Just published ... For Mass effects the publisher on PC and PlayStation Is different for example

 

[Rightisright]

I don't agree. MS let the likes of Mass Effect, Ninja Gaiden, Lost Planet go to rival consoles. Not the best of moves and they also looked to stop working with Formsoftware for exclusives, not the best move.
That's all in the past mind, its clear MS isn't going to make the same mistakes again

Exactly my point.
I think, apart from price, these games were the reason MS built its customer base.
They had a winning formula with the likes of Capcom making quality exclusives for Xbox. I mean, who would have thought that MS could get that out of top line Japanese developers like From and Capcom.
I'm asking, why change a winning formula?.

 

[Rightisright]

Are not exclusives games...they have not produced but Just published ... For Mass effects the publisher on PC and PlayStation Is different for example

Yeah, MS bought the publishing rights to third party games, which allowed them to exclusive, or timed exclusive. Why didn't they keep doing this?
Maybe it wasnt MS fault, maybe the developers all just said, fuck it. We want all our games on both consoles and MS couldn't then get these deals?
This is my question.

 

[The_Mike]

It is. Here on xbox gaf we don't take kindly to any criticism or negative news of microsoft. OP needs to stop being a sony/nintendo fanboy.

Sure let's talk about myths and fairytale.

 

[Danjin44]

I think they did have decent numbers of exclusives at beginning of 360 but I’m guessing it didn’t make much money for them so they are currently just rely on multiplatform games.

 

[daninthemix]

Because a small percentage of forum-dwelling fanboys is the only demographic that actually cares about exclusives, first party or otherwise.

 

[Shangounchained]

They had no plan, at the early to the middle stages of the 360 they had a good plan going along but at the end of the 360 till today they fucked up. They let sony have all the shine with uncharted 3 god of war ascension, last of us and its when they started madness and made silly arcade exclusives like motocross madness and halo rts since then they never recovered,

Microsofts management is bogus only man with sense there is the xbox live guy, the rest of them the guy incharge of acquiring companies is an F. the guy incharge of console design is another F. Whoever allowed a 1.23 tf console to come out against a ps4 with 1.8tf is another F. And the bastard who came up with forced kinect always online no disc sharing and tv tv tv tv a big F - F MINUS

 

[GHG]

this is like 10 years ago... OP, why are you trying so hard to bring out negative threads about MS?

Imagine being this sensitive.

Exactly my point.
I think, apart from price, these games were the reason MS built its customer base.
They had a winning formula with the likes of Capcom making quality exclusives for Xbox. I mean, who would have thought that MS could get that out of top line Japanese developers like From and Capcom.
I'm asking, why change a winning formula?.

I think the main reason was that they witnessed the runaway success of the Wii and went after that market. Instead of capitalising on their own success and strengths they decided to go after an entirely different demographic, abandoning their roots in the process.

A big part of that was kinect and their investment in the platform. As far as add-on peripherals go, the kinect actually sold quite well but they also made the mistake of going all in on it. 1st party studios were pulled off "traditional" gaming projects and put on kinect projects. As a result the types of games that we all bought the 360 for dried up towards the end of the life cycle of the console.

That then carried over into the early days of the Xbox One generation which is well documented so I don't need to go into what happened there.

 

[Roufianos]

Because Mattrick was in charge and though that TV, Kinect and COD were all they needed for the future.

Instead of burying Sony, they allowed them to sieze the momentum going into the next generation.

The Xbox One didn't happen in a bubble, MS's messaging and approach had been awful for a couple of years at least.

 

[HaveButOneLife]

They didn't. By the end of the 360 generation, they had more "staple" IPs than at the start. They pretty much went from just Halo to Halo, Gears, Forza.

Hence why their library of first party was a joke this gen.

 

[Team Andromeda]

Exactly my point.
I think, apart from price, these games were the reason MS built its customer base.
They had a winning formula with the likes of Capcom making quality exclusives for Xbox. I mean, who would have thought that MS could get that out of top line Japanese developers like From and Capcom.
I'm asking, why change a winning formula?.

I think Robbie Bach was just on a cost-cutting drive and no doubt felt the Capcom/Fromsoftware games would come out on the 360 anyway and money didn't need to spent there. Given the Japanese games,
market was contracting (for the high-end console sector) and the 360 was so far ahead in the USA. Also having AAA exclusives from SEGA or Software never really helped with the OG Xbox or Fromostfware stuff sold great on the 360

I think Phil knows its not always about sales but having a wide portfolio of games from respected developers

 

[Bernkastel]

Because 2009 and Don Matrick happened.

 

[LMJ]

I think it was a mix of things...
MS rushing into next gen to "beat" Sony

Thier hubris as the undisputed western champions, holder of times exclusivity etc

As mention above Mattrick and chasing the fad market hard with Kinect and forced Kinect hardware

But what a lot of folks forget is that the Xbones lineup at launch was far more diverse as far as exclusives...

Dead rising 3
Forza
Ryse
Crimson Dragon
Fighter Within
And Killer Instinct

Its later this gen MS has deviated away from a diverse lineup in exchange for that Games as a service pie...

I would love to see MS get back into a much more varied lineup and new games and IPs like the 360 glory days

 

[Shmunter]

Why invest in potential loss leaders when 3rd parties can carry the load, and cash is rolling in, especially with Live. WRONG, exclusives sell the ecosystem and you lose the momentum over time it turns out. And MS is making ridiculous statements about no XSX exclusives for launch and then some. Why would the average guy be compelled to buy it?

They’ve learnt nothing, and PS5 is going to wipe the floor with XSX sadly. An even playing field is far better for everyone.

 

[MiyazakiHatesKojima]

Because they're stupid and dumb with fossil brains as their executives.

Imagine hiring someone named Matt BOOTY as your head of first party studios. Ofcourse you'd except nothing but BOOTY coming out of their dootyholes.

PRE-ORDER THE PLAYSTATION 5 OUT THIS HOLIDAY SEASON 2020!

 

[Punished Miku]

They never publicly said. But at the time maybe they thought Call of Duty and TV were more important. It was a really bad decision.

 

[Nikana]

Wasn't the reason they were able to lock down so many third party exclusived due to the PS3 delay along with the much more difficult Dev platform of the PS3? Developers needed a lot more time on PS3 early gen and Microsoft was looking for content so it was a no brainier to take the exclusive deals and walk away.

 

[diffusionx]

Kinect was Don Mattrick's baby. He spearheaded it start to finish. When it came out, it was extremely successful and gave a system a new lease on life (it was 5 years old at that point). When a guy spearheads a project that becomes very popular, they gain a lot of power (in any corporation). MS saw it like a relaunch of the system and Don Mattrick gained in prominence. Everything that came from Kinect - the games, the "Netflix is the most popular use of 360", the focus on casuals - became MS' strategy. And obviously making Kinect Sports and shit means you don't need to spend money on MS Flight Sim and Age of Empires and all that. They kept Halo/Gears/Forza around because they were very popular obviously, but I guess they thought 3rd parties can fill the gaps and they don't need to fund tons of expensive and risky exclusives going forward when you have grandmas on Kinect.

 

[Ascend]

Because Call of Duty outsold everything else, so they went the direction of timed exclusive releases, or exclusive DLC content by 3rd party developers.

 

[HeresJohnny]

MS walked away from a lot of things at the end of the 360's life. Common sense, a finger on the pulse of the market, what and how people wanted to play, and how much they'd be willing to pay to do so. They lost all focus and it cost them dearly. Perhaps now they may be inclined to want to get some of it back seeing what rewards the awful strategy reaped them.

 

[LazyParrot]

They figured people would rather use their Xbox to watch TV than play games other than Halo, Gears and Forza.

 

[imsosleepy]

They figured people would rather use their Xbox to watch TV than play games other than Halo, Gears and Forza.

yea this idiots
still, one of my favorite videos on youtube is angry joe roasting the xbox one presentation. what a shits how

 

[Vawn]

One thing I don't understand is why MS walked back from first party exclusives towards the end of the 360 and through the Xbone.
To me, one of the big leg ups for MS that helped them do so well with the 360 was the exclusives, which alot worked out to be timed, had.
Games like BioShock, Dead Rising, Mass Effect, Alan Wake, Left for Dead, Call of Duty 2, Metro 2033, Call of Juarez, Prey etc.

None of those are Microsoft first-party games.

Also, of course it had timed-exclusives during the year the Xbox 360 was out before the PS3.

 

[DanielsM]

They didn't walk away from exclusives during the end of 360 cycle, they moved budget and exclusives to casuals/kinect in 2007-2009.

- Original Xbox by J Allard and crew built a good box but made little headway against Sony, in the process they lost $4-7b.
- The plan was to rush the next Xbox out (Xbox 360) out the door before the PS3, the slogan was, "first one to 10 million"
- The Wii (which was basically two Game Cubes duct taped together) with a stupid motion stick and casual games took over the market in 2006 and never looked back
- Microsoft continue to lose money....
- The huge Microsoft brains (not really) thought.... let's copy Nintendo say in 2007-2008.... so they moved J Allard and hired Donny.... you can do google searches for MS doing interviews to go after casuals
- During this time they came up with what would become the Kinect and some rough Hololens ideas (see leaked documents)
- Internal development was basically shift to the Kinect
- The Kinect came out in 2010, and a bunch of you bought one like 25m of them at what $100-150 each plus games
- Although they were still probably losing billions on the Xbox 360, they were starting to make some head way in bigger sales in 2010-2012... by far the biggest sales were under Donny
- Microsoft now had confirmation.... they then doubled down for the Xbox One on the Kinect and the rest of the vision they came up with prior to the Kinect

See leaked document focus of MS for the next cycle release.

https://filetrip.net/files/f/29428-92821757-XBox-720-9-24-Checkpoint-Draft-1.pdf

They never walked away, they moved development to the kinect because a bunch of people bought the silly Kinect... they were chasing casuals.... which at least people were making money in at least on mobile and wii. Now they're chasing game services and that is basically loser area.... why copy losers?

 

[MoreJRPG]

Because a small percentage of forum-dwelling fanboys is the only demographic that actually cares about exclusives, first party or otherwise.

Exactly. Exclusives are irrelevant to every platform not named Nintendo. Pokemon's been out for two months, on a system with half the sales as PS4 and has sold more copies than Uncharted 4 which is the best selling PS4 exclusive. Mario Kart 8 deluxe is smashing that number even more. Then you have Smash, Odyssey and BOTW which are also higher than Uncharted.

The majority of people that have a Playstation or Xbox, they have it to play GTA, COD or Fortnite with their friends. Not to play Gears or Horizon.

 

[pr0cs]

Mattrick and company were trying to chase the casual audience that Nintendo was courting. Microsoft forgot who got them their audience at the start of the Gen, the core gamers that wanted real games on a powerful console.
Microsoft stopped investigating in real game studios because they felt that putting out Kinect shovelware like the Wii had was a sustainable business model. This carried on to the launch of the Xbone.
Thankfully Mattrick was helped out the door shortly after

 

[diffusionx]

Mattrick and company were trying to chase the casual audience that Nintendo was courting. Microsoft forgot who got them their audience at the start of the Gen, the core gamers that wanted real games on a powerful console.
Microsoft stopped investigating in real game studios because they felt that putting out Kinect shovelware like the Wii had was a sustainable business model. This carried on to the launch of the Xbone.
Thankfully Mattrick was helped out the door shortly after

The thing I will never understand is why Microsoft thought grandmas and casual gamers would spend $500 to play a slightly improved version of something that was totally fine to them. Like why would they spend $500 to run Netflix on a new box when their old box already runs Netflix. And why didn't they realize the first thing any casual asks about a new console is if it plays the old games? I realize they were planning for BC but that is the first thing you do if you're targeting casuals.

Point is the Xbox One was poorly thought out even in context of what MS was doing.

 

[Shambala]

Cause they believed they could money hat their way to victory

 

[pr0cs]

Point is the Xbox One was poorly thought out even in context of what MS was doing.

Couldn't agree more, it was a box designed by business suit committee, they paid dearly for that.
Thankfully the seriesX looks like a return to form.

 

[Entroyp]

I don't agree. MS let the likes of Mass Effect, Ninja Gaiden, Lost Planet go to rival consoles. Not the best of moves and they also looked to stop working with Formsoftware for exclusives, not the best move.
That's all in the past mind, its clear MS isn't going to make the same mistakes again

The “let” them go? This is a business not a marriage. Also it’s a “mistake” the will keep making if we follow your logic. Other consoles are extremely successful and there’s a ton of money to be made there for publishers. Hell, not even their first party games are exclusive to xbox anymore.

 

[Ten_Fold]

They had a better variety of games than what sony had to offer on ps3, from about 05-09 they had all types of exclusives, but they said fuck all that since mw2 was THE game to play and they was promoting TV and kinect shit, while Sony keep bringing out big games and really developed some AAA titles.

 

[Virex]

Who wants to play games if you can TV TV TV TV

 

[Team Andromeda]

The “let” them go? This is a business not a marriage. Also it’s a “mistake” the will keep making if we follow your logic. Other consoles are extremely successful and there’s a ton of money to be made there for publishers. Hell, not even their first party games are exclusive to xbox anymore.

Spare me the SONY fanboy crap . Corps will make moves all the time , SONY America look turn it's back on Demon Souls , ended it's exclusive deal for Tomb Raider. Though I guess think like you Tomb Raider 2,3,4, Final Fantasy 7, F1 97, G Police were never PS Exclusives, since they also were also on the PC *rollseyes*

 

[Entroyp]

Spare me the SONY fanboy crap . Corps will make moves all the time , SONY America look turn it's back on Demon Souls , ended it's exclusive deal for Tomb Raider. Though I guess think like you Tomb Raider 2,3,4, Final Fantasy 7, F1 97, G Police were never PS Exclusives, since they also were also on the PC *rollseyes*

That’s exactly my point. There’s way more money to be made for third parties by releasing games on multiple systems. Platform holders don’t “let go” to those games, because they’re not theirs.

How did Sony came into the conversation? Seems like you’re the fanboy here.

 

[Blood Borne]

Because they saw that Halo, Gears and Forza plus 3rd party games is enough to maintain their sales.

Funnily enough, they’re right. More 1st party exclusives on Xbox has no effect on Xbox sales, hence from their perspective, it’s an unnecessary cost. Make no mistake, Xbox One didn’t sell as much as Xbox 360 not because of lack of 1st party games, it sold less because of price, bad marketing and launch strategy.

 

[Humdinger]

In a nutshell, it was a shift to prioritizing Kinect and casual-family games, which reflected their general strategy to "take over the living room." About halfway through the 360 gen, MS shifted its priorities. As a 360 (and OG Xbox) gamer, I found it very noticeable, and so did most other serious gamers. MS continued to put out exclusives, but now many of them (aside from the Halo, Gears, Forza staples) were mediocre, casual Kinect games that core gamers had no interest in. The new AAA or AA exclusives (which you saw a lot of in the first half of the gen) dried up.

Kinect was an integral part of MS's vision to take over the living room. AAA or AA games that pleased the core gamer became less important than the family and casual audience. New AAA and AA exclusives were deprioritized, and the money was shifted to Kinect and casual titles instead.

The TV/TV/TV thing in 2013 was an outgrowth of the same mindset, but it had begun years earlier.

 

[Team Andromeda]

That’s exactly my point. There’s way more money to be made for third parties by releasing games on multiple systems. Platform holders don’t “let go” to those games, because they’re not theirs.

How did Sony came into the conversation? Seems like you’re the fanboy here.

Good GOD a SONY fab who doesn't realise that's the likes of G Police were In House titles.

 

[Entroyp]

In a nutshell, it was a shift to prioritizing Kinect and casual-family games, which reflected their general strategy to "take over the living room." About halfway through the 360 gen, MS shifted its priorities. As a 360 (and OG Xbox) gamer, I found it very noticeable, and so did most other serious gamers. MS continued to put out exclusives, but now many of them (aside from the Halo, Gears, Forza staples) were mediocre, casual Kinect games that core gamers had no interest in. The new AAA or AA exclusives (which you saw a lot of in the first half of the gen) dried up.

Kinect was an integral part of MS's vision to take over the living room. AAA or AA games that pleased the core gamer became less important than the family and casual audience. New AAA and AA exclusives were deprioritized, and the money was shifted to Kinect and casual titles instead.

The TV/TV/TV thing in 2013 was an outgrowth of the same mindset, but it had begun years earlier.

This. My Xbox 360 started collecting dust at around this time. Halo was just not enough and I don’t like racing games.

At least that’s over now.

 

[nikolino840]

How many here bought 360 day one or the same year?
And how many later becouse of games?

 

[Entroyp]

Good GOD a SONY fab who doesn't realise that's the likes of G Police were In House titles.

There there kid. Don’t worry, everything will be alright.

 

[SleepDoctor]

Because they saw that Halo, Gears and Forza plus 3rd party games is enough to maintain their sales.

Funnily enough, they’re right. More 1st party exclusives on Xbox has no effect on Xbox sales, hence from their perspective, it’s an unnecessary cost. Make no mistake, Xbox One didn’t sell as much as Xbox 360 not because of lack of 1st party games, it sold less because of price, bad marketing and launch strategy.

Pretty much nailed it down. They got ahead of themselves thinking they could just coast off from kinect into next gen and not worry about new exclusive games.

Cant really pay attention to the Sony fanboys as they're most clueless and probably didn't own a 360. Still think people who don't own a console shouldn't be able to post in related threads.

 

[Entroyp]

How many here bought 360 day one or the same year?
And how many later becouse of games?

I bought mine when Gears of War released. November 2006 I believe.

The first few years were great. I gave it away to a relative in 2010.

 

[darkinstinct]

One thing I don't understand is why MS walked back from first party exclusives towards the end of the 360 and through the Xbone.
To me, one of the big leg ups for MS that helped them do so well with the 360 was the exclusives, which alot worked out to be timed, had.
Games like BioShock, Dead Rising, Mass Effect, Alan Wake, Left for Dead, Call of Duty 2, Metro 2033, Call of Juarez, Prey etc.

This is what brought alot of people to the console. The Games. The type of games that 360 had. The shooter box as it was called.
But then something changed. They let Bungle walk away, closed Lionhead amongst others, didnt buy closely linked studios like Bioware. Imagine if MS bought Bioware FFS.
To top it off, they didnt even money hat anymore for timed exclusives.
What did they think would sell the console? Did they think Kinect games would give them the exclusive games? Did they think people didn't care about games being exclusive and would just buy a console for third party games?
Now obviously this has been identified as a big mistake ans MS has reconciled alot of it, but I dont understand what the thought pattern was.
I mean Bungie was their biggest name and best developers, and they gave them away for nothing? Was there photos of someone being used as leverage?
It would be like Sony saying to Naughty Dog that they can walk away and do games for Xbox as well.

So does anyone know of any interviews or stories about what happened during this period?
I actually would like to know. And I'm not shitting on MS, as that period has come and gone.

Back then Microsoft had usage data that said 50 % of the time spent on Xbox 360 was on Youtube and other media consumption. That's why they started the whole TVTVTV BS. What the data didn't show at that point was that to use your console predominantly for media consumption you first have to buy that console. And guess what, games are how you get people to buy your console. They just didn't see it. They thought if they create a console for media consumption, that would be the ultimate selling point. Except then much cheaper media consumption devices like Fire TV sticks and Chromecasts came out. Google Chromecast launched half a year before Xbox One. And suddenly the whole media consumption part was worthless. You didn't have to buy a console for Youtube. You could just get a Chromecast. Of course they also underestimated smart TVs. So now that media consumption wasn't a selling point anymore, they were left with an inferior console with little to no exclusive content. At that point, you can't do much anymore. And then half a year after launch Fire TV sticks came out and that really destroyed Microsofts value proposition.

Meanwhile Sony probably had similar data regarding media consumption on PS3 - but they knew that that was secondary. People were using their consoles for that inbetween games, which were the true reason why they had gotten a console.

It's what happens when you are completely driven by data and analysis, you don't see the important parts anymore. You just see what the data seemingly says (the consumer is more interested in media consumption than in games, we don't need games anymore). And really everything regarding Xbox One was built towards this goal. Media consumption was why they wanted 8 GB of RAM and a full OS. That meant they had to go with ESRAM. That was why they had much less die space for compute - and it didn't matter, because the customers would not use their console predominantly for games, right?

And with Kinect they were too early - or too late. The gaming aspect of it was already on its way out. And the smart home aspect of it was still in its infancy. Nowadays who doesn't have an Echo Dot or a Google Home or whatever else there is. But Xbox One launched at the height of the NSA scandal - and with Microsoft being part of those contracts that allowed the NSA to spy on European citizens, Europe said no thanks to a video camera with mic array from a US company. It didn't help that the software behind it was inferior to what Siri offered at the time.