The way people get mad/upset/etc... at Microsoft is... weird
Today, I'm talking about this in the context of XBox.
There are 3 big things I've seen negative press on in the last year about Microsoft which strike me as odd for one reason or another. And those are, in no particular order, Game Pass, a lack of exclusives and Xbox Anywhere.
Game Pass. It is separate from Xbox Live, totally opt-in, very affordable and pretty damn awesome. I get why retailers are mad. With seemingly no way for them to cash in, it looks to try and cut them out of the equation. But, I'm not just seeing negativity from retailers. Gamers, somehow, seem upset by this. You don't NEED to subscribe. It isn't a paywall for anything. It is totally optional. And, pretty freakin' awesome to boot. For hardcore gamers, it doesn't deliver much. They're going to buy the games anyway, probably a a physical copy, and when they're done trade it. But, for everyone else, this is amazing.
There is a double paywall of sorts, in that online would require both a Game Pass and Xbox Live subscription. But, this falls in the same bucket as EA Access to me. I you would have bought even one premium title in the catalogue it would pay for 6 months of access. Right now, there are 62 pages with 20 titles per page, meaning there are over 1000 games. I have no doubt, many of those are Indie games. But, a quick look at the featured page which is 40-ish titles, and there are some good titles there.
For the cost of 2 premium titles a year, you have a pretty insane collection to choose from. You're not going to want to play everything available, but, it is pretty easy for me to argue that you'll get far more than your money's worth.
Another bit of bitching is about the lack of exclusives. And I remember when they made this decision. Microsoft basically said a while back that they were done trying to fight over exclusives. That they were going to focus on the Platform and games. And honestly, if you look at the landscape when they made that announcement... it was what was best for gamers. And still is.
The problem with exclusives is that it basically boils down to intentionally hurting the customers just to draw more consumers to your platform. One company would pay to have an X month lead or to keep it off the other entirely. The only person who loses, is the customer. The gamers.
After that, there was an interesting article that basically said that Microsoft's Xbox Anywhere strategy should lead to a lack of relevance and no reason to make a next gen console. I can't speak to what the effects of the strategy will be, but again, from a gamer's perspective Microsoft is making the right moves here. Even the Xbox One X isn't more powerful than a gaming PC. Pushing vendors to support multiple platforms and cross-licensing allows the serious gamers to play the game it was meant to be played. But, a powerful gaming computer... compared to something like an Xbox One X is well north $1000.
That is why consoles exist. And that is why consoles are likely to continue to exist for at least a few more generations. They serve as streamlined reference hardware. I can pay less than half of what a gaming PC would cost and be guaranteed that every Xbox title will run at least decently on that. And sure, if I have a fast enough computer, I can play it there as well.
At the end of the day, Microsoft is getting shit on for making the right decisions and Sony is being praised despite blocking cross platform multi-player, paying screw over users of competing consoles and being stingy AF about feature updates.
I'd also like to take the moment to point out... I don't play my Xbox any more. My original Xbox One started flaking out a few months back and replaced it with a One S, but without Kinect support (another thing people jumped all over MS for) it wasn't appealing any more. My daughter loved Just Dance, but she is 4 and I sure ain't giving her my Pixel 2 to use as her controller. My wife misses the voice commands. It is just... less of a console without it for me. So, I'm not defending the Xbox due to any personal attachment.
There are 3 big things I've seen negative press on in the last year about Microsoft which strike me as odd for one reason or another. And those are, in no particular order, Game Pass, a lack of exclusives and Xbox Anywhere.
Game Pass. It is separate from Xbox Live, totally opt-in, very affordable and pretty damn awesome. I get why retailers are mad. With seemingly no way for them to cash in, it looks to try and cut them out of the equation. But, I'm not just seeing negativity from retailers. Gamers, somehow, seem upset by this. You don't NEED to subscribe. It isn't a paywall for anything. It is totally optional. And, pretty freakin' awesome to boot. For hardcore gamers, it doesn't deliver much. They're going to buy the games anyway, probably a a physical copy, and when they're done trade it. But, for everyone else, this is amazing.
There is a double paywall of sorts, in that online would require both a Game Pass and Xbox Live subscription. But, this falls in the same bucket as EA Access to me. I you would have bought even one premium title in the catalogue it would pay for 6 months of access. Right now, there are 62 pages with 20 titles per page, meaning there are over 1000 games. I have no doubt, many of those are Indie games. But, a quick look at the featured page which is 40-ish titles, and there are some good titles there.
For the cost of 2 premium titles a year, you have a pretty insane collection to choose from. You're not going to want to play everything available, but, it is pretty easy for me to argue that you'll get far more than your money's worth.
Another bit of bitching is about the lack of exclusives. And I remember when they made this decision. Microsoft basically said a while back that they were done trying to fight over exclusives. That they were going to focus on the Platform and games. And honestly, if you look at the landscape when they made that announcement... it was what was best for gamers. And still is.
The problem with exclusives is that it basically boils down to intentionally hurting the customers just to draw more consumers to your platform. One company would pay to have an X month lead or to keep it off the other entirely. The only person who loses, is the customer. The gamers.
After that, there was an interesting article that basically said that Microsoft's Xbox Anywhere strategy should lead to a lack of relevance and no reason to make a next gen console. I can't speak to what the effects of the strategy will be, but again, from a gamer's perspective Microsoft is making the right moves here. Even the Xbox One X isn't more powerful than a gaming PC. Pushing vendors to support multiple platforms and cross-licensing allows the serious gamers to play the game it was meant to be played. But, a powerful gaming computer... compared to something like an Xbox One X is well north $1000.
That is why consoles exist. And that is why consoles are likely to continue to exist for at least a few more generations. They serve as streamlined reference hardware. I can pay less than half of what a gaming PC would cost and be guaranteed that every Xbox title will run at least decently on that. And sure, if I have a fast enough computer, I can play it there as well.
At the end of the day, Microsoft is getting shit on for making the right decisions and Sony is being praised despite blocking cross platform multi-player, paying screw over users of competing consoles and being stingy AF about feature updates.
I'd also like to take the moment to point out... I don't play my Xbox any more. My original Xbox One started flaking out a few months back and replaced it with a One S, but without Kinect support (another thing people jumped all over MS for) it wasn't appealing any more. My daughter loved Just Dance, but she is 4 and I sure ain't giving her my Pixel 2 to use as her controller. My wife misses the voice commands. It is just... less of a console without it for me. So, I'm not defending the Xbox due to any personal attachment.
Comments
Post a Comment